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| NOTE: This article is about the original Renoir from the real world. For his painted replica, see here. |
| “ | Life keeps forcing cruel choices. We do what we must. | „ |
| ~ Renoir trying to make Maelle see the truth of life. |
| “ | I'll keep the light on for you. I hope you find peace. Hold onto each other. | „ |
| ~ Renoir coming to terms with Maelle's decision. |
The Curator is the main antagonist of the 2025 French RPG, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. He is a mysterious figure that Maelle encounters upon waking in a strange manor and initially serves as an ally for Expedition 33, providing them various resources and weaponry throughout their journey.
It is then revealed that he is in fact Renoir Dessendre, the husband of Aline Dessendre and father of Clea, Verso, and Alicia. He has entered in the Canvas in hopes of bringing back both his wife and daughter, so that they can properly grieve for Verso's death and prevent them from killing themselves. To do so, he has been creating the Gommage, in order to destroy the Canvas for good.
He is voiced by Féodor Atkine in French and Andy Serkis in English, who also voices his painted replica, as well as Gollum, Mauhúr, Snaga and the Witch-king of Angmar in Peter Jackson's Middle-earth films, Mr. Grin in Stormbreaker, Spike in Flushed Away, King Bohan in Heavenly Sword, and Snoke in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
Appearance[]
Like his painted doppelganger, Renoir Dessendre is shown to be an elderly, fair-skinned slender man with greying white hair and hazel eyes. Unlike his painted counterpart, he is dressed in a modest waistcoat and brown slacks.
Personality[]
The Curator is initially an enigmatic being, whose intentions were unclear, but he has shown to be supportive of Expedition 33 and their mission, assisting them in any way he can. Specifically, he has shown to be rather attached to Maelle, as he goes out of his way to reinforce her pictos and teach her certain fighting techniques.
Once it's revealed that the Curator is the real Renoir Dessendre, his motives become entirely clear. He is a grieving husband and father that is saddened by the death of his first and only son, Verso. But like his firstborn daughter Clea, he has since come to terms with it. Because of this, he is not pleased to see his wife, Aline, be fixated with the Canvas that their son created and is determined to bring back her out of it, as it continually kills her slowly the longer she stays in it. He does make it clear to his daughter Alicia, however, that destroying the Canvas is something he is not fond of doing, as it contains the last piece of Verso's soul that had not moved on to the Afterlife. Nonetheless, he is convinced that it must be done, in order to bring his family back together again.
Renoir loves all of his children, as each of them had something unique about them. Clea was seen as his favourite, due to her accomplishments and talents, while Verso always knew how to make him laugh. Verso's painted replica however believed that Alicia was his actual favorite child, as Renoir described her to be his hidden star that he wanted to see fly.
History[]
No information was revealed about Renoir Dessendre's past. But from the bits and pieces of information that can be observed by the player, its presume that Renoir was born in Paris, France, in the mid nineteenth century and at some point, in his adult life, he met and fell in love with a woman name Aline, a member of the Painters faction, and eventually marrying her. Through her, he soon became the father of three children: Clea, his firstborn daughter, Verso, his first son, and Alicia, his youngest daughter. Like his children and taught by his wife to him, Renoir has the supernatural ability to create and give life to Canvas's. These magical paintings that, those with abilities like the Dessendre family and their colleagues in the Painters, allows people to enter and experience the thrall of these dimensions, even going as far as being able to create sentient life, like what Renoir's son did when the boy created the humanoid race that are the Gestrals.
As the years went by, Renoir and his wife enjoy the life they had with each other and especially with their children as they grew up in their manor in the affluent suburbs of Paris, treating them lovingly as any other loving parents would. His firstborn and oldest daughter followed in his footsteps and became a Paintress, becoming as skilled as her parents.
Verso, Renoir's second child and only son, however, became the first to divert from the family tradition, taking an interest in becoming a musician rather than a painter, creating only one Canvas in his childhood before abandoning art for a life of music. Although is unknown what Renoir thought about Verso's decision, it is likely that he and his wife were initially upset about their first son's goal in life.
But everything changed for Renoir when his youngest daughter and favorite child, Alicia, pursued an interest in becoming a writer than painter, with only one and almost non-noticeable painting in the family's gallery. And it is here that Renoir began to see the first signs of his family descend into grief and despair as Alicia's interest in writing soon caught the attention of the Writers faction. Like their counterparts in the Painters faction, the Writers are special group of humans who had the supernatural ability to create and give life to works of art - but with novels and/or manuscripts. Little information is revealed to what relationship Renoir and his family, members of the Painters faction, had with the Writers, but it likely was a hostile relationship.
Knowing that Alicia's powerful mother is the head of the Painter faction's Council and that Renoir's daughter had an interest in writing, the Writers faction, through unknown means, manage to manipulate Alicia and, although unknown as to what circumstances played out in this scenario, paved the way for a fire to manifest at the Dessendre family manor, intended by the Writers to strike a fatal blow at the heart of the Painters faction.
Renoir, his wife, and oldest daughter managed to escape their burning manor in time, but Alicia was not as fast and Verso gave his life to protect his youngest sister, costing him his life and heavily disfiguring Alicia, robbing Renoir's favorite child of her right eye and voice, and heavy scarring on the right side of her face from the burns she received.
Horrified at the death of his son and scarring of his beloved daughter, Renoir, like his family, experienced heavy grief of the loss of Verso. Over time, Renoir overcame the five stages of grief, like his oldest daughter Clea and moved on from the loss of his first son. His wife, Aline, however, refused to accept the first stage of grief over Verso's death. Finding the only Canvas Verso created in his childhood before abandoning art, Aline unceremoniously entered the magical painting and abandoned her real family, creating painted copies of Renoir, Clea, Verso, and Alicia and a version of humanity that resided within the city of Lumiere, choosing to live a life of lies, fairytales and fallacies within Verso's Canvas, not wanting to go through the five stages of grief regarding Verso's death.
Renoir, shocked and infuriated that his wife would do something so outrageous, enter Verso's Canvas and demanded Aline leave the magical dimension and return back to the real world. Aline refused and, using her painting abilities that were superior to Renoir's, imprisoned her husband underneath the Monolith, intending to live within the Canvas, either knowing or refusing to accept that staying in the magical dimension of Verso's Canvas will take a toll on her physical body in the real world and eventually kill her.
Imprisoned underneath the Monolith, Renoir, enraged, managed to escape his prison by using his painting abilities to slip through the cracks of the prison by assuming an ethereal form that will be known to Expedition 33 as the Curator. Knowing that Aline will not leave the Canvas so long as she held over the vast chroma embedded within the humans, Renoir ultimately believed destroying the Canvas, no matter how horrifying it is, will inevitably be for the best as it will, causing Aline to forcibly leave the Canvas and finally face her grief and move on.
Using the powers afforded to him, Renoir initiated an event that became known to the world as the Gommage, a powerful supernatural force that, by Renoir's intentions, will wipe out all humans within the Canvas. But Aline, sensing Renoir's powers at work, used her own paintress abilities to severely reduce the effects of the Gommage, only causing the oldest of humanity within Lumiere to die. Aline used her giantess form to warn the inhabitants of the coming event with glowing golden numbers on the Monolith, causing any human that age to die. As the years trickled by and Aline's power of protection slowly waning, that number will keep decreasing over the years, eventually paving the inevitable road towards extinction for the Canvas's version of humanity.
Renoir and his fierce efforts to save his wife would kickstart a war between husband and wife that would last for decades within the Canvas, causing the Fracture that splintered Lumière from the continent and causing the humans to mistakenly believe that Aline a.k.a The Paintress was responsible for the Gommage, obvious to the man responsible for the flowers of death, and believing that slaying the Paintress would stop it, causing the annual Expeditions to occur where dozens of trained men and women embark on a perilous journey to the mainland to find and, hopefully, kill Aline. (The time discrepancy between what is happening in the Canvas and the real world is never explained, though it's likely that its days in the real world and decades in the Canvas, given that Renoir and Aline haven't aged in the real world).
Sixteen years prior to the start in the Canvas's time period, as Renoir and Aline's war has entered its 49th year, Alicia, Renoir's favorite daughter, entered the Canvas by Clea's command to help her father in his effort to pull her mother out of the Canvas as she was too busy with her war with the Writers to help out. Given her very weak painting abilities compared to her parents and siblings, Alicia was overwhelmed by her mother's Chroma, causing her to be "reborn" as Maelle in the city of Lumiere.
Renoir was oblivious to Alicia's rebirth in the Canvas, and Clea decided not to inform her father as she feared Renoir will react poorly as he already strained with his fight against Aline and likely make the situation worse regarding Alicia's circumstances.
Years later, as Expedition 33 sets forth for the mainland with Maelle/Alicia joining as its youngest member, they are ambushed by Renoir's painted doppleganger who attacks them without mercy, massacring nearly all the Expeditionaries with little effort, leaving only Maelle, Gustave, Lune, and Sciel as the only survivors. The painted version of Renoir's son, Verso, was informed by Clea about Alicia's rebirth in the Canvas, keeping tabs on her "reincarnation" Maelle as she grew up, and when she made landfall and was knocked unconscious during his father's massacre of Expedition 33, Verso swiftly sprang into action, bringing the unconscious Maelle out of the area and into the Canvas's version of the Dessendre family manor through a secret entrance in the Flying Waters.
Through unknown means that are not seen, Renoir eventually found about his favorite star's circumstances when he discovered her in the painted version of the Dessendre family manor after Verso brought her unconscious body there through the Flying Waters. Astonished to find Alicia in the Canvas, he was quick to see that Alicia had her true memories suppressed after being overwhelmed by Aline's Chroma and believing herself to be Maelle, a girl born in Lumiere. Even though he could speak, Renoir decided to not reveal himself as he secretly wanted Alicia, who had painting abilities like him but not severely suppressed as his was, to be the key to defeating Aline and expelling his wife from the Canvas, allowing him to initiate the true Gommage so he can wipe out Lumiere's human population and inevitably destroy the Canvas.
From then on forward, he was the silent companion of Expedition 33, using his severely nerfed painted abilities to upgrade the weapons and pictos of his daughter and her friends. And helping the Expedition construct a sword made of two of the most powerful Axons he created long ago to forge a weapon to destroy the barrier keeping the Monolith from anyone except Aline and her painted family.
When Alicia/Maelle and her friends were facing a grueling battle against Renoir's painted doppleganger, the weakened painted Renoir used his remaining power to destroy Expedition 33, so they can prevent them from killing Aline and expelling her from the Canvas. Renoir, observing the fight from the shadows, saw the opportunity to reveal himself at the right moment to his painted doppleganger, causing the painted Renoir to stop his power and acknowledge his real counterpart. As he didn't want to reveal himself to Verso and Maelle/Alicia, he walked over to Maelle and grabbed her hand and placed her palm on the chest of the weakened painted Renoir, subsequently activating her latent paintress abilities to destroy the immortal painted Renoir for good.
Renoir stood in the background and observed Expedition 33 as they fight a difficult battle against his wife. After a long and difficult battle against the Paintress, Maelle/Alicia and her friends emerged victorious and "killing" her, vanishing from the Canvas and being released into the real world.
Expedition 33 returns to Lumiere to celebrate while Renoir, his powers that were suppressed by Aline's hand now removed, initiated the true power of the Gommage he'd been wanting to unleash from the very beginning and wiping out Lumiere's entire human population except for the immortal painted Verso and temporarily banishing Alicia, who now regained her memories, back to the real world before the would-be writer return to the Canvas.
Gallery[]
Concept Art[]
Screenshots[]
Quotes[]
| “ | I do understand. I know how powerful and intoxicating it is, how deeply attached we can become to the worlds we pour our hearts and souls into. I was enthralled and it nearly killed me. | „ |
| ~ Renoir sharing his experience with the Canvases. |
| “ | Child, it will get better. I promise you. But this is not the way. Your friends speak truth, and it changes nothing. You can hate me, but that's a choice I must make. As your father, I must look out for you. Especially when you can't look out for yourself. | „ |
| ~ Renoir looking out for Alicia. |
| “ | I treat you as if the shadow from the worst day of our lives is going to suffocate you and take you from us too. Enough. I said enough. | „ |
| ~ How Renoir treats Alicia. |
External Links[]
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 Villains
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Painters Nevrons Axons | ||