>>718177045
What really bothers me is the ultimatum being forced on everyone. It's repeatedly discussed that there is a possible middle ground that could have been found, both by Lune and Painted Alicia. But because Maelle's shitty family can't get their shit together it's just treated as absolutely impossible for the painters to just leave the clearly sentient people of Lumiere in peace and take a break from the canvas every once in a while.

So rather than work with Maelle (the one painter who was born into an entire other life in Lumiere and thus is sympathetic to them as real people), Verso decides that he'll manipulate and traumatize her, making her watch Gustave die and tricking her into killing everyone that she tried to save. And that's when he's not having sex with Sciel and Lune and pretending to care about them and everything they've dedicated their entire lives to fighting for. Verso can act like it's all for Maelle's sake, but he backstabs everyone that trusts him and kills the one man that might have been able to change Maelle's mind because he can't risk someone jeopardizing his own ambition to die.