When Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 first came out, some people – mainly my colleagues – made the dubious claim that main character Gustave looks like me. I disputed this on multiple occasions, but as I’ve made my way through the game at a leisurely pace, a funny thing has happened: Because other people see Gustave as my doppelganger, I’ve come to view him as my unfalteringly kind son (who’s only a couple years younger than me). Humans are vain creatures, so I’ve developed a unique attachment to the British-accented Frenchman who sports my hair and Robert Pattinson’s face. Or at least, that was the case until…
SPOILERS FOR A MAJOR CLAIR OBSCUR TWIST FOLLOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! TWICE!
…Renoir killed the shit out of him!
If I’m being honest, I kind of saw it coming. Gustave’s skill tree was oddly limited compared to other party members, and the end of Act One started leaning into ominousness and sentimentality a little too hard for my liking. As soon as Gustave and Maelle decided to take a break from their all-important mission to indulge in the ancient Lumierian sport of rock throwing, I knew his fate was sealed.
But still, it was not a clean, dignified death! Renoir fucked my boy up. Gustave died gasping and confused, with his bloodshot eyes and gore-spewing wound rendered in exquisite detail. He went down fighting – and even somberly uttered his catchphrase, “For those who come after,” one last time – but other than that, he met nearly the same end as many of his Expedition 33 compatriots on the beach near the start of the game. He just got to go a few steps further.
I’ve watched plenty of TV, movie, and video game characters die brutally. It was something slightly different to watch a “me” die. From certain angles, I could almost copy-paste my own features onto Gustave’s haggard visage. I could see myself getting sliced, diced, and put down like a puppy who’d ventured into the wrong backyard. It was unnerving.
On top of that, I would so go out that way. Not necessarily standing my ground to protect a loved one, but by getting absolutely trucked before ever learning the truth of why everything is so messed up. I’m the kind of person who yelps in a comically surprised fashion any time I walk into something or get touched unexpectedly. I take far too many risks for someone who’s generally un-graceful. I always want to know why things are the way they are – and have been known to take the aforementioned risks in service of that – but I can’t say my ventures always pan out. In short, I am destined to die on the most consequential day in human history, as the result of a largely unrelated piano being dropped on my head. My final words will be “Hey, what’s that?” Or perhaps simply “Oh.”
That’s a death befitting an NPC, which makes sense for someone like myself, famously Just A Guy. Gustave was a hero, albeit an unsuccessful one, and so he died the modern, gritty version of a hero’s death. What has stuck with me more, arguably, is the way Maelle, Lune, and Sciel mourn him in Act Two, spending multiple scenes reminiscing about his life and making peace with his passing, comforting each other all the way through. The culmination of this – a legitimately touching burial facilitated by Act Two’s guy with hair kinda like mine, Verso – is the sort of tender expression of grief that I wish more games were narratively deft enough to pull off. We spend so much time dealing death in games that it’s hard not to feel numb when, say, Naoe from Assassin’s Creed grapples with the consequences of her actions after 10 or 20 hours of wholesale slaughter. Comparatively, we spend very little time dealing with death.
Life, on the other hand, tends to involve much more of the latter than the former – at least until your time comes. I guess if nothing else, I’d like to hope my loved ones end up remembering me as fondly as Gustave’s did and being united by both my presence and lack thereof. That’s all any of us can really ask for.
