You’re Already Dying

The prologue of Expedition 33 sets the stage for the journey and executes the end of the prologue with resonance and a motivation for action. The characters we’ve just been introduced to have been living a life here, experiencing people fading away en masse year after year. They work toward a somewhat shared vision of the future together.

The player gets a tiny snippet of life before the end for many inhabitants of Lumiere. As this lingers and imminent death fully shows itself in the form of the Gommage, we begin to understand that the entire city of Lumiere has this communal acceptance of the situation. They’ve come to fully grasp their situation. Everyone over the age of 33 is about to die.

This is an inherently existential situation. We, as humans, deal with this dilemma each day. Not necessarily on a fixed scale in the way Expedition 33 does, but we see people who were here one moment dissipate in the next. And hardly any of us know what to do with those feelings. Often, we have nowhere to put them.

We must now come to terms with the fact that people naturally decay at differing rates, and we are left with life as it is now in the present. Under the surface, we look for meaning in death and give reasons to help us move on in this world. However, the world offers no meaning. You must craft it yourself.

In Expedition 33, this is less of a problem. The amount of time left prior to death is on full display for all to see. All inhabitants of this city know exactly the moment when they will go as a closed book. They all collectively know whats coming, and the resistance is gone. They have incorporated a full acceptance of the situation. This knowingness accelerates the finding of meaning in ones life. They are on a timer and life is short. Anything they need to get done, needed to get done yesterday. Being 15 is now middle-aged, being 29 is now elderly. Time is the major constraint, and when its limited, the human soul can push itself further to fulfill meaning.

In this world, we may not have the possibility of knowing exactly when we will die. Things are not as concrete as in Expedition 33. Death is hidden behind a curtain that we do not have access to. As many preparations one can make, it doesn’t make the date of the event certain. This uncertainty is something we must learn to confront daily. We can see that the confrontation with death is what drives the action throughout the story of Clair Obscur. This is not fiction. This is your life in slow motion. Through a confrontation with the knowingness that we will die; meaning & a reason for living can be found. Meaninglessness can arise when we forget that life is not infinite, and there is in fact, a stopping point to it all.

You don’t need a glowing countdown above your head to be dying. You already are. The people of Lumiere have simply accepted what we spend our lives avoiding: that time is short, meaning is optional, and nothing is guaranteed.

The only difference between them and you is clarity. You’ve delayed things because you thought you had time. You’ve avoided hard truths because comfort was easier. You’ve put off building something real because the infinite scroll told you tomorrow would be the day.

So stop asking when your time will come. Ask whether you’re living like it already has. Because the clock didn’t start yesterday. It started the moment you looked away.