I don't think the curse is real at all. The deaths all seemed fairly mundane without the obfuscating tall tale aspect of them. Many of them were children that died due to neglect(drowning in a bathtub, playing with a kite in a thunderstorm, playing on a swingset that launched him off the cliff, eating decorations), and the rest were accidents(during the deer hunting, building a dragon in the garden, getting run over by a train, dying in childbirth) plus one good old-fashioned murder, an illness(cancer, I think?) and a suicide. The only thing that seems remotely supernatural is Edith's brother that vanished into his painting, which seems like more of a The Unfinished Swan-reference than anything else. Like yeah, it's contrived. But that's because it's written, not because the curse is real in-universe.
The idea I've gotten of games like Gone Home or Firewatch through internet osmosis is that they set up this exciting horror/thriller movie thing, but then it turns out it was lesbians and guilt all along(or to put it another way: If In the valley of Gods is not about those two ladies being in love more than it is about Egypt, I'll be astounded). No matter how contrived it is, that's where the story goes because it's a)cheaper to make and b)more personal. And that's what Edith Finch does too. More than any actual curse, what does harm to the family is their(especially the old grandma's) celebration of death, and the effect that has on the other family members' mental state. That's why Edith's mother runs away from the house, she doesn't want to lose any more kids to that environment. It's the whole idea of why she interrupts the story the grandma tells about when she found the house on the bottom of the ocean floor somehow, because it's just bullshit that revels in death and tragedy. Same for the tabloid comic about the child actress, or the article about the moleman living underneath the house. They're just spinning a yarn of lies on top of sad coincidences, to make it more meaningful.
I was pretty disappointed by that ending, personally. After the early deaths, there was a strong throughline of a monster hunting the family that I thought was scary and paranoia-inducing. But once you walk on the frankly really implausible traintracks right underneath the house and reach the graveyard, I felt pretty comfortable that the moral was that it was all unhealthy lies to deal with tragic events. Which is a perfectly fine moral, I guess, but who's that supposed to be aimed at? Is it a normal problem that a family is exposed to terrible tragedy every step of the way and then build a wacky death house? I'd much rather there was an actual curse and monster involved, because I kinda stopped caring once I saw where it went, despite the later death scenes being good too. The tension was gone.
Still, it's all good, isn't it? Edith Finch gave me so many playable sections featuring stuff I'd never played before, like a baby drowning in his bathtub, or a man living his entire life in a bunker. That's worth a lot.
Happy birthday, by the way!
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