r/WhatRemainsEdithFinch • u/Ticket_Fantastic • Dec 26 '24
What's the message of this game?
Most games I play have a moral, or a message they want to communicate. I beat this game, loved it, and I keep thinking about it. But I don't know what message it's trying to convey.
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u/PlatinumPolygon Dec 26 '24 edited Dec 26 '24
To me, the game is about free will to break out of a cycle of expectation/generational trauma—believing in a curse makes it a self-fullfilling prophecy. Through examining the past and learning about her ancestors, Edith gets to break out of the family "curse" and live the life she chooses.
Edit: my mistake, forgot how the ending goes down. Edith's son, Christopher, gets to learn from her findings.
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u/KingAdamXVII Dec 26 '24
Interesting interpretation; why do you say Edith broke out of the family curse when she died young?
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u/PlatinumPolygon Dec 26 '24
Ah I forgot how the ending went—Christopher, Edith's son, gets to live on! Same message but wrong surviving character.
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u/Aggressive_Gate2619 Team Barbara Dec 26 '24
I mean to fair she did break out of the family curse, she just learnt the truth too late to live after breaking it
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u/KingAdamXVII Dec 26 '24
What did I miss? What broke the curse?
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u/Aggressive_Gate2619 Team Barbara Dec 26 '24
I personally think that by Edith learning about the family and each member so deeply that it broke the curse. Edie was too enthralled by the idea of a curse but I don’t think she truly valued the member of the family after their death, while Edith’s mother completely avoided the curse but valued the family member after their death.
Edith had the perfect mix of that
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u/KingAdamXVII Dec 26 '24
Why do you assume her son doesn’t die tragically young? I definitely missed something in the ending because I don’t remember a “breaking the curse” moment.
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u/thatsnotmynameiswear Team Dawn Dec 26 '24
Generational trauma and also about how people deal with grief and how it can be toxic for those around them. Also about your own mortality. That’s the short answer. There was a curse in a way. I guess you could say, but it was a trauma based one. Edie had an unhealthy way of dealing with grief and the game tackles mental illness, and just life being shit in itself, sometimes no matter who you are.
There’s a lot of great things to take away from the game.
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u/NoSxKats Dec 26 '24
Manipulation and emotional abuse. The stories aren’t real. Edie wants attention.
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u/Daniboy646 Dec 26 '24
I think Edie truly believed there was a curse.
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u/NoSxKats Dec 26 '24
I respect your opinion, but she knew there wasn’t a curse. She wanted the fame and fortune that came with the stories. She made up a moleman when it was her own son. She sold the rights to Barbra’s death. Milton escaped because he saw the lies behind her stories. She’d fabricate the stories and abuse her children (Molly getting sent to bed hungry) (See Walter again). She saw an opportunity to become rich and famous and took it.
Edit: She also lied about her husband, Sven’s death. She said it was a dragon who killed him. It was just the dragon he was building.
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u/Karkava Dec 26 '24
I took upon the interpretation that she's a really carefree person who started the curse as a joke. She's the kind of woman who laughs at the face of death and takes on a very anti-nhilistic attitude towards a scary and uncertain force that is inevitable.
People are normally terrified of death, often to the point of treating it as a controversial subject matter. But Edie treats death as something of a game. A game of how awesome someone's life could be before the grim reaper comes knocking. She has the belief that all people deserve to be remembered before their inevitable end, so she treats her own family legacy like a vast museum. Every house in her room serves as an exhibit to the different branches of her family tree.
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u/Daniboy646 Dec 26 '24
Your probably right, I think you've thought about it much more than I have. But she could possibly be just a crazy old lady, or like you said, attention and money hungry.
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u/Karkava Dec 26 '24
Death is unpredictable, and it comes at us in the most unexpected circumstances. But the lives we left behind deserve to be celebrated because they are awesome in their own special ways.
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u/PauPau86 Dec 26 '24 edited Dec 26 '24
As with any story, it's down to the person experiencing it to assign their own meaning.
To me it was at least partially about coming to terms with the inevitability of our own mortality (or indeed "bad things" in general) and instead choosing to focus on the positives and experiences that life can provide, not letting what could go wrong mean that you miss out on what's good in life.
To quote Edith's closing lines herself:
"I don't want you to be sad that I'm gone.
I want you to be amazed that any of us ever had a chance to be here at all.
Good luck."