This past week here in the US has been yet another one that has led to heated discussion regarding freedom of speech. This also includes the spectrum of consequences that can be unlocked by it depending on the message.
Yet something sprung up in my head as I decided to think upon it all this morning writing this while in anticipation of today’s glorious yet heartbreaking episode of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on my channel. It’s Verso, the 2nd protagonist of the story. If you’ve watched my livestream on Twitch a few weeks back on our journey through the Visages, Monoco spoke of “he who hides truth with lies” and that stuck with me. The meaning behind his words were deep and I couldn’t simply brush them off. We’ve often seen lies used to distract from truth or attempt to discard it from the mind of a listener or thinker; but to be the wall that hides the truth behind the curtain is another thing entirely.
The first thing I can come up with is the term “lying by omission”, which is when you tell a story but omit important details that could drastically change the narrative of the story. This is a recurring thing often present in other games such as Dark Souls or Elden Ring — where often you’re given a narrative but then you stumble upon parts of the story via questlines, environments or battles whereupon discovery changes the story either slightly or completely. We know the Tarnished are assigned with the quest to restore the Elden Ring in order to restore the Lands Between and are given a narrative by Enya as she interprets words of the Two Finger, which allegedly get their message from the Greater Will. Then upon entering Shadow of the Erdtree, we find out that the Greater Will had long cut itself off from all the lands and Metyr, the Mother of Fingers, had been stuck in the Land of Shadow — awaiting word from the Greater Will. This meant that the message from the Two Fingers were old messages long past. This is like seeing stars in the sky. If you see them, that means they’ve already been long gone.
Verso knows Renoir. They led Expedition 0 but clearly a divide happened where Verso went his own way and yet upon the journey into Visages, Monoco lets us know that Verso is hiding a secret or rather…secrets. Those secrets could potentially create a massive shift in direction of Expedition 33.
Then this odd phrase of the inverse popped up in my head — “He who hides Lies with Truth”. Can it be possible? Maybe, who knows, right? I’ve been stuck wondering that if lying by omission is really bad in the face of seeking truth and telling truth, then imagine telling truths without context. Stating facts without full context can be an error at best but disingenuous at worst. It’s almost like telling a story about someone being mad but never telling people about how they arrived to that frenzy. If you didn’t know the missing context, then it’s simply a mistake but if you knew and hid it anyway, there’s danger.
In The Dark Knight‘s conclusion, Batman asks Gordon to lie to Gotham City and say he killed Harvey Dent in cold blood. Did Batman take his life in the film? Yes however there’s some major details left out. Batman had tackled Dent off and unfortunately he died. At best, it was involuntary manslaughter but with one important context — he did so to save Jim Gordon’s son from being shot to death by Harvey Dent aka Two-Face. He hid the truth of Harvey Dent having become Two-Face thanks to Joker’s influence and his attempt on Jim’s son’s life. He hid a deeper truth with a lie; murder when in fact it was involuntary manslaughter in defense for a hostage in peril. Batman knew the consequences Gotham City would have if it came out that Gotham’s beloved white knight had turned into a would-be murderer.
Verso harbors a secret that, if revealed to Expedition 33, would chaos absolute chaos. He knows this and by the time we find out at the end of Act 2 and deep into Act 3, it really messes with your head.
Thank you for reading. Link to the new episode for today at 3:30pm is listed ⬇️
