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inbarfink · 1 year

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Okay, so when it comes to “What Remains of Edith Finch” I’m generally among those who subscribe to the reading that there is nothing supernatural about the ‘family curse’ - that it is nothing more than an unhealthy coping mechanism that became a self-fulfilling prophecy through a tradition of neglect and recklessness also maybe some slew of undiagnosed hereditary mental illnesses. But one aspect of this interpretation that I’m not really on-board with it is the idea that this makes the ending of the game, like, a totally unambiguously ‘bad’ tragic ending.

Well, either way it’s always a pretty sad ending, y’know. Everyone is dead. I mean in the sense that, like, if the ‘curse’ is nothing but the stories of the Finch family making them think they’re cursed - then Edith writing her little book and passing on these stories to her son is just perpetuating the Curse and probably dooming the poor boy. They would’ve both probably been better off if Edith did let those dangerous stories die with her. Right?

Well, that’s not really how I see it. I don’t really think this is a narrative is about how Edie and her outlook on death is, like, 100% totally wrong and dangerous and Dawn Finch was 100% totally in the right about trying to escape the family stories - as much as it is about Edie and Dawn both being flawed women and neither really handled their grief perfectly. Since Edie’s attitude kinda dominated the family and Edith herself kinda used to side with her great-grandma over her mother, the story focuses more on her realizing that, y’know, Dawn’s perspective might have a point. But just cause Dawn might’ve had a point doesn’t mean she was always right either. I think the point is more that Edith has to understand both her great-grandma’s and her mother’s side so she can strike a healthier balance between both of their attitudes.

Like, the thing is that the ‘Curse’ is mostly just generational trauma (and if there is a real supernatural Curse than it is still a metaphor for generational trauma), and the thing with trauma is that wallowing in it and letting it define you like Edie did is really not healthy - but neither is repressing it and trying to run away from it like Dawn tried to do. Edie might’ve been wrong about many things, but she was right about this:

The ‘Curse’ won’t leave Dawn and Edith just cause they left the House, or just cause they stopped listening to Edie’s stories. Because the Curse and their Trauma are the same, so it will follow them in some form wherever they go. The big thing I keep thinking about is Edith’s comment after Sam’s story.

This isn’t about Sam’s death being especially important for figuring out the ‘mystery’ of the Finch Curse, or it being an especially fascinating or beautiful story or whatever. It’s because it was an especially traumatic event for Dawn, that undoubtedly effected her for the rest of her life. But due to her fear of the effects of Edie’s Stories, she never really opened up about it with her daughter in any way. Seeing the pictures of Dawn and Sam’s last trip together, Edith feels she now has a greater understanding of what made her mother tick - and wishes she could’ve known about it when she was still alive.

And that does go farther down the family tree. Sam was the first Finch to show a real dislike to telling the Stories like Edie like. Although admittedly he wasn’t quite the rebel Dawn was:

And pretty much everything about how he acted around his children, especially the real shitty stuff, was informed by the trauma of Calvin’s death.

And, like, obviously Edie’s idea of handling trauma did no favors to him, (She made him share a room with his dead twin for eleven years) but I think also his attempts to almost totally avoid and repress his Issues when he became an adult only made things worse and not better.

Now, you might be wondering how this relates to Edith and her son Christopher. Well, the first thing to remember is that Edith didn’t know for sure she was going to die when she started that journey. She wasn’t just planning on leaving that little book to her son in case she dies - she wanted to learn the stories too, and have a better understanding of the stories she knew already. Because these stories inform the trauma she grew around, and she wanted to understand it better before she became a mother. Dawn knew quite a lot about the danger of growing up in a household that wallows in and romanticizes trauma - and did her best to avoid repeating this mistake with Edith. Edith knew quite a lot about the danger of growing up in a household that repressed and runs away from trauma - and she doesn’t want to repeat it with her child as well.

And as for writing it down for Christopher in case she’s not around to share the stories with him. Well, the first thing to note is that I think that even if Christopher never had Edith’s book - he was already bound by the ‘Curse’ from the start. Like, yeah, he doesn’t have the experience of growing up with a traumatized parent raised by another traumatized parent raised by another traumatized parent - but growing up knowing his biomom died at childbirth can be a pretty traumatizing experience on it’s own. We don’t know much of his family situation outside of that, but the fact that there seem to be no one around to escort the Literal Child as he takes a ferry to go lay flowers at his birth mother’s grave doesn’t really bode well.

So I think, first things first, from that angle, Edith’s journal could be importantly therapeutic to him as well. You know, have some sort of connection to his mother and her side of the family that he’s otherwise can’t really have? Like, this book isn’t just some darn list of dead Finches. There’s a lot in here about Edith herself and her own thoughts and her life and family and that’s maybe connection Christopher would want with her? Something that might make him process his grief for her a bit better? Something to make him feel more connected with that side of his family?

Now, let’s also consider the fact the Finch Curse is at least somewhat public knowledge: the Odin Finch newsreel mentions it, Barbara’s death was very well-publicized at the time - and the ‘Tales of Terror’ comic calls it “another ghastly tale inspired by America's most unfortunate family” - implying that they expected their readership to be at least kinda familiar with the idea of the Finches being ‘cursed’. I think that’s pretty likely that, even without the journal, if Christopher dug even a little bit into who his birth mother was he would’ve found at least a mention of a rumor of a ‘Family Curse’ .

Or, hell, seeing how the Finches (and especially Edie) seem to have been local celebrities around Orcas Island - if Christopher lives anywhere near that area, really all it will take is him saying something like “hey, I’m Christopher Finch!” or “my mother’s name was Edith Finch” and then someone would say “oh yeah, like the famous Orcas Island Finches? That cursed family that keeps dying?” and seeing how he has no living relatives on his mother’s side - he would’ve probably believed it, or at least allowed the possibility to wriggle into his heart - and then… well, the Curse will just live on regardless of Edith.

Note that Christopher is already wearing a cast before he even read the book (and is, again, a child taking a ferry to visit his mother’s grave all alone) - it seems like something of the ol’ Finch recklessness has already made it to him, whatever it’s in his genes somehow or just the rumors of the curse getting to him. But it is not entirely on Edith’s journal.

And like, one of the things I think made the Curse such a problematic mindset is the way it prevented the Finches from ever learning from their mistakes. You know, if every death is a result of a malevolent supernatural force haunting the family - then there’s no need for introspection of how what they could do better in the future. Challenging this mindset was probably one of the best things about Dawn’s mindset. But learning from past mistakes is equally impossible when you convince yourself it’s all the fault of a supernatural curse as it is when you straight-up have no context for what happened before. If nothing else, the stories in this journal can serve as a useful lesson about not clinging to the past, or not letting your grief define you, or how you shouldn’t try and make a perfect 360 degree spin on swingset or how you SHOULDN’T LEAVE A BABY ALONE IN A BATHTUB JESUS CHRIST

Because it’s not like this journal is just, like, a totally uncritical reiteration of Edie Finch’s stories for the next generation or something. I think the game makes it pretty clear that although Edith Sr. and Edith Jr. are meant to mirror each other on some level, their attitudes when it comes to the stories of the family are pretty different.

Edie was characterized as someone who cared more for what makes for a good story over the truth, as someone prone to inventing or exaggerating tales, as someone who reveled in the romanticism of being Doomed, and memorialized the death of her loved ones more than their life. Like, one of the things that really crosses a line for me about the Edie Finch Method of Grief is just how much the circumstances of the death are prioritized over the life the person had before it.

It’s not always so blatant cause the Finches tend to die in ways that poetically tie with their personality and hobbies (Molly loved animals and fantasy and she spent her last moments in a hallucination of transforming into various animals, Sam loved hunting and photography and he died taking a picture while hunting, Walter loved trains and ended up being run over by one) but… there’s certain areas where it’s actually kinda unclear if the connection is actually there or if Edie is kinda forcing it for the sake of a good story.

Like, Barbara was a horror movie child star and her death reads like a cheesy horror story - but that’s because Edie chose a cheesy horror retelling to represent it. Maybe if we knew the real story of how she died, it wouldn’t be quite so on-the-nose. Did Gus actually love flying kites to the point it defines his entire personality or was that just something he did on the day he died? Either way, he’s defined by that one activity forever now.

And Gregory… like I’m sure he enjoyed bath-time, but the fact he’s memorialized almost exclusively with bath toys and soap is kinda fucked-up. I’m sure he had other toys he loved to play with outside the tub as well, but all of his memorials are focused entirely on the thing that killed him.

Edith’s attitude, as can be seen through the game, is different. Edith can appreciate the beauty of Edie’s stories but also cares quite a bit about truth and accuracy. The difference is most obvious when it comes to their books. Both Ediths wrote a story about coming back to their old childhood home and discovering the family secrets - only Edie’s story, “The History of the Finches”, seems to be complete fiction and based on what she would’ve wanted to be true, while Edith did actually go to her old childhood home and tried to record it as accurately as possible. And while she’s limited in telling the death stories that Edie kept records of, she also notes the points when they seem ridiculous or inaccurate to her.

She documents the tall-tale about how Sven was killed by a dragon, but also clarifies that he was killed while trying to construct a dragon-shaped sled. Rather than just perpetuating Edie’s joke for the sake of the fantasy.

Plus, she doesn’t just focus on the Finches’ deaths, she does try and tell Christopher about their lives as well. It’s not always easy, since with the older generations Edith often doesn’t have much to go on outside of Edith’s memorialization, but she does try to get a General Vibe out of them from their room and other mementos they left behind (like Sam’s improvised darkroom in the wall-passegeways) rather than just the death story. And when it comes to the people Edith actually remembered well herself - Lewis, Dawn and Edie - she’s constantly telling little anecdotes and details of their life together.

In a way, I kinda divide “What Remains of Edith Finch” into three main parts. The first third of the game, with Edie’s kids, is the one that centers on the mystery of whatever the ‘curse’ is real or not - and is also a character study of Edie herself via the lense of the people that she lost. The second part is basically that but for Dawn, it’s about Edith learning to understand her mother’s character via the loss of Sam, Gregory, Gus, Sanjay and Milton. The Lewis segment is a transition between that third and the last third - which is about Edith Finch herself. Even if Edith can paint a full picture of both life and death for all of her dead relatives, she can at least give Christopher a good insight to his mother, grandmother and great-great grandmother.

And notably, the two people Edith ‘has’ to memorialize herself without Edie’s postmorten involvement, Edie herself and Dawn, get a very different treatment from every other Finch. They don’t get a ‘proper’ Death Story documenting or describing their last moments. The closest thing is Edith’s flashback of the day they moved out of the House, which is more of a Death Flashback for the Finch Family as a concept than to Edie and Dawn as individuals. We do know that Dawn died of some sort of illness, but it’s delivered to us at the end of a longer passage about the life they had together. And we really don’t know anything but how Edie died at the end.

If Edith doesn’t know how Edie died, she’s shown no interest in trying to figure it out - if she does already know, she doesn’t think her spesific cause of death is important to write down for her son. The important thing is for him to learn what kind of person Edie was in life, and Edith has more than enough understanding of her great-grandma to memorialize her without defining her entirely through some sort of of romanticized tragic death.

And, like the most important thing to remember is that Edith questions the concept of the Curse in her journal. Like, the game and the journal are one and the same. So, like all of these passages that are important for the ‘there’s no supernatural curse’ interpetation:

Christopher is reading these lines as well. If we are capable of playing “What Remains of Edith Finch” and understanding the ‘Curse’ as being a self-fulfilling prophecy - then Christopher is also capable of reading his mother’s journal and coming to the same conclusion. I mean, it’s not a certain thing. There’s plenty of players who read the Curse as a real supernatural force and that’s also a valid interpetation of the game’s text. And there’s like, actual grown-ass adults who played this game and decided it’s actually about a serial-killer granny. So maybe it’s asking a bit too much from a little grieving eight-years-old to immediately understand this as a story of unhealthy trauma coping mechanisms through the generations.

But my point isn’t that there is 100% no possibillity of Christopher dooming himself like every other Finch before him, or that Edith made the objectively correct decision in writing this journal and basically saved her son from the ‘Curse’. It’s just that he’s not doomed... it can still go either way. Christopher might have read this and started to believe in the Curse and perpatured the cycle onwards, or he might have come to the same conclusion Edith did - that believing in these stories made them real - and decided to try and do better than those who came before him. Or maybe he came to one conclusion but will later change his mind. As long as he’s alive, there’s is at least the possbility that things will turn out better.

“What Remains of Edith Finch” ends with the shot of the two things that ‘remained’ of the two Edith Finches of the game. The House is What Remained of Edith ‘Edie’ Finch Sr. A glorious and sad monument of mourning, now forever frozen in time as a memorium for the tragedy of the Finch Family. And Christopher is What Remained of Edith Finch Jr. An actual living human being with his whole life ahead of him, who still has the potential to doom or save himself.

Good luck.

#what remains of edith finch #edith finch #wroef #christopher finch #edie finch #dawn finch

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