What Remains of Edith Finch is a Game.

My cat is gray.

But she was born black, the only dark coat in a mound of grays. Like a hole.

She was the runt. Though she was born competent, like the rest, early losses during feeding times set her back. A few missed meals early on meant she never developed the strength to fight for a nipple. The disparity between her and her siblings logically widened. The strong got stronger. The weak got weaker. Within 3 weeks her siblings were walking and playing. But she was only just opening her eyes.

I don’t know how kittens think. But I wonder if, in a survival of the fittest way, an odd-looking baby doesn’t fit and therefore shouldn’t survive. The gray kittens who fought her and the mother who refused to help were simply doing what nature instructed. Maybe.

But how mysterious survival can be. The black cat, now my cat, I named her Burrito, was the only kitten in the litter to survive a full month. Her mother was hit by a car. The strong kittens found their way to her roadside body, and having no knowledge of death they suckled the corpse like they had suckled the living. Before they could register the empty teats a second car killed the rest of them.

The next day I noticed a few gray hairs on Burrito. Within a week her entire coat matched her dead siblings.

My cat is gray.

___

An objective fact that you didn’t care about has become a fact you do care about. That’s how good narrative works. That’s how What Remains of Edith Finch works.

Early in the game you learn that Molly, the protagonist’s grandaunt, died at the age of ten.

So what?

She was eaten by a tentacle monster.

Now you care.

Maybe it takes a few lies to care about a fact. But if I tell myself those lies enough times, and I tell you those lies, and you spread them, then eventually the lies become lore. But the fact remains. Molly died. My cat is grey.

But this power isn’t always used so innocuously. This power has been used to build religions, to oppress peoples, and to dodge prosecution. Storytelling is a power weapon.

What Remains of Edith Finch is a game.

So what?

It’s a game about a family cursed to endure premature and strange deaths.

Now you care.