Before anything else, I want to make clear that I absolutely love this game. This isn't me hating on the story or saying the ending ruined it for me. If anything, the fact I'm still thinking about the morality of the ending and arguing with myself over it is a sign of how much the story worked for me. This is just one aspect of the ending that I see differently from how I think the game presents it.
I know Maelle's ending is pretty clearly presented as the "bad" ending, and I understand why.
Alicia is losing herself in the Canvas and becoming another Aline, and she's forcing Painted Verso to continue existing even though he clearly wants to die. Both of those things are wrong.
But I still think Maelle's ending is morally better than Verso's for one major reason: Lumière is still alive.
The game spends its entire runtime establishing that Lune, Sciel, Monoco, Esquie, the Gestrals and everyone else in the Canvas are genuinely living people. They have hopes, fears, relationships, cultures, love, grief and independent thoughts. They're not just drawings being puppeteered by the Dessendres.
The Gommage is horrifying precisely because these people are alive and don't want to die. Lune's reaction to the second Gommage is honestly one of the most haunting images in the game for me.
So while Maelle's ending condemns Verso to an existence he doesn't want, Verso's ending essentially kills an entire civilisation.
And I don't think the game gives that enough weight.
The Dessendres are basically gods to the people of Lumière, and they're pretty cruel gods. Imagine discovering that our universe was created by someone, only for them to decide they'd become too emotionally attached to it and needed to move on, so they erased humanity. Would we really consider that justified because it was healthier for our creator?
And I think the God analogy goes even further than that. If the Dessendres created genuinely conscious life, then they have a responsibility towards that life. Creating Lumière shouldn't give them unlimited ownership over it; if anything, it gives them a duty to protect it.
Renoir and Aline have a responsibility towards Alicia because they brought her into existence. I don't see why the basic principle should suddenly disappear when we're talking about the thousands of conscious lives their family brought into existence inside the Canvas. Those people didn't ask to be created either, and they certainly didn't ask to become collateral damage in the Dessendres' family grief.
That's why, of the two endings we're given, I'd actually choose Maelle's. It's not a happy ending and Maelle is clearly going down a dangerous path, but at least Lumière gets to exist. Verso's desire to die matters, but so does the desire of potentially thousands of other conscious people to live. Verso should be allowed to choose death for himself, but that shouldn't mean choosing death for everyone else.
For me, though, there's an obvious third ending that would have been far better.
Verso dies. Maelle says goodbye and leaves the Canvas. Alicia returns to reality and the Dessendres finally grieve Verso properly. Aline puts a blanket over the Canvas and the family agrees to leave it alone. Lumière carries on without them.
Verso's creation then becomes his legacy rather than a way for his family to pretend he's still alive.
Alicia could potentially even visit occasionally. I sympathise with her more than Aline because her real life was permanently changed by the fire. She's disabled and badly scarred, while as Maelle she can run, fight and explore. There's a huge difference between permanently escaping into the Canvas and visiting your friends for a few hours before returning to reality.
If entering and leaving the Canvas is inherently dangerous to Alicia, or if Lumière literally cannot survive without trapping part of the real Verso's soul, then fair enough. That adds genuine nuance and makes the choice much more difficult.
But if the Canvas can continue without destroying Alicia or imprisoning Verso, then I think the binary choice we're given is unnecessarily cruel.
Verso deserves the death he wants. Alicia deserves to live her real life. The Dessendres deserve to heal. But Lumière deserves to live too.
The Dessendres may have created Lumière, but once they created genuinely conscious life, I don't think they had the right to erase it.
TL;DR: I love the game and this isn't intended as hate towards the ending. I just think Maelle's ending is flawed rather than outright morally worse. She refuses to let Verso die and is losing herself in the Canvas, but Verso's ending effectively wipes out an entire civilisation of conscious people. The Dessendres created those lives and therefore have a responsibility towards them, not the right to erase them when the Canvas becomes unhealthy for their own family. The ideal ending would be Verso dying, Alicia returning to reality, the Dessendres leaving the Canvas behind, and Lumière being allowed to carry on without them.
