'What Remains of Edith Finch', and the Beautiful Inevitability of Death - Narrative Design A
If What Remains of Edith Finch is, as Jason Sheehan describes it, “a nested collection of short stories, curled around each other like snakes in a jar,” then it’s likely that certain sections of the game would resonate more personally than others, potentially creating a disjointed story that could alienate players. How does the game manage to tell so many different stories, through varying points of view and control schemes, within a single framework - unifying theme alongside an overarching narrative?
The core theme of Edith Finch is death, but more specifically the inevitable nature of death, especially in the Finch family - every member of the family dies in an interesting way at a relatively young age, surrounded by myths of a “curse” upon the family throughout, ascribing a deterministic view to the events within the Finch household. We expect that every room we enter contains the memories of a deceased person, and yet the stories retold are no less affecting.
For me, the section regarding twins Calvin and Sam feels like a breakthrough video game moment, and works as a summary of how the game uses different techniques to make the player empathise with characters in a short amount of time. The player enters the bedroom of the twins to find half of the room sectioned off. There are height charts for both of the boys, but one stops being recorded much earlier than the other. Edith says “I knew Grandpa Sam had a twin... and that he never talked about him.” We know so much about the children just from seeing the two halves of the room, but most importantly we know that Calvin died long before Sam.
This is an inherently sad prospect, made even more upsetting by the sheer effort and detail in the personalisation of the room for a child who wouldn’t make it to his teens. Then, we find a poem written by Sam, entitled “How I want to remember my brother,” and we’re transported to a memory from Calvin’s POV, seeing his legs as he sits on a swing in front of the cliffside. It’s heartbreaking to hear Sam read this poem, remembering the daftly courageous nature of his brother, as the player gets control over the swinging, going higher and higher. It becomes obvious how this scene is going to play out, but the player has to keep swinging to reach this death. We know what’s coming, and yet we can do absolutely nothing about it except to accelerate its occurrence. This interaction, combined with the rising music, rushing weather, and conclusion of the poem creates a cacophony of emotion. As Calvin flies over the cliff-side, there’s an implied pain from Sam, but also a sense of freedom and, importantly, inevitability.
It’s absolutely crucial that Edith doesn’t react to this memory directly. Instead, she mentions how she used to try swinging all-the-way-round as a kid herself - a reflective comment that gives the player room to think and feel before the overarching story moves forward. The game gives pieces of the puzzle but leaves the player the duty to piece them together in whichever way they see fit. This, in turn, aids the overarching story of a family trying to escape the self-diagnosed curse, and helps to link together the stories of decease.
These pieces of the puzzle are delivered in several different ways:
Narration
Edith’s narration has multiple purposes. Primarily it’s used to help progress this overarching story, leading the player from one family member to the next without it being jarring. There are a lot of characters and events in the relatively short story, and Edith helps to give extra detail and create links between these to aid the necessary understanding. This is also visualised quite literally as the dialogue appears on screen and is used as a signpost, leading the player through the critical path, sometimes using animation.
The narration also gives us an insight into Edith’s character: her motivations for being here, how she relates to members of the family et cetera. This grounds the story and helps create the strong theme of family, from which the individual interactions gain meaning.
Playable Memories
These individual interactions are told through playable flashbacks; these vary in their tendency towards abstractness, and all play completely differently. Gregory’s has you play as a frog, swimming through the sea, whilst through Lewis we control his hand (beheading fish) with one joystick, and a character in an isometric RPG-lookalike with the other. The way the player controls each memory says as much about each character as the content of the short story, and shows that the only common theme throughout this family is their inevitable death.
There are stories that link to other members of the family, giving a real depth to the collection of people and making their experiences - even the most abstract - feel genuine. This helps the player form an empathy to each character, as the context surrounding each tragedy is well understood with minimal exposition.
Environmental Storytelling
The bedroom of each deceased family member acts as a mini-museum of their lives, giving context before a flashback and becoming a vein of meaning afterwards. These rooms are designed to introduce each character but also act as a resting place, a shrine, in which nothing has changed since their deaths. We see how their lives used to be, which takes on so much meaning after we know how and why they died. This aids the deeper level of storytelling, allowing players to learn as much as they desire about each character without impeding the core story.
The environment is also used to tell more about the family on the whole. One of the first things I noticed upon entering the house was the use of calendars, a tiny detail that, to me, said a lot about the attitude of the people living there. The calendar in the hall was turned to November 2010, presumably the last date anyone was in the house, whereas the one in the garage was on January 2010. Both these calendars had been erected at the same time, and yet only one had been updated. The reason for this is unknown, but to me this says that Edie, the grandmother and last member living in the house, had the intentions of living an organised, normal life - but that’s not what happened. Trying to escape the trappings of self assessed family habits isn’t always possible, and it’s this theme of inevitability that drives the narrative. As Edith questions: “What kind of family finishes building a cemetery before starting the house?
All of these elements combine to create a game that is constantly surprising but ultimately, and tragically, predictable, representing the lives and deaths of the extraordinary Finch family in a truly moving way. Throughout the game there is never any talk of sadness or tragedy from the characters; this is a brilliantly crafted collection of stories that leave the player to connect the dots, and the emotional response is entirely on them. It is indeed a linear story, and the presence of death cannot be escaped, but everyone’s experience with Edith Finch will be different depending on the conclusions they draw.