>>723516383
I heavily disagree with your point about the ending somehow disrespecting the existence of Lune and Sciel. If you bother to speak to them in camp, they tell you exactly how they feel about the situation at hand and, realistically, they have absolutely nothing at all they can say during the final confrontation. It is implied they can't even exist within the same room as real Verso. Maelle and Verso are the only two people with the power to decide the conclusion of the story, which is in itself a theme of the story. Much of the game is about control- how we can't control the bad things that happen to us, how we can't control the Paintress killing people, etc etc. When Maelle establishes her control and suicides fake Alicia, with literally nobody else's input, Verso feels out of control, and that informs his final decision in the game. Ironically, he's wresting control away from everyone else when he blows up the painting, and doing exactly what he criticized Maelle for doing to Alicia but on a larger scale. That's ultimately the point of it all.
Whether either decision is portrayed as the "right" one is a completely different discussion, but ultimately they are both about control. The control Maelle will eventually fall to in the painting and the control Verso exerts to make absolutely sure that never happens. Also Verso just wants control over his ability to die the whole story, blah blah blah. It's all there, I can imagine where someone would feel as if the other characters were sidelined to a degree, but that's part of the point.
