Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 [Ep.1] | State Of The Arc Podcast

The world has been fractured and it is forced into one side or the other and you cannot have a foot in both camps, it doesn't work. That's what we're playing the game for. May the wind of renewal take you to the ends of the earth. She isn't in control of anything except for who she chooses to love or who she chooses to hate. They so naturally, so beautifully, so seamlessly capture that feeling. "Man, what's up? Come on, we need to go!" There's more options, like, "Have you tried sacrificing a goat to the god of heaven?" The whole brawg is just pulled out. I cannot tell you how much I love this choice. It is so perfect. When the rubber meets the road, when you really get under pressure, do you really believe that? [Music] Welcome back to the State of the Arc podcast. My name is Mike. My name is Kason. This is episode one of our Expedition 33 Story Analysis. Thank you for joining us wherever you're watching or listening from. If you're new to our podcast, we handle this a little bit like a book club. We're going to take the story chapter by chapter. Today, we're doing the prologue. Next week, we'll move on to act one, act two, act three, and so forth. If you haven't played the game, you can play alongside us. We will not be spoiling or talking about end-game stuff until we reach that point. Then we will bring it all around at the end. Additionally, just want people to understand this is a storytelling analysis podcast, not a lore podcast. We'll touch those things. From time to time, kind of dive into lore stuff and explore that. That is not the primary goal here. It is to get into more of the thematic and literary elements, as well as gameplay and how gameplay contributes to strengthening, though. Usually, we do our first episode on dev history. We go into the hole like how the game was made, who made the game, why did they make the game? What were the things they were thinking about and what were their goals? Yeah, allow that to kind of inform the whole play through the lens of what their intent was, instead of critiquing it on our own level. That's not happening this time, however. We are doing a different episode. It's just not coming at the beginning. Or am I coming to middle? I don't know. That might be interesting. We're still in the middle of scheduling an interview with some of the developers of the game. And so this might be an interesting opportunity to try it in reverse, where we play through the game first, get to the end, then do the go back and talk with them about what their goals were, put it all together, kind of the end. And it might be cool to talk to them without having to worry about like spoiler tagging things or anything like that. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So that might be a good idea, or at least it might work out for this particular analysis. So I sat down to start playing this again. I was streaming it for our patrons and stuff. And it's, I think, a really interesting, and also I think it's just like a, it worked fortuitously, I suppose, to have a short break between like my first playthrough when the game came out this year. I just few months ago. And then like, play it again. There's like enough time for me to have, like, cleanse the palette a bit, play some other stuff, come back to it and be like, oh, yeah, what was this again? And so it gets a little bit like rediscovery of certain things. Right. Oh, that's so cool. That's right. And I'm picking up on stuff. But at the same time, it's not so far removed to where I've forgotten everything. And I'm picking up on, you know, plants and foreshadowing and cool stuff that I maybe didn't see on my first playthrough. So I just got to say, first of all, within minutes of picking it up again, I was recaptured totally just this game is awesome. I freaking love this game. Yeah, upon replaying it, because I, some games you wonder, like, is this a game I'm going to want to play again? Is this a game that'll be as fun to experience again? And so far, the answer is yes. It's, it's really fun. And there is so much I missed the first time I played the game. It is, it is shocking to me how much I missed and all this stuff I'm picking up on that was like, holy cow, this is, it's really fun. Yeah. I'm excited to see what you picked up on. Probably too much. Because especially in the prologue. If you're new to our podcast, casein is generally our expert on symbolism and some of the more abstract kind of like imagery and how that like ties into things. And I was looking for some of that personally and didn't pick up as much as I was hoping to. So I was thinking maybe you'd come in for the rescue on that sort of things. I got some things and some things that I was very surprised, very surprised about. Yeah. So let's just start here, I suppose. The prologue of this game I think does a phenomenal job of accomplishing a couple of really important goals. One is without being verbose, without spending too long on exposition or like hurting, it's pacing, it moves quickly. It's not like a short or it's not like a long, long, you know, intro. Yeah. They are able to create an incredible sense of motivation for the characters essentially taking back their agency. Right. Right. There's a big determinism versus agency kind of theme here, which is true of a lot of RPGs of this stuff. Yeah, philosophical games and stories tend to deal with it at some point. They kind of have to. Yeah. It's like a big elephant in the room. They all have to kind of talk about that. Yeah. So without saying, you know, too much, right? While keeping it moving forward, they are able to get across a lot of info about this world and how it works. To do it in a way that in a short space of time, you feel something very, very deeply traumatic and sad. Yeah. That might be the most miraculous part of it is you meet a character and a few minutes later, you're like devastated that the character dies. Yeah. That was really well done. Yeah. And I'll talk about how I think they accomplished that in a minute. But in doing that, they just give you this really, really strong motivation to go and stop this from happening anymore. Like this, this cannot continue. Right. A lot of connections between this game and that game, by the way. Yeah, that's how it feels by the end of it. Yeah. It's just incredibly effective as an opening to the story. And this was one of the things that I think I said in our review of the game is that the hook of the story is one of the strongest I've seen in quite a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very, very well executed. Yeah. It establishes. It doesn't just introduce us to the mystery. It does it in a way that endears us to the characters and that also, you know, introduces us to a character who doesn't even last for very long. But in whose name and spirit you continue the fight, you know, and it's like, no, we've got to do it. We've got to do it. But it's like we didn't even really know that character all that well. And the interesting part about it is that Gustav hasn't seen her in years either. This is his first time seeing her in a long time. So in kind of re-getting to know this person in a brief period of time, we are getting to know them. But I thought it was interesting that it's like these are people have a long history, but they have been apart for so long that it's as awkward and in need of new introductions as we need having met them for the first time. So I thought that that was pretty brilliant as well. Yeah. But yeah, you feel you feel ready to make a change like this world, this world needs change. It needs this character. Let's go make a change. Yeah. To just in brief sort of like summarize what happens here. This story takes place in like 67 years post an apocalyptic event called the fracture, where the world was sort of broken apart. The island that and the city, Lumiere, that this takes place on here at the beginning was at one point a part of like the main continent and another larger part of the city of Lumiere. But was thrown off into the ocean in this apocalyptic event called the fracture. From there, this goddess they refer to as the painter's every year initiates a countdown that is painted onto this monolithic structure that they can see from the island over on the main continent. Essentially, whatever number appears on that monolith, anyone that age or older is gammaged, which means like to erase. They're just basically erased from existence. They die. And as that number gets lower and lower and lower, people die younger and younger and younger. So it would have started at 100 or down now to 33. There's the number that is painted by the painter at the end of the scene, anyone age 33 or over is killed. So our POV character is Gustav, and he is going to meet up with an ex-girlfriend, Sophie, who he broke up with about four years earlier. They had disagreements about some things we'll get into in a minute. But there's this moment where it's like his last chance to kind of be with her, they have a lot of regrets, they obviously loved each other a lot and never necessarily got over each other, but just could not seem to get in line with one particular thing. But he spends his last moments, or I suppose her last moments, they spend those moments together, they go to the port and a bunch of people are gammaged and he is part of what's sort of an annual expedition that tries to go to the continent, figure out a way to stop this from occurring, to stop the painters from continuing to do this countdown. So that's essentially what happens in the prologue and what we'll be covering today. So my first note was that in this first conversation between Gustav and Mayel, they do a lot of setup with very few words, it's really good. Like the dialogue is really well written generally, I would say, in this game, to where they're speaking in a way where it's not turning to the camera and be like, hey, audience, there's so you know, you know, not that as you know, type dialogue, they're speaking in ways that are natural. Yeah, I feel very natural. The two of them being knowing what they're talking about, but which also do a good job of helping us kind of orient and understand the world we're in. So they make this dark joke right off the bat about Sophie Gustav's ex girlfriend and the Gamaj coming up. You're supposed to give flowers to someone before they wither and die. And this is a dual, there's a plan words here before the flower withers and died before she withers and dies because she's about to die today. You know, pretty dark little joke there, but what I think that conveys is how routine this whole Gamaj has become, like obviously it's devastating and sad, but they've lived with this every year their whole life, like this is a very normal part of their lives. And they've become sort of numb to its cruelty to a certain extent in a way that I think is totally natural, right? They also set up the expeditions fight against the painters because he's throwing rocks towards her into the ocean and he's using, so he has a hand, that's sort of like a mechanical hand, right? His left hand, I believe, but he's throwing the rocks with his right hand and she says, "Why don't you use the other arm, your mechanical arm? Maybe you can like get it closer, get it further, right?" And he says, "Oh, it's fine. We'll get a chance to do more than throw rocks pretty soon." So like all of that dialogue right there sets up essentially the Gamaj, that's about to happen, what the painter's does and the fact that they need to go fight this painter's and stop it, right there in the first conversation. Super great, short, and then I'm like, "All right, let's go meet up with Sophie," they had out. I just think it's a really, really nice way to lead into the story, point at the things that are important, make your promises, and then get it moving without, you know, ladening your audience with dialogue. It's so intriguing too that the number is 34, and you don't know why, and everyone, you get the feeling, "Oh, somebody's leaving, you mentioned the weather and die part, is that a joke?" Or is that not a joke? Oh, it was dark, that's not what my own meant, but he's meaning it that way, they're going to a harbor. Oh, maybe they're just like going somewhere, you know, it's a harbor, right? That's where the ships come. So they do a great job of building up this mystery of like, what exactly is going to happen so long as you don't understand French, because Gamaj means to erase. It's like a goma, like an eraser, and it is the erasure, basically, of people. So if you don't know what that means, which I actually didn't, when I first played the game, I don't know what this word is, it's an interesting word. Okay, let's go to the harbor and find out what's happening. So that was a mystery that slowly builds up as you go that I thought was really, really well done as well. And my L is fast as soon as she's like, all right, let's go boom, like she is halfway across the city. It's like, wait, wait, wait, it's really fun. That's an interesting part and we'll get into this. Well, actually, no, this is part of what we're going to get into today. She cracks jokes. I think at least two different times who stop about his age, the fact that he's an old man. Yes, totally, which is really funny. It's really funny, but he is as old as people get in that world. And remember when we were teenagers, 30, he was like, hold, you know, it seemed old. It's funny to put myself or to even try to put myself back in that frame of mind because it's like, that just seems ridiculous, but to a young person who's never grown up knowing people above a certain age, it's like, you are as old as it gets, man. And what else is really funny is that my L sometimes can be a little bit, what would it? Her jokes can touch a little too close, but Gustav never gets upset about it. He always rolls with it, she makes her jokes about this and that. And he's just like, oh, come on, he'll either crack a joke back or, but he never really lets things like eat at him much in that sense, no matter really what it is. And it shows that their relationship is one where, like, if they have had fights about each other's personalities, they happen a long time ago. And they now understand each other really well. And they know that each of them has good intentions, so they don't have to assume, like, hey, wait, did you really mean that or they just, they never happened, so I really like their relationship too. Gustav and his sister Emma are the guardians of Mayo, so they're kind of like foster parents, more or less. Wait, sorry, hold on. What's going on? Is this potato, potato in our discord says he's RPG old. Yes, that's what I was going to say. Okay. The reason why I love this, these sort of jabs at him being old, is because it's, I mean, it's been stated by the developers that this game was highly inspired by classic JRPG franchises. And one of the sort of fun tropes of those classic JRPGs from the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 beyond is that your main characters tend to be very young people, late teenagers, maybe even younger at times, saving the world. And their mentors, the old people, the old wizard people, given the wisdom on them. And the road are like, need a cane to walk in their 30s most of the time. Yeah, it's really fun. You brought up in our final fantasy nine analysis, that's it, the region of Lindblum. This man who later in the game, when he turns back into his human form, has white beard and mustache is 35 years old, or 30 years 35, I can't remember the exact age, but it was around there. It's like, oh my gosh. And the dude, I mean, he literally looks 60, you know, and yeah, yeah. So, you know, you have Aaron from Final Fantasy X, who's something like 38, but looks like he's about 58, maybe in his early 50s, from Xenoghears, he's like this really, really smart, really wise, like professor type, he's like 29, Sid from Final Fantasy 7 is like in his 30s somewhere, and the dude seems really, really old. So they, they, and I'm excited to ask him about this, but it seems to me almost like a conscious effort that they chose this age of, you know, it was 34 and now it's moving down to 33 as being the oldest people in the society as a kind of clever callback to that kind of funny trope of classic G-R-PGs, that he, she's poking fun at him for being old, which is funny because we playing the game who are older than 33, like, that's not old, but it is, it is legitimately old in their world, who stuff really is by the end of this kamaja, the oldest man in Lumiere, the oldest, the absolute oldest, and that's, that's just funny that they were able to kind of like work that into a way that's not just like a, like a reference, but actually works within the world building that they've done. Yeah, that's quite impressive. I thought that was great. And we're going to talk about the number 33, I think, probably a little bit later. There's lots of symbolism there, some of which was even present in Final Fantasy 16, that has been brought up as well, and it's like, well, it's same symbolism, but we're going to talk about it later for specific reasons, but I actually, I need to go back to the very opening shot. Yeah, very, very, very beginning of this game. Yeah, so it's really important that the first shot is that, right? Because that kind of grounds us a little bit, you know, we're playing this fantasy game where these crazy things are possible and happen. And for the opening shot to be, because, you know, in the original development for this game, it was not going to take place on, well, in Paris, or it was, they hadn't even settled on exactly, but it was going to be mostly a fantasy setting. It wasn't going to be part of our reality or world, but I like that they went the way that they did, because you see the Eiffel Tower, like one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, and it's like, whoa, we're in a place that I'm familiar with and that I'm identifying with what I consider to be the real world, right? And I think that's it. That's really important that you make that connection. - I do too. - And butt, butt, it's bent over, like almost 90 degrees. And did you notice that on the little cakes when they're having the party at the end, that they were, they were Eiffel Towers and the WIC was on the, but they were bent over. Like that's not good for a candle, it's gonna fall. But you know, whatever their world has different rules, I guess, but you see the Eiffel Tower, but it's bent and the whole world looks fractured. And immediately when you look at this, it's like, whoa, something crazy happened here. It shouldn't be like that. This is a world that has undergone like an apocalypse. But they linger on these shots for a while. There's a couple shots where you kind of see in the background the, the Patrice and the Monolith and the number 34, not 33, which is very intriguing. It's like, I bought Expedition 33 and I'm seeing a 34. This weird, like, what do I do with this? What do I make of this? But you then see these streamers, these red and white, kind of banners, streamers going down. And if you look closely, there are people walking around in the square. And it's like, ah, this looks post-apocalyptic, is what it looks like. Yet the people I'm seeing aren't even running, right? They're just walking around, mining their business, and there are streamers up, right? - This is celebration. - 'Cause you would, yeah, it's a celebration. You would think, oh, maybe the world got destroyed during a celebration and the streamers are still up. Oh, how tragic an image, you know? And it's like, oh wait, no, this is, this is the world. This is what the world is. And there's something really, there's something really kind of unnerving about that. Well, when you play a game that is based on a real world, but that the place doesn't look at all like the way you expect it to, right? But the people are acting as though it's still normal. So your brain has already done a flip-flop, a back and forth once. And then it's like, okay, well, like, let's go on. You know, let's get to know this world. It's based on a grounded reality, the world is based on a grounded reality for some reason isn't adhering properly to the rules and laws of reality that we know, like physics. Something is wrong, like very wrong, but let's see. And you wouldn't necessarily think that if you just go into a world and there's floating islands, you'd just be like, oh, this is dope. Because this is the world, I guess. But as soon as they throw the Eiffel Tower in there, it's like, it's just something's wrong. Something feels wrong about the fact that there's floating islands now. This doesn't feel right. And the very next shot after the Eiffel Tower is the Lark de Toilomph, which is the Ark of Triumph. And it's based on something in Rome, actually, that was built around, like, 70 or 80 AD, which is also like the Ark of Triumph. It was built, it was erected after the destruction of Jerusalem, basically. And then the Romans were like, let's build this dope, like, you know, monument in commemoration of that event. And so then the Ark of Triumph in France was basically built as after the revolution to be like, oh, we triumphed over, you know, difficult things and whatnot. This is the beginning of what they call the beautiful Eppek, right? And the Bele Eppek, I think that's how it's pronounced. I actually don't know exactly. But the beautiful period of time, which was after Napoleon, but before World War I. And there's like this, like, 50, 60, 70 year time, where France just was able to flourish and prosper in between, you know, very destructive time periods. But you see the Ark of Triumph and it's broken. It's split in half. And so whatever triumph they once were celebrating is something that has been defeated. Like, it's the symbol of triumph is broken. So, you know, they were happy about their world once. That's just not how it is anymore. So there's some pretty good symbolism to be read in there as well. And then we have the Eclipse, man. And maybe I need some help from you or maybe somebody else watching is the world constantly under Eclipse all the time because you see a moon sometimes. - It seems to me that there definitely is like day and night cycle. - Yeah, so there's two. - When you do the camps, you know, but it seems like that particular black hole looking thing that's behind the monolith is always there. And there's always some kind of chroma. - But even when the sun is higher in the air, it's still, there's still any eclipse happening. Okay, okay. It looks like, it's not an eclipse in the sense that like we would typically expect to see one in our sky. - Yeah, that lasts for four minutes. - Yeah, we're like the moon crosses in front of the sun. There's some other like kind of permanent like chroma thing happening there behind that. - So it's not a moon. - Not, I don't think so. - It's just a thing that's blocking the light. There's wonderful symbolism to be able to read. You've got the true light that can only seep around at the edges that is being blocked, you know. And in this case, you're not even getting a reflection, which is typically the moon symbolism is that it reflects the light. The thing that actually produces light, the moon doesn't produce light. It just reflects the light that is being produced elsewhere. But what we have here is something blocking that. So we don't even really get that. You get the hint of light around the edges, but you never actually get the true light itself. And it almost seems like that's what this goal is. We're going to remove the thing that's blocking the true light. When you're trying to read symbolism like sun and moon or some of the most important symbols. - Well, especially when you have a character name. - And if the sun is blocked, that means something huge. - Character name Lune, and a character named CL. - CL, and Lumia being the city. Yeah, it's almost like the light is not up in the sky. It's down on the ground with the people. - I don't have like the legitimate canonical answer to this yet, 'cause I didn't even think about it. And now I'm going to start looking in the game for the sun. Like does the sun actually ever appear or is it always kind of behind that eclipse structure there behind the monolith? But there's a couple of interesting symbolic sort of tie-ins that could go into like what an eclipse or like a black hole at the spot of the fracture could mean. - Well, ancient Egypt had this idea of the black sun and the black sun and what that meant. And a lot of it is kind of just reverse the symbolism of the sun and you're getting the opposite kind of symbol there. The sun is light and truth and warmth. And when you block it out, it is the opposite of those things. - So I'll think about that a little more. I'll look into it a little more. I'll pay real close attention to it going forward. But I think we'll probably want to hold off on what symbolism of that eclipse behind the monolith could mean until we get a little further in the game. - Yeah, makes bottom. - You know, thinking back to some of the early game areas like the flying waters or things like that, there's definitely like a light streaming through. - Yeah, and it seems hard like light. - Yeah, so it's like you would think, oh, there's definitely a sun up there, but it might not be for reasons that we'll again explain later. - Exactly. - It might not always, the lighting might not always make perfect sense and that makes sense for the game is kind of what I'm teasing here. So we'll talk more about that later. - Yeah, go ahead. - So also you mentioned that Gustav is throwing rocks, right? - Yeah. - The great symbolism here is just his absolute inability to even approach like doing any semblance of harm to this god that is just decimating their society. And it's very clear, my L kind of teases him a little for it. It is interesting, he's choosing to use his flesh human hand as opposed to his mechanical hand initially, but he is, what would you call it? He is trying to fight fate, but has nowhere near, even close to the power or ability to do so, yet try he continues, right? It's almost like, what does he say to my L? He's like, you know, hobbies don't need to be useful. I don't need to, like actually, I'm just, I'm doing this, it's an exercise. It's a thing I'm doing for fun, right? But the deeper meaning is like he's trying to fight fate and nothing will ever make him stop trying. It doesn't matter if he is a million miles away. He's gonna pick a rock and throw it because this is Gustav's character. It's very important to understand about his character, actually, as Assofi says later on, you're the most stubborn man I know, right? He's like, I'm not giving up, are you crazy? I'm gonna just, I'll throw rocks if I have to. It doesn't matter, and it can be, you know, it doesn't matter how long I do it or how far away it is, I'm still gonna try 'cause trying's better than nothing. And so, anyways, it says a lot about his character and it's a really good, but the desire to fight fate, basically, 'cause whatever's happening here is so far out of their control that a lot of people think these expeditions are ridiculous, and a total waste of time, waste of people, waste of everything, waste of resources, but he's just different, I guess, instead of, you know, accepting fate, he is very keen to completely fight against it. I also have to compliment the music at this point. 'Cause it's so good. It's so good and it's gracious, it's good. And I can't believe it. Now, we'll talk about this more in our dev history episode, but this musician, this is the first big project that he's ever worked on. And it's just amazing. It's just incredible. Pretty sure it's been nominated for, you know, best soundtrack. - Best game soundtrack? Good, I hope not many other awards as the game's been nominated for, but yeah. - It's so good, it's so good. And it's all in French, which I love. I really like that. The Frenchness here, especially with Miles outfit. Did you notice their outfit? - Yes. - The horizontal stripes. - Yeah, the stripes. - And you can get those, For other characters, it's like costume. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's interesting to see her wearing that. Yeah, yeah, she has the scarf And then the suspenders like black suspenders take classes But she's dressed very much to the part in a French manner. Everyone here is wearing clothes that really fit France, right the at least traditional, you know, French clothing and one way or another And so I thought that that was super cool. I love as much as I love the Japanese-ness of Japanese games made made it there Sometimes I wonder how much I would really love the Culture really pouring through the seams in other games that I play from other cultures. We really only a few Countries are really represented in the games that I play, right like I guess Canada because you'd be soft and I dose and a few others for and then America, Japan I haven't really played many games from many other countries. A CD project right is Poland. I guess so there's you know There's something going on there with Undress Kawski and stuff But for the most part, it's just a few countries and I don't know that I've ever played a game from France I'm trying to think of that too. Like maybe I have I probably have maybe back in the day Probably a lot of European studios that have been involved in games. I've played but this one definitely seems to lean into the French influences and the French culture heavily really being like a big part of the Visual aesthetic and yeah, and the way the story is written even and like the type of story they want to tell very French They're very yeah, very French cinema almost. Yeah. Oh, yeah exactly. Yes. There's like oh, yeah Yeah, you know while we play a lot of Japanese role-playing games for this channel for the analysis We do and while the the studio made this game was inspired by that kind of game They basically wanted to make One of those types of games inform and function, but just replace the kind of like culture. He's cultural influence with the French cultural influence Which I think is a very interesting blend it is and it was very fresh and and that's I guess part of my point like every every Every country that makes games should do this like it'll happen no matter what even if they don't want to do it You you write about what you know the artists will you know if you're from a certain culture it will just Find its way into your work somehow because that's just the background of the people working on it But this game I think was very deliberate in trying to make it really seem Purposefully French in a way that I just loved and I've never really thought much about that other than oh I love it when the Japanese games are more Japanese, you know But like holy cow every French game should be super French now like I this is just really cool I feel like I'm able to explore Different cultures instead of just Japan in a way that is, you know unique this might be the if I don't know if I've ever played a A game from France, but I don't know that like RPG would be the genre that a French game would be known for Yeah, yeah, that's that's yeah, it's just not what you typically would expect and and we have under code here who's saying that Almond Wake 2 has a lot of heavy finish culture that that's right and that that shown Sam Lake is finishing. Yeah, so that's studio Barbara Yeager. Yeah, so there was a little bit of that and that I loved it I loved it. Yeah, every time I love it. So apparently beyond good and evil and maybe Prince of Well, those are all Ubisoft. Oh, that's Montreal. So that's that's French Canadian Canada, but I'm it's it's different Yeah, it's different, but still cool. So cool my dad lived in Montreal for a long time So I've always loved you know that part of Canada as well A plague tail innocence. Don't know it. Yeah, okay, but there's tons of particles and flowers Music's wonderful. And at the game made me want to learn French again, which is wonderful speaking of the name Sophie means wisdom. This was a huge part of art because you know gears analysis. Yeah, yes, exactly And pay attention to what she says given that her name means wisdom. Yeah, okay So then moving on Gustav his name means that like what's a it's a Norse name and it means the like staff of the goths basically, but Here I have the support of the Yitz the Gaetz I believe it's France the Yitz sometimes which is a wonderful name the Yitz But that's Bay of Wolfen all of that stuff the Yitz it's basically a part of like southern Sweden or that we would call Yutaland Yutaland now, but the staff of that land basically and that's Gustav so he's like, you know That's his kind of symbolism, but and then since we're just on this in general And this is mentioned later in the game, but my L means chief or something along those lines as well In the form of something like a male strum strum actually is the Germanic and mean stream So a male strum is like a whirlpool like a master stream like this vortex that you can't escape But yeah, the name my own means chief. So those are what the names mean generally speaking They're not all French, which I found interesting some of the names are very much French But a lot of their names kind of come from different places Gustav was named after Gustav Eiffel the engineer who built the Eiffel tower Yeah, which I think is built right into Gustav sort of like engineering Like that's like what he does in the game right he works on technology with Luné like they built the Lumina converter together We'll talk about that more in a minute so Yeah, his name is a direct reference to to that real historical figure That's cool. I like that. And then well, he's armed too. Yeah, his arm is mechanical It is so he's like an engineer, but at some point I think he lets kind of the children his underlings kind of like decorated Or do do stuff to his arm in memory of them. I thought those were the cool the way that the kids really look up to him I found I found just very charming So then of course Lumiere this is the city of light. That's what Lumiere means. It means light so this If this is the light and the game is called Clare of Obscure, which we haven't talked about yet means clear Obscure, it's a it's a take off the Italian art style Chiro scurro, which is the same thing clear obscure It means light and dark basically what it means and the the art of Chiro scurro is like really interesting, but it's basically like candlelit stuff There was a movie made by who's the guy that did two thousand one space Odyssey Kubrick Stanley Kubrick He made a movie like just a few years after that. It was filmed all by candlelight He didn't have like film lines and they used one of the lenses from the moon landing for it Because it has an aperture that opens up to like 0.7 or something like that like way wide open Which sounds funny sounds impossible and then the mind but somehow they can do it And so he was able to light the whole thing just with candlelight and that gave this you know Chiro scurro kind of look It's sort of like film noir actually. I guess a lot of black and white films had this. I'm told it's pronounced Chiro scurro Apologies, but it's a really cool interplay between light and dark and like heavy shadows a heavy emphasis on the shadows so that's what that means and Then of course the city Lumière Lumière is is the city of light so then the idea as well then that continent over there is The land of darkness. That would be kind of the way that people would think about it, right? Yeah, and so This is really fun Myel Myel She deepens the mystery a lot Because she keeps saying things like I don't really feel like I belong here that kind of stuff right and as we're going along with her She's like why people celebrate the gommage as a mystery to me, but oh well now. We don't even know what the gommage is yet This is the beginning of the game. We haven't seen the scene at the harbor yet So we're just getting this weird eerie feeling. Oh the joke about the flower. Okay, like what's going on here? It's my peer last time seeing this woman who you've you know used to know a long time ago and like what do I say? What do I say to her like how do I talk to her again? She's leaving forever Is she gonna have room for my for my flower? That's one of the jokes my hotels they could cut Gustav is she's just Like she probably has a billion flowers. She probably want to have even have room for your flower anymore And Gustav's like I know whatever doesn't matter And of course she does she's got a whole a whole wreath full of flowers But he's got this one flower that he's gonna go give to her But myel is like why do people even celebrate this like this doesn't really make sense to me, but whatever she doesn't seem like she belongs Like you know in the group and of course she was born an orphan or not Well, maybe she was orphan. I don't actually know at a young age. There you go We'll put it that way which is probably true of almost every young person here at this point. Yes So I had my first kid or my wife had our first kid when I was 30 Yeah, and 33 meant my kid was three or two I guess because they have to yeah, so two years old Um, and that's when I would have turned 33 so it's like if people had kids at normal times then they're all orphans by the time They're at least like ten or so at this stage. Yeah, I think this is an important point to bring up is that there's a strong Maybe sort of sub-theme going on here at least in the prologue of Like the the difficult choice here of being a parent or like what the role of a parent is in this world right when Anyone who is currently alive in this world only really has the chance of having a pretty young Kid maybe at most a teenager at this point and where so many children have been orphaned That you have many people filling in the role of foster parents tons. Yeah, just tons Gustav has apprentices and he and his sister Emma are the guardians of my own who seems to be you know late-stage teenager Maybe seven to eighteen years old 16 I think something oh 16 I think you're right somewhere around And there's so, you know, there's this, there's this real emphasis through many conversations you have on your way towards the harbor in the beginning, on these topics. One comes between Sophie and I believe the woman's name is Elise or Eloy. - Oh, yes. Something like that. Let me get the right name here. Yeah, I think it's Eloy, Eloy, or I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce it in French. - Oh, sorry, that's a different person. So Marie is the first lady. And she has a young child. - Oh yeah. - Marie is a mother and she has her little girl with her. And Sophie and Marie begin to get into an argument about whether Sophie made the right choice not to have children. - Right. - This was the source of Sophie's disagreement with Gustave where they had a break up. Gustave's kids wanted to have a child. She thought it was cruel and immoral to bring a child into a world like this one. - I read so much when Gustave first meets with Sophie, I took down that. Does some pretty important lines from that. Because Sophie then says to him, "Hey, I never faulted you for wanting to believe. I understand just in a different world." Right? Is what she said. But it's put in quotes as though that's what he said. When he first shows up, he says he can't see. I don't even, it's hard to even read it because it's like not full sentences. But he basically says, "Hey, I just thought that maybe in another path, another future, that maybe we could dot, dot, dot." And then it just gets awkward and she's trying to finish his sentence for him 'cause he's incapable of doing so. But she quotes him by saying in another world, right? And Gustave then answers her by saying another path. He didn't say another world. He said another path, another future. Gustave's ideas are grounded in this world. He's saying, "No, the future of this world, if we had a different path or if the future was different, then this world could be good." And Sophie is saying another world, that this world, basically she's like, "This world can't be redeemed. This world doesn't have a future." And she has, you can look at this two ways. She's either given up hope or she has accepted faith. There's two ways of looking at it and both ways are right. They're both correct, but one of them, and either one could be a critique as well, depending on which one is technically real or not. But you don't know, right? It's just, is the future redeemable? I don't know. I'm just gonna try if it is then you're wrong, but if it's not, then you're right. And that's kind of one of the fundamental disagreements that they had is that Gustave really is a firm believer that this world can be better and that he's fights for change, as they mentioned. And she does not believe it at all. She doesn't think that there's any hope for this world. - Yeah, that's possibly one of the most fascinating and to me the most intriguing elements of the core of what Expedition 33 is about. You have these two very different perspectives on what you just said. And I kind of hinted at it with the determinism versus agency thing going on here. Where you have some people who I believe are trying to accept the reality of the situation as a means of being at peace. The people who feel the need to fight that and change it see the people who are choosing acceptance as cowards or giving up. And the people who see those who want to fight they see as futile fools errand or like wanting to run and like going on some adrenaline fueled hero a scapegoat fantasy as a means of like avoiding the truth. - Right. - And put themselves in a place where they can't help Lumiere anymore. For the last year of everyone's life, everyone who chooses to go it, they're not forced or anything. For the last year of the people who leave and this is brought up by Gustave's sister, like you could be here. You could actually help people and make a difference instead of running off to try and play hero and then die like everyone else before you, right? And so they both see each other almost like fundamentally in irreconcilable ways that there's no middle ground here. There isn't a, well like what's the word? What's the word when you find a middle ground? There's a word. - Compromise. - Compromise, there is no compromise. You can't compromise this. There is no halfway point. It is, like the world has been fractured and it is forced into one side or the other and you cannot have a foot in both camps. It doesn't work. You can't have hope and not have hope at the same time. You just can't, you could maybe say you have hope but inside you're conflicted, like I understand that. But the fact is, you can't be both at the same time. - Yeah, it's really fascinating and they explore that idea both from the perspectives of children and parents. And what I find very fascinating about that is, this game is targeted, I would say, at players like the developers, who are in their 30s, who played the games we played growing up and were inspired by them. And so in a lot of ways, the gameplay is structured in a way that kind of calls back to conventions and design philosophy from the PlayStation 1 era of what we use of this kind. - Which is so charming. - They're kind of like trying to talk to those people who grew up with those games who are now parents. So if you have a child and you're playing this game during this Gamashing, you have a very different sort of outlook on it, then the teenager you were back when you were playing those games who is kind of like the Myel standard. So the game can reach both today's teenagers and yesterday's teenagers who are now parents. - And tomorrow's teenagers. - Both love this type of game. - Yeah, that's kind of crazy sense. - That's quite an accomplishment. - And so like while those games were aimed at the teenagers and young kids, this is kind of hitting both in a way that's really interesting. But the second conversation, along these lines of touches on that sort of parenthood kind of sub theme going on here is Eloise, who is upset that her father wasted his final year on an expedition. - Yeah, that's right. - She's standing next to kind of a little stage that's been set up where the expeditioners are recruiting for future years, right? Volunteers to come and go on next year's expedition. It's kind of signing them up and like starting their training so that they can go out next time. And so she's standing next to that booth and she's complaining about how her father wasted his final year, they could have spent that time together. And she's sort of lamenting that. And then Sophie says, well, let Gustav show you, you know, what he can do. You then get like a little tutorial kind of battle you can show your overdrive skill. But the point of that is to show the expeditioners, the way they see this is that those who went before lay the ground for those who come after her. - Each subsequent expedition is better and better, right? - They're getting further, they're getting further. - That's the story that they tell. - Yes. - That's the story they tell. And you get this with, I forget an Emma, Gustav's - Yes, Emma. - An Emma. The first expedition was actually the most successful one. That if you're gonna be objective about it in terms of how far they got, they don't know. No one knows, once these people leave the shore, no one knows what happened to them. Except for the fact that the first expedition had survivors that came back and they did make it to the painters. They just, oh, we can't get through. We need such and such, but they're worth survivors from that expedition, none of the others. So if you're going to be scientific about it and like measuring everything, they're not getting better by any objective metric, each one has not achieved as much as the first one did. And now they've done it 67 times as that little quiz that I give you. Which is the closest this game gets to, as you know, dialogue, is that hilarious quiz, which is kind of tonn and cheek, it's done when it's self-aware and funny, but-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thing is, and I guess if you haven't talked to everybody, you may not know the answers. And so when Gustav gets it wrong, then it feels really, really funny. - Yeah. - But yeah, in a way, the hope is the story that they tell themselves is that each one has a better higher chance of succeeding, but the measurables don't always bear that out. - Yeah, but the purpose of all of these scenes, again, is building that dichotomy you're talking about. You either fall into the camp of people who believe there is a hope to change things and make a better future for this world, or you accept it for what it is and kind of come to peace with it. - Right. And place your ear-- - And place your ear in another world. - Or you are the guy in the trash can. I don't know if you found him. - I don't think so. - There's one of the trash cans, so I had-- - I may have in my first playthrough. - I had help from the chat on this. If you examine trash cans around, most of them will say, "It's just a normal trash can." There's something like that. There's one of them where if you continue talking to it over and over and over again, there's a guy and there's like, "Hey, man, leave me alone. I'm hiding here." If the Patrice doesn't know, then she won't have a reason to gamaj me. I've been hiding here for six months. - Oh my gosh, he's-- (laughing) - So he's hiding. - Oh, I guess you don't get to go back there, though. - Yeah, you don't really like-- return to Lumiere. That's right. That's right. But he's hiding in the trash can, hoping he's been in there for six months, hoping he would go unnoticed and that the the painters will just forget the kamaashim. Do you find the middle ground? Who is just hiding from the truth? Do nothing, hide in the darkness. You're either a person who falls into, we stay here, we do the best we can with what we have, we accept our death when it comes and come to peace with it. Or we're going to go out there and try to change it. And there is, I think, as Beardmoha said here, there's folly in both and there's truth in both perspectives. But like you said, and I think that's really important, you don't get to sit in the middle, like you're kind of forced into the way that this world is structured, the fact that the painters is real, the fact that's happening, you choose one side of the other and which side, which side you're on will put you at odds with other people there. They'll think it's definitely the wrong thing you're doing. Which is so interesting though. This game did such a good job of that. There's multiple points in this game where that same thing can be said, where it's like there isn't, there isn't like a compromise point here. And it's just like, well, maybe we'll get to it later on, but there's a point at the beginning of Act One. I don't think we'll quite get there, or that same thing happens where it's like the protocol says one thing, but then the situation dictates another and like, there's no compromise. There's no middle ground here. You have to just kind of pick one and then stick to it. And that's rough, especially for somebody who's like trying to like think it out and like, oh, which one's the best one? Like dude, you're dealing with the elements of fate. Like this is all so much outside of your hands, just pick one. Just pick one. And then the game does something very interesting, which shocked me at first, you play as Sophie when you're walking to the harbor. And you can switch between Gustav and Sophie. And I think the reason, because you got used to playing as Gustav, people would probably just want to stay playing as Gustav. But the reason that they have you play as Sophie is to kind of introduce that mechanic of, here's how you switch between characters that are in your party. You can play as any of the characters that are, you know, that are in your party. And I thought that was really clever and really cool. But you can just have her walk down. And the characters kind of, you know, maybe act a little different depending on who you are when you first talk to them. Yeah, because there are certain characters that Sophie will speak to like the guy who is trying to write the newspaper or headline is trying to get inspiration. Like she talks to him. She talks to, wasn't Marie, who she'd had disagreements about having kids with, they did full about that before. He talks to some of the other expeditioners that are recruiting people, right? She speaks to Eloise. So they each kind of like lead the dialogue for different characters that have come across throughout this sort of walk towards the harbor. But one thing before we, before we move on from the conversation with Sophie and Gustav, this is so key. This conversation right here is so key. It is so critical to the emotional weight of the gammage. Yeah. The only reason it works is because it's relying on the fact that you have had an experience like this, that you have had someone that you loved dearly that didn't work out, that maybe in life, I don't know if anyone watching this, you've met up with an ex before years after breaking up. I have actually. It is so perfectly captured here, what that feels like. Yeah. Because as much as you've moved on with your life and maybe you're with someone else now, like, and as much as it's like maybe taboo to admit, like those feelings for that other person don't go away, right? Like there was a reason it didn't work. There's a reason you broke up. Maybe the relationship you're in now is much healthier and it's better. But that unique sort of partnership relationship, deep bond you have with that person is unique. It's not like any other that you have with a person. And when you come across them again and those feelings resurface, man, that is an absolutely wild, awkward, difficult thing to sort of like wrestle with in the moment. And there's a happening between both of them, they start talking over each other, they're stumbling, they're a little bit awkward, but ultimately like those feelings are still there. Yeah. And they're still very much deeply bonded and they still very much love each other. And the she chooses to spend her last moments with him. And it's the game relies on the fact that you understand that feeling in order for you to feel the devastation of watching that person turn to ash in front of your eyes. And how awful and cruel that is that the painting does this over and over and over again to lovers, to parents and children, to anyone. Best friends, all these bonds broken arbitrarily erased for no reason. And that serves as, and I love that last shot as she's already gammaged and he just turns and sort of sinks and just looks at the painters. And the shot ends on the painters. That's what we're fighting. That's what must be brought to an end. It's so effective, but it only works because of this conversation between Sophie and Gustav, they so naturally, so beautifully, so seamlessly capture that feeling of reuniting with someone you care about, even if it was a while ago. Because we don't know Sophie, we the audience don't know Sophie. We're not grieving Sophie at the Movergammage. We're grieving the person we know who we can relate to Gustav about. What would happen if that person I know died like that in front of me, so arbitrarily, so needlessly, that would infuriate you. It would devastate you and it would give you every motivation you need to go fight a god to try to make it end. It's so perfect. And so this little scene right here is like the key to making the whole prologue work. It's fantastic. And work it does. You know, that's funny. I'm remembering actually the moment that I, this was totally just happenstance, but that I ran into an ex of mine. And within maybe, maybe five minutes of like, hey, good to see you. What are you up to nowadays? Like how, how, you know, how was your family, all that stuff? Within about five minutes, something strikes a nerve where it's like, oh, yeah, that's why we broke up. It's usually like, oh, like, and I remember this, this particular girl I was talking to within maybe five, maybe 10 minutes, maybe 10 minutes. We had a very brief argument that just reminded me of like, oh, yeah, yeah. That's why that's why. And I feel like Gustav and Sophie had that brief moment as well after the oh, good to see you. It's been a while. You look great. Here's a flower. Also, I still feel the way I feel this. Yes, I'm still stubborn too. Okay. We're also stubborn. All right. Let's go to the harbor. But it's endearing, right? It's a, it's a, this is who I am, you know, and our lives didn't fit perfectly together. And no, I haven't changed much in these last four years. It's only been like four years, right? But, you know, I'm still the same person. And some ways that's frustrating because, oh, you don't agree with me now. But in some ways, it's endearing. It's like, no, you're the, you're still the same person that I loved, right? And, you know, you haven't like changed radically, you know, since those times. And even if they have changed, you know, they'd still be the same person. But it's, it's interesting. You get those moments, right? Where it's like, ah, you can almost glimpse how the relationship went those four years ago. Right. Myel, of course, said, I was always rooting for you guys. I wish you didn't break up. Um, and myel, because I was wondered too. Like, did who, it, what was it? Sophie and Gustav who decided to adopt myel? But it was Emma and Gustav, right? Not Sophie. Yes. So, so Sophie and myel didn't ever have that type of relationship. Yeah. Yeah. It was more with Emma and Gustav. Yeah. And Emma is like the, I guess, sort of mayor. She's like the head of the council. Yeah. The city or something like that. Some kind of, you know, leadership council. Yeah. Yeah. So, and, but I guess Gustav writes her speeches for her. Yeah. Because she doesn't believe any of the words she's saying. She doesn't because she's on the opposite side of this philosophical question. Yes. He believes in going out and having hope. She's supposed to arrive as the leader to give the expeditions I wrote her, but she thinks it's a waste of time. She thinks it's a waste of time, but it's necessary. We need people to go on the expeditions, but not useful people. If there's a way that we could send the, the low dregs of society out, that would be great because then the politicians can get rid of those people, but keep the useful people. It's like, uh, it, there's sort of sort of something, maybe like slightly underhanded happening here with, with all of that. But, um, you know, as far as I can tell, the expedition is entirely voluntary. Uh, and my L is going and Emma is super against it. I would guess so if he would be too. Even Gustav is against it, but my L's like, I, anyone can sign up. I sign up. Like what? Like, if it's like, no, anyone else, like this isn't for young people, but there was no rule, I guess. So she signed up. Rob says a bloodless key team. Yes. No, that, that is a line. That's a line from, that's what, what's her name? That's what Emma says. She says it's a bloodless key team. Well, she doesn't see what happens on the beach. It's, um, not, it's definitely but it's true, it is definitely Gatine, you're being fed through the meat grinder, so to speak. I also have this too. Sophie says that she's fine with the fate that has been set before her. Now we're seeing a different side of Sophie, not to fight, to change her fate is to accept her own path, but it's a relinquishing of control of forces outside of her own control, whereas Gustave refuses to do that, but also simply accepts a different fate that was also decided long before he was even born, meaning the expeditions, right? So they've both kind of resigned themselves to fate, but a different type of fate. Both situations are out of their control, basically, right? 'Cause Gustave has just accepted the mantle of the expeditions that were started 67 years ago by people before he was even born, and he's just kind of grown up with that, and he's entered right into it, whereas she is accepting fate in her own different way. But Sophie seems very serene and calm up until the end, of course, whereas Gustave is very tense and upset, visibly upset. That was one of the hardest moments, was Sophie is seemingly all throughout this, kind of in a moment of acceptance, not like acceptance in the sense like, "Oh, I'm ready to die, I can't wait for this," but in the sense that like-- - Not like excitement, yeah. - It's not excitement, but it's an acceptance. There seems to be a sense of peace in it. - Although there is a line she says of like, whether it's because I've accepted my fate or because I'm afraid, it's something like that. And she's like, "I don't know which." - But what's so heart-wrenching about it, is that when the gammage actually happens, and people are starting to, you know, with her away, you see her face and just the absolute terror in it. - She's like what's gonna happen. - She's like streaming and she turns to him, and it's such a perfect capture, again, of that feeling. It's not necessarily for death here, but if anything that you have been afraid of in your life, but you know it's coming, and you think you have time to prepare or like whatever, but it's just something that's kind of like, it's in the future, it's in the future, I'm not dwelling on it, and then the moment comes and it hits you and you're just not ready for it, that's what happens to her. And he tries to be like, "I'm here, I'm here," and she's just, it's, I mean, it's a horrible death. - Yeah, it's a really, really torturous, cruel horrible death. And it just like rips your heart right out and Gustav, like, yeah, as he sinks there. It's just so-- - Nothing, you can-- - Perfectly execute it. - It's come very good. - So, yeah. - Yeah, it's wild. But before being executed as well, Sophie says something that Gustav responds, "Only you, only you, would be so empathetic," as to say that at a time like this, wasn't this a good line? I gotta hear, she says, she sometimes feels sorry for the Pinterest, and she even wonders if the Pinterest is just stuck in the same cycle as everyone else, trapped in this world. And Gustav, 'cause she's almost talking to herself and she's not really talking to anyone, but she's about to die and she's just kind of saying her thoughts of like, what is life about? Like, you know, often people at the end of their life will have lucid thoughts in terms of that, you know, and it's like, but they're not really talking to anyone. They're just kind of saying their thoughts out loud. And that's what she says, and Gustav says, "Only you could be empathetic towards her at a time like this," right? Someone like that. And then she responds with, it's one of the few choices I have. - I loved that. - To choose to be empathetic at the very end of her life. And in that moment, she just kind of decides to maybe not hate the fate that is forcing this cruelty upon her. And that she's exercising her agency in that way. - Yes. - In such an interesting way. - Yes, and that was such a deep moment. - Is ties into the agency determinism theme here, which is it might seem at first like the choice for agency is to go out and fight fate. - Right. - But it's not, that's not the only way to take your agency. She takes her agency through showing compassion and empathy towards the painters. She notices not the cruelty, not the total arbitrary, needless suffering that the painters inflicts. - Right. - But rather that the painters looks sad. We all, you're all talking about the painters as this horrible goddess that must be stopped and we must kill her at any length and she's horrible. I'm seeing something that maybe, maybe, and I think this is a seed that's being planted. Maybe we don't know what's really going on there, right? We don't understand why she's doing what she's doing. - It's interesting to note that the pose that the painter is in, because when you look out there, you can't really, I couldn't see a painter's. I was like, I don't see what everyone else is saying. They see, until the moment when the Gommash happens and then the painter stands up and you realize she was crouched with her arms on her knees and her head down at her knees and her hair like hanging down to the ground basically. And that's how she spends like the whole year, it seems, that she is always in that pose. And it's like, that's just interesting to note. This isn't somebody who is staring at them and sneering. This is somebody who is in a very, unusual position. - A lot of paint. - You seeming, yeah, that seems to be the case. - Somebody who is themselves tortured, someone who is themselves totally forelaw and depressed without hope, something like that, which is very, very interesting. And she sees that, she chooses to see that. And that's her taking her agency back. I thought that was a very important point. - Yeah, you could say the only way of taking back agency is to go and fight your fate, right? That's the only way to do it. But you bringing up that there's another way is similar to when Sophie brings up to Gustav, there are other ways of leaving a legacy, which is obviously a continuation of an argument that they had in the past about children because Gustav wants kids. And then Gustav, you know, he kind of wears the expedition 33 patch and all that stuff. And he says, "You're the one who taught me that." That there's other ways to leave behind a legacy. And she says, "This is your legacy, 'cause she gets in the coat." And, well, I think it was mostly just the coat, but she kind of sowed everything in and tied the ribbon on and all that stuff. And she goes, "This is your legacy." And it's almost a different way of thinking about it. You think the only way to leave a legacy is to have children. And she's saying, "No, there are other ways to leave a legacy." And it's a continuation of their argument that they had before. But, you know, just like with agency, there's more than one way. - More than one way is to do lots of things, to do lots of things. And Gustav, you know, didn't get the chance to have children the way he wanted to, but that does not mean that he's not leaving behind any kind of legacy. - Any more notes? I wanted to talk a little bit about the, I don't know if you saw the painter's worshipper guy. There's a guy who's like, "This is a punishment because we dared to oppose the painter's, oppose the goddess." So there's like this whole sort of, you know, small religious section of painter's worshippers. - Well, that comes into play later on as well. - Yeah. - Yeah, that's very interesting. I don't, I do remember maybe seeing that in my first playthrough. - Yeah, but I thought it was a nice piece of world building where-- - We'll talk about accepting your fate. - Yeah. - Like there's an aspect of like, this is reality, right? Guys, like live in the real world, we live in a world where that painter's is in control. And you can fight against reality and nature all you want, but it's only a step beyond accepting fate to being like, look, like this is the world. Like let's seek to understand it or maybe there's a higher purpose or something like that, you know, it's not that much further on than where Sophie already had kind of come to herself. - Yeah, and, you know, it just shows that there are so many different answers that this society is coming up with for how they handle this. Am I gonna run and hide from it? And hopefully I'll just get overlooked. Am I gonna go fight directly the goddess who is inflicting the suffering? Am I going to live my life the best that I can hear and spend every last moment I have with the people I love? - Right. - Am I going to appeal to and worship the goddess and hope that my loyalty and appeals will save me. - There you go. It's a, it's appeasement. This is how pagan sacrifices used to work. It's less worshipping the pagan god and it's more appeasement and a hope for a favor, right? You're trying to curry favor with the god, the gods that rule over your fate. - Yeah. - And this is how all of the older pagan religions work. So it's almost like, hey guys, like let's try everything. There's more options. Like, have you tried sacrificing a goat to the goddess? Have you tried it? Like, what we're doing is it working? Nothing anyone's doing is working. Like, let's try this way. Let's try that way, let's try this way. And yeah, I like that too, I think that's fun. - Yeah. Any more, I wrote here the music during the Gammage scene is spectacular. It's so, I mean, the whole thing, visual sound, music, just all comes together in this way, it just hits you so hard. - Yeah, it's really so incredibly well executed. - And it's beautiful, which is the most striking. - I know, it's beautiful and you get this total exploration of the duality of emotion here. And I think that is reflected in the eclipse that's behind the model. - I think so, yeah. - The game is called Clare Obscure, with clear the clear and the obscure. So, you know, the opposite ends, we've talked a lot on our podcast in the past about two ends of the spectrum being the same thing experienced in different degrees, being a principle that comes from the chivalry. But you know, you have this beautiful, beautiful imagery in it all and they turn into little flower petals, very beautiful image, but it's this horrible, horrific, tragic, terrifying thing, both things reflected in the same moment. And you're getting that in the philosophy being explored, you're getting it in the visual symbolism, you're getting that in the emotional punch of everything that's coming through. They're really capturing what, you know, I think a lot of people might have heard the title Clare Obscure Expedition 33 and thought, oh, this is part of that Japanese RPG naming conventional. They throw a lot of cool words together. They seem. It did kind of feel that way. But no, it's actually very intentional, and it's very apparent in everything they're doing here, execution wise, really, really well done. Yeah. And when the sun sets, it casts a red glow on everything. And then we enter into basically like a black and white moment when it starts, which was very interesting too. You'll notice throughout the game that that happens in specific times, basically. And then, of course, the sun is down and it's twilight and that's when everything kind of happens. But it's interesting to note that it's the colors red and white, red and white. The symbolism of those colors is something we're going to jump into later, but then the number-- Rob is bringing up here. Don't forget the life enjoyers. Did you meet the life enjoyers? This is kind of a hard secret thing. I wouldn't have found it either without the chat while I was-- Oh, really? --while I was playing or while streaming. But there's a building you can go to. You don't go inside of it, but you like interact with the door, and you'll hear people making love and so on. Yeah, I did see some of those. So, you know, and-- Some people, yeah, like they choose to enjoy their final moments, you know, in a different way. Or they celebrate the gammage in their own way. In their own way. They spend their last moments, you know, together in that way. But I think I didn't confirm the exact number of times you do this. But it was enough times where I was very suspicious that it's 33 times. That if you interact with these life enjoyers 33 times, they'll be like, okay, like it was kind of like, you know, kinky at first or whatever to like, no, you were like, listen, anyway, that's weird. Are you freaking go away or go do it yourselves or something? Get out of here. So, that happens? Yeah, if you interact with it 33 times and listen to it over and over and over, they'll be like, oh, that's funny. Get out of here, stop it. Like, we know you're listening. So, that's kind of fun. Okay, so then we go to the party or not the party. It's whatever you call it. It's kind of like an after party. Yeah, expeditioners have like a little, some tables set up and they're sort of, they're celebrating the night before they leave on their expedition. Yeah. And so you go and get to meet all the expeditioners, which unlike meeting Sophie, you don't care so much when these people are not around anymore. But you have to go and meet them. And there's a whole bunch of people, part of the expedition. There's like seven or eight people other than the Luna and CL and they're coming, yeah. So you just go, I mean, everyone's inviting you, trying to get you to party to take some drinks to have fun. And Gustav is just like, look, I just, you guys go on without me, like, I don't really care. I'll be here in the morning. I'm excited to go off with you, but right now it's not the time. I don't feel like it. And then the last person is, is my L. And here's the thing that I didn't know the first time I played the game. Those tokens that you get from some people, you use them to buy things in Lumière. Yes. I, I, I, I didn't, you don't know. Like I didn't know, am I, is there stuff on the, you know, in the other side of the sea? Use them while you're there. There's three items you can get. For later. Yeah. There's a, well, there's PICTO stuff. There's a, there's a, a strange, I think it called it a weird PICTO or a strange PICTO that you're like, you don't know how it works. PICTOs are like, the magic spells are like material from Final Fantasy. You equip them and they give you specific kind of like abilities, like passive abilities, things like that. I guess it's not exactly like a theory. It's not always magic. Sometimes it doesn't give you like, because there's a whole different skill tree that gives you like battle abilities. That's true. There are more like passive abilities like what would attack twice or like the equipment of Final Fantasy IX, right, where like you put on that equipment and there's like certain attributes or like a passive skills from that that you can then equip on your character after you've learned these abilities after you've done enough battles kind of thing. And some of them are like, you know, you can X, you can mark characters, right, to where the next time they get hit it does more damage. Yeah, that's less material and that's more just kind of yeah, or like, you know, there's one that it gives you like a certain percentage chance of inflicting burn on an enemy or some like those are useful for the guns for the for your long range to attack. But here's, here's where we can talk a little bit about the Lumina Converter. So the advantage or the new technology that they that Gustav and Luna have developed together for this particular expedition is this Lumina Converter, which gives them an ability. In the past, you'd have to equip, you only have like three slots for pictures. So you only really had the ability to have three of those passive abilities at a time. And you have to have the PICTO equipped in order to wield that specific like passive skill. That's right. But because of the Lumina Converter, it allows them even after they've equipped the PICTO and learned it, even when they take the PICTO off, they can retain that passive skill. And as you go throughout the game, you earn more Lumina points that gives you more space to equip more and more and more of those passive skills. So essentially, you can stack many, many, many skills from PICTOs onto your characters, the stronger they get in the game, which makes them more powerful than previous Expeditioners. And so this Lumina Converter was like a really big part. They didn't know if it was going to work or not. And so like they're taking it with them, and it's like if this thing works, then like okay, we're going to be able to potentially be much stronger individual warriors than any of the previous Expeditioners before. So that's what the Lumina Converter is. So you can talk to Luna a little bit about that, Luna, I should say. She talks about how she has essentially convinced like the captain of the Expedition where they should land. Her idea was we know where Expedition 0, the first Expedition that everyone out, we know where they landed, and we also know that they got a lot farther than anyone else. Yeah, they're in the most successful. Why don't we just follow their path? Why don't we just land where they landed and like take the path that they took. So that's kind of like their plan is they're going to try and follow in the footsteps of Expedition 0. And I'm trying to think of like what other conversations were good here. I think I had one with, her name was Lucy, and she was originally a volunteer with this Expedition, but she quit. So like along the way at some point she decided she didn't want to go anymore. And so she left the team. And so she and Gustav are having a conversation and she says maybe contentment is the highest form of happiness. Really interesting if you chew on that in the context of like finding purpose or trying to take agency back in this world of total determinism it seems. And Gustav says something along the lines of oh she just took away meaning the painter has took away your ability to dream. Like you're giving up is essentially what he's saying. That's what people who don't want to stay or who want to go on the Expedition think about those who stay behind. You've given up. Yeah. You're not afraid because it's like we're reaching for higher possibilities here. And you're saying that you're just like going to coast where you are instead of work up towards an ideal or something. Right. And she says in response to that no you misunderstand my mind is where I can be free. She can't touch me there. This is my final act of defiance just like the Expedition is yours. It's so similar to what Sophie was saying at the end of her time as well. Yeah. That's so interesting. So there's more than one way to take your agency back. There's more than one way to defy. This is the way that she chose. I also think I'd have to bring up because I didn't do the math properly the first time I played the game. I'm assuming one year age of people is you know taken away at a time because the number keeps getting lower. But people also get older in the year. So when the number goes down it's actually two years. Yeah. And she only like to yeah so every time so my all is 16 but she only has nine years left. Yes. Yes. Is what I right Gustav kind of got because they will show the down 25 it would go down from 33 to 25 by the time she got 25 and then and then that's oh yeah it's like the future for children is actually really really short really short and the so because one of the things is like why in a normal RPG there's just I don't know there's a part of me that just always asks this question but like allowing a young woman to go on an expedition with nearly zero survival rate when your society is like dying is just no no culture whatever do that ever. except in certain situations, and this is probably one of them, where it's like, look, no one's having kids anymore anyways. There is no outlook. The number is so low at this point, even if you did have a kid, like let's say that Miles Young, but let's say when she was like 20, she had a kid, and then she died when it was five. That kid would only live to be like 12, like it's over. It's over, basically. So the next generation, sending even young women out to fight is like, we have no choice. They have to take the risk. They have to take that risk. The next generation will not be able to birth the next generation. Exactly. This is the final generation. The kids being born now are pretty much the final generation. Yeah. So when you look at it that way, it's like, oh, well, actually, perfectly logical to send a young woman out to fight, who's like, you know, you know, but it's you typically a society would not allow that to happen. Yeah. I mean, like the extension of humanity would happen long before the countdown finished. Like you get to a point where kids are not capable of having kids. Exactly. So once the numbers at like eight, then it's like, there's no more people. Yeah. Yeah. And then I guess it would just keep going now. Yeah. It would just fly. Yeah. So they don't have there, there, there is no more like. Yeah. Well, the next generation will figure it out. It's like, we figure it out or basically no one. Even people like Emma at some point, because she won't last maybe one year and then she's gone to or two. Maybe I don't know how old she is. But at some point, maybe expedition may probably 25 or something like that. It's like everyone just go like we're all getting on the boats and we're all going to the unknown continent. I would assume that at some point that just has to be the option, because there is no other option. So other than laying there and just die. Yeah, I'm just dying. So, and this is of course where we talk to Myel. She's kind of out there on a pier alone. And we get more of this, I don't belong here kind of talk, which you're not really hearing from other people. Gustav, everyone's having a difficult situation here. But Myel's is like particularly difficult that she talks about like everyone I know just keeps dying. She's a foster kid. Like her parents are gone. And then the other people are gone. And then now she's with Gustav, but he's only got a year left. And she doesn't seem to have a ton of friends. She doesn't seem to like get along well with the other kids around her on the island. And so she's just ready to go. But she's saying, "Lumiers, not my home." And one year out there is better than nine years in here. Yeah. That's interesting. You also think of it this way, like even in this group, the group of expeditioners. She's like by far the youngest one. By far. Like they're all older than her. They're all in a generation kind of outside of hers. So yeah, they grew up at the NES and she's like a PS3 game. Like you don't get it. You don't get it, girl. That's exactly right. Yeah, it's like trying to talk to an 18-year-old about Dragon Quest. So he says, "Oh, fetching, you can get it." Or seeing how good it was. But yeah, so she is kind of uniquely in positions over and over and over again, where she feels like she doesn't belong. I think that is an important thing to point out the director. And then when Emma shows up, she says, "Yeah, this is her line. You and I both know the political complexities that necessitate the expedition. It is vital for morale, but it is a blood-liscility or guillotine." I guess. That's what she's saying. So it's so funny to hear this conversation on the back of her speech that she gives. I think that was very intentionally juxtaposed right there, where she's like, "I don't believe in any of this stuff. This is stupid. You shouldn't do it." And then literally like 30 seconds later. She's like, "The expedition is all only hope. You must go out there and fulfill the wishes of humanity that I have as well as you." It's so fun, but she is a, I thought was a great speech actually. There's some good stuff in there. It's really effective, too. Kind of paired with the music. We're seeing all the faces. Yeah, and right on the back of that homage and how just like motivated you are. Yeah, that's right. That's right. To go out there and end this. See, this is great. It's like, I don't care if Emma doesn't believe this. These are the words I need to hear. These are the words I want to hear. Yeah. Like whether you're doing it for love, for other people, or for fame, or for whatever your reasons are, and it keeps showing different faces, and she goes through all the reasons to do this. Like, go out there and make us proud. Let expedition 33 be the final expedition. And it's like, yeah, it's so exciting. It doesn't matter that she doesn't believe this. It doesn't matter. This is the perfect speech. It's so great, though. It's so great that the developers are taking you through this rollercoaster of emotions here. Right. You've just had this incredibly tragic death scene. Yeah. And then they raise you up with this like hope to like be the final expedition and finally end this. And then the second you land on that beat. Oh my gosh. That was so brutal. That was not expected. Hold, brawg is just pulled. It is so perfect. Yeah. To make the moment of your highest hope so far in the game be so quickly just undercut. And again, to go back to Sophie's conversation with Gustav about how stubborn he is. Right. And then even he sort of realizes when basically the entire expedition outside of a very few are just mass occurred right away. Yeah. What was I even thinking? Like this was such a stupid waste of time. So they take Gustav even there. The most idealistic stubborn man in the world. And even he even he is at a loss once that happens. So that was just wild. It's so great. But I think we'll stop there and come back to that scene and the new mystery they set up with your old like there's an old man here who has not died from how is that possible? He's got be 50 60. And this man just starts mass occurring us and is trying to stop us like what's going on. Really great mystery and a really great turn in terms of like there's a lot of things you can have idealism about or that you claim to really believe in. But when it comes down to it. It's kind of like the next question posed to Gustav here. And we'll dive into that next time. I love act one. That gets us into act one which is Gustav. So our suggestion for the next episode would be to finish the first act to finish act one. Yeah, get all the way to the end of act one and it's obvious you will know when it's over. It's one of the great things I love about this game that they're not afraid to just kind of just give you a title just a nice little old-fashioned title page like a silent movie just like right in front of your face during your in-between gameplay. So you'll know what happens. Yeah. Okay, thanks for watching everybody. We appreciate you. We hope you are enjoying the game. We hope that you're excited playing alongside us. I am you know, it's one of those things where when the thing is new and you're really excited about it and you're talking about how much you love it. There's a lot of initial resistance to that like well recency bias. Are you are you really sure? Did you get an advanced copy of the game? Do you have reasons to say it's great even though it might not be? So you get a lot of that kind of skepticism. Just because of the hype they're not going to play the game because it can't be this. Yeah, it is. It's a good. There's all that talk and so you take a break. You step back away from it. You return to it months later. Yeah, five months. And you know, that sort of like build up to the release of the game and the excitement around it has passed. Yeah. Most people are done kind of with their discussions on the game. Like the honeymoon phase. Yeah, that's over. Yeah. And you return to it and you're like, no, man, like this is freaking really good. It's the real deal. That is how I feel. So I'm excited to keep going. Thanks. We'll see you next time.