Fairy Tale Spotlight: What Remains of Edith Finch

I found out about "What Remains of Edith Finch" in 2019 after checking to see if Giant Sparrow made any more games after "The Unfinished Swan." Turns out I already owned it. It was a freebie given to me for being a member of the PlayStation Plus service. I went ahead and replayed the first game as a refresher. Loved it all over again. And then... it was time to play their new 2017 game.

I did not really know anything about "What Remains of Edith Finch." I went into it with a fresh view, only thinking about what they were able to accomplish before, but not knowing anything about what was to come. What I ended up finding was a sincere progression of the theme but delivered in an entirely new way.

"What Remains of Edith Finch" follows a young adult woman as she explores her childhood house. A strange place right out of the pages of a Lemony Snicket story. Apparently the Finch family was full of creatives. They all painted, sculpted, wrote, acted, built... dreamed... imagined... loved. Every one of them was an artist and seemed to yearn to exist within their creations... maybe more than was healthy.

There was another issue with this huge family: They had a very real tendency to die. In fact... by the time the game started, Edith was the only one of them left. The family believed that they had a curse on them. It got so bad that all the children were sealed into their rooms for their lives to prevent accidents. But what do you do to stop an imagination so large and powerful that it threatens to run away with you?

A lot of the deaths seemed like just accidents. That's how they were reported. But the truth of the matter was that the Finches were all desperate to escape from reality. The one boy did not jump off a cliff; he flew... be cause he dreamed of flying.

Every single dead member of the Finch family left something behind. Not only their memory but the whole of who they were through their artwork. And through their imaginings, we get to experience who they were within their creative minds, and not just a tale of someone who slipped and fell or committed suicide in the name of leaving to a better place. This was a family of dreamers, and the game allows you to see them for who they believed they were... and maybe they really were those things.

Now the most interesting part of the game came by way of Milton Finch. They were hinting at him throughout the game. He was the most curious because nobody ever found his body when he died. Well as it turns out, Milton created a magic paintbrush that took him to a world of his own creation. From there, he became a king that designed the world to his own liking. Yes, Milton was the king from "The Unfinished Swan." And if you know the story, he did not really die.

The fact that Milton lived makes me question the supposed deaths of the other family members. Did they really find the worlds they were looking for? Was their "death" their strange way of moving on to their own personal frequencies? The game presents a very fun fairy tale question. I can't help but wonder if this wonderful family was able to find the happiness they deserved.

Sadly, the game ends on the same unfinished note as their previous. But at the same time, this game ultimately completes "The Unfinished Swan." So I can't help but wonder what story their third game will tell. I want to dive deeper into the mind of the artist. I want to see the worlds they create. I want to sink deep into their imaginations and see their mastery at work. Most of all, I want them to live forever within their creations. I feel similarly about my own creations. This world is so boring and silly. What we need is a bit of crazy. A bit of whimsy. What we need is a fairy tale.

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