There’s an element to consider: even though the game suggested Scratch was Alan with Dark presence inside him, I think it’s the other way around. Dark presence is the embodiment of each person’s most powerful nemesis, which is Self. (Confirmed by Saga’s ending chapter) That’s why he’s called “scratch”, a nemesis, an enemy to every author. If you have self doubt as an author, you’ll keep scratching old storylines and make new ones, and repeat and repeat. And every time you do: either the story gets better and leaner (ascend), or you keep having more doubts and convince yourself that you are not good enough, and scratch it all out (descend deeper into one’s dark place of self doubt) And that’s the Spiral.
no. Scratch is just the dark presence in Alan Wake's body. Casey wasn't a writer but was possessed by it as well. Scratch = Dark Presence. It's an entity from a parallel universe.
@xMorogothx in the most bare and evident manner yes. But how did scratch manifest? As a fragment of Wakes ego that could not move on with himself, the part he hates. The dark place in essence exists in all of us, and scratch is one manifestation, while we saw Saga falling down the spiral as well, dealing with her own manifestation of doubt. And tbh I don't think Casey is real. I think he was written into the plot through reality bending by Scratch to mock and then defeat Alan
What I think and hope is that the spiral itself is in essence hope, and the inverse is destruction. While the loop implies the events will be perpetually relived forever, the spiral implies that it's not 2 dimensional, doomed to spin forever in circles. The spiral implies that there is directionally and incremental change, which can be ascended or descended. What we witnessed throughout alan wake 1 I'd say was descent, and in 2, ascension.
Alan Wake 2 is certainly one of the games of this decade. And certainly wasn't written by Zane, who was written by Alex, who was written by Zane, who was written by Lake, but it's not lake - it's an Ocean. Frank Ocean, brother-in-law of Sam Lake, who is the brother of Sam Ocean, who has written Tomas Zane.
I think the musical number is a representation of how the spiral works, looping within the same song over and over but progressing each time, culminating with the last verses being sang by Ahti. So even though Alan can do his part, he will still need the Janitors 'key' to succeed. Also the chorus 'Champion of light, herald of darkness' to me means that both roles are the same person.
I thought it was influence from the person who was writing the musicals in brightfalls. I might be confused, but i remember finding a bunch of things about someone writing a musical.
One of the things I always found interesting about Alan was how flawed of a person he is. He's moody, rude to his fans, violent with reporters and an ass to his wife. The revelation of Scratch being Alan indicated to me that the Dark Presence preyed on Alan because of Alan's dark side. Scratch is literally a metaphor come to life, Alan's inner darkness. As I was playing AW2, I noted that Saga is less interesting because she doesn't have as many flaws as Alan. She seems like a pretty well-adjusted person. And that's probably why the Dark Presence wasn't able to take her over like it did with Alan. The Dark Place we see in AW2 is very personal to Alan. It isn't some generic nightmare world. It's New York City, Alan's home. He probably walked those streets and rode through those subway stations every day. Maybe the Thomas Zane we see in the game is just another one of Alan's creations. Based on the interview he has when he first meets Doors, Alan seems to have some disdain for the filmmakers who adapted his books. Maybe this Zane is Alan interpretation of filmmakers. Maybe the ascending Alan needs to do is more personal. Give up his anger and his bitterness. Become a better person. Get rid of the darkness inside himself so the Dark Presence won't have anything to anchor itself to. Maybe Alan won't make it back to the real world, but maybe his triumph at the end will be reaching some kind of nirvana state.
@@Besse109 I think she is excel at self-control (probably since she’s an FBI agent?) so she didn’t appear to be emotional at first, but eventually the dark place had an impact on her rational thinking.
Every time i play the first game, I can’t help but imagine, like, one layer of reality up, in which Alan goes to Dr. Hartman’s workshop and ends up writing, but doing it spitefully. “Oh yeah Alice I’m writing ok?! it’s a story about a writer who gets TRAPPED IN A SHITTY LAKE by his BITCH WIFE” and Alice takes a couple tylenol and commits a deep nose exhale. and later when she asks him not to call her a bitch so much he says “i can’t help it! i had to go to the Dark Place to write my grim horrors! It was Mr. Scratch, my edgy twisted alter ego!!!” I’ve always found the world of alan wake to be fascinating but the actual character borderline insufferable. He reminds me of how Brian Griffin is characterized when Family Guy remembers he’s an aspiring author: a barely-competent hack who’s super defensive about that. The way he treats Rose is so revealing in the first game; he can’t stand that he’s her favorite author because he doesn’t want to be the favorite of people like her, and how dare he?! some people go their whole lives and never become anyone’s favorite anything! He should be HONORED! he should be HUMBLED. so it was awesome to have it made explicit that this was intentional characterization. my favorite line on the subject was the Alex Casey echo where he’s like “I wasn’t *in* a dark place; I *WAS* the dark place.” Because that’s been Alan from the jump: a vortex of negativity who brings nothing but problems to everyone in his orbit, a mean drunk and a fairly belligerent sober who yells and insults and blusters his way through nearly every interaction and blames external forces for all his problems. It felt like he actually learned something this time, and I like the idea of the spiral: he can’t just clicker himself to a better Alan; he has to try and fail and learn new habits and it’s not gonna be easy, but he’s finally actually trying 🥹
@@chexfan2000 Agreed with everything you posted. I love that Alan is one of the least standard video game protagonist ever. The beginning of the first game really doesn't make you like him. How he treated Rose and Alice did not presented him as a good person. And I find it interesting that Mr Scratch, the embodiment of Alan's darkness, created a world where everyone mindlessly praises him constantly. He is Alan as a petty, entitled megalomaniac.
@@Besse109 Like I said, Saga seems like a well-adjusted person. Her fears and doubts are pretty standard and she never allowed them to manifest in a destructive way like Alan did. Though I don't find her particularly interesting, I think she was intentionally written that way to contrast her with Alan whose flaws do manifest in some bad ways. I feel like Casey fit the archetype of the cop on the edge and Saga was the "straight man." The Roger Murtaugh to Casey's Martin Riggs (Lethal Weapon). In fact, I hope we get to play as Casey in a future DLC or game.
Seeing Sam Lake’s face, in photorealistic graphics, with James McCaffrey’s voice, in 2023, in a game that isn’t Max Payne, is so bizarrely awesome. Remedy are awesome.
I’m actually writing right now. The game started negatively affecting me, making me see things, drinking too much. Makes for kickass inspiration though!
Great breakdown, Tho I think Tom and Alan are the same person just one has been written over the other. My evidence for this is how the Andersons(and Ahti) call him Tom abd never sway from that. They are implied to resist or are immune to the changes to reality since they all remember Saga’s daughter. Another point of evidence is Yoton Yo, Tom plays Alan and follows Alex Casey as he tries to solve the mystery of his cult. It kind of follows the events of the game and might the Magnum Opus he was trying to complete. Not to mention Alans las confrontation with Tom which ends with Alan shooting the director in the head and him waking up after being shot, directly mirroring Alan at the end of the game. I think there is much more to Tom/Alan connection.
Regarding Casey, Alex Casey the book character was more or less a Max Payne expy back in Alan Wake 1. While Remedy made the Payne games, they no longer had the rights to the IP, so having a character who's from a hard-boiled film noir detective series with the likeness of Sam Lake, voiced by James McCaffey, but with a different name and backstory was probably the best Remedy could hope to have. You see a similar thing happen in Alan Wake 2 with Tim Breaker and Warlin Door, who are stand-ins for the hero and antagonist from Quantum Break respectively. Remedy doesn't own the IP for that game, either, so they're close copies. As for where Casey came from in-universe, Wake has a conversation with Saga where it's all but stated that he had some degree of clairvoyance BEFORE entering into the Dark Place and he subconsciously tapped into that when writing Casey. It's likely part of the reason he's such a successful author in the first place as he's able to tap into ideas that feel real, because they actually are. Wake isn't, however, able to create people wholecloth, it seems. He has dialogue with Saga that suggests he can only nudge things with the power he has from the Dark Place
Even the way scratch is portrayed somehow mirrors the way evil agent cooper is in twin peaks revival, i think the twin peaks revival was too much confusing tho, even more so than AW.
I believe the Thomas Zane we meet in Alan Wake 2 is actually the Mr Scratch from American Nightmare. That original scratch was created by the bright presence Zane at the end of the first game and sent to the real world in place of Alan (so he wasnt originally Alan possessed by the dark presence). In American Nightmare that Scratch was infleunced by the dark urban legends about Alan and became dark. At the end of American Nightmare Alan defeats Scratch. My theory is that that defeat of Scratch just sent him back to the dark place with Alan. And he now pretends to be Thomas Zane to influence Alan's writing in order to get out of the dark place. My supporting evidence is the following. He is dressed with similar clothes to Scratch from American Nighmare. He wears a ring around his neck and in American Nightmare Scratch says he has a ring just like alan. When we meet this "Zane" in AW 2 the same psycho song plays that played in one of Scratch's videos in American Nightmare. And it makes sense why this "Zane" makes Alan drink both in Control AWE and in AW2, he wants to manipulate him easier, so he makes him get drunk. I think the flashback we got in AW2 of Alan drunk with "Zane" was Scratch manipulating a wasted Alan to write the horror story that was the original draft or Return.
Also Zane being a film maker is probably some rewrite of reality (like Saga losing her daughter). Since in the Anderson brothers' song he is a poet (and they are seers). Also in Control, Jesse remembers him as a poet whereas the rest of the world seemingly remembers him as a film maker. Cynthia also remembers him as a poet. And the fake Zane that I think is Mr Scratch says he is a film maker.
When was it stated that Zane/Bright Presence created Scratch and sent him to the real world? All he said was state “your friends will meet him when you’re gone”, which was a fact. Scratch appeared to Alice Wake and Clay Steward afterwards. I don’t know why people seem to theorize that Zane created Scratch or sent him. We already have an origin for Scratch in American Nightmare.
@@kennethcoxgit is canon For example, in the subway you can see excerpts from AW:AN written on info signs - something about satellite falling from the skies and so on)
@@kennethcoxgIt was kind of reconned that the ending of American Nightmare wasn't Alan escaping and getting his happy ending, but just one of his many failed attempts to write his escape during the years. But that the events happened.
Just a note, you skip over American Nightmare, which is important to the plot and more clearly delineates Mr Scratch vs Scratch. Mr Scratch was beaten in AN, the Scratch we see isnt referred to as Mr Scratch in the game, just Scratch. He functions differently, being a more violent hurricane of anger and rage, whereas Mr Scratch was all the rumors about Alan made into a person. He was separate from Alan, but Scratch is not
That's an interesting theory, but the second game always makes connections with that scene from the first game, where Mr. Scratch revealed. "Your friends will meet him, when you are gone". Initiation chapter "Gone" is the most obvious clue, it shows you the birth of Scratch, also repeating that same line. I think what actually happened here, it's just that the developers had one idea about what Scratch is, and made AN around it, but this time they has a deeper or maybe different idea, so that's why this is the same Scratch, but also not the same. It wouldn't be much of a surprise, considering how long the second game was in some sort of stasis.
With the Anderson "gift" and having inherited Door's powers, Saga is a veritable god. She's one little push away from being one hell of an antagonist for AW3. She's capable of wicked anger and stubbornness. A little manipulation from daddy and fully harnessing her stack of powers would be quite a sight. Alan isn't dead and Saga was manipulated by Alice for her own purposes (not maliciously, but still) and it may cost her her family. There's so much to dig into with this game, it's like a membership to the jelly of the month club!
This game reminded me so much of House of Leaves and I loved it. Kinda spoilers but Zane and Alan made me think of Zompano and Johnny. The story was amazing and I look forward to whatever content comes in the future.
It was the game - Control which reminded me of House of leaves because the FBC's house was way bigger inside than what it seems from outside. The architecture too was very much like how it was described in the book.
I don’t know if I’d describe Scratch as a Taken. I feel that Scratch just represents a third method of the Dark Presence influencing people. There’s merely “touching” someone like Barbara does to Alan and Rose in the first game, direct possession as happens with Scratch, and then turning someone into a Taken. The difference matters a lot in that the Taken aren’t well suited for complex tasks and the process is, as far as we know, irreversible once you’ve become a Taken.The first of these reasons is why Barbara Jagger didn’t simply turn Alan or Rose into Taken in Alan Wake 1 and instead merely touched them
This is because , from a Meta standpoint, the Darkness is the holes in the Plot. The Voids the Dark Presence fills . And the Darkness themselves are not very Creative, So, they must take the Light (Imagination/Creativity) from other people. But if They take all the Light, the humans become empty shells. So, The Dark Presence had to have Alan make the Character , Mr. Scratch, the Herald of Darkness, so Mr. Scratch can keep his Mind. (See American Nightmare). The Dark Presence/Mr. Scratch will then be fused into Alan in his Despair. It is the Character becoming the person. Real person and "fictional person" overlap.
He didn’t even get that much into Control? These games are connected, the spiral, pyramid, upside down pyramid, all these symbols are in the OceanView motel in Control.
In black ocean summoning there's a line that says "diving deep to the surface". To me, that meant both a need for Alan to go further into the darkest place to actually be able to enforce some meaningful changes to it, as the need for Alan to dive deeper into himself, to actually find himself, which would align pretty well with the videos theory.
Thank you so much for this video! My head was hurting after completing AW2 last night. Your analysis makes total sense to me and I'm now even more excited for the future DLC's and follow up remedy games. What a masterpiece this game is. Thanks Max!
this is an amazing theory, i held kind of the same theory since i played alan wake 2 but couldn't have expressed it as well as you do here. There are also even more evidence supporting this theory like: -The fact that the poems from this house of dreams keep appearing in AW2, pushing its canon status -The QR videos from the alan wake remaster where he talks about how he's been learning both the mechanics of the dark place and his own abilities as a writer -Rose's remarks about how the dark place, that tries to take hold over the insecurities, negativity and darkness of people, doesn't work on some residents of the nursing home because "they've led very rich lies" and thus are resilient to it, i believe alan is on a path to find a similar resilience to the darkness -in the quantum break's famous alan wake classroom there's a mention of the story leading to a birth of a savior -by the way that same board mentions a William Blake's poem that appears in the house of dreams blog, "some are born to endless nights" -the poem is in a page that is scratched with charcoal, with "the dark place" written on it and it is the poem that appears in "balance slays the demon" -that song ends with "alone at my own wake, the unraveling of reason's skein" which i believe is what the darkness exploding out of alan's head imagery represents is amazing the level of talent that a work needs to fit so many pieces so well without unraveling. I'm definitely suscribing and i would love a video on the UFO motif that is around these games, but i guess first it would need to wait for the night springs dlc
The connected universe they created is one of my favorites. The game is great on its own, but Remedy really rewarded the die-hard fans with the connections and references to everything they have made. I was reading Jung when I had started playing Alan Wake: American Nightmare and I was not expecting to see the very passages I was working through to be reflected in the game I was playing. Then I wondered if the true horror of the game was not that Wake's evil double threatened to walk the earth in his place, but that they were just aspects of the same being.
One last thing: Saga's benefactor, the one who gets her the clicker and the bullet, likely is Alice. It sounds a lot like her on the phone and Alice had to have created the Clicker and light bullet we see in this chunk of the game, since they came from photographs, Alice's media of choice. Alice has some degree of mastery over the Dark Place, especially since she knew that Alan's only way out without ending the world was "ascension" as she put it, so she likely would be able to influence things within the space.
Perhaps she has been capturing the ending gunshot in the different iterations of the ending she may have witnessed. Perhaps the first time Wake and Saga got there the bullet was just a bullet and their written ending was Alan sacrificing himself to save others. But this is just an ending of destruction once again. A gunshot. "We don't have time for something better. Let's go with this." Alice takes some her photographs as negatives. At least of the haunting she did, so she likes the method. A dark bullet in a negative photograph would give a white hue. A bullet of light. Capturing a moment of sacrifice from a self-indulgent author. The photograph is a work of art. It can be made real in the dark place. So the next time around the spiral, Saga gets sent some photos. Alan gets shot with a bullet of light. The Dark Presence in him is destroyed by it. And some clarity comes. He can recognize the spiral nature of his existence in the dark place. Maybe even remember some parts of this round. And Alice takes another photograph at the moment of sacrifice. Next go-around. Alice leaves the new photograph in the elevator going to their apartment. Now at the crucial moment, when writing the perfect ending with Saga. Alan knows. He knows what Saga is going to shoot him with while writing. He improves the ending to give it all the implications that a bullet of light shot into his forehead could have. The symbolic third eye. Ascension. And return/resurrection through enlightenment.
In the first game its mentioned somewhere that Alan has some form heightened reaction (almost like an allergy) to bright light when he was a child. This is never mentioned again, but I thought it was interesting in that it could have been a plot point going forward with the Darkness picking him as its champion, but no its never mentioned again.
I'm surprised more people aren't picking up on the parallels with The Matrix, especially considering Mr Doors even says it. Zane - The Architect Mr Doors - The Merovingian (he clearly moves between spirals and universes) Ahti - The Keymaker Saga - Trinity Alan - Neo Alice - The Oracle Scratch - Mr Smith This isn't about "getting out" at all. It's about resetting the spiral or cycle, just like The Matrix. Zane needs Alan to try to get out so that the system can reset and improve. Scratch is the key, him being able to move beyond the dimension (or cycle) is something Zane can't contain and he used Alan - and with Alice - to reset the spiral and contain Scratch. All of the people helping Alan are written-in by Zane. The biggest conundrum is who is Zane and why is Zane doing this? I'm not convinced The Dark Presence wants world domination at all. Because if it did, it wouldn't return back to the dark place as Casey it would just leave and contain Alan within the dark place because Casey was free to decide. Alan's Ascension is identical to the path of Neo... Who evolves faster, Alan or The Dark Place. If Alan wins (eventually) he'll become the perfect writer. Until then he is trapped moving through superego, because artists are motivated by ego and NOT creating fundamental work or philosophy (whereas they used to be).
I think that the art pre-existing the artist is a literal interpretation of the "great artists steal" quote by Picasso. I don't think alan and alice will meet the same fate as tom and barbara since in the first game, Alan realised what went wrong with how tom brought his wife back and so he changed how he tackled that problem. And much like the previous game, Alan figures out that he needs to complete the hero's journey in order to escape (departure, initiation, return). Since he has done that he's come to the realisation that it's a spiral not a loop and thus the small increments of change will soon lead to an escape . It's sort of like your archetypal writer theory however wake will probbaly get some outside help in the form of the FBC or mr door.
A major issue I see these days especially in big block buster movies is a perfect protagonist one who is moral and good all the time one who cannot make any bad decisions whatsoever, everyone tried to be good or as good as possible but every one.has the capacity for bad if enough pressure is applied or the right/wrong circumstances are met and that's why I like Alan wake, for me he and Jessie are opposites, at first we think Alan is a Normal good guy and as we go further we see his fears and insecurities, his desperation and who he will drag into this and sacrifice just to save his own self, with Jessie she starts out abit rude, uncaring and unsympathetic and only concerned for herself and her brother, using the FBC to get what she want, and by the end she open up to people, starts caring about what's really going on, and choosing of her own volition to take up the burden and responsibilities of a director upon her own shoulders. It's a well written narrative so far I hope it gets complexe but not convoluted.
Scratch wasn't pretending to be wake. It's directly stated in the game that being pulled through the Overlap weakened the Dark Presence inside Alan. What he thought was Scratch being close was the Dark Presence growing stronger. It only was influencing him before taking over,not pretending to be him.
Hell yes. You spoil us, after this mornings discussion with Gaming University, and now this vid. Appreciate your unique insights, and all your hard work. Edit: Balance Slays the Demon lyrics add onto your theory. "Ever the light casts a shadow, Ever the night springs from the light. In the end, it's never just the light you need When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace In the end, it's never just the dark you seek When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace Find the peace"
About the spiral theory, I noticed that in each Overlap that Saga dove into, the levels themselves are always a spiral like hallways led to the boss of each stage, the residents who became takens; If Spiral is a metaphor to transcend architype to be the best version of self, that means each of those takens that saga defeated failed to embrace their shadows and thus succumbed to the dark place
Considering Sam Lake majored in english literature, there's a pretty good chance he read "The Anxiety of Influence" by Harold Bloom. Wake taking Zane's place as the "archetypal writer" will be like Shakespeare escaping the influence of precursor Christopher Marlowe in order to survive into posterity, as explained by Bloom in that book.
Was listening to Dark Ocean Summoning and the line " Awake new and whole " seems to strongly support the archetypal writer theory as Alan incorporates his shadow part and "A WAKE new and WHOLE"
In Yötön Yö we can see Alex Casey was sacrificed so Thomas Zane can get out. So Yötön Yö was Zane's attempt to escape the Dark Place, much like Alan was trying to come up with a story to get himself out, Zane shot a film where he sacrificed Alex Casey (which I guess Alan Wake made it possible, considering he is the one that created Alex Casey, the fictional character) to escape. So Alan Wake can follow a similar road by maybe using some of Zane's stuff or even Alice's photographs. But my question is was Zane even successful at escaping the Dark Place? I thought he never got out?
This has got me wondering. Maybe the ‘Zane’ we meet in this game is to Tom the Diver what Mr. Scratch is to Alan: a dark doppelgänger that was created when Tom sacrificed himself to stop the Dark Presence in the 70’s. Although that would beg the question, what was this ‘Zane’ up to during the events of the first game?
@@GalakStariWell at that point of the story, if This House of Dreams is still canon, Zane was living with the essence of Barbara in their own little bubble reality, inside the Dark Place, with Tom the Diver being just his body taken over by the Bright Presence. I'm not sure what Zane this is, but after seeing the Yötön Yö movie, I felt that how this Zane is currently is because he changed himself with his movie in his attempts at escaping. And another thought was that this is Zanes body, but without Zanes essence or the Bright Presence in it anymore.
@@CorporalCookie Wow, I especially like that second theory of yours, about how maybe it’s Zane’s body without Zane or the Bright Presence inhabiting it. Granted, he’d have to have some kind of essence or soul himself of course, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to really do anything, but still. Kind of reminds me of the Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts: beings created when a person with a strong will loses their heart to darkness, with only the body and soul left to carry on and give the Nobody life. In any case, I doubt the Bright Presence itself is inhabiting him, at the very least. Sure, it was enigmatic in the first game, like how this Zane is, but it definitely seemed much more benevolent when it came to helping Alan.
I think it is simply down to the manuscript, we know real people change based on the story and how they become characters. Tom the Diver is the Zane of Departure written by Alan, whilst Tom the Filmmaker is the Zane of Return written by Scratch/Alan. He is used a plot device and character, much like Casey is to escape the Dark place.
A lots of theories are possible with the character of Alex Casey, Another one is about Alex Casey existing before, but Alan stories made him an FBI detective to come help him, because of his previous books. So he would be pre-existing Alan Wake, and remodeled by him since the story can remodel people's past and memories.
He also easter eggs a referring to a "Spiral" when describing what Hartman became. Something like, "Stretched out thin, like a Worm, an Ouroboros...a spiral." During the hotline video in Control. In addition to Hartman having become Taken, but changed by the Hiss. The Darkness, made louder. The point he makes on Alex Casey being real is a good one. It needed to be iterated. Because it might just be that Alan doesn't "Create" anything. He just wills entities from other dimensions into our reality. Odin tells Saga, when she questions whether she's real or not, that she is not Alan's creation. She is a seer." So she was real before Alan brought her into the story. Same with how Zane brought Alan to the story. Also, you might see Max Payne or Quantum Break easter eggs, but they literally cannot tie those games into the RCU. They don't own them anymore and never did own Quantum Break. Quantum Break was a Microsoft Studios thing. Remedy I think sold Max Payne to Rockstar?
I think Alan achieved the self as u predicted in "the final draft" Ng+ update. U should check it out it has a lot more content for Alan and other characters from control.
So, in Alan Wake 2, we are the players inside a story Alan Wake wrote while in his dark presence, playing a million versions of the story that he made Sam Lake write, which is why Sam Lake was written into the story because he had to since Alan Wake is the god of writing and the universe we are in is one of the stories he wrote to learn how to be a better writer until he can become perfect. So every time we complete the game, there is a slight variation of the loop that makes him get closer to his goal, and this dude is telling me that he is going to make Sam Lake seal Alan with Alice in a paradise, and then the universe ends...Dope
Well im not surprised that the game left us with more questions than it answered. The devs telegraphed this long ago. At the beginning of AW1 during Alan's intro monologue, he specifically said that the unanswered question is the best one because it sticks with you the longest. That principle has been present in all the AW games and DLCs, and i wouldn't be surprised if it continues as such with future releases. Better to just get comfortable with not knowing and enjoying the speculation on what could be.
Alan Wake 2 is an amazing experience. I am now in my 5th playthrough, and I can't stop playing it. Its story is so well realized, and the gameplay is truly survival horror. I was so excited to watch your theory video, and I hope there are more of them on the way.
5th? Whoa!!! I am doing 2nd play just for a last trophy in order to get the platinum, but after the trophy i will stop. I have so many games to start. I liked the game a lot but 1/2 play are enough for the moment for me. And then i wait for the dlcs.
Great video, but I will say that you need to make a distinction between old Scratch and new Scratch. They aren't the same. Old Scratch was created from the dark rumors about Alan, the new Scratch is just the Dark Presence using the darkness in him to control him. One is separate from Alan the other is Alan. Anyway, your point about Alan accepting his darkness has been hinted at since American Nightmare. The song "Balance Slays the Demon" doesn't fit anything that's already happened in Alan Wake, but it would fit the future. "In the end, it's never just the light you need. When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace. In the end, it's never just the dark you seek. When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace." I don't think we've met "the demon" yet, but Alan will need to achieve balance to slay it.
Replaying the ending and with Saga in her dark room mind place, she successfully faces her fears and admits some of what the dark place is feeding her is true. Now she is a seer and a door so she has tremendous power, but it does prove that escaping the dark place does entail what you are saying here. Alan as a regular dude with an ego has to just grind it out it seems, but with Alice's help it seems he's on the right track. In fact it seems Alice is the most in control here, and could be trying to defeat the shadow with the help of the FBC.
Nice theory. The Thomas Zane point does make sense, and you can also apply it to Alan. Maybe there's a different version of the characters in each part of the spiral, and when they ascend or descend they find that other version (explaining how Alan got shot and also shot himself). Also, one thing that I noticed is that maybe Zane wrote Alan into his story, just like Alan wrote Casey and Saga into his.
We kinda have been hinted that it isn't. But that it was the place where the Dark Presences and Bright Presences fought against each other, according to This House of Dreams.
Great vid! Yeah I like your theory on Alan and the Jung structure and how Alan needs to ascend to the architypal writer to be able fully have mastery of the darkplace without being effected by it. Alan did also yell at Mr. Scratch to "come home!" I wonder if that was a type of acceptance of the shadow? Maybe that's the reason why Alice was able to finally communicate her intentions and the concepts of ascension and destruction. The one other thing that has popped into my mind though... and hasn't left since I finished Alan wake 2(and also since your vid mentioned the mother architype), Alan's mom Linda... who is she? and who the heck is Alan's dad? How did they get the clicker which is "potentially" an oop? Since the clicker was from Tom's lamp was there some connection? I wonder if there is some sort of connection between Alan's parents and the FBC?
Gaming University's playful theory about Alan's Dad is that he might be Balder, of the Old Gods of Asgard. He was a man full of lovers, so Alan's mother might have been a big OGoA fan, what do we know? Still, I really like the idea that the disappeared Loki might be Alan's Father. What do writers do, after all, if not lie and create stories? --- These ideas take root in the fun concept that "Children of the Elder God" might have been actually also referring to Alan. There are other small things, however I can't remember them.
Involving Warlin door, I also believe he is a form of Martin Hatch from remedy entertainments ‘Quantum Break’. Hatch and door are similar names and Hatch has multiple selves. This also explains why Shawn Ashmore was cast as sheriff breaker, as he is the main character in quantum break. Also not sure if this is true but Lance Riddick was supposed to be cast as Warlin Door before he passed away which would link this theory even further.
Amazing video as usual. I just want to drop in a few thoughts : 1. I think Alex Casey's existence is actually a bit simpler. Yes, Alan has clairvoyance and saw glimpses of the real Alex Casey's life that he actually interpreted as inspiration. But I think the evidence on Saga's board that says "Maybe Wake can't invent wholly new ideas. Has to use what already exists" references the fact that to make a work of art come to life in the Dark Place you need to use elements of reality to make the story more believable, therefore easier to come to life. That's why his entire Initiation draft is done with echoes of all sorts of realities combined. 2. That being said, I love your theory about the Dark Place being the Collective Unconscious. Which, also supports one of my theories regarding why we see so many "Human Echoes" in the Remedy-verse. Characters that are somehow the same, yet different. Like two versions of the same being existing in different worlds, the same archetype, so to speak. Alan Wake/Thomas Zane, Alex Casey/Max Payne, Tim Breaker/Jack Joyce, Mr Door/Hatch, etc. Instead of the traditional multiverse, it's every possible idea in existence. So far, this is the only potential explanation I found as to why Wake and Zane's life mirror each other to the point of looking exactly the same. I do agree that Alan never met the real Zane though. I do wonder who's the guy in AW2. He seems to be the devil on Alan's shoulder. But is he a fictional character? Does he appear to Alan in the same way that Casey (the fictional one) appears to Alan in the Dark Place? I don't know.
This is a shortcoming of the game. The story introduces countless unrealistic things that must be accepted as true BUT Alan must work within vague confines for the sake of the plot. If thomas zane can write the clicker into power and alan can write a bullet of light into power, why cant alan just write that a massive thunderbolt strikes the lake, killing all darkness and freeing all those trapped. There is zero reason why this wouldnt be allowed but the clicker and bullet are
True. Even worse, the bullet of light AKA one of the most powerful weapon I've seen yet, was created only thanks to ONE photograph from Alice. She did spend some time in the Dark Place, but not nearly as much as Alan. I do think that Alan's biggest enemy is himself. On one hand, he didn't even know that HE was the one ruining his own work (as Scratch). He also needs to switch place with someone. That's the biggest thing. He can't just write himself out, he also needs to write someone in. But even with Saga and Casey in the Dark Place now, the Dark Presence seems to be messing with them (with this cliffhanger). So I get where you're coming from, but I don't think he's THAT far from getting out.
@@MichaelFromTheAtticSaga uses the Clicker on Alice’s art to bring the Bullet of Light into the story because she’s co-authoring with Alan. Alice never died and is actively guiding Alan and Saga. In the Remedy universe, the shoebox is resistant to any changes made by the Dark Presence. We still don’t know HOW Alice is doing any of this, which will probably be explained in the upcoming DLC or sequel.
@@ladiddas he wrote the bullet? How did it come to be otherwise? He literally puts the pictures in the box and they become the clicker and bullet as you spend the whole alan part writing the story
I agree with Thomas Zaine idea.I don't think we ever met the 1970 Tom the Poet.. I think Tom the Diver is different and was written by Alan. I think he was the main protagonist of Departure, but when Alan edited it to make himself the main protagonist, he changed Tom the Diver to a helper or guide.. This new thomas zaine, idk. I saw a theory where he is the same to Alan as Tim Breaker is to Jack Joyce and Alex Casey is to Max Payne. Seems like it could be true
About 'The Word of God' and 'Let there be light': The scene where Alan first meets Tom Zane The Auteur in AW2, Tom speaks a poem into a lamp mimicking a microphone - spoken word into (a) light. Whilst also being a nice reference to the 'In Dreams' scene in 'Blue Velvet' - this alludes to the idea that Tom Zane, as he has appeared in the previousd games, is a mere vessel for the 'light presence'. I also believe the light presence/Tom The Diver itself (as well as 'darkness') *as an 'entity'* is a mere plot device written by Wake in the 'Departure' scenario - and that the one Wake interacts with is a projection of an abstract aspect of himself as an artist/writer. I remember in one of the DLCs for the original game, Alan having this confused exchange about the different versions of himself in the Dark Place - and 'Zane's' relation to them. Light as 'something', 'Seine' as a fishing net - fishing ideas out of nothing (darkness), the light inside a projector - a passive element to draw out ideas and shapes. Darkness is the light sensitive 'film' that has been personified by Wake as 'Mr Scratch' or 'The Dark Presence'.
One of my favorite games is how well it hits you over the head with its twist, and yet you ignore that on the first play through because the both storylines seem to be happening at the same time almost.
My theory is that the dark place lets alan merge realities, the reason Alan could not simply write himself out of the dark places is because for events to take place they have to be plausible, the scene and events have to make sense and be possible in order to happen, so my take is anything Alan writes has tk have been possible or already done in another reality before he can achieve it
What about the doorman ?? That back guy from studio . I think he deserves a whole video to cover about . In the ending the cop tells there’s no ending and etc
Alan wake just wrote all of it, and when I say all of it, I mean all of it. Max Payne, quantum break, Control, Alex Casey, night springs, and Alan Wake. Tom Zane and Barbra Jagger have never at anytime been real people. He even writes fictional versions of himself and people from his life. The last scene in the last Alan wake game will probably be a camera pulling away from him signing books at a celebration of his collective works. The ending line "It's not a Game, it's a book"
It became clear to me from playing that yes there are philosophical aspects that will need to come about, but there's elements of multiverse theory in this as well mixed with an idea of an entity that connects worlds going by the name of Door. Saga's story is her becoming a Door by embracing the story/saga/herself. She will no doubt allow him to access different versions of the Story or connected stories to find an exit for himself and everyone else.
If we are going to reflect on AW2 through Jung's perspective then: Thomas Zane is Alan's unconsciousness. His diving suit represent this (Jung's Tavistock lecture, when he explains symbolism of Toledo's cathedral catacombs). Light coming from suit is a wisdom that Alan will gain from this interactions (diving in the unconsciousness of the self). And the Spiral. Well. There are two things here to consider. 1. Spiral is a serpent that also is a symbol of unconsciousness and a guard of it. So it is a puzzle Alan has to solve to return back from the "sunken world" benath trhe lake (symbol of unconsciousness) where he lost his wife. 2. The spiral circles couterclockwise. A sign that there is no hope for him. Last lecture from Jung's Tavistock lectures has a discussion where pictures of a patient suffering from dementia praecox are shown. PS. Jung also believed that when you see serpent in your dreams it refers to ones "lower motor centers of the brain and of the spinal cord, and our fear of snakes denotes that we are not fully in tune with our instinctive lower centers" (site not Jungf himself, yet he said that during mentioned lectures as well). Alan is in a delousional, or somehow dreamlike state. In other words theory about his nervous system being fkup doesn't seem to be far fetched. PS.S. We already established that Zane is Alan's unconsciousness. What does it mean for Alan? It's quite simple. It's self fulfilling prophecy. The Zane's fate if what Alan anticipates for himself and Alice. But... Creators are free whatever they please, so diving suit could be a prank on gamers, to make them more confused. And Spiral isn't a Spiral, because when I right click on your video all I see is at the top is Loop and not Spiral. Spiral can refer to Black Spiral Dancers for all I care.
I know next to nothing about Alan Wake, and I had no idea there was a Remedt Verse, but I feel a lot more interested and invested than I did before. I feel like when Alan Wake 1 came out my friends all just did a pretty bad job of selling me on it, but this, this I can get behind.
@@B0RNxVILL4IN Unfortunately haven't played any but RE4 remake & Zelda TOTK look tough to beat. OG AW was a 10/10. Will grab the sequel on sale after all patches have been applied & a more budget friendly price drops.
So Alan is like saga in that he’s also a seer. It’s why he has his writing room like how saga has her mind place. And why they’re able to communicate the whole game. That’s where he keeps getting his “inspiration” from and where his Alex Casey ideas came from
I just realized that song "balance slays the demon" litelarry reffers to that theory. They sing how only when you accept both light and darkness can you find peace
I wonder - if everything happening in Control and AW2 fits the narrative of saving Alan. Night Springs seemed to exist before Alan even thought he seems to be the author of the show. Before Bright Falls, Alan wrote mostly Alex Casey detectives, not horror, so maybe he manifested a lot more that we think - FBI Alex, Night Springs, FBC and Jesse… there is a lot of winks to that - Mr. Door mentioning that “a lot of people try to help you”. So maybe Alan writing into reality other people, who act through their narrative, still fits the story.
What I got from "It's not a loop, it's a spiral" is that he now understands that each "loop", albeit similar, can have incremental changes. Each incremental change will get him a step towards freedom. I think we're going to get a full look at this with the upcoming new game + mode. They've confirmed that it has new story content, making me think that new game + is going to show the next loop - mostly exactly the same, but with small incremental changes (probably help from his wife and the FBC).
The spiral motif feels like an allusion to Junjo Ito's "Uzumaki" with the headline "spiral into horror". I wonder if there's any more conmections that can be derived from this, too.
Great video Max First, I have a recommendation for you. Since you've done an analysis on Promethea, I have another comic book that you should give a try: The Incal, written by Jodorowsky and illustrated by Moebius. Now about Alex Casey, remember, time in the Dark Place isn't linear like in the normal world, so when Thomas Zane wrote Alan Wake as a writer, or while Alan was writing Return or Initiation, the Dark Presence made him aware of Casey existence and made past Alan write the books as part pf the plot... It's strange this kind of future events influencing things that happened before, but for me it makes more sense than some kind of precognition.
Scratch is not Alan as a Taken. Taken are individuals who have been influenced and corrupted by the Dark Presence. Scratch (Both Alan and Alex), and Barbara Jagger are all a different thing as the Dark Presence physically took them over, inhabiting their body in a more powerful way than regular Taken. Additionally, Scratch was not pretending to be Alan for the most part. The Dark Presence was weakened considerably inside Alan when the summoning brought the two of them to the real world, causing Alan to have memory problems. It took some time until the Dark Presence was able to exert control over Alan in the events of the CotT's attack on the lodge, using a chance to also give itself an opening in Casey. Also, you're just completely ignoring American Nightmare. Scratch WAS a physically separate being, created by Zane (and fucked up by Zane too) and was defeated and destroyed in American Nightmare. So it can't just be Alan as a Taken
And you are totally right aboiut the Word and it being god. Right after you first encounter scratch in the sheriff's department, the chapter song has a lyric "I created the world. First came the word."
Much like Alan Wake 2, this video begins with a specific conceptualization and fits the game into said schemata. For those that made the game, they wanted to make a convoluted mess that is meant to go nowhere, like the first game. For Max, it is an attempt to fit said convoluted mess into a Jungian schemata. The game really just is there is an evil called the dark presence that is trying to get out of its confinement/the dark place and is doing so through the plot premise of the setting being a conduit for art to shape the world. Alan is just caught in the middle.
The closer it got to release date the more clearly we began to foresee what AW2 might have in store, or ultimately lead to and descension and ascension was one. I believe it was in June of this year that we tweeted an image for AW2 of a small angel sitting on a ladder with a quote from Carl Yung "The decent into the depths always seems to precede the ascent." We aren't huge fans of Jung by any means, but we know that Remedy draws inspiration from his theories. Anyway, just a quick note. There are several pieces of evidence supporting time loops in the first game, Alan will even comment about remembering. Aside from pieces of evidence that he's already been somewhere we visit during gameplay, it's also possible to see and hear multiple "Alans" in certain parts of the game. You can only see the multiple Alans for a fleeting moment, a second maybe. We've been avoiding review and analysis videos lately, but a friend of mine saw this video and said that it wouldn't interfere with our current thoughts and ideas. This video is very nicely done. You presented everything really well. It was a nice easy watch :)
I kinda like Alan Wake 3 ending with him becoming master of “The Place”. No dark no light, just a layer of pure creation, a Prospero with his own dimensional island.
I never, played the original alan wake. And I was thoroughly fascinated by everything that was going on in the second one. And there was a weird level of understanding i felt at the end. I felt like I only really had a few questions left
Only 4 minutes in but just wanted to point out that Alex Casey could have been pulled into the Dark Place when he was Taken towards the end of the game. the timeline on this one is real whacky with the way time works in the Dark Place, so he could have been pulled into the Dark Place and sent back to the beginning of Initiation to guide Alan as the manifestation of a detective. Like you said, you can't create something out of nothing, there has to be an explanation for how Casey can look and sound exactly like his real-world counterpart without Alan having never met him up until that point.
I agree with most of this, but where i disagree, is how the spiral and ascension works, if travelling on spiral, the only way to get to the end, is to travel down towards the center, but basically, yes Jungian stuff. Alan has been going through loops, as he's going the wrong way, and ending up circling. Aka hes doing something wrong, Alice being (spoiler) not so dead at the end has gone in to rescue him, to help him change his method of fighting, hes stuck, because his tackling the dark place in the wrong way. There seems to be hints of Alans self loathing and doubt, which ofc feeds the dark presence. Also i find interesting, is the many references to rituals and obsessions in the remedy verse, this seems to me to be a pretty obvious reference to OCD, the rituals are compulsions, you see the puzzle, you feel like you wanna solve it. Including Saga's puzzles which too affect reality (synchronicity/magical thinking), despite the fact many of the puzzles seem hint at a mother losing a child like saga's life in Watery, One other thing, is why Saga and Casey drink coffee exactly the same, mirroring each other, i dont think this is just a humourous thing to show to set the scene, a stylistic choice, like weird tv shows that have that same feel. I think theres something more going on. It happens more than once. Right at the start entering Bright Falls, and again meeting Alan wake.
I believe John 1:1 is also seen on the clocks in most places in the game as 10:10. Other clocks show 03:00, which is the Witching or Devil's hour. There are so many hints in these games about good vs. evil, light vs. dark, God vs. The Devil and I'm so there for it.
Yeah ive been feeling a similar vibe. Ahti the janitor feels like God to me, this presence that knows all (or the most out of anyone) and pushes invisible pieces on a metaphorical chess board towards some unknowable narrative. Jessie the director reminds me of Jesus with how she was at a very young age always tied to the paranatural. Even when she first shows up to the oldest house Ahti is the one that (i assume) let's her in on the strange and abnormal. Even calling her his assistant when she becomes director. The oldest house is even speculated to change throughout the ages as the collective unconscious shifts to more modern designs. The idea of the director dying and only being replaced by a uniquely rare candidate gives me the feeling of resurrection. (even if thats pushing it) Alan the writer gives me vibes of Lucifer/The Devil. They are different but they've just kinda became synonymous with each other, kinda like Alan and Scratch. Anyways I'm not trying to say Alan rebelled against God, but he also did go against the natural order and try to bring someone back from the dark place. The darkness tricked Alan and in the end he fell down into the dark place which could also be seen as hell. (if you REALLY try to push it) Now Alan works kinda like security for the dark place and seems to be friends with Ahti. Special mention to Dylan the chillin who is the [trigger warning] "anti christ" in this theory. He seeks to invade the worlds with the hiss and take over. Other than that i don't really know since it's hiss babel, this is where my theory falls flat. Do with this information what you will.
@@TheNecroMeister You've put into words what I've been thinking. Spot on. Yet nothing is ever confirmed and anything is possible. That's why I love this series so much.
im a bit late but this interpretation of ahti really makes sense, especially with a dialogue in which he talks about the water and how it can wash away the mess
i have a theory regarding Saga's part in the story. as we all know Saga's mom left Brightfalls when Saga was an infant. however, she ended up being part of Alan's writing. i believe that because of their power seeing the truth that runs in the family, Saga's mother was able to 'see through' the reality that was shifting in Brightfalls. as such, when she left, it created an alternative reality of which Saga actually existed in BrightFalls and ended up losing her daughter. this part of breaching of reality created a "backdoor" where Saga was able to wander through Brightfalls with no memory/reality/personality changes. she was the "Editor/Co-Author" of the whole story as such, she was able to actually change the story and not Alan himself as he keeps on forgetting or/and getting lost in the dark place. BUT WHO THE HELL IS HER FATHER? was he the host of the show that allowed her to enter the dark place? because while playing the host hinted to Alan that he was trying to keep things in control? keep in mind her father disappeared and her mother barely talks about him..
Continuing argument about "in the beginning there was the word". The song "dark, twisted and cruel", which is supposed to be Scratch's song, contains the same line "I created this world, first came the word". That's pretty strange and somehow connects Alan scratch and Zane?
I’m really curious about the connection between Mr. Door and Quantum Break’s Martin Hatch. I know Remedy doesn’t own the IP for Quantum Break, but the parallels of a being who can freely move through time and space, that’s is both outside of the story and inside the story, seems to similar to be a coincidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if it came out that the late Lace Riddick was meant to play Mr. Door before his passing, just like he play Mr. Hatch.
There’s an element to consider: even though the game suggested Scratch was Alan with Dark presence inside him, I think it’s the other way around. Dark presence is the embodiment of each person’s most powerful nemesis, which is Self. (Confirmed by Saga’s ending chapter)
That’s why he’s called “scratch”, a nemesis, an enemy to every author. If you have self doubt as an author, you’ll keep scratching old storylines and make new ones, and repeat and repeat. And every time you do: either the story gets better and leaner (ascend), or you keep having more doubts and convince yourself that you are not good enough, and scratch it all out (descend deeper into one’s dark place of self doubt)
And that’s the Spiral.
Genius. The new ending with the NG+ actually makes this theory even better
no. Scratch is just the dark presence in Alan Wake's body. Casey wasn't a writer but was possessed by it as well. Scratch = Dark Presence. It's an entity from a parallel universe.
@xMorogothx in the most bare and evident manner yes. But how did scratch manifest? As a fragment of Wakes ego that could not move on with himself, the part he hates. The dark place in essence exists in all of us, and scratch is one manifestation, while we saw Saga falling down the spiral as well, dealing with her own manifestation of doubt.
And tbh I don't think Casey is real. I think he was written into the plot through reality bending by Scratch to mock and then defeat Alan
What I think and hope is that the spiral itself is in essence hope, and the inverse is destruction.
While the loop implies the events will be perpetually relived forever, the spiral implies that it's not 2 dimensional, doomed to spin forever in circles. The spiral implies that there is directionally and incremental change, which can be ascended or descended. What we witnessed throughout alan wake 1 I'd say was descent, and in 2, ascension.
@jesse16309 Going along with the greater occult interpretation, The Former could be the id?
Alan Wake 2 is certainly one of the games of this decade. And certainly wasn't written by Zane, who was written by Alex, who was written by Zane, who was written by Lake, but it's not lake - it's an Ocean. Frank Ocean, brother-in-law of Sam Lake, who is the brother of Sam Ocean, who has written Tomas Zane.
It’s not a loop, it’s a spiral.
Then Wake wrote a Saga who sung a Wake from Scratch.
Alan Wake 2 is the desperate attempt by Sam Lake to escape from the dark place, who wrote himself into the game too.
@@Phantom86d that’s not the real Saga Anderson though. The real one was shown in Quantum Break.
@@planetzdrjust let it go. It’s embarrassing at this point
I think the musical number is a representation of how the spiral works, looping within the same song over and over but progressing each time, culminating with the last verses being sang by Ahti. So even though Alan can do his part, he will still need the Janitors 'key' to succeed. Also the chorus 'Champion of light, herald of darkness' to me means that both roles are the same person.
"Show me the Champion of Light. And I'll show you the Herald of Darkness." The lyrics were quite on the nose about that plot reveal.
The looping of the musical scene is just to make it so it doesnt stop mid level.
I thought it was influence from the person who was writing the musicals in brightfalls. I might be confused, but i remember finding a bunch of things about someone writing a musical.
The musical number was created by Mr door to help alan remember what was happening
One of the things I always found interesting about Alan was how flawed of a person he is. He's moody, rude to his fans, violent with reporters and an ass to his wife. The revelation of Scratch being Alan indicated to me that the Dark Presence preyed on Alan because of Alan's dark side. Scratch is literally a metaphor come to life, Alan's inner darkness.
As I was playing AW2, I noted that Saga is less interesting because she doesn't have as many flaws as Alan. She seems like a pretty well-adjusted person. And that's probably why the Dark Presence wasn't able to take her over like it did with Alan.
The Dark Place we see in AW2 is very personal to Alan. It isn't some generic nightmare world. It's New York City, Alan's home. He probably walked those streets and rode through those subway stations every day.
Maybe the Thomas Zane we see in the game is just another one of Alan's creations. Based on the interview he has when he first meets Doors, Alan seems to have some disdain for the filmmakers who adapted his books. Maybe this Zane is Alan interpretation of filmmakers.
Maybe the ascending Alan needs to do is more personal. Give up his anger and his bitterness. Become a better person. Get rid of the darkness inside himself so the Dark Presence won't have anything to anchor itself to. Maybe Alan won't make it back to the real world, but maybe his triumph at the end will be reaching some kind of nirvana state.
Saga had flaws and insecurities you see them all in her mind place in the dark place
@@Besse109 I think she is excel at self-control (probably since she’s an FBI agent?) so she didn’t appear to be emotional at first, but eventually the dark place had an impact on her rational thinking.
Every time i play the first game, I can’t help but imagine, like, one layer of reality up, in which Alan goes to Dr. Hartman’s workshop and ends up writing, but doing it spitefully. “Oh yeah Alice I’m writing ok?! it’s a story about a writer who gets TRAPPED IN A SHITTY LAKE by his BITCH WIFE” and Alice takes a couple tylenol and commits a deep nose exhale. and later when she asks him not to call her a bitch so much he says “i can’t help it! i had to go to the Dark Place to write my grim horrors! It was Mr. Scratch, my edgy twisted alter ego!!!”
I’ve always found the world of alan wake to be fascinating but the actual character borderline insufferable. He reminds me of how Brian Griffin is characterized when Family Guy remembers he’s an aspiring author: a barely-competent hack who’s super defensive about that. The way he treats Rose is so revealing in the first game; he can’t stand that he’s her favorite author because he doesn’t want to be the favorite of people like her, and how dare he?! some people go their whole lives and never become anyone’s favorite anything! He should be HONORED! he should be HUMBLED.
so it was awesome to have it made explicit that this was intentional characterization. my favorite line on the subject was the Alex Casey echo where he’s like “I wasn’t *in* a dark place; I *WAS* the dark place.”
Because that’s been Alan from the jump: a vortex of negativity who brings nothing but problems to everyone in his orbit, a mean drunk and a fairly belligerent sober who yells and insults and blusters his way through nearly every interaction and blames external forces for all his problems.
It felt like he actually learned something this time, and I like the idea of the spiral: he can’t just clicker himself to a better Alan; he has to try and fail and learn new habits and it’s not gonna be easy, but he’s finally actually trying 🥹
@@chexfan2000 Agreed with everything you posted.
I love that Alan is one of the least standard video game protagonist ever. The beginning of the first game really doesn't make you like him. How he treated Rose and Alice did not presented him as a good person.
And I find it interesting that Mr Scratch, the embodiment of Alan's darkness, created a world where everyone mindlessly praises him constantly. He is Alan as a petty, entitled megalomaniac.
@@Besse109 Like I said, Saga seems like a well-adjusted person. Her fears and doubts are pretty standard and she never allowed them to manifest in a destructive way like Alan did. Though I don't find her particularly interesting, I think she was intentionally written that way to contrast her with Alan whose flaws do manifest in some bad ways.
I feel like Casey fit the archetype of the cop on the edge and Saga was the "straight man." The Roger Murtaugh to Casey's Martin Riggs (Lethal Weapon). In fact, I hope we get to play as Casey in a future DLC or game.
Finally someone who really did some analysis and not just some recap on the stories of Alan and Saga. Huge respect! Subbed to both of you guys
Seeing Sam Lake’s face, in photorealistic graphics, with James McCaffrey’s voice, in 2023, in a game that isn’t Max Payne, is so bizarrely awesome.
Remedy are awesome.
Alan Wake is a must for any and all writers. Change my mind.
Truth!!! So much inspiration comes from this series
Def a must to show how pretentiousness can lead to horrible writing.
I’m actually writing right now. The game started negatively affecting me, making me see things, drinking too much. Makes for kickass inspiration though!
Lame game. Wasted potential. Change my mind.
@@hadeseye2297 Alan Wake 2 was ruined by people who had no place in its production. But the previous two games were great.
Great breakdown, Tho I think Tom and Alan are the same person just one has been written over the other. My evidence for this is how the Andersons(and Ahti) call him Tom abd never sway from that. They are implied to resist or are immune to the changes to reality since they all remember Saga’s daughter. Another point of evidence is Yoton Yo, Tom plays Alan and follows Alex Casey as he tries to solve the mystery of his cult. It kind of follows the events of the game and might the Magnum Opus he was trying to complete. Not to mention Alans las confrontation with Tom which ends with Alan shooting the director in the head and him waking up after being shot, directly mirroring Alan at the end of the game. I think there is much more to Tom/Alan connection.
I recall the leader of the cult of the tree saying to Alan. "If you created me in your story, how do you know Thomas didn't create you for his story".
Regarding Casey, Alex Casey the book character was more or less a Max Payne expy back in Alan Wake 1. While Remedy made the Payne games, they no longer had the rights to the IP, so having a character who's from a hard-boiled film noir detective series with the likeness of Sam Lake, voiced by James McCaffey, but with a different name and backstory was probably the best Remedy could hope to have. You see a similar thing happen in Alan Wake 2 with Tim Breaker and Warlin Door, who are stand-ins for the hero and antagonist from Quantum Break respectively. Remedy doesn't own the IP for that game, either, so they're close copies.
As for where Casey came from in-universe, Wake has a conversation with Saga where it's all but stated that he had some degree of clairvoyance BEFORE entering into the Dark Place and he subconsciously tapped into that when writing Casey. It's likely part of the reason he's such a successful author in the first place as he's able to tap into ideas that feel real, because they actually are. Wake isn't, however, able to create people wholecloth, it seems. He has dialogue with Saga that suggests he can only nudge things with the power he has from the Dark Place
Alex Casey = Max Payne Easter egg.
This story is SO similar to Twin Peaks The Return
Even the way scratch is portrayed somehow mirrors the way evil agent cooper is in twin peaks revival, i think the twin peaks revival was too much confusing tho, even more so than AW.
which is interesting, because the first Alan Wake game has similarities to the original Twin Peaks. Maybe It is intentional
It's clearly inspired by Twin Peaks since the first game yep
I believe the Thomas Zane we meet in Alan Wake 2 is actually the Mr Scratch from American Nightmare. That original scratch was created by the bright presence Zane at the end of the first game and sent to the real world in place of Alan (so he wasnt originally Alan possessed by the dark presence). In American Nightmare that Scratch was infleunced by the dark urban legends about Alan and became dark. At the end of American Nightmare Alan defeats Scratch. My theory is that that defeat of Scratch just sent him back to the dark place with Alan. And he now pretends to be Thomas Zane to influence Alan's writing in order to get out of the dark place. My supporting evidence is the following. He is dressed with similar clothes to Scratch from American Nighmare. He wears a ring around his neck and in American Nightmare Scratch says he has a ring just like alan. When we meet this "Zane" in AW 2 the same psycho song plays that played in one of Scratch's videos in American Nightmare. And it makes sense why this "Zane" makes Alan drink both in Control AWE and in AW2, he wants to manipulate him easier, so he makes him get drunk. I think the flashback we got in AW2 of Alan drunk with "Zane" was Scratch manipulating a wasted Alan to write the horror story that was the original draft or Return.
Also Zane being a film maker is probably some rewrite of reality (like Saga losing her daughter). Since in the Anderson brothers' song he is a poet (and they are seers). Also in Control, Jesse remembers him as a poet whereas the rest of the world seemingly remembers him as a film maker. Cynthia also remembers him as a poet. And the fake Zane that I think is Mr Scratch says he is a film maker.
When was it stated that Zane/Bright Presence created Scratch and sent him to the real world? All he said was state “your friends will meet him when you’re gone”, which was a fact. Scratch appeared to Alice Wake and Clay Steward afterwards. I don’t know why people seem to theorize that Zane created Scratch or sent him. We already have an origin for Scratch in American Nightmare.
i think american nightmare isn´t even canon, more like a spinoff, but cool interpretation, kinda make sense.
@@kennethcoxgit is canon
For example, in the subway you can see excerpts from AW:AN written on info signs - something about satellite falling from the skies and so on)
@@kennethcoxgIt was kind of reconned that the ending of American Nightmare wasn't Alan escaping and getting his happy ending, but just one of his many failed attempts to write his escape during the years. But that the events happened.
Just a note, you skip over American Nightmare, which is important to the plot and more clearly delineates Mr Scratch vs Scratch.
Mr Scratch was beaten in AN, the Scratch we see isnt referred to as Mr Scratch in the game, just Scratch. He functions differently, being a more violent hurricane of anger and rage, whereas Mr Scratch was all the rumors about Alan made into a person. He was separate from Alan, but Scratch is not
That's an interesting theory, but the second game always makes connections with that scene from the first game, where Mr. Scratch revealed. "Your friends will meet him, when you are gone". Initiation chapter "Gone" is the most obvious clue, it shows you the birth of Scratch, also repeating that same line. I think what actually happened here, it's just that the developers had one idea about what Scratch is, and made AN around it, but this time they has a deeper or maybe different idea, so that's why this is the same Scratch, but also not the same. It wouldn't be much of a surprise, considering how long the second game was in some sort of stasis.
With the Anderson "gift" and having inherited Door's powers, Saga is a veritable god. She's one little push away from being one hell of an antagonist for AW3. She's capable of wicked anger and stubbornness. A little manipulation from daddy and fully harnessing her stack of powers would be quite a sight. Alan isn't dead and Saga was manipulated by Alice for her own purposes (not maliciously, but still) and it may cost her her family. There's so much to dig into with this game, it's like a membership to the jelly of the month club!
This game reminded me so much of House of Leaves and I loved it. Kinda spoilers but Zane and Alan made me think of Zompano and Johnny. The story was amazing and I look forward to whatever content comes in the future.
Just started reading the book myself.
POE who wrote and sung Haunted as well as This Road for AW and AW2 respectively, is the sister of the writer of House Of Leaves.
@@ethanrosaschi4153 yeah i knew that, it’s pretty cool to see her making music for the game
It was the game - Control which reminded me of House of leaves because the FBC's house was way bigger inside than what it seems from outside. The architecture too was very much like how it was described in the book.
I don’t know if I’d describe Scratch as a Taken. I feel that Scratch just represents a third method of the Dark Presence influencing people. There’s merely “touching” someone like Barbara does to Alan and Rose in the first game, direct possession as happens with Scratch, and then turning someone into a Taken. The difference matters a lot in that the Taken aren’t well suited for complex tasks and the process is, as far as we know, irreversible once you’ve become a Taken.The first of these reasons is why Barbara Jagger didn’t simply turn Alan or Rose into Taken in Alan Wake 1 and instead merely touched them
This is because , from a Meta standpoint, the Darkness is the holes in the Plot. The Voids the Dark Presence fills . And the Darkness themselves are not very Creative, So, they must take the Light (Imagination/Creativity) from other people. But if They take all the Light, the humans become empty shells.
So, The Dark Presence had to have Alan make the Character , Mr. Scratch, the Herald of Darkness, so Mr. Scratch can keep his Mind. (See American Nightmare). The Dark Presence/Mr. Scratch will then be fused into Alan in his Despair.
It is the Character becoming the person. Real person and "fictional person" overlap.
He didn’t even get that much into Control? These games are connected, the spiral, pyramid, upside down pyramid, all these symbols are in the OceanView motel in Control.
@@homelander2243the game did drop a lot of bombshell information so it's going to take a while to decipher all this information
The Cult of the Tree also was based on the Oldest House's Tree the Pyramid is attached to.@@homelander2243
In black ocean summoning there's a line that says "diving deep to the surface".
To me, that meant both a need for Alan to go further into the darkest place to actually be able to enforce some meaningful changes to it, as the need for Alan to dive deeper into himself, to actually find himself, which would align pretty well with the videos theory.
I don't remember that lyric being in dark ocean summoning I know it's in Herald of Darkness though.
Thank you so much for this video! My head was hurting after completing AW2 last night. Your analysis makes total sense to me and I'm now even more excited for the future DLC's and follow up remedy games. What a masterpiece this game is. Thanks Max!
this is an amazing theory, i held kind of the same theory since i played alan wake 2 but couldn't have expressed it as well as you do here. There are also even more evidence supporting this theory like:
-The fact that the poems from this house of dreams keep appearing in AW2, pushing its canon status
-The QR videos from the alan wake remaster where he talks about how he's been learning both the mechanics of the dark place and his own abilities as a writer
-Rose's remarks about how the dark place, that tries to take hold over the insecurities, negativity and darkness of people, doesn't work on some residents of the nursing home because "they've led very rich lies" and thus are resilient to it, i believe alan is on a path to find a similar resilience to the darkness
-in the quantum break's famous alan wake classroom there's a mention of the story leading to a birth of a savior
-by the way that same board mentions a William Blake's poem that appears in the house of dreams blog, "some are born to endless nights"
-the poem is in a page that is scratched with charcoal, with "the dark place" written on it and it is the poem that appears in "balance slays the demon"
-that song ends with "alone at my own wake, the unraveling of reason's skein" which i believe is what the darkness exploding out of alan's head imagery represents
is amazing the level of talent that a work needs to fit so many pieces so well without unraveling.
I'm definitely suscribing and i would love a video on the UFO motif that is around these games, but i guess first it would need to wait for the night springs dlc
The connected universe they created is one of my favorites. The game is great on its own, but Remedy really rewarded the die-hard fans with the connections and references to everything they have made. I was reading Jung when I had started playing Alan Wake: American Nightmare and I was not expecting to see the very passages I was working through to be reflected in the game I was playing. Then I wondered if the true horror of the game was not that Wake's evil double threatened to walk the earth in his place, but that they were just aspects of the same being.
One last thing: Saga's benefactor, the one who gets her the clicker and the bullet, likely is Alice. It sounds a lot like her on the phone and Alice had to have created the Clicker and light bullet we see in this chunk of the game, since they came from photographs, Alice's media of choice. Alice has some degree of mastery over the Dark Place, especially since she knew that Alan's only way out without ending the world was "ascension" as she put it, so she likely would be able to influence things within the space.
Perhaps she has been capturing the ending gunshot in the different iterations of the ending she may have witnessed. Perhaps the first time Wake and Saga got there the bullet was just a bullet and their written ending was Alan sacrificing himself to save others. But this is just an ending of destruction once again. A gunshot. "We don't have time for something better. Let's go with this."
Alice takes some her photographs as negatives. At least of the haunting she did, so she likes the method. A dark bullet in a negative photograph would give a white hue. A bullet of light. Capturing a moment of sacrifice from a self-indulgent author. The photograph is a work of art. It can be made real in the dark place. So the next time around the spiral, Saga gets sent some photos. Alan gets shot with a bullet of light. The Dark Presence in him is destroyed by it. And some clarity comes. He can recognize the spiral nature of his existence in the dark place. Maybe even remember some parts of this round. And Alice takes another photograph at the moment of sacrifice.
Next go-around. Alice leaves the new photograph in the elevator going to their apartment. Now at the crucial moment, when writing the perfect ending with Saga. Alan knows. He knows what Saga is going to shoot him with while writing. He improves the ending to give it all the implications that a bullet of light shot into his forehead could have. The symbolic third eye. Ascension. And return/resurrection through enlightenment.
In the first game its mentioned somewhere that Alan has some form heightened reaction (almost like an allergy) to bright light when he was a child. This is never mentioned again, but I thought it was interesting in that it could have been a plot point going forward with the Darkness picking him as its champion, but no its never mentioned again.
I'm surprised more people aren't picking up on the parallels with The Matrix, especially considering Mr Doors even says it.
Zane - The Architect
Mr Doors - The Merovingian (he clearly moves between spirals and universes)
Ahti - The Keymaker
Saga - Trinity
Alan - Neo
Alice - The Oracle
Scratch - Mr Smith
This isn't about "getting out" at all. It's about resetting the spiral or cycle, just like The Matrix. Zane needs Alan to try to get out so that the system can reset and improve.
Scratch is the key, him being able to move beyond the dimension (or cycle) is something Zane can't contain and he used Alan - and with Alice - to reset the spiral and contain Scratch. All of the people helping Alan are written-in by Zane.
The biggest conundrum is who is Zane and why is Zane doing this? I'm not convinced The Dark Presence wants world domination at all. Because if it did, it wouldn't return back to the dark place as Casey it would just leave and contain Alan within the dark place because Casey was free to decide. Alan's Ascension is identical to the path of Neo...
Who evolves faster, Alan or The Dark Place. If Alan wins (eventually) he'll become the perfect writer. Until then he is trapped moving through superego, because artists are motivated by ego and NOT creating fundamental work or philosophy (whereas they used to be).
Damm👌
I think that the art pre-existing the artist is a literal interpretation of the "great artists steal" quote by Picasso. I don't think alan and alice will meet the same fate as tom and barbara since in the first game, Alan realised what went wrong with how tom brought his wife back and so he changed how he tackled that problem. And much like the previous game, Alan figures out that he needs to complete the hero's journey in order to escape (departure, initiation, return). Since he has done that he's come to the realisation that it's a spiral not a loop and thus the small increments of change will soon lead to an escape . It's sort of like your archetypal writer theory however wake will probbaly get some outside help in the form of the FBC or mr door.
A major issue I see these days especially in big block buster movies is a perfect protagonist one who is moral and good all the time one who cannot make any bad decisions whatsoever, everyone tried to be good or as good as possible but every one.has the capacity for bad if enough pressure is applied or the right/wrong circumstances are met and that's why I like Alan wake, for me he and Jessie are opposites, at first we think Alan is a Normal good guy and as we go further we see his fears and insecurities, his desperation and who he will drag into this and sacrifice just to save his own self, with Jessie she starts out abit rude, uncaring and unsympathetic and only concerned for herself and her brother, using the FBC to get what she want, and by the end she open up to people, starts caring about what's really going on, and choosing of her own volition to take up the burden and responsibilities of a director upon her own shoulders. It's a well written narrative so far I hope it gets complexe but not convoluted.
Scratch wasn't pretending to be wake. It's directly stated in the game that being pulled through the Overlap weakened the Dark Presence inside Alan.
What he thought was Scratch being close was the Dark Presence growing stronger. It only was influencing him before taking over,not pretending to be him.
Hell yes. You spoil us, after this mornings discussion with Gaming University, and now this vid. Appreciate your unique insights, and all your hard work.
Edit: Balance Slays the Demon lyrics add onto your theory.
"Ever the light casts a shadow,
Ever the night springs from the light.
In the end, it's never just the light you need
When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace
In the end, it's never just the dark you seek
When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace
Find the peace"
About the spiral theory, I noticed that in each Overlap that Saga dove into, the levels themselves are always a spiral like hallways led to the boss of each stage, the residents who became takens; If Spiral is a metaphor to transcend architype to be the best version of self, that means each of those takens that saga defeated failed to embrace their shadows and thus succumbed to the dark place
Considering Sam Lake majored in english literature, there's a pretty good chance he read "The Anxiety of Influence" by Harold Bloom. Wake taking Zane's place as the "archetypal writer" will be like Shakespeare escaping the influence of precursor Christopher Marlowe in order to survive into posterity, as explained by Bloom in that book.
Was listening to Dark Ocean Summoning and the line " Awake new and whole " seems to strongly support the archetypal writer theory as Alan incorporates his shadow part and "A WAKE new and WHOLE"
In Yötön Yö we can see Alex Casey was sacrificed so Thomas Zane can get out. So Yötön Yö was Zane's attempt to escape the Dark Place, much like Alan was trying to come up with a story to get himself out, Zane shot a film where he sacrificed Alex Casey (which I guess Alan Wake made it possible, considering he is the one that created Alex Casey, the fictional character) to escape. So Alan Wake can follow a similar road by maybe using some of Zane's stuff or even Alice's photographs. But my question is was Zane even successful at escaping the Dark Place? I thought he never got out?
Zane is Scratch, that’s my theory. He changed his name. That’s why he looks like Alan and also wrote the story with “Scratch”. He is him.
This has got me wondering. Maybe the ‘Zane’ we meet in this game is to Tom the Diver what Mr. Scratch is to Alan: a dark doppelgänger that was created when Tom sacrificed himself to stop the Dark Presence in the 70’s. Although that would beg the question, what was this ‘Zane’ up to during the events of the first game?
@KoraJayde-TeeJayOh right, when Alan wrote him into the story to help him escape Bird Leg Cabin? I suppose that’s possible too.
@@GalakStariWell at that point of the story, if This House of Dreams is still canon, Zane was living with the essence of Barbara in their own little bubble reality, inside the Dark Place, with Tom the Diver being just his body taken over by the Bright Presence. I'm not sure what Zane this is, but after seeing the Yötön Yö movie, I felt that how this Zane is currently is because he changed himself with his movie in his attempts at escaping. And another thought was that this is Zanes body, but without Zanes essence or the Bright Presence in it anymore.
@@CorporalCookie Wow, I especially like that second theory of yours, about how maybe it’s Zane’s body without Zane or the Bright Presence inhabiting it. Granted, he’d have to have some kind of essence or soul himself of course, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to really do anything, but still. Kind of reminds me of the Nobodies from Kingdom Hearts: beings created when a person with a strong will loses their heart to darkness, with only the body and soul left to carry on and give the Nobody life.
In any case, I doubt the Bright Presence itself is inhabiting him, at the very least. Sure, it was enigmatic in the first game, like how this Zane is, but it definitely seemed much more benevolent when it came to helping Alan.
I think it is simply down to the manuscript, we know real people change based on the story and how they become characters. Tom the Diver is the Zane of Departure written by Alan, whilst Tom the Filmmaker is the Zane of Return written by Scratch/Alan. He is used a plot device and character, much like Casey is to escape the Dark place.
I love Alan Wake 2 I've been waiting for you to do a video on this
A lots of theories are possible with the character of Alex Casey, Another one is about Alex Casey existing before, but Alan stories made him an FBI detective to come help him, because of his previous books. So he would be pre-existing Alan Wake, and remodeled by him since the story can remodel people's past and memories.
“Show me the champion of liiight!
I’ll show you the herald of darkness”. It continued so well. And it was an absolute banger.
He also easter eggs a referring to a "Spiral" when describing what Hartman became. Something like, "Stretched out thin, like a Worm, an Ouroboros...a spiral." During the hotline video in Control. In addition to Hartman having become Taken, but changed by the Hiss. The Darkness, made louder.
The point he makes on Alex Casey being real is a good one. It needed to be iterated. Because it might just be that Alan doesn't "Create" anything. He just wills entities from other dimensions into our reality. Odin tells Saga, when she questions whether she's real or not, that she is not Alan's creation. She is a seer." So she was real before Alan brought her into the story. Same with how Zane brought Alan to the story.
Also, you might see Max Payne or Quantum Break easter eggs, but they literally cannot tie those games into the RCU. They don't own them anymore and never did own Quantum Break. Quantum Break was a Microsoft Studios thing. Remedy I think sold Max Payne to Rockstar?
I think Alan achieved the self as u predicted in "the final draft" Ng+ update. U should check it out it has a lot more content for Alan and other characters from control.
So, in Alan Wake 2, we are the players inside a story Alan Wake wrote while in his dark presence, playing a million versions of the story that he made Sam Lake write, which is why Sam Lake was written into the story because he had to since Alan Wake is the god of writing and the universe we are in is one of the stories he wrote to learn how to be a better writer until he can become perfect. So every time we complete the game, there is a slight variation of the loop that makes him get closer to his goal, and this dude is telling me that he is going to make Sam Lake seal Alan with Alice in a paradise, and then the universe ends...Dope
Well im not surprised that the game left us with more questions than it answered. The devs telegraphed this long ago. At the beginning of AW1 during Alan's intro monologue, he specifically said that the unanswered question is the best one because it sticks with you the longest. That principle has been present in all the AW games and DLCs, and i wouldn't be surprised if it continues as such with future releases. Better to just get comfortable with not knowing and enjoying the speculation on what could be.
Makes the ride exciting, just one that I pray for others and myself to still be around for is all!
Alan Wake 2 is an amazing experience. I am now in my 5th playthrough, and I can't stop playing it. Its story is so well realized, and the gameplay is truly survival horror. I was so excited to watch your theory video, and I hope there are more of them on the way.
5th? Whoa!!! I am doing 2nd play just for a last trophy in order to get the platinum, but after the trophy i will stop. I have so many games to start. I liked the game a lot but 1/2 play are enough for the moment for me. And then i wait for the dlcs.
@amerigo95wilkarate I got the platinum at the end of my 4th playthrough lol and I am still playing. That's how hooked I am.
@@cjwinchester1206 yeah i see ahah im happy that u like it so much
@@ichimarugin1995 Thank you! I hope you have a lot of fun on your end as well. Go get that platinum trophy!
@@cjwinchester1206 got the platinum! 🤙🏻
Great video, but I will say that you need to make a distinction between old Scratch and new Scratch. They aren't the same. Old Scratch was created from the dark rumors about Alan, the new Scratch is just the Dark Presence using the darkness in him to control him. One is separate from Alan the other is Alan. Anyway, your point about Alan accepting his darkness has been hinted at since American Nightmare. The song "Balance Slays the Demon" doesn't fit anything that's already happened in Alan Wake, but it would fit the future. "In the end, it's never just the light you need. When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace. In the end, it's never just the dark you seek. When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace." I don't think we've met "the demon" yet, but Alan will need to achieve balance to slay it.
Watched this 2 times in a row would love to hear you pick it a part more
Replaying the ending and with Saga in her dark room mind place, she successfully faces her fears and admits some of what the dark place is feeding her is true. Now she is a seer and a door so she has tremendous power, but it does prove that escaping the dark place does entail what you are saying here. Alan as a regular dude with an ego has to just grind it out it seems, but with Alice's help it seems he's on the right track. In fact it seems Alice is the most in control here, and could be trying to defeat the shadow with the help of the FBC.
Yeah I was waiting For this video!
Max you should do a twin peaks deep dive. This game kinda has twin peaks vibes. Love your content man. Thanks for all you do.
Nice theory. The Thomas Zane point does make sense, and you can also apply it to Alan. Maybe there's a different version of the characters in each part of the spiral, and when they ascend or descend they find that other version (explaining how Alan got shot and also shot himself).
Also, one thing that I noticed is that maybe Zane wrote Alan into his story, just like Alan wrote Casey and Saga into his.
I think this could mean that the dark place isn't inherently a bad thing. It actually makes me think of the ending of Rain World...
We kinda have been hinted that it isn't. But that it was the place where the Dark Presences and Bright Presences fought against each other, according to This House of Dreams.
As a writer and gamer, I love this. This game was definitely worth the wait. About to start the final draft!
What a curious and elegant essay, thank you, Max!
I would love more lore videos from you on Alan Wake and Remedy universe as well, take care)
everything you say in all your videos goes over my head for the most part but i like how passionate you are about philosophy, so here's a like.
Great vid! Yeah I like your theory on Alan and the Jung structure and how Alan needs to ascend to the architypal writer to be able fully have mastery of the darkplace without being effected by it. Alan did also yell at Mr. Scratch to "come home!" I wonder if that was a type of acceptance of the shadow? Maybe that's the reason why Alice was able to finally communicate her intentions and the concepts of ascension and destruction. The one other thing that has popped into my mind though... and hasn't left since I finished Alan wake 2(and also since your vid mentioned the mother architype), Alan's mom Linda... who is she? and who the heck is Alan's dad? How did they get the clicker which is "potentially" an oop? Since the clicker was from Tom's lamp was there some connection? I wonder if there is some sort of connection between Alan's parents and the FBC?
Gaming University's playful theory about Alan's Dad is that he might be Balder, of the Old Gods of Asgard.
He was a man full of lovers, so Alan's mother might have been a big OGoA fan, what do we know?
Still, I really like the idea that the disappeared Loki might be Alan's Father.
What do writers do, after all, if not lie and create stories?
---
These ideas take root in the fun concept that "Children of the Elder God" might have been actually also referring to Alan.
There are other small things, however I can't remember them.
Involving Warlin door, I also believe he is a form of Martin Hatch from remedy entertainments ‘Quantum Break’. Hatch and door are similar names and Hatch has multiple selves. This also explains why Shawn Ashmore was cast as sheriff breaker, as he is the main character in quantum break. Also not sure if this is true but Lance Riddick was supposed to be cast as Warlin Door before he passed away which would link this theory even further.
I doubt they were gonna use Lance for this game, he was still alive when this game was in production.
Amazing video as usual. I just want to drop in a few thoughts :
1. I think Alex Casey's existence is actually a bit simpler. Yes, Alan has clairvoyance and saw glimpses of the real Alex Casey's life that he actually interpreted as inspiration. But I think the evidence on Saga's board that says "Maybe Wake can't invent wholly new ideas. Has to use what already exists" references the fact that to make a work of art come to life in the Dark Place you need to use elements of reality to make the story more believable, therefore easier to come to life. That's why his entire Initiation draft is done with echoes of all sorts of realities combined.
2. That being said, I love your theory about the Dark Place being the Collective Unconscious. Which, also supports one of my theories regarding why we see so many "Human Echoes" in the Remedy-verse. Characters that are somehow the same, yet different. Like two versions of the same being existing in different worlds, the same archetype, so to speak. Alan Wake/Thomas Zane, Alex Casey/Max Payne, Tim Breaker/Jack Joyce, Mr Door/Hatch, etc. Instead of the traditional multiverse, it's every possible idea in existence. So far, this is the only potential explanation I found as to why Wake and Zane's life mirror each other to the point of looking exactly the same. I do agree that Alan never met the real Zane though. I do wonder who's the guy in AW2. He seems to be the devil on Alan's shoulder. But is he a fictional character? Does he appear to Alan in the same way that Casey (the fictional one) appears to Alan in the Dark Place? I don't know.
This is a shortcoming of the game. The story introduces countless unrealistic things that must be accepted as true BUT Alan must work within vague confines for the sake of the plot. If thomas zane can write the clicker into power and alan can write a bullet of light into power, why cant alan just write that a massive thunderbolt strikes the lake, killing all darkness and freeing all those trapped. There is zero reason why this wouldnt be allowed but the clicker and bullet are
True. Even worse, the bullet of light AKA one of the most powerful weapon I've seen yet, was created only thanks to ONE photograph from Alice. She did spend some time in the Dark Place, but not nearly as much as Alan.
I do think that Alan's biggest enemy is himself. On one hand, he didn't even know that HE was the one ruining his own work (as Scratch). He also needs to switch place with someone. That's the biggest thing. He can't just write himself out, he also needs to write someone in. But even with Saga and Casey in the Dark Place now, the Dark Presence seems to be messing with them (with this cliffhanger).
So I get where you're coming from, but I don't think he's THAT far from getting out.
@@MichaelFromTheAtticSaga uses the Clicker on Alice’s art to bring the Bullet of Light into the story because she’s co-authoring with Alan. Alice never died and is actively guiding Alan and Saga. In the Remedy universe, the shoebox is resistant to any changes made by the Dark Presence. We still don’t know HOW Alice is doing any of this, which will probably be explained in the upcoming DLC or sequel.
Alan never wrote the bullet of light or the clicker into existence.
@@ladiddas he wrote the bullet? How did it come to be otherwise? He literally puts the pictures in the box and they become the clicker and bullet as you spend the whole alan part writing the story
Very glad that you threw out the "he's her dad" about Door, I was thinking the same but then I was like nah that's too obvious right? Lol
Sometimes the easiest answer is the right answer lol
I just started Alan's section of NG+. Congrats on calling the story.
I agree with Thomas Zaine idea.I don't think we ever met the 1970 Tom the Poet.. I think Tom the Diver is different and was written by Alan. I think he was the main protagonist of Departure, but when Alan edited it to make himself the main protagonist, he changed Tom the Diver to a helper or guide.. This new thomas zaine, idk. I saw a theory where he is the same to Alan as Tim Breaker is to Jack Joyce and Alex Casey is to Max Payne. Seems like it could be true
About 'The Word of God' and 'Let there be light': The scene where Alan first meets Tom Zane The Auteur in AW2, Tom speaks a poem into a lamp mimicking a microphone - spoken word into (a) light. Whilst also being a nice reference to the 'In Dreams' scene in 'Blue Velvet' - this alludes to the idea that Tom Zane, as he has appeared in the previousd games, is a mere vessel for the 'light presence'. I also believe the light presence/Tom The Diver itself (as well as 'darkness') *as an 'entity'* is a mere plot device written by Wake in the 'Departure' scenario - and that the one Wake interacts with is a projection of an abstract aspect of himself as an artist/writer. I remember in one of the DLCs for the original game, Alan having this confused exchange about the different versions of himself in the Dark Place - and 'Zane's' relation to them. Light as 'something', 'Seine' as a fishing net - fishing ideas out of nothing (darkness), the light inside a projector - a passive element to draw out ideas and shapes. Darkness is the light sensitive 'film' that has been personified by Wake as 'Mr Scratch' or 'The Dark Presence'.
One of my favorite games is how well it hits you over the head with its twist, and yet you ignore that on the first play through because the both storylines seem to be happening at the same time almost.
A very satisfying game. We really need more survival horror games like this, we starvin.
Unfortunately, I don't see AW2 landing with the general gaming audience. They probably won't understand it and won't even try to.
@@fattiger6957Too many puzzles, and the writing is "pretentious". I can already predict this kind of complaints from your avarege Joe.
My theory is that the dark place lets alan merge realities, the reason Alan could not simply write himself out of the dark places is because for events to take place they have to be plausible, the scene and events have to make sense and be possible in order to happen, so my take is anything Alan writes has tk have been possible or already done in another reality before he can achieve it
Thank you for the video!
Found you thanks to the live discussion with Gaming University!
What about the doorman ?? That back guy from studio . I think he deserves a whole video to cover about . In the ending the cop tells there’s no ending and etc
It is heavily implied that he is saga father
Alan wake just wrote all of it, and when I say all of it, I mean all of it. Max Payne, quantum break, Control, Alex Casey, night springs, and Alan Wake. Tom Zane and Barbra Jagger have never at anytime been real people. He even writes fictional versions of himself and people from his life.
The last scene in the last Alan wake game will probably be a camera pulling away from him signing books at a celebration of his collective works.
The ending line
"It's not a Game, it's a book"
That may well be the most oddly satisfying ending at this point.
It became clear to me from playing that yes there are philosophical aspects that will need to come about, but there's elements of multiverse theory in this as well mixed with an idea of an entity that connects worlds going by the name of Door. Saga's story is her becoming a Door by embracing the story/saga/herself. She will no doubt allow him to access different versions of the Story or connected stories to find an exit for himself and everyone else.
If we are going to reflect on AW2 through Jung's perspective then: Thomas Zane is Alan's unconsciousness. His diving suit represent this (Jung's Tavistock lecture, when he explains symbolism of Toledo's cathedral catacombs). Light coming from suit is a wisdom that Alan will gain from this interactions (diving in the unconsciousness of the self). And the Spiral. Well. There are two things here to consider. 1. Spiral is a serpent that also is a symbol of unconsciousness and a guard of it. So it is a puzzle Alan has to solve to return back from the "sunken world" benath trhe lake (symbol of unconsciousness) where he lost his wife. 2. The spiral circles couterclockwise. A sign that there is no hope for him. Last lecture from Jung's Tavistock lectures has a discussion where pictures of a patient suffering from dementia praecox are shown. PS. Jung also believed that when you see serpent in your dreams it refers to ones "lower motor centers of the brain and of the spinal cord, and our fear of snakes denotes that we are not fully in tune with our instinctive lower centers" (site not Jungf himself, yet he said that during mentioned lectures as well). Alan is in a delousional, or somehow dreamlike state. In other words theory about his nervous system being fkup doesn't seem to be far fetched. PS.S. We already established that Zane is Alan's unconsciousness. What does it mean for Alan? It's quite simple. It's self fulfilling prophecy. The Zane's fate if what Alan anticipates for himself and Alice. But... Creators are free whatever they please, so diving suit could be a prank on gamers, to make them more confused. And Spiral isn't a Spiral, because when I right click on your video all I see is at the top is Loop and not Spiral. Spiral can refer to Black Spiral Dancers for all I care.
I know next to nothing about Alan Wake, and I had no idea there was a Remedt Verse, but I feel a lot more interested and invested than I did before. I feel like when Alan Wake 1 came out my friends all just did a pretty bad job of selling me on it, but this, this I can get behind.
This game is easily my game of the year
Lots of stella releases this year, have you played many of them?
@@Ytnzy250 Played just about everything except for Spider-Man and Diablo, Alan Wake 2 beats em all for me
@@B0RNxVILL4IN
Unfortunately haven't played any but RE4 remake & Zelda TOTK look tough to beat.
OG AW was a 10/10.
Will grab the sequel on sale after all patches have been applied & a more budget friendly price drops.
i love the Pathologic 2 music in background, very fitting
Can't watch cause I haven't finished it, but I love the FBC-verse and can't wait to watch this
Would be interested in seeing your analysis expanded with the final draft
Interesting. Will wait for part three. Going play and appreciate American Nightmare more.
So Alan is like saga in that he’s also a seer. It’s why he has his writing room like how saga has her mind place. And why they’re able to communicate the whole game. That’s where he keeps getting his “inspiration” from and where his Alex Casey ideas came from
I just realized that song "balance slays the demon" litelarry reffers to that theory. They sing how only when you accept both light and darkness can you find peace
I wonder - if everything happening in Control and AW2 fits the narrative of saving Alan. Night Springs seemed to exist before Alan even thought he seems to be the author of the show. Before Bright Falls, Alan wrote mostly Alex Casey detectives, not horror, so maybe he manifested a lot more that we think - FBI Alex, Night Springs, FBC and Jesse… there is a lot of winks to that - Mr. Door mentioning that “a lot of people try to help you”. So maybe Alan writing into reality other people, who act through their narrative, still fits the story.
What I got from "It's not a loop, it's a spiral" is that he now understands that each "loop", albeit similar, can have incremental changes. Each incremental change will get him a step towards freedom. I think we're going to get a full look at this with the upcoming new game + mode. They've confirmed that it has new story content, making me think that new game + is going to show the next loop - mostly exactly the same, but with small incremental changes (probably help from his wife and the FBC).
Similar to dead space remake. That would be lit
Yeah, New Game + is supposed to have a "Final Draft" ending IIRC. And then there's the coming DLC too.
@@CorporalCookie need both
Great video as usual, Max.
I love this Game and thansk for your Video. I'm a bit disappointed what they did with Scratch, he was such a great Antagonist in American Nightmare.
The spiral motif feels like an allusion to Junjo Ito's "Uzumaki" with the headline "spiral into horror". I wonder if there's any more conmections that can be derived from this, too.
I love the ideas of pataphysics played with in the Alan Wake games
Great video Max
First, I have a recommendation for you. Since you've done an analysis on Promethea, I have another comic book that you should give a try: The Incal, written by Jodorowsky and illustrated by Moebius.
Now about Alex Casey, remember, time in the Dark Place isn't linear like in the normal world, so when Thomas Zane wrote Alan Wake as a writer, or while Alan was writing Return or Initiation, the Dark Presence made him aware of Casey existence and made past Alan write the books as part pf the plot... It's strange this kind of future events influencing things that happened before, but for me it makes more sense than some kind of precognition.
Alan Wake 3 will come in another 13 years.
Lol. I hope not
More Alan Wake lore videos please!
Scratch is not Alan as a Taken. Taken are individuals who have been influenced and corrupted by the Dark Presence. Scratch (Both Alan and Alex), and Barbara Jagger are all a different thing as the Dark Presence physically took them over, inhabiting their body in a more powerful way than regular Taken. Additionally, Scratch was not pretending to be Alan for the most part. The Dark Presence was weakened considerably inside Alan when the summoning brought the two of them to the real world, causing Alan to have memory problems. It took some time until the Dark Presence was able to exert control over Alan in the events of the CotT's attack on the lodge, using a chance to also give itself an opening in Casey.
Also, you're just completely ignoring American Nightmare. Scratch WAS a physically separate being, created by Zane (and fucked up by Zane too) and was defeated and destroyed in American Nightmare. So it can't just be Alan as a Taken
Informative as always.
Finallllyyyyy an Alan Wake 2 lore video
And you are totally right aboiut the Word and it being god. Right after you first encounter scratch in the sheriff's department, the chapter song has a lyric
"I created the world. First came the word."
At the very beginning of the final draft Alan says Zane was a fictional poet. Zane is another creation of Alan’s
I think that an eventual Control 2 will reveal new things even about Mr Door's true nature
Much like Alan Wake 2, this video begins with a specific conceptualization and fits the game into said schemata. For those that made the game, they wanted to make a convoluted mess that is meant to go nowhere, like the first game. For Max, it is an attempt to fit said convoluted mess into a Jungian schemata. The game really just is there is an evil called the dark presence that is trying to get out of its confinement/the dark place and is doing so through the plot premise of the setting being a conduit for art to shape the world. Alan is just caught in the middle.
The closer it got to release date the more clearly we began to foresee what AW2 might have in store, or ultimately lead to and descension and ascension was one. I believe it was in June of this year that we tweeted an image for AW2 of a small angel sitting on a ladder with a quote from Carl Yung "The decent into the depths always seems to precede the ascent." We aren't huge fans of Jung by any means, but we know that Remedy draws inspiration from his theories. Anyway, just a quick note. There are several pieces of evidence supporting time loops in the first game, Alan will even comment about remembering. Aside from pieces of evidence that he's already been somewhere we visit during gameplay, it's also possible to see and hear multiple "Alans" in certain parts of the game. You can only see the multiple Alans for a fleeting moment, a second maybe. We've been avoiding review and analysis videos lately, but a friend of mine saw this video and said that it wouldn't interfere with our current thoughts and ideas. This video is very nicely done. You presented everything really well. It was a nice easy watch :)
I kinda like Alan Wake 3 ending with him becoming master of “The Place”. No dark no light, just a layer of pure creation, a Prospero with his own dimensional island.
I never, played the original alan wake. And I was thoroughly fascinated by everything that was going on in the second one. And there was a weird level of understanding i felt at the end. I felt like I only really had a few questions left
Only 4 minutes in but just wanted to point out that Alex Casey could have been pulled into the Dark Place when he was Taken towards the end of the game. the timeline on this one is real whacky with the way time works in the Dark Place, so he could have been pulled into the Dark Place and sent back to the beginning of Initiation to guide Alan as the manifestation of a detective. Like you said, you can't create something out of nothing, there has to be an explanation for how Casey can look and sound exactly like his real-world counterpart without Alan having never met him up until that point.
Alan Wake 2 was worth the wait. And I am definitely subscribing to gaming university)
"Do you read Sutter Kane?" - In the Mouth of Madness
I agree with most of this, but where i disagree, is how the spiral and ascension works, if travelling on spiral, the only way to get to the end, is to travel down towards the center, but basically, yes Jungian stuff.
Alan has been going through loops, as he's going the wrong way, and ending up circling. Aka hes doing something wrong, Alice being (spoiler) not so dead at the end has gone in to rescue him, to help him change his method of fighting, hes stuck, because his tackling the dark place in the wrong way. There seems to be hints of Alans self loathing and doubt, which ofc feeds the dark presence.
Also i find interesting, is the many references to rituals and obsessions in the remedy verse, this seems to me to be a pretty obvious reference to OCD, the rituals are compulsions, you see the puzzle, you feel like you wanna solve it. Including Saga's puzzles which too affect reality (synchronicity/magical thinking), despite the fact many of the puzzles seem hint at a mother losing a child like saga's life in Watery,
One other thing, is why Saga and Casey drink coffee exactly the same, mirroring each other, i dont think this is just a humourous thing to show to set the scene, a stylistic choice, like weird tv shows that have that same feel. I think theres something more going on.
It happens more than once. Right at the start entering Bright Falls, and again meeting Alan wake.
I believe John 1:1 is also seen on the clocks in most places in the game as 10:10. Other clocks show 03:00, which is the Witching or Devil's hour. There are so many hints in these games about good vs. evil, light vs. dark, God vs. The Devil and I'm so there for it.
Yeah ive been feeling a similar vibe.
Ahti the janitor feels like God to me, this presence that knows all (or the most out of anyone) and pushes invisible pieces on a metaphorical chess board towards some unknowable narrative.
Jessie the director reminds me of Jesus with how she was at a very young age always tied to the paranatural. Even when she first shows up to the oldest house Ahti is the one that (i assume) let's her in on the strange and abnormal. Even calling her his assistant when she becomes director. The oldest house is even speculated to change throughout the ages as the collective unconscious shifts to more modern designs. The idea of the director dying and only being replaced by a uniquely rare candidate gives me the feeling of resurrection. (even if thats pushing it)
Alan the writer gives me vibes of Lucifer/The Devil. They are different but they've just kinda became synonymous with each other, kinda like Alan and Scratch. Anyways I'm not trying to say Alan rebelled against God, but he also did go against the natural order and try to bring someone back from the dark place. The darkness tricked Alan and in the end he fell down into the dark place which could also be seen as hell. (if you REALLY try to push it) Now Alan works kinda like security for the dark place and seems to be friends with Ahti.
Special mention to Dylan the chillin who is the [trigger warning] "anti christ" in this theory. He seeks to invade the worlds with the hiss and take over. Other than that i don't really know since it's hiss babel, this is where my theory falls flat.
Do with this information what you will.
@@TheNecroMeister You've put into words what I've been thinking. Spot on. Yet nothing is ever confirmed and anything is possible. That's why I love this series so much.
im a bit late but this interpretation of ahti really makes sense, especially with a dialogue in which he talks about the water and how it can wash away the mess
i have a theory regarding Saga's part in the story. as we all know Saga's mom left Brightfalls when Saga was an infant. however, she ended up being part of Alan's writing. i believe that because of their power seeing the truth that runs in the family, Saga's mother was able to 'see through' the reality that was shifting in Brightfalls. as such, when she left, it created an alternative reality of which Saga actually existed in BrightFalls and ended up losing her daughter. this part of breaching of reality created a "backdoor" where Saga was able to wander through Brightfalls with no memory/reality/personality changes. she was the "Editor/Co-Author" of the whole story as such, she was able to actually change the story and not Alan himself as he keeps on forgetting or/and getting lost in the dark place. BUT
WHO THE HELL IS HER FATHER? was he the host of the show that allowed her to enter the dark place? because while playing the host hinted to Alan that he was trying to keep things in control? keep in mind her father disappeared and her mother barely talks about him..
Continuing argument about "in the beginning there was the word". The song "dark, twisted and cruel", which is supposed to be Scratch's song, contains the same line "I created this world, first came the word". That's pretty strange and somehow connects Alan scratch and Zane?
I’m really curious about the connection between Mr. Door and Quantum Break’s Martin Hatch. I know Remedy doesn’t own the IP for Quantum Break, but the parallels of a being who can freely move through time and space, that’s is both outside of the story and inside the story, seems to similar to be a coincidence. I wouldn’t be surprised if it came out that the late Lace Riddick was meant to play Mr. Door before his passing, just like he play Mr. Hatch.