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The group discusses how the overarching concepts of “Villainy” and “False Narratives”
within What Remains of Edith Finch contribute to intergenerational trauma as a focal point within
the game’s narrative.
A podcast by students enrolled in Film Studies/Gender Studies 404. Students will discuss topics of gender and identity in In Sound Mind, What Remains of Edith Finch, and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.
We are recording, OK? Hi, everyone, I'm Kate. I'm
Elias. I'm Johnny Connor Dahl. I'm Nathan. I'm Dylan
and Eve. So today we're going to be talking about
the game. What remains of Edith Finch? This is a
narrative style first person game that tells the
story of Edith Finch, who is the last remaining
family member in her family tree, and she returns
to her childhood home and tries to uncover some of
the secrets of what's going on. We're going to be
talking about two main topics today and villainy
within the game, how that feeds into, you know,
the overall overarching intergenerational trauma
as well as false narratives and how they feed into
that intergenerational trauma as well. So already
so severe. I'm going to talk about the first topic,
which is Villaine and how it feeds into narrative
trauma. And so I'm going to just come right out
and say this. I think Eddie is the villain, Amy.
She is the one who is perpetuating the idea of
this family curse, and she is also the one to
create and a very oppressive atmosphere by
drilling holes into everyone's bedroom door. Also,
I think another good point mentioned by Noelle
Warner in her blog post titled What Remains of to
Finch's Family Curse is Ambiguity, Dunn writes,
The fact that it creates shrines for all of her
dead relatives is, I think, really in poor taste.
And that's putting it lightly. So I think this is
either the behavior of a deeply troubled woman,
troubled but otherwise benign woman, or one who is
actively harming her own family in order to make
herself feel better. Yes, the Gulf allies point
when discussing almost article and brings up
examples demonstrating its not so great qualities.
For example, there's the fact that Eddie left Mali
with no suppo, which ultimately led to the death
actually. Yeah, she ate the Misato got poisoned.
Molly could have also prevented Calvin's death by
not having Calvin play on a swing near the cliff.
And Sam maybe could also prevent that by having
Netiv teach them to be more powerful and, you know,
not being stand next to it a deal, maybe dactyl on
a cliff. So there's plenty of little pieces of
evidence that sort of demonstrate these
carelessness. It's definitely interesting to see
all of the deaths as kind of coincidental. So what
I mean is like like you're saying like the swing
is right near the cliff. The that is taking a
picture with a deer right on a cliff. So it's very
much I think in terms of the curse, it's.
Yes and no with does it exist? It could all be
seen as accidental, but similarly, she also
creates those shrines sometimes before people die
through and sometimes without her knowing if
they're actually done or not. We know that one of
Edith siblings is unknown as to whether or not
he's dead and she still created the shrine. So
it's kind of like she's perpetuating that curse,
even though she doesn't know if it's actually like
his family. Yeah. How many accidents till it
becomes the incident. Right. But honestly, I think
I do kind of want to humor the idea that maybe
there is a potential curse, maybe it isn't
actually a bad person. And, you know, I mean, all
of these deaths that have been presented could be
accidental. I mean, there isn't anything directly
tied to any that we can actually see. I mean, even
the one death which was caused by neglect was
actually caused by dawn, which is her daughter,
like forgetting to watch the baby in the bathtub
versus Eddie, like coming in there and doing
something nefarious or something like that. So it
really could all be accidents. And I think it
really shows because if this curse is potentially
real, for instance, and all these kids have
knowledge of it from E.T., like what happens when
someone has this knowledge and they're expecting
it and then it never comes and they just have to
sit around and wait for it. So I'm referencing
right now a video documentary from YouTube by Paul
Anderson. Sorry, Joseph Anderson. Let me correct
myself. And one of the ideas that kind of goes
into this is that Lewis isn't actually going to
ever meet his curse because he is just sitting
around expecting it. He's actually the one person
who it isn't really an accident. I mean, Lewis
kills himself at his factory job. He gets stuck in
this monotonous loop and expect some sort of
fantastical thing to come to him. That never does.
And I think could be more of Eddie's fault than
any sort of, like, actuality of the curse or
anything true. Yeah, I think it's helpful that the
writing of this game is very restrained and closed
off for all of this ambiguity comes from. I love
the idea of that. And actually, one of the things
that I wanted to talk about was Edith getting
almost no information from Eddie at all. This kind
of feeds into the false narratives topic just
because, you know, Edith perceives the situation
as the player perceives the situation. She has
almost no information and receives almost nothing
from Eddie. And as someone who is perpetuating the
curse, as you know, don't sing, Eddie doesn't
really plan for telling someone who survives. What
happens? Edith is kind of forced to figure that
out herself. I was reading an article from Alissa
Strauss's Maternal Gatekeeping, which is found on
CNN, which is basically talking about how moms
don't let dads help in the households. And it's
become such a common phenomenon that there's
actually a name for it now donated by
psychologists. But what's interesting to me is the
fact that this is just perceived gatekeeping.
Other people can be interested in helping out in
the household and they just don't. And so it kind
of perpetuates this idea that the information is
being, you know, kept. So I guess that kind of
brings up the question like, is Edith Gate keeping
information or is that just what we've been led to
believe? Does she actually know nothing or does
she know more than she's leading on? And she's
actually keeping that from Edith in that case, I
absolutely see her as a villain. If that were the.
I think that's actually really interesting,
because one thing that we haven't talked about is
Eddie's room, where she has all of these news
clippings of every time this family has ever had
any sort of attention or media spotlight of any
kind. Every time there's a death, every time there
is a success with Barbara or anything like that,
there's a poster, there's a news article, there's
something for it. She has essentially a harder
space of all the attention she's received over the
years. And it's starting to it was very
interesting because I was like, OK, maybe the
curse on Eddie isn't that her family is dying, but
that she is so desperate for attention and wanting
that that when these terrible accidents happen,
she is convincing herself with delusion and the
public in order to have an attention and be like,
oh, my God, we're cursed. It's not it's not us.
We're not a terrible parents. We're not a terrible
grandmother. We're not neglectful. We're just
cursed. Right. I would say it's interesting to
look at the is real. Because I when you look at it,
I think it's really I think it's really
interesting to look at her from the perspective of
perspective of she actually knows nothing. And
she's just this is her way of coping with all of
these deaths. Like, on the one hand, you could see
it as she there is a curse and she knows more than
she's letting on. But I think the more probable
answer is she's having trouble coping. Absolutely.
She is all of her all of her family members are
dying and weird, mysterious ways to her that are
weird and mysterious. But, you know, as the
audience, we understand that it largely they're
coincidental, they're incidental. And so she has
curated this story to deal with the fact that, you
know, her family is dying off. And so it has like
it has a snowball effect. It has it leads Lewis to
live his life in such a way where he's expecting
it. But I think Lewis is the perfect example of
showing that the curse doesn't exist. It doesn't
if you if you live your life expecting one thing,
it's not it's you know, it's not a 100 percent
guarantee that it's going to happen. And so I
think it's definitely a point of. It's definitely
a a point of contention, I guess, of the family
that, you know, Eddie has created this narrative.
I mean, look at the end when Eda's mother is
arguing with Eddie
and saying, you're not like you're not telling me
everything. They're arguing they don't have enough.
Like, what are you doing to my daughter? Like,
what are you doing with my daughter? Yeah. So I
think that is definitely one of the biggest points.
And in the game of just I've just seen how this
all of these stories, all of these what are they
called flashbacks and all these flashbacks are
culminating into Eddie being confronted and going,
oh, wait, whoa. Do you think maybe like E could
potentially be alive in some ways helping like say,
you know, do you think like being anything like
what I saw in 2000? Because, you know, you might
end up someone like Iida might be coming forward
knowing all the stuff. But don't you think, of
course, that they learn lessons from going all
these stories and it's we thank you. Feel kind of
through. Yeah. I feel like Eddie might feel like
they're helping Edith cope, but in reality, it's
their own coping again, still like in their action
of I'm going to pass down this knowledge, they
feel like they're protecting something that
doesn't need to be protected. There's nothing
there. It's all delusion. So it really is just
Eddie doing what she thinks is best for herself,
if anything. And I think it could be highly
regarded as like a highly selfish action. But yeah.
So
we have talked about not only false narratives and
how they feed into intergenerational trauma. So
looking at how it has again created this story,
whether or not it's real, I think that's really is
up to interpretation of the audience member and
the player. But it really shows how one inkling of
an idea can really snowball and affect the lives
of other people and how they live their lives, as
well as how, you know, we see if one person
creating the story turns into the villain when
they themselves do not see them, like they don't
see themselves as the villain, but they clearly
are the main antagonist of the story. You know,
Eddie is trying to cope. She's trying to kind of
take the blame or take the view away from all of
these coincidental and coincidental deaths when in
reality she is the you know, she's the main
antagonist. She is causing all of the all the
problems because of that initial story,
perpetuating fear. Exactly. So that is that is, I
think, definitely the main the main point that we
were trying to get across in this podcast. Next
time we will be talking about gender disparity and
death and going more into gender, the gender and
identity of what remains of you to think. So again,
my name is Nathan. I'm Dillon and Eve. Kate, this
has been a life. I'm Johnny and thank you for
listening.