CLAIR OBSCUR EXPEDITION 33 SPOILERS AHEAD!!! JUST MY FURTHER THOUGHTS ON THE ENDING!!!
Unfortunately, we were never told how Canvases work in this universe. If every painting contains a piece of artist's soul that is "forever tortured to keep on painting", then what's the point of creating anything at all? I keep returning to painted Alicia's letter where she says that it is possible to save both families, not just one, like Renoir wants.
Plus, in my personal opinion, if we pick Verso's ending, reasoning it by saying that Canvas is just fictional and Gustave, Sophie, Lune, Sciel, etc, don't matter because they are just art creations of Painters, then we basically admit that fiction doesn't matter in general. Just because they are fictional art creations inside of a fictional world, it shouldn't deem them as less important. They should matter just as much.
I still believe that the message of Verso's ending doesn't make sense. There are other ways to heal from grief without drastic measures. When you lose a close one, do you burn photo albums that contain visual memories of them? Do you throw away things that belonged to them? Do you erase any traces of memory of a person that is no longer with you physically? I don't think so, and that's how I choose to see Verso's Canvas. It is an important memory of him, Alicia even said they used to play there together. It was a safe space of sorts. Unless told otherwise, I think there are other ways to deal with the presented conflict without destroying an art creation. Nobody burns their libraries after finding out those books were written by a person who is dead now, and those books can cause someone to lose themselves in fiction to hide from grief instead of healing it.
My main point is: You don't need to destroy in order to heal.
So I'm Team Maelle/Alicia all the way.
