Alan Wake is established as a writer with a famously short temper. He is a party animal, abuses multiple substances and gets into frequent fights—mainly with stifling paparazzi. He can be violent, closed off, and irrational. This is mainly stirred by his writer’s block, but is ultimately a piece of himself. The personal darkness that everyone has.
I feel that the biggest theme in the Alan Wake franchise pertains to Alan’s self-destruction. Specifically, how he is not the only casualty in his self-destruction… everyone else around him suffers as well. His worst mistake, however, is being completely blind to this fact. He has a very, VERY, painfully complicated case of tunnel vision. This is Alan’s fatal flaw throughout the course of Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2. First, it was his wife, Alice, who suffered. Then, Saga Anderson and the entirety of Bright Falls, Washington.
Alan Wake 1:
Had He Seen Her Drowning…
Alice, Alan’s wife, suffers the brunt of Alan’s issues in AW1. He was angry, irrational and detached, so Alice decided to bring him on a vacation to Bright Falls, Washington. She figured that his writer’s block was the cause of his frustrations, so she encouraged him to write and referred him to a psychiatrist who specialized in struggling artists. Alan lashed out at the implication that he was unstable, they fought, and immediately after this fight, Alice was dragged into Cauldron Lake. Into "The Dark Place", an alternate dimension home to the darkness or "The Dark Presence". Alice discusses how Alan was affecting her in a tape interview with Dr. Hartman, the psychiatrist she tried to bring Alan to. Alice describes the emotional turbulence she was experiencing, even going as far as to say that Alan doesn’t physically abuse her, but that “sometimes I almost wish Alan would just take a swing at me, because at least that’d lead to a conversation he couldn’t just march out of”. Alan is dismissive of his negative affect on her life, refusing to let her help, and it’s driving her crazy. In that same tape recording, Alice also says “…he’s not writing, at all. He sits there for hours and just gets more and more frustrated. And I can’t talk to him”. This would be our first evidence of Alan’s “spiral”, which is the main focus of Alan Wake 2.
In Herald of Darkness (a song from AW2, but covers the events of both games) one lyric really stood out to me, one in support of this general idea.
“But the darkness within him held her hostage
Had he seen her drowning, would have saved her from the darkness of the lake”
The darkness within Alan held Alice hostage in multiple instances. First through the emotional turmoil she faced back in New York, and second through her being physically dragged into and held in The Dark Place by the darkness. Alan's darkness. Had Alan realized the distress he was causing Alice, he would’ve freed her from it. From The Dark Place. He was hurting Alice with his actions, and was too blind to see it. Had he acknowledged his faults, he could learn from them. This phenomenon is what sparked the Cauldron Lake incident in 2010, and all of the events afterwards.
At the end of Alan Wake 1, Alan sacrifices himself to save Alice, swapping places with her and trapping himself in The Dark Place.
Alan Wake 2:
In Alan Wake 2, we pick up with Alan in The Dark Place 13 years after the events of the first game. He is trapped in the "Writer's Room” inside The Dark Place, and is writing a story to help himself escape. The Dark Place operates with art, enabling what is written to come to life. With this story, he is doing the same thing as the first game—enabling this loop of self-destruction. With Alan being physically within the darkness, and with the darkness changing shape based on Alan’s writing, the message becomes a lot more literal. As Alan progresses through The Dark Place, he is losing pieces of himself. He is starting to feel empty, and he is losing his memory. He’s deteriorating mentally, and losing himself to the darkness. These physical injuries directly correspond with how self-destructive he is, as he is putting himself directly in danger for the "the sake of the story". He has a frequent ideology throughout both games that "no one is safe, least of all the hero", so he is constantly throwing himself under the metaphorical bus. The outside influences suffering in this story are our favourite FBI agents, Saga Anderson and Alex Casey. Saga was written into the story without her consent, to help Alan stop the darkness. Alan also wrote that her her daughter tragically drowned and her husband blames her for it, as well as her partner Alex Casey being overtaken by darkness. The self-destructive story is also destroying everyone around him. Not even mentioning the countless lives he has taken through his writing, for the “sake of the story”. The main antagonist for this story, Scratch, is also a physical manifestation of Alan’s “darkness”—in support of this game being more on-the-nose with Alan’s issues.
My two favourite scenes in Alan Wake 2 both stem from this main theme of self-destruction, and they hit me so incredibly hard. They are some of the most devastating, yet important scenes in the entire game—and in Alan’s character development.
Finding Out Alice is “Dead”
Alan returned to the Dark Place equivalent of his apartment with Alice in every single loop of the story, including previous loops within the 13 years we didn’t see. Alice is able to capture photos through the veil into The Dark Place, and when we—the player—enter the first time, her apartment is littered with pictures of Scratch. She was haunted, tormented and stalked by this darker version of Alan. As you progress, you watch videos from Alice’s “The Dark Place” photography exhibit. In the final video, she says she has made a decision not many people would understand, it ends with text reading “Alice Wake took her life shortly after completing her work on The Dark Place”. Alice was dead, and it was Scratch’s fault. Alan grew angrier and angrier as he returned to the apartment through these loops, as well as more hellbent on reaching his study to take back his story from Scratch and fix this. That tunnel vision again. When Alan finally reaches his study, he can hear Scratch changing the story inside. He charges in, blinded by his grief and anger, and shoots him in the head… but we’ve seen this scene before. Earlier in the game, during the first loop, Alan makes it to his study. He finds Return, sits down, and starts to change the ending. As he works, Scratch—identical to himself—barges through the door and shoots him in the head. Both of these people are Alan, at different points in the story. Alan had stopped HIMSELF from finishing return. He had killed Alice. Him and Scratch are one and the same, just at different points in the spiral of his consciousness. Shooting himself in the head and preventing his own escape has to be the most literal and compelling evidence towards the “self-destruction” theme, right?
I put “Dead” in quotations because it is later revealed that Alice created this photography exhibit as her art piece to commune with and enter The Dark Place, and her ‘suicide’ was jumping into the portal through Cauldron Lake… presumably to go help Alan. Doesn't make this entire scene any less of an agonizing stake through the heart, though.
Saga Anderson: An Example and a Saviour
This entire section is dedicated to Saga Anderson, our secondary protagonist of Alan Wake 2. She’s new to the universe (aside from being mentioned in a Quantum Break easter egg), and she is the perfect addition to the story. Saga is exactly what Alan needed, in every single way. An example, and a saviour. She is here to save him from himself by telling him what he needed to hear: that he is controlling, selfish, and abusing the power that the story gives him—but he is too wrapped in a loop to look outside of himself and realize what is truly going on.
Saga is an example to Alan, mainly in how she handled being within The Dark Place. Towards the end of the game, Saga is thrown into Cauldron Lake by Scratch, and finds herself trapped in the Dark Place. She is within her field office, which is her version of Alan's Writer's Room. She is tormented by her darkness--her self-worth and her insecurities. Her version of Scratch, just named “Other Saga”, continues to repeat how Saga has failed. How everything is her fault. It is quite an overwhelming scene to witness, and for a while, Saga gives into these feelings. She is distressed as she places evidence on her mind place board, evidence of “You are a terrible partner” or “You are a terrible mother”. Through this methodical system she has, however, she works through these feelings. She realizes that Other Saga is saying nothing based in concrete fact. As she works through this, fond memories emerge around the field office. A letter from her mother, a photo of Casey at her daughter’s birthday party, all paired with sweet messages proving how much these people care for her—invalidating her darkness. After exploring these memories, she fights back against The Dark Place and WINS. She escapes from the field office, broken free from the spiral, and traverses The Dark Place freely. This is a step that Alan presumably never reached, as he is trapped in his Writer’s Room and projecting himself out into The Dark Place through the story. Saga is strong, brave, and self-assured. She didn’t give her doubts the power they needed to grow out of control, which is an example that Alan needs to ground himself. Alan not only gave his darkness power through belief, but through a name. Scratch.
Saga is also Alan’s saviour, the one who breaks him free from the manipulations of The Dark Place. From Scratch. From himself. Saga is the one given the Bullet of Light and the Clicker, by none other than Alice Wake within The Dark Place. At the time the player receives them, we only know what the Clicker does. It has the power to make the story come true, and is a necessity to fixing everything. Scratch also wants it to powerfully manipulate the story in his own image. Saga refuses to let Alan write the ending of Return, his story, by himself—because it isn’t just his story. It’s hers too. He got her, her daughter, her husband and her FBI partner into this. She is as much of a driving force as he is. Saga demands to be in the writers room to make sure he includes her conditions (fixing her family, saving Casey from the darkness) and makes her way to Alan’s Writers Room to keep him on track. Finally, when it comes down to using the Clicker to make the ending come true… Saga refuses to let Alan do it, stating that it had to be her. And it had to be. I firmly believe that Alan, with the clicker in hand and Scratch at the door, would’ve subconsciously corrupted the story again. Hell, the one at the door trying to stop them IS Alan. A piece of him, anyways. Some piece of Alan relished in the darkness, didn’t want to better himself, didn’t want to leave the security of the loop, and that piece is Scratch. Saga uses the clicker herself, forcing The Dark Presence back into Alan. She lifts her gun, and fires the bullet of light through Alan’s forehead. The bullet hole is shining a bright white light, as darkness pours out of the back of his head. He sits straight up and says “It’s not a loop, It’s a spiral.” Fade to black. I believe that through Saga’s use of the bullet of light, she set Alan on the “path of ascension” mentioned occasionally throughout the game. This is an ascension from the spiral Alan is trapped in, ascension from his darkness, and eventual ascension from The Dark Place—and it all starts with the spiral.
It’s Not a Loop, It’s a Spiral
“It’s not a loop, It’s a spiral” is another multifaceted and cryptic phrase to end an Alan Wake game, accompanying “It’s not a lake, It’s an ocean” from the first Alan Wake. I can really only give my individual interpretation, which took a few careful “up at 3 AM and can’t stop thinking about Alan Wake 2” sessions. What Alan is going through, his entire experience in The Dark Place, is not solidified in a loop. These are not repeated events set in stone, and we see this within the gameplay. We start at Mr. Door’s talkshow studio and end at Alice’s apartment, but the events between follow only a vague structure. A structure solely created by Alan’s unchanging thought process. The transition between waking-up-on-a-talkshow Alan and shooting-himself-in-the-head Alan is a spiral of self. That all consuming anger, subconscious acceptance of the darkness, and tunnel vision. These are all completely unavoidable, yet Alan falls into the same pattern every time because he is unaware of the true nature of The Dark Place. The spiral. He has the power to change the outcome, but not by changing the story he writes. By changing himself. Now that Saga has given him this knowledge through the bullet of light, Alan is conscious of his own spiral. His own darkness. Most importantly, he is aware of how he is affecting others. He has been given the self-awareness he had been without for so long, and through it he can learn from his mistakes. He can climb out of the spiral, on the path to ascension.
The Future of Alan Wake
Alan’s future is his to shape with the knowledge he has gained. Through everything he has experienced and caused, I truly believe he deserves to better himself and work through his mistakes. All of my descriptions of Alan’s character may sound negative, but he is one of my favourite characters of all time. He is multi-dimensional character with deeply complex flaws and mistakes, but that only makes me drawn to him more. We love morally complicated main characters around here.
Saga has given Alan what he needs to save himself, and work towards this path of ascension… and towards Alice. I can only hope that Alan climbs through the spiral and reaches Saga’s level. The level where she communed with Alice. The light at the top of the spiral.
DID NOT DISAPPOINT AFTER I HOUNDED YOU ABOUT WHEN IT WOULD BE DONE. Really excellent!!
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