Discussing The Final Draft w/ Gaming University & Kranitoko

[@Ha1frican]

Just finished a playthrough of Control AWE and it’s fascinating how much of AW2 was hinted at there. Event at the end the deer horns flash just before they mention Agent Estevez being on scene at Cauldron Lake. They even talk about Barry setting up Valhalla, and Alann’s shadow visiting Alice in her apartment. It’s crazy how planned out this all was

[@QuestionableLifeChoices]

alan ending up evil would be a terrible ending for his character; he spent 13 years trying desperately to not become evil, to be better than all his worst thoughts about himself, acutely aware of his own failings. for him to throw all that out and become evil wouldn't just be bad writing, it'd frankly feel like a slap to the face

[@johnernest5843]

Alan Wake 2, in its earliest prototype stages, showed Alan being the 'Champion of Light', having more strength and skill after his time in the lake, and having adventures fighting off the Darkness With the advent of the Final Draft ending, I feel like Sam Lake is finally tackling that original plan for Alan, with him being a more powerful and skilled hero. Only time will tell how they'll execute this plan, but I do hope to see Wake become the Master of Many Worlds that he proclaims to be

[@Alexmcool]

A lot of people seem to confuse good writing for 'feel good' writing. Alan becoming evil would be fantastic, it would add a nuance to an antagonist yet unseen. It enables so many stories. Current redditor zeitgest dictates that consuming media must feel good, otherwise it is bad. Bad feelings should be avoided.

[@mattjindrak]

We all become evil in the end.

[@barkarboris8425]

I wonder will it be any conflict between FBC and Alan considering how irresponsible he was acting within the Dark Place, how many lives he put to an end. At least FBC must accuse him with some paracriminal charges. Maybe him becoming a Multidimensional creature makes him too powerful for FBC to cross him, like Mr. Door, or even The Board.

[@liamcallaghan15]

@@Alexmcoolabsolutely. Obviously that’s an ending I wouldn’t want to happen but it absolutely can be an excellent way of finishing a character arc, especially since it’s stated numerous times that not everyone can be saved given the genre the manuscripts have become.

[@thechevyferrari9559]

The Ahti stuff was INTERESTING in the second playthrough. Like, him as a god blocking out the moon & picking up cauldron lake and pouring it into the writer’s room, but it’s also a skull cavity?

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

The rotting filth of a dead god

[@travellerinthedark]

What Alice said about her becoming art is simply her becoming the subject of the photos, in front of the lens instead of behind the lens for a change. That sentence filled me with so much unease, because my mind immediately went to her photographing her suicide, which ended up being exactly what it was (or what she wanted to make it seem).

[@MantasticHams]

I actually part agree and part disagree, i think you are exactly right, but furthermore its a metaphor for her crossing a boundary between consensus reality and abstract reality, in other words the dark place, OR, arguably, a realm in which the dark place exists, because my personal theory is the dark place is actually more of an island in the middle of the realm of ideas, which is why the use the word "place" to directly relate Sagas Mind P(a)LACE to the dark place, without jsut saying "shes in the dark place". Saga has access to more of this realm because her powers inherited from door and the anderson family aren't as narrow in scope as alans. Alan has more power over writing, but can only really enter the realm of ideas through his storys which all come from a very DARK PLACE in his mind. But Saga is a traveler between worlds, along with her ability to enter her mind place, which isnt dark and hostile to her like alans. So for one shes safe in her mind place, and for 2, she can travel between mindplaces. I think this also demonstrates that the mindplace/dark place/realm of ideas in the RCU functions similar to the beaches in death stranding, theres a kind of world of beaches that are all separate, but can be caused to connect. But the connections are much more vital to these worlds because they represent the connections between ideas in the real world. They are like the branching structure of a related set of neurons in the brain of reality. Damn im high as a MF.

[@BenjaminBerryHoops]

I think it's interesting how Alice is portrayed in AW2, though. The visuals we see of her (other than live action final draft moment) ARE art - either video or when we see her hand catch the clicker etc. it's almost like stop motion PHOTOGRAPHY (aka, art). What if it's true, what if she became the art? I would love to play as her in AW3, and maybe have her photography play into her gameplay mechanics.

[@stasspirchenko]

Pretty sure the young gods of asgards in the musical are their per-1988 versions of themselves. Because the third guy Bob is alive, but most importantly because odin wears the patch on the left eye. The document about 1988 mentions Door "taking the wrong eye", and the older version of odin wears the patch on the RIGHT eye. It's Remedy, so these details must be there intentionally) There's also a note in odin's room in the nursing home about the chronology of his eye losses. Still figuring out what this while eye business means, but it completely blew my mind when I noticed those eyes patches on different eyes, and the wrong eye thing from the doc.

[@stasspirchenko]

I suspect the wearing the patch on the right eye is due to Door actually gouging his right eye out. He's wearing the patch on the right eye in both AW1 and AW2. But the left eye is intact post-1988, so I suppose he had both eyes pre-1988 and wore the patch on the left eye just for kicks. Or maybe that's somehow connected to him acquiring the sight.

[@stasspirchenko]

I don't remember exactly what the note in his room says, but it seemed like he's given up his eye pre-1988 to gain the sight / wisdom. Following this logic, post-1988 odin should be blind and have no eyes left, haha. And that still doesn't explain why Tor was given the sight. And hence how Saga inherited it, since Odin is just her grand uncle.

[@AceRazor]

I was thinking "the wrong eye" was inferring the Third Eye.🤷🏽‍♂️

[@forzimus]

02:35 Alice is in the Dark Place, we can see her right after Saga wakes up in the Dark Place after her Mind Place sequence. Alace says "Saga, wake up" and we can see her in the bottom left corner of the screen near the fountain for 1 or 2 seconds. Interesting enough that she has dark hair in that scene. I came across a concept art for Alice by Remedy's concept artist Jenna Seikkula. In this art she has black hair.

[@maxmfpayne]

I think Alan will continue to be a playable character, his enlightenment is earned through personal growth, through completing his arc and the hero's journey. He isn't gonna become evil, that would suck. The entire point is he became a better person, that's one of the variables that allowed him to finally escape the spiral. I think this represents a return to the more action oriented game design of Alan Wake 1, but dialed up to 11 with some reality bending powers Alan can use to solve puzzles/aid himself in combat. He might be used less because he'll be more powerful, and Saga's gameplay would maintain the horror elements. So he'd be a power trip as a break from the horror.

[@Kranitoko]

1:09:30 As im listening to myself here, I can't help but remember a Night Springs episode about the dream of dreams episode. When the alarm clock went off, all the people in the dream ceased to exist. Even in Alan Wake 2, Door seems to insinuate that when the scene ends, everyone else around him just ceases to exist. So in the original loop, does thay Alan, Saga, Casey etc just cease to exist because its not the "true" end? Only the Alan, Saga and Casey in the "Final Draft" carry on after the story?

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

hmmm!

[@MantasticHams]

i mean in a sense you can see quite clearly that everyone around him just disappears when the scene is over, we are left alone in that cavernous studio set the instant afterward. Any other character(s) would be in the scene when the live action portion ended, or at least there would be like, a film projector showing why they aren't, like with Tom Zane in the hotel

[@AceRazor]

Regarding the Spiral door being a threshold or if the writer's room is the dark place/part of the dark place: I think it's significant that only Ahti has access to the Spiral Door key, in keeping with his keeping of the puddles and his relationship with Jesse.

[@zbaksh101]

-Tom and Darling creating Alan has a fun meta commentary given who those actors are. - darling being tied to Quantum Break is fascinating. -I leaned towards Zane being a villian so Zane trying to usurp Alan's life and form fits.

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

All meta commentary and "fun jokes" from prior games have so far been built upon to become key plot elements. Like the OGoA and 665. So i dont think it'll stay a cute nod

[@maxentirunos]

Thomas Zane the cineast is Tom Zane's Mr. Scratch. The poet failed where Alan suceeded and got replaced by his Dark alternative. Tom wasn't a villain ,but the lack of connection (love) left behind made him hopeless to escape the dark place and he left his doppelganger take his place.

[@zbaksh101]

@@JakeTalksGamesYT I know. I'm just enjoying what they are now.

[@zbaksh101]

@@maxentirunos he works as a foil for Alan then.

[@ContrastCopy]

As I see it there are three main Toms. Tom the poet, the original guy who wrote the secret poem and is in a pocket universe in the dark place. Tom the diver, the light presence wearing Tom the Poet’s skin. And Tom the filmmaker/actor whose identity and motivations currently unknown, but have something to do with usurping the roles of other people.

[@Dream0Asylum]

15:30 Guys, we still have Night Springs content coming. It's entirely possible for Jesse to have a role to play in one of those "episodes." 18:00 I don't think Saga is completely immune to Dark Warping, nor does it appear that Rose is. It may be that they keep both sets of memories in a kind of cognitive dissonance. What does make Saga the ideal hero for Alan is that she has the skills, motivation, and unnatural intuition to exhaustively try to solve Alan's "problem." If we read Quantum Break and Control as previous attempts by Alan to lure a hero to his conundrum and then solve it, then the problem with Jack was that the End of Time was too all-consuming a crisis to be distracted from (despite Alan dropping bread crumbs every now and then to gain his interest) and the problem with Jesse is somewhat similar - she still has the Hiss remnant to deal with and can't leave the Oldest House vulnerable no matter how much she'd like to help Alan or how important she thinks it is to squash another AWE. Must have pissed Alan off since he brought the Hiss to her doorstep in the first place to train her on how to fight an enemy like the DP. Saga, doesn't have this problem. She has supernatural intuition / ESP equal to that of a time traveler or superpowered vessel for higher power(s), she has the combat skills, but she also has a personal stake in the circumstances in which Alan, himself, is drowning. Casey was lured to this case because he worked a murder cult case in NY that revolved around Wake/Scratch and he's the one that brought Saga in because of her "gift" for gleaning the truth out of thin air. Then, when Saga hits town, we find that she's lived in Watery since the death of Logan and the consequent divorce (Alan's doing to trap her in the story?) or is the happy beginning the residue of the happy ending and they've been looping - Saga being happy being her reward for helping Alan, but it doesn't last and fades back to "reality" early in act I only to be restored again at the end of act III. TL;DR: It couldn't be Jesse because Jesse's dope and has dope shit to do. See you in Control II, Jesse!! 23:19 The Ocean View Hotel / Valhalla Nursing Home is an overlap as are all the DP thresholds - maybe even Cauldron Lake itself, too. Most of the time, they're normal, but when the right conditions are met THEN they become paths to the DP. I don't think if Ahti would have just opened the spiral door at the Ocean View when Saga first got there, that Alan would have been sitting there typing away or that Saga could have crossed directly to his Dark Writer's Room just by walking in - it would have just been a normal room (probably full of Odin and Tor's band equipment), until conditions were met and "turned it on." Parliament Tower, too, appears to be an Overlap with a spiral door (Alan's Study is said to be behind it) but when Alice walks in there (if she walks in there) it's always just his study - not necessarily a threshold to the DP. Addendum: Alan ALWAYS uses (a) Zane's writer's room (even though it appears his own study might suit him better - he only goes to "his place" to recall or learn things about Alice. The Clicker Story, Alice's essays). Barbara Jagger grounded him to Poet Zane's desk at Bird Leg Cabin in AW I, and I think Film Zane did the same to him for the Ocean View in AW II. But you know how the ritual for Alan involves going insane from time to time? What if Film Zane is just the echo of insane Alan, what if Alan is just the echo of an insane Thomas Zane? No matter how many times he gets out, no matter how many different guises, the lake always pulls him back in. 1:12:00 Alan has been split for almost all of AW II. Alan was always in The Dark Writer's Room the entire time, even if during Initiation he seemed to be elsewhere (The Dark Place / Cauldron Street Station / Door's Studio / Zane's Theater ect); he was projecting himself into his own story. That's why when you died as Alan in the DP, you just resurrected; "That's not how the story goes" after Alan watches his own death, he just snaps back in the Writer's room ... where he really is the whole time ... to try a different approach and another projection. When the DP comes to finish Wake off in the body of Alex Casey, the final confrontation takes place in the Writer's Room for a reason.

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

Havent read the whole thing. Its long. I just wanna mention that rose is accidentally buffing herself via her fanfiction. Its fiction she believes in within the influence of the AWE. So youre correct shes not immune, but she is able to defend herself effectively due to her own writing

[@mrhat1073]

they might be saving any Jesse/Control/FBC content for the Lake House DLC, since that just so happens to be the name of the field office that overlooks Cauldron Lake.

[@UberNoodle]

I was reading one of the FBC notes (at the Whichfinder station) in the game and it talked about their hypotheses as to how fiction affects reality via the dark place. One way is the most obvious way is that "the fiction itself is the initiating force in its present timeline using the creator as a conduit". But the other way is interesting: The fiction reflects "events that have come to pass but that are not known to their later creator, whose act of creation becomes the catalyst for these past events after which they serve as the source of their own inspiration". I've been puzzling over this for a while and the implications it has on what we are presented in the story.

[@dweller132]

When it comes to Alice, I think part of the answer is the Bright Presence. As far as I know, Poet Zane sacrificed his body to the Bright Presence and both the Bright Presence and Dark Presence fought, but future stories seem to be without mention of it. What I think happened is that, however that battle went, Alice rediscovered the Bright Presence and chose to join with it in order to help Alan. The question of how, I think, can be answered like this: Through her "artist-to-art" plan, Alice became the Spark of Inspiration, the Bright Presence became the Bullet of Light, and the Clicker made it's way into Saga's hands. When Saga shot him the first time, I believe that's when the Bright Presence became a part of Alan and it showed him the message Alice wanted to share. The next part of the plan, I believe, was to have Alice and the Dark Presence become part of Alan as well. The Spark of Inspiration (Alice) guides Alan to what needs to be done, and then Scratch enters Alan and they're both shot. Alan now has Alice with him, and both the Bright Presence and the Dark Presence are within his physical or non-physical body. Alice and the Bright Presence give him the balance he requires to control the Dark Presence, which will give him full control over the Dark Place itself. By being the master of the Bright and Dark, Alan can influence the Dark Place to affect more of reality to control other aspects (we've already seen him be able to affect the Hiss, so the concept works) of it. TLDR; Alice orchestrated certain things in order to bring herself, the Bright Presence, and the Dark Presence together with Alan and allow him complete control over himself and the dimensions that can be affected by the Dark Place's power.

[@edwardoapc]

7:26 I think the Dark Place, as of it is now, is a direct response to Alan's mind. If you read into the Herald of Darkness lyrics, there's this part: "the darkness within him / held her hostage / had he seen her drowning / it would have saved her from the darkness of the lake." So I can see the whole Dark Place being Alan's coping mechanism coming true by the power of the lake.

[@xLaxCroixBoix]

I think she has much more of an understanding of how the dark place works than anyone since she’s been there and back. She is very obviously the person that calls Saga when she’s there. And they also make it a point of you grabbing her photos in order to get Saga the clicker and the light bullet. I believe she was nudging Alan and Saga to their destinies here because she knew Alan had Scratch inside him/Scratch was a manifestation of his darkest impulses and insecurities. Knowing if Alan saw Scratches ending to Return that he would be disgusted by the worst parts of his own ego allows him to make the ultimate sacrifice and actually create the dark presence and exorcising it through the light bullet. I haven’t gotten through the final draft yet but I think we get a lot of Alice helping Alan ascend through the spiral in AW3. Which I think personally matches what you’ve saying about the creation of the archetype in one of your other videos.

[@elrevesyelderecho]

I was waiting for this video! Thanks guys!

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Thank you for watching!

[@Ha1frican]

14:25 I think he was just making the FBC aware of the events of the game unfolding in the future. At the end they send in Estevez because of it and she’s essential to the story playing out the way it does. Without Alan influencing the Hiss taking over the FBC Jesse wouldn’t become director, which means she wouldn’t have seen him in AWE, and wouldn’t have sent Estevez there to eventually help Saga. He even mentions how small contributions lead up to the whole with streams becoming rivers, becoming lakes, becoming oceans, and adding the FBC eventually adds up to getting Estevez to help Saga which gets Alan out

[@MovieTvDrama]

The German sci-fi series Dark is the spiral time travel series that everyone on this Alan Wake 2 discussion should absolutely check out.

[@liquidrufus]

Great chat, love hearing all 3 of your insights, and interpretations!

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Thank you!

[@khyrianstorms]

Gaming University was the right person to have on this. Super interesting discussion.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

We will definitely have to collab again after the DLC episodes!

[@max_pokerface]

16:54 you are not crazy i told this to dean about it too i was thinking there was something strange in anger remorse its apper for me in saga mind place not end of chapter...a noise i trires even reverse it no luck....then after patch updates vanishes!I dont know it was a bug or something else they scrap that idea after updates...

[@Kranitoko]

Okay yep! I realise I actually recorded the footage. It's essentially an entirely different version of angers remorse (I can only assume this was maybe a Dev version of the song and they uploaded the wrong one). I tried to reverse it too but it's really hard to pick out what is being said 😤 I knew there was something up as the subtitles originally didn't match 😂

[@cregerbot8217]

I find some peace within myself just ignoring Zane until we get some more information lol

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Hahaha totally fair

[@dangood8839]

I like the stuffed owl in the writers' cabin. This is like a foreshadowing or run up to the bullet of light; the windows being the eyes and the owl symbolising wisdom and seeing through the darkness. Alan appears to be shot with a bullet of wisdom/ understanding and it was there behind his desk and typewritter all along. I agree that alan might be unplayable in alan wake 3. He seems positioned to move above the need of it, to become the narrator even more. At the same time, im not sure how id feel about it if it were to happen. Part of me really enjoyed playing as Alan, coming up for air and choosing to go back. When he said "**** it" and walked in i chuckled a bit because it was so relatable to how anyone would feel facing a difficult decision. Props on the video.

[@Nintentohtori]

Ed was at Deerfest, so I think it is unlikely that he turned into taken or died since none of the other dead or taken people were in the crowd. Either he got caught by the Cult or the FBC, but granted both factions are bit compromised later on.

[@kosmoplod]

I've got a feeling Control 2 is going to bring more questions than answers. As AW opening line says: "there's little fun to be had in explanations".

[@bragebjelker2879]

39:20 in Norse mythology Jormungandr dies. Torr(Thor) kills it but in turn is also killed by its venom However there are both humans and gods still alive after Ragnarok, among the gods is Moði and Magni the two sons of Torr(Thor), might be reflected in Sagas mother. Hœnir, one of the three gods that created humanity. Njord, a god often prayed to for safe travels at sea said to be able to calm storms etc. Vali, son of Oðinn (Odin), the god that took revenge on the killing of Balder, revenge/vengeance kind of being a big thing in Alan Wake. And the daughter of Sol (the sun), who could be a reflection of the bright presence. Not sure any of this actually has anything to do with what will happen, but it very much fits the characters and personification of dark and light in this universe and story

[@elrevesyelderecho]

41:51 that's insane! Very meta indeed!! I was wondering why the order of the songs in the album, but I've never imagined in this way! ❤

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

It’s a very cool theory!

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

​@HiddenMachineGaming So a note on that interpretation... Balance Slays the Demon is instructions on how to escape the loop. It has nothing to do with the events of 2010. Its not just the light you need, its not just the dark you see. They are telling Alan to find Balance between light and dark. Which he finally does at the end of final draft.

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

Yeah i think the speaker there is too deep in the paint. The songs arent about the Dark Presence. Fun concept tho

[@K4R1N3L1M4]

My thoughts: Imo the Dark Place works somewhat like the "Limbo" from Nolan's Inception. A place of deconstructed dream states where things made before you enter can be shared with your consciousness. Darling calls Alan a dreamer and considers if "he's holding that reality together": when playing i felt like a nod to Inception, where all dreamers are sharing a reality and if the OG dreamer dies/wakes everyone goes along with it. Also Saga's entered Alan's realm of the Dark Place at the end of the game so i think it fits. I also believe the Writer's Room suffered a kind of reboot in this game. They describe the Nursing Home as Tom Zane house, which was remodeled by Barry to become Valhalla, and that the whole building just appeared from nothing one day. I think Valhalla is this game "Bird Leg Cabin", in another skin lol.

[@Ha1frican]

50:18 I think it’s worth mentioning that Darling recognizes that he sounds just like Alan, then has a wierd moment when meeting Zane. I wonder if maybe Alan is actually an amalgamation of the two of them and how they worked together to effect the story Edit: 1:15:03 well shit nvm he went there lol

[@IxodesPersulcatus]

There are indeed *two* different versions of Anger's Remorse. One had slightly different lyrics and was removed from the game... It also appears to have disappeared from KZbin as well, because I can't find it in my watched history. Anyway, that one had a part that sounded like backmasking, but turned out to be... exactly the same when reversed.

[@mykaelblank]

Just finished my play through of final draft so I can finally catch up on all your videos!

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Sweet!

[@elrevesyelderecho]

1:14:06 Good question. 1) where is the body and where is the mind? Matrix style. Can the mind survive without the body abd viceversa? 2) Voldemort style Horrocruxes. Or like the movie The Prestige. Where is the original I/Self after every split of itself? Doriab Grey style. The portrait getting okd and dying for you, but are you the real younger version of yourself? Like Door said to Alan on the first talk show ...the writter is physical teapped in the writer's room and project himself outside. Who is the Alan after the final draft? Final loop?

[@supa-hero7184]

The bullet of light in Alan's head is very reminiscent of the lighthouse

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

It is!

[@sergioballes]

Some insights here: The little puddles around the mop that you use to change between Alan and Saga have not one BUT TWO face profiles, one is Alan, the other is Saga, symbolizing that you can change from one to the other there. Just look to both edges to see their silhouettes. So not Ahti's face there. It is established during the game that you don't need to actually be an artist to trigger things in the Dark Place or make them last in the Real World, you "just" need: 1.- a catalyzer which can be an object of power (OoPs), such as water from Cauldron Lake OR the Clicker (which is defined in Alan Wake 2 as an AMPLIFIER). At first, I thought this was optional depending on the users inner power, but after reviewing every case of people creating things in the Dark Place, both Thomas and Alan went to the lake, so I'm pretty sure the water from Cauldron Lake enhanced their power. 2.- a work of art, that can be a poem, a writing, an illustration, a song, A PHOTOGRAPH, etc. 3.- enough passion behind it to activate/trigger the change/creation. In fact, Saga even goes to say that she doesn't need Alan to change the story as long as she has the Clicker. Let's continue... Where is Alice? She's in the Dark Place, she told us so, she said explicitly that she needed to go there by turning herself into art on the process. How did she make the Bullet of Light? Go back to the previous steps: 1.- She already drowned in Cauldron Lake in Alan Wake 1, and on top of that she jumped in again to fake her death, so she bathed herself twice in the catalyzer, and was the third user of the Clicker because Alan gave it to her due to his fear of the darkness. BUT ON TOP OF THAT when Scratch steals the Clicker from Saga while in Casey's body, and finally uses it, Scratch drops it and there are some frames in black and white where a female hand reaches for it and catches the Clicker while falling. Whose hand you say? Of course, it's Alice's. So, I bet she used it too. Use of catalyser and/or OoP, check. 2.- She created a photo of the Bullet of Light. Remember, she is a photographer and a designer that creates Alan's books covers, so for her it would be really easy to make that photo with photo effects or by editing it in a computer. That's her craftmanship, her art. Check. 3.- And I think it's clear for everyone to see that the only thing she doesn't lack at that point is passion behind it. Check. So, the bullet was created in the same way Alan or Thomas create things in the Dark Place, and probably using the Clicker too. She made those photos REAL OBJECTS. Last, but not the least: where are Alan, Saga and Casey by the end of Alan Wake 2? When Alan "enters" again into a bubble at the end of Alan Wake 2, he is not entering into the Dark Place, but an Overlap of both the Dark Place and the Real World, where the reality was changed by Scratch using the Clicker and the Return manuscript. That's why when he escapes to the Valhalla Residence, Rose was there waiting for him, because probably all Bright Falls is inside that Overlap. The final clue you need to know that Alan is not in the Dark Place is that Rose is there waiting there for him to help him. As we could see in Control, and in Alan Wake 2, there are certain places with doors that lead to other dimensions or places. We know that Alan can get to the Writer's Room the same as Saga can access her Mental Palace, and we know that both places are real places APART from the Dark Place or the Real World, so Alan walks in and out from the Dark Place to the Writer's Room as he wishes, but can't seem to leave the Writer's Room back to the Real World. HOWEVER, we have seen that the rooms with the spiral on it led directly to the Writer's Room, that's why there's one door with the Spiral in Alan's apartment, the Oceanview Hotel, Oceanview Motel AND the Valhalla Residence. What we learned is that there are doors with the spiral in the Real World, AND ONE OF THEM is in the Valhalla Residence. That's the door that Ahti opens for Alan at the end of Alan Wake 2 IN THE REAL WORLD, but still inside the bubble of reality created by Scratch using the Clicker. That's why Scratch (still in Casey's body) can get to the Writer's room in the Valhalla Residence at the end of the game. After Alan defeats the Dark Presence, Scratch, and fixes everything with the manuscript, the overlap ends, but they are still in the Writer's Room, remember, a place that is OUTSIDE the Dark Place and the Real World, and the door, if you remember the scene IS OPEN. So, my bet is that Saga's cellphone works, because outside that door is the Valhalla Residence in the Real World, now free of the Overlap thanks to Alan beating the Dark Presence. So, at the end of Alan Wake 2 let's see where every character is: Alan, Saga, and Casey -> in the Writer's Room BUT with the spiral door open to the Real World, specifically the Valhalla Residence. Alice, Tim Breaker, Tor, Odin, Mr. Door, Thomas Zane, and Casper Darling -> in the Dark Place. At least, that's what I understood from the story after giving it a profound thought.

[@takoshihitsamaru4675]

This is fucking solid. I like the theory about Alice's photographs of bullets of light becoming real. It actually strengthen's my theory that Alice created Scratch from old photos of Alan. She, in her dark mental state, edited Alan's photos into something darker, more mysterious. Then from that, she starts simply capturing Scratch appearing in her apartment since she manifested him into her reality. Scratch is birthed by despair, desperation, loss and pain.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Great insights, thank you!

[@UberNoodle]

@40:48 That feels like it makes sense, but it again makes me wonder: with all of the reality bending that has occurred due to people's art being brought to life by The Dark Place, what effect did The Old Gods songs have? Their music has mostly been framed in the story as a RECORD of what happened. Dark Ocean Summoning is the only song that is presented as CAUSING something to happen. But what if, to some degree, all of these key events (about Zane, Barbara, Alan and Alice and so on) that have transpired due to The Dark Place were caused by the music of The Old Gods? And with all the loopy spiralness of The Dark Place, It's impossible to know where the loop or spiral truly began. But, it's not uncommon for prog rock and metal bands to make concept albums. How much of these events we have seen are the result of The Dark Place feeding on the stories contained in those albums and merging it with reality?

[@GreggNowhere]

Next game after Control 2 should be an Alice Wake game and have her searching the dark place for Alan. Instead of a writers room and a rewriting mechanic, they should use a darkroom and photography mechanic to manipulate reality, camera flashes to fight taken, etc.

[@garc115]

I suppose Control 2 will be about Jesse and Dylan, I think it will be a game where parallel universes will be touched. If Remedy is truly negotiating with Microsoft, I think Control 2 will be the last connection, which will now bring Quantum Break back from the grave

[@Aerobane]

I think something important to note that I kind of missed / glossed over in both playthroughs is at 25:15 in the video you can see Zane move off the couch to the other side of the room in the same manner the taken do. Wouldn't this hint at or flat out say that Zane is corrupted with some form of the darkness?

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

I think it’s very possible!

[@Cydeamon]

26:30. It looks to me like the puddle has Alan and Saga's faces on opposite sides. Of course, it's just silhouettes, and I could be wrong, but shapes are different.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Interesting! I’ll have to take another look at that

[@broston_]

definitely play soma and great discussion as always

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

We finally played SOMA! It was good

[@thechevyferrari9559]

I’m so curious about what happened to the Bird Leg Cabin writer’s room. Like… was that cabin Zane’s version of Wake’s Noir New York? And the longer Alan was there, the more the etchasketch got shaken and The Dark Place was rewritten.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Yes, I've wondered about this quite a bit as well.

[@Kranitoko]

I thought the Bird Leg Cabin version was simply destroyed in American Nightmare at the start? It got destroyed with the cabin.

[@lexradu]

I got a theory surrounding Zane, Barbara and Cinthya, Darling and Wake, specifically Cinthya, Zane and Darling. I see the fact she ended up becoming a Taken herself as an indication that she's not immune to the story, meaning her memories with Tom as a Poet instead of a Fimmaker may most likely be just as fake as any change the writing done in the dark place can make in the real world. So my theory...hypothesis is that Tom was indeed a Fimmaker, the Tom we meet in Alan Wake 2 is the real one, Cinthya was his real wife, but by making an Autofiction Movie in the Dark Places, where he's exploring his Alter Ego as Tom the Poet, a fictional version of himself that in the movie is a poet married to somebody else like a Barbara Jagger, when the Dark Place got a hold of it, trapped Zane in the Dark Place, and rewrote his reality, replaced him and the memories people had of him with his fictional character, Tom The Poet. But then Tom got an idea, when he saw that The Dark Place could rewrite the past, because the Dark Places exists outside of time, when he met Dr. Darling, he decided to combine his artistry with Darling's intelect, and wrote together in the Dark Place a character based on both of them that would allow his body and Darling's soul to be written out of the Dark Place into the past. However in order for that to work, they needed a story, one that would mirror his, a Horror Story, so Zane looked no further than the fictional storyteller named Alan Wake that he created for "Nightless Nights" and wrote themselves as that character in reality, But still, he couldn't show up exactly when he disappeared, that wouldn't be a good story, after all the body is one of an adult, so instead they got summoned in the late 90's, enough time after his disappearance so that if he was a real person he would've been born around the time of his disappearance, adding a Poetic angle to story that would allow Fate as one of the themes in the story, as well as having him meet a new Love Interest in Alice, like Alice in Wonderland, so that Traversal between 2 worlds was too another theme crucial to the story working. And the rest is history.

[@GameVaultGuides]

I have a theory about Zane (surprise surprise). Most of us theorize that he was manipulating Alan in AW2, and that Zane might be the anatogonist going forward. At the end of AW1, Alan splits into himself and Scratch. Zane the Diver explains who Scratch is to Alan. What if the Zane in AW2 is Tom's version of Scratch, that Tom the Poet/Diver never beat? He had no triumph like in Alan Wake American Nightmare. We know from THoD that the good Zane left with the real Barbara to go deeper down into the Dark Place into their own baby universe.

[@mrhat1073]

16:53 I think I know what he's talking about, it was probably a radio broadcast or a TV somewhere.

[@UberNoodle]

@51:43 I don't think any TRUE version of Zane exists in The Dark Place. It's noted in material in Alan Wake 2 (But I can't remember where) that Zane would regularly put himself as a character in his own fiction. That much is obvious from Zane The Poet, but it is implied that autofiction was his ONLY genre. In contrast, it seems that Alan only resorted to autofiction as a gambit to escape the cabin in the first story. Thus in The Dark Place, which is a force, entity or dimension that essentially abstracts and realises everything within it, ALL versions of Zane exist. We've seen the filmmaker and the poet. But there could be as many versions of Zane as there were stories written by Zane. And some of those personas might not be as easy to parse out from what the game presents us, and they might even be merged. And because The Dark Place must necessarily abstract everything into its component tropes and archetypes, then there could be infinite iterations of Zane. A poet, a filmmaker, associopath, a sociopath poet. He currently describes himself as a "auteur" filmmaker, and that's even a little more different then a simple "filmmaker", because it asserts a much higher degree of artistic and expressive control. And how do we know which manifested version of Zane is the original? Currently the filmmaker Zane says that He made a film about being a poet. But why couldn't the poet Zane say that he wrote a poem or a story about being a filmmaker? But anyway, that could mean that in a way Zane as an entity, concept or abstraction (??) in The Dark Place is somewhat "chaotic neutral". In his real life, he told all these stories in various media in which he was a character, whether the protagonist or antagonist. But that's what art is about. If you write a murder story, it doesn't make you a murderer, even if you place yourself as that character. But in The Dark Place ... Where all art is abstracted and realised by the forces in there, there's no difference between the real you and the version of you that you created. And so, all of those Zanes that he created exist, either singularly or in combination, or as echoes.

[@XvKJP2015]

I thought that by becoming art, she meant that for the Dari place to make whatever she needed true, it had to be in art form. Like with poetry, books, movies, paintings, music, and pictures

[@gero030591]

I’m very curious about the nature of the Anderson brothers and how that may relate to the connection between Alan and Tom. The Anderson are obviously not the original figures from Norse mythology, so what are they? Reincarnations, recurring archetypal echoes of legends, or something else? Are they the same soul as their mythological counterparts, copies of the same souls, or new souls that serve the same function? I can’t recall exactly, but I thought I came across a document in the game that informed us that versions of Thor and Odin would reappear at different times throughout history. Alan is clearly something akin to the Andersons. He is some kind of reincarnation or echo of Tom the Poet, who himself is an echo of Thomas the Rhymer, a figure from folklore

[@Foxtrop13]

58:30 who is Pat Zane? :o

[@nickolasmachado9274]

Pat maine

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

you have to beat the game 10 times to unlock him

[@Kranitoko]

I said it so quickly it sounded like "Pat Zane" but I said "perhaps Zane" 😂

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

I'm like 100 percent sure Alice IS the bullet of light

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

That’s what I think!

[@JakeTalksGamesYT]

In certain types of esoterica its theorized that balance is achieved when embracing both divine masculine and divine feminine energy. Dark and Light. From balance, comes ascension.

[@ItsJuls1]

Edit: Nvm, Dean just said thr same thing 😂 I'm super late to comment, but I think Ahti turned the writer's room into a threshold, or like a portal that connects to the real world. Remember, he said to Saga that it is forbidden to enter, for her own safety. Maybe because it would transport her to the dark place? He also later said to Alan that he had made the room ready. In one of the last pages from the Final Draft, it is also written in a way that makes it sound like Ahti controls Cauldron Lake. Like he holds his hand on the brim of the lake, that is also his bucket.

[@christophercomtois7175]

I think this may be a good place to leave this as there are so many remedy theorists here. I was watching someone go through the first game again even though I have played so many times it a scene got me thinking. In Alan wake 1 you show up at the dam and Cynthia asks you prove you are a friend, even though now we know you look just like her beloved Tom Zane she even is walking with you later and mentions how handsome he was and never once mentions you look like him you are handsome like him, nothing like that. I think leads to the fact that this Zane is just a facsimile that Alan created and that’s why you look alike.

[@bronsonyazzie1065]

Stephen King wrote himself as a character into conclusion of The Dark Tower series. It isn't unheard of, but I can definitely see correlation between AW and DT.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Totally

[@wasifali112]

What was Alan’s sacrifice at the end of Final Draft? I presume it has to be either the idea of giving up his life or Alice doing what Alan did for her. Right?

[@xLaxCroixBoix]

Honestly going back to the dark place seems like a pretty big sacrifice. Especially since he was out of it and even rid of Scratch. He could have heeded himself to Scratch’s ending and lived on in the real world.

[@piratetv1]

Alice created a photo of a light bullet. It became real in the dark place.

[@UberNoodle]

I wonder if there's a danger of looking at the story too literally, especially in terms of The Dark Place. All of the parallels and contrasts that we can see could be explained through very literal cause and effect through the use of loops etc. But they could also be explained in a more abstract way. The Dark Place necessarily abstracts all art into its component, constituent elements, concepts, ideas and archetypes for recombination in an infinite number of ways. Like you said, every story has already been told in some way or another. When we see these repetitions and reflections in storytelling, it doesn't necessarily mean a direct connection between those stories. It just means that the same component elements have been used and combined. But even taking a more literal view, it's impossible to know from what we have been presented whether anything we have been told about these characters and the events in their lives is objectively true or not. There's a good argument that we have never seen objective reality in any Alan Wake game. Even the first game, which appears to present objective reality to us right at the beginning, on the drive to Bright Falls, is arguably an invention of Alan after entering the Dark Place. The story of the game in its entirety is the manuscript Alan wrote. So we don't know how much of the "truth" we've been presented about the Old Gods, Zane and Barbara, Alan and Alice, the Koskela Brothers etc. is ACTUALLY objective truth and how much is the outcome of a multi-layered and multi-faceted collaborative story that has been told and retold and reiterated upon for an unknown length of time. Because, even when the lake was an ocean, it was always figuratively a spiral.

[@penguinproductions8829]

Are there set rules for The Shoebox? Because of the items in the shoeboxes are totally immune to an AWE, does that not conform Diver Zane as being the real version of him, since his poems and photos were in Samantha Wells’ Shoebox?

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

It’s so hard to say at this point, but yes, there are some established rules and they apply to all shoeboxes in Remedy’s games. I’m not ready to give up on poet Zane having been real, but we don’t quite know for sure the source of those photos and poems

[@penguinproductions8829]

@@HiddenMachineGaming Tbf I also feel like there might never be a “real” Zane. Maybe he’s an archetype that keeps reappearing in different forms, like how Zane in AW1 might just be The Bright Presence using his form like The Dark Presence uses Alan and Barbara. I do think it’s interesting that there keeps being characters in Remedy games who are dead and guide us with the initials TZ or ZT (Zane, Trench, I can’t remember the name but I’m pretty sure the dead driver that guides the player in Death Rally has those initials)

[@destinedpotato1577]

The biggest question about Zane is, In the opening cutscene of Final Draft Alan calls Zane a fictional writer. What does he mean by this? Is Zane a creation of the Dark Place and Alan now?

[@josephemory228]

I feel a lot can be gleaned from the original draft of return. It can be hard to parse but the pages + Nightless Night kind of gives you an idea. Casey returns home alone , to investigate Nightingale. Is murdered and dumped in well to rez zane. Alan changed all that. l think the cult of the tree are Alan's inversion of Scratches Cult of the word. As he slowly edits out what scratch wants P.S. Alan is Northmoor

[@theganouche]

Pro Tip: Turn off discord hardware acceleration in the Voice & Video options when recording. It causes more problems than it helps. Might have been your problem.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Thank you!

[@TheTrollerGamer]

I think Poet Zane was real, but the Filmmaker version overwrote his existance. Poet Zane is living in a bubble reality with Barbara, while his body is used by post Bullet of Light Alan to guide AW1 Alan. Filmmaker Zane is probably similar to how Baldur or Book Casey works in The Dark Place. For some reason, they are there because of Alan. We see Sam Lake as an actor as well. So it this could be why Door hates Alan, because he borrows from paralel universes, including his characters. Every time he writes the echos, he is not just making that up, he is pulling from somewhere in the multiverse and I believe Zane is an alterante version of Poet Zane that was brought into The Dark Place, but this caused Poet Zane to be retconned outside Cauldron Lake

[@rocketmancmbn]

After the end of Final Draft I wonder what will happen as Alan/Saga/Casey try to exit the writer's room through the door with the spiral symbol? My thinking is that Mr. Door will intervene to make sure that Saga exits into the real world (Valhalla nursing home), while Ahti might make sure that Alan and/or Casey exit through the door at the Oceanview Motel where Jesse will be, making it the starting point of the story for Control 2.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Yeah, Door’s work isn’t done yet

[@jeremyw.5729]

I'm beginning to make the distinction between 3 different versions of Zane: Thomas Zane is fictional and made up by Alan to serve as a relatable source of inspiration. Tom the poet/diver are also Thomas Zane. Thomas Seine is the only one that is real. He's the filmaker who moved to Bright Falls in the 60's. Tom Zane is the Scratch version of Thomas Seine. Additionally, Saga almost had a Scratch version of herself in her final mind place segment.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

I think you’re onto something there

[@jeremyw.5729]

@@HiddenMachineGaming I see the most potential in the Darling/Zane collaboration, which makes it possible that the dark place will be completely redesigned, but who knows at this point. It's also worth noting that Saga is now in the FBC (kind of), but I can't picture the AW2 cast showing up in The Oldest House. It's hard to say what will happen next.

[@ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣΚΟΥΝΤΟΥΡΗΣ-μ7δ]

Alice said: ''It's time for a perspective shift. To go from photography to subject. From artist to art" My theory is that she became the photograph with the bullet of light, the moment her body entered the dimension of the Dark Place. This transformation happened due to the fact that, as an artist inside the Dark Place, Alice could now materialize literally her creative intentions. What was her intention? To turn from artist (photographer) to subject (photograph), in order to help her husband achieve his transcendental ascension through the spiral of darkness (that's why Alan was in need, even if he didn't know it, to be shot in the head by the Power of Light). Therefore, the photograph which depicted the Bullet of Light (transfigured Alice) was transfigured to the depicted object, ie the Bullet of Light, thanks to the amplifier clicker that Saga pressed. It is genius that an Oop (bullet of Light) becomes materialized by another Oop (the clicker).

[@stankmaster5000]

Where does Sunrise fit in with AW2? In AW2 Alice makes it seem like she was extremely depressed after AW1, and never went outside, then only at night. But in AN we know she made a film to fight the negative rumors about Alan, and did interviews about it. Definitely didn't seem depressed. She also never mentioned getting stalked by Mr. Scratch in 2012, only by Alan in 2017. Did she forget?

[@Deadpoolmac]

Could we end up playing as Alice in the next game? Her tale of trying to help Alan ascend whilst he battles against the dark presence becoming the main game antagonist.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

It really feels possible lately

[@bluecat3338]

On Alan Wake kinda splitting himself to both remain behind in and get free from the dark place simultaneously, during one of his phone calls with himself (I think the last one) he literally asks if he will ever magnate to get out and the response is “yes, you will. And no, you won’t. This is by design.” Now, because this comment feels far too straightforward, I wonder if there’s any possibility of the Alan Wake who stayed in the dark place morphing into any of his dopples, like Tom Zane or Scratch. Or both. Tom Zane is his best ending (the artist who resigned himself to being trapped in the dark place, at least per the songs and such) and Scratch is his worst ending (a descent into madness and rage who can only deconstruct (scratch out) rather than create). It doesn’t quite match up with what we are told in game, but between the possibility of Zane lying to us and Alan Wake straight up misunderstanding the situation left and right the possibility at least exists that this could be true.

[@takoshihitsamaru4675]

Am I the only one that picked up a very strong metaphorical conception of Scratch from Alice? Alan was gone, she was lonely and unstable. She used her imagination and her creative ideation to dream up a reality where Alan was still there, but shrouded in darkness. The real Alan had anger issues, stress, a dark side of coldness and possibly even abusive behaviour. Alice's new Alan accidentally inherits those traits and becomes Scratch. In Alice's despair, even the abusive, dark and oppressive Scratch is enough Alan to keep her enthralled. So she chases Scratch, he becomes the subject of her art and is empowered by her. In my theory, Alice creates scratch simultaneously with Alan's entrance to the Dark Place, due to the time anomaly.

[@ICountFrom0]

The book of "the never ending story" pulls the same trick, the book, contains the book, contains... anyway, due to it causing a story of infinate length, they had to clip it from the movie, you can't make a fractal runtime that lasts forever.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Great point!

[@DeathsPit00]

Only 2 things that I think you're off about. Them making it out of The Dark Place and you guys' thinking that it was Zane writing the poems.(Note that it's been since Alan Wake Remastered's release since I've played it so I don't remember a lot) For them being in TDP- They're still inside the Writer's Room behind The Spiral Door at the end of the game which is why I think this. As to why Saga got through to Logan? The Dark Place has manifested Logan's voice before, but it's different this time because the Dark Presence is gone. Alan didn't re-enter The Dark Place through Scratch's Final Deerfest narrative. That was a hardcore AWE that MIGHT still have been ongoing when the game ended since it was manifested with the Clicker and seemingly untouched by Alan's final chapter revisions with Saga. Ahti let's Alan back into The Dark Place through the attic spiral door and we don't see what happens outside The Dark Place for the rest of the game. We never see that AWE actually end so there are possibly still loose threads to be tied there. I have less evidence for this one, but I actually think that Alan Post-Final Draft wrote the poems, but the only real reasoning for this that I can give are the Manuscript pages with them and the way that Alan reads them for his narration of them. It's completely tonally different than his reading of any other pages. Idk quite how to put it. Like he's less....pressured/ stressed when he reads them. As if he's more even. That's all I got for that one though.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@cregerbot8217]

My thought is that Scratch wrote the poems. We see all the poems at the murder sites, where either Scratch or his cultists/shadows (which is descended versions of Wake, looking at the character models and unaltered voice lines). Some of the plot board notes also mention that the actor in "The Cult" play had a "boiling cloud in his skull", and that the ritual was to "awaken the sleeper" or something of the like, which is reminiscent to Alan becoming Scratch in the prison cell in Bright Falls. Also, wow, just realized something. The Hotel mirrors PERFECTLY with the real world. The Devil crashing through the hotel = The Dark Presence crashing out of Wake in the Elderwood Lodge. Both kills the cultists, who were only pretending to be cultists. In both you follow the blood trail to get to your destination (destinations are different, though. One is Cynthia, the other is Casey - although Saga does go to the Nursing Home afterwards.) Also the Cult of the Word must of sacrificed Nightingale, put the page in his heart (and wrote on it), changing his body as he resurfaced. Anyways, back to the main point lol I think Zane did still play a role in the poems. Firstly, why would Alan write poetry, even when being influenced by the Dark Presence? Secondly, we see Zane help Alan by pointing him towards the murder sites. How does he know these places? It is likely he even had a role in killing the victims, which makes him more suspicious that poetry of all things are right next to all the victims. Also - he is still a neighbor to the beast. Overall, even if he didn't write the poetry, he is definitely not good. Not even counting Zane holding Alan at gunpoint, dancing to Scratch's song (and taking some of his dance moves lol), and constantly lying to him about Scratch. He wants to work with Scratch, not Alan.

[@gero030591]

Ok, so my unfiltered thoughts/theories on Zane and Alice go like this: Alan never met the real Tom Zane because he exists in a bubble reality in the dark place removed from the events of both games. The diver that we meet is Zane’s husk of a body inhabited by the light presence. Could it be possible that when Alan took Alice’s place in the dark place, the light presence abandoned the empty husk of the diver/Zane and inhabited Alice (in a similar way that Scratch inhabits Alan)? This could have left the empty husk of Zane to be corrupted and inhabited by the dark presence without the protection of the light presence, creating Thomas Zane the filmmaker. Alice very much acts as Alan’s guide in the same way that the diver did in the first game. I lean towards Alice existing in the real world since she clearly spoke with the BoC after ascending from the dark place. I think that she is sending photographs and videos through Cauldron Lake to get to Alan in the dark place. I wonder if by submerging art of herself through Cauldron Lake, she created something of a copy of herself that exists in the dark place to guide Alan’s eternal copies of himself out of the spiral. If Alan does in fact ascend out of the dark place in the final draft, then both he and Alice can simultaneously exist in the real world, while copies of themselves spend eternity in the dark place keeping Scratch trapped in the loop.

[@thechevyferrari9559]

I LOVE the dark poems too. They seem so… disconnected and sinister, and Alan narrating them in Final Draft feels wrong somehow. Especially since it’s Zane’s poetry pulled out of Wake’s work, having Wake be the narrator is so “no no, Wake wrote this, totally.”

[@JcGross93]

Something just came to me regarding Tom the poet. Tor and Odin are established to be seers, unaffected by the dark place and its awe effects. So we can take their songs as the truth. By that logic The poet and the muse is also true, something that happened, which would mean Tom the poet was real. What do you think?

[@Endgame_01]

I'm convinced it was the FBC that got Ed Booker. I think we'll find out at the Lake house DLC

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Could be!

[@Endgame_01]

Think about it. He returns to Cauldron Lake but quickly regrets going there and decides to leave. Before he can go he gets a light shined in his face, hears shouting and is pushed to the ground by several people. That sounds like some kind of enforcement agency, not the Cult of the Tree. It certainly isn't any Taken because they wouldn't use a light. I don't think the sheriff's office has the manpower available to be patrolling the woods. Only the FBC has the resources available and are known to be in the vicinity. I would be surprised if it was anyone else who grabbed him.

[@barkarboris8425]

If Night springs DLC is to be an anthology, I think we will see Rose and Alex or Estevez as playable characters there. I'll leave it here as my prediction.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Excited to find out!

[@MantasticHams]

I definitely don't think Alans narrative will just take a clean heroic arc from here on out, theres something ominous about that "Master of many worlds" line, plain heroes don't generally call themselves the master of even one world. I dont see him as a villain though, more of a chaotic neutral/good.

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Time will tell, but there's definitely something coming

[@MantasticHams]

I kind of suspect that he might be like an anti-villain in actuality, that his arc is leading up to him being shown the details of his folly by door, possibly initially doubling down and/or making new mistakes, and then eventually basically using his monopoly on a certain kind of power to tear down the power structure that gave him power. I think that would match very well against the arc i imagine for CONTROL 2, which is ?Jesse further doubling down on her position within this huge, somewhat unjust power hierarchy that would make most people a villain, and somewhat flattening that hierarchy to allow the untapped potential of the FBC staff to really take the reigns of the house and stop letting it control them so thoroughly.@@HiddenMachineGaming

[@RossOfRoni]

My answer for Alice is one that I haven't heard a lot. Alice is Alan. If you follow the path in her apartment from the 2nd time with the art exhibit stuff, the 3rd time thru, in that last room with the 9 TVs--nine exactly--the room is now empty with a box and a hangar on it. That's Alan's suit. Notice what Alice wears in those "last known photos" of her. She made her silhouette match Alan's--right as she jumped in the lake! Alice became the Art. Alan is the Art--Alan Wake is a character! Now she is one with him. That's why there are 2 Alans, and why Mr. Door says he doesn't think Alan knows what's behind his mask. Her mask, as it were! It's like Alan said. He does escape, and he doesn't. Alice becomes Alan, and one Alan stays in the lake while the other meets his/her friends. They are both free and both in there together forever. The trick is the jacket. Follow the jackets. Zane appears topless and then manifests a jacket. Alice begins in just a black shirt on video, then ends with a leather jacket. Jaakko has a leather jacket. Scratch takes this jacket when he kills Jaakko. Then in Yoton Yo, "Ilmo" now has the jacket. Alan ends up wearing it at the game's end, with the blood mostly covering up the Kalevala Knights design. So the jacket swap is like an echo of Alice putting on Alan's jacket and jumping in. It's like a whole musical chairs for the jacket and identities. Finkle is Einhorn! Alan... is a woman! ❤

[@MoriWillow]

This theory is insane and now im obsessed

[@cregerbot8217]

I like where this is going - not completely on board, but a very neat perspective! I think it does fit since at the end of the Final Draft, it feels like they are "one" now, the bullet of light (which I think is at least a part of Alice) now inside Alan as the "torch of knowledge", "master of both worlds", two people in one body. Although, I do wonder how this will change things in their marriage lol I do hope we get a somewhat "traditional" happy(ish) ending one day, whether in the Dark Place in the real world. Also, I'm not completely sure if she is wearing Alan's jacket in the last shots (I won't believe until I see the elbow patches!!), but if she is that would definitely seem intentional. Just seemed like her classic leather jacket was longer to me.

[@TheVentrexian]

Gonna answer and edit as I go, so is Alice not a ghostlight? Beyond the horizon off the poets last album kinda clearly explains this unless I'm misinterpreting it and Alan is the ghostlight? Nah go back to the original Alan Wake 2 demo, Alan has the same confidence, he's not scared of the dark place, he's ready for whatever it throws at them because he knows how it works and how it can be used without hurting people, like how he explained it in the original aw2 demo! I like Alan scrapping the idea of Jesse being the hero or him not being able to get her out of the oldest house makes sense. They are in the addict of the nursing home, alan walked to it to write the ending and saga went back through the puddle. I'm not sure how I feel about darling in aw2, the end of control made it seem like he'd be different the next time we see him, not stuck in the dark place, the science stuff is neat though, enjoyed him briefly theorizing what the dark place is, hope it amounts to something cool. I personally believe Alan is out and the loops are over because of the final draft, remnants of the dark presence remain and we'll be taking care of that and whatever door has planned, I'd love more Alan and control connections.

[@Super1d3go]

It's the never ending story

[@austingrothe2754]

Isn’t Saga the hero if she’s the one who actually freed Alan from the spiral???

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

It seems so

[@novachikun]

Around Cauldron Lake reality isn't concrete, or even straightforward. Around the Lake reality is like mud or unstable mulch due to any form of passionate art having the potential to alter reality.

[@crazziemonkke]

goat

[@Super1d3go]

Zane created alan to get out of his dark place, alan created Saga to get out of his dark place. So it's all in Zanes head and that's why alan and Alice are quoting Zanes film

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

That’s one way of looking at it!

[@VDiddy5000]

Honestly, Alan Wake II is very frustrating in that, the more you try to think about and understand it, the *less* it all comes together. We can’t agree on who or what Zane is, the nature of the loops/spirals is confusing at best, and the idea that time in the Dark Place becomes non-linear turns the progression of the plot into a tangled mess; everything added to the worldbuilding by AWII makes what was already present suspect, nothing clear, and muddled what we thought we already knew. I love the series, and the games, and I don’t want to come across like I don’t, but AWII was a chance to bring about some answers to help make room for more questions, and I feel like we instead not only got more questions, we got some of our “answers” invalidated, leaving us with old questions left unanswered *again*. I want to love this story so bad, but I can barely wrap my head around its basic structure and concepts thanks to AWII: why would I burn myself out trying to actively engage with it now?

[@Jodanisonlineshow]

Alan Wake over came the dark place his demons and every other realm to come. He will be the protagonist and I got a feeling Alan Wake 3 he will save Alice.

[@captainarf4278]

It strikes me, doesn't the dark place kind of function like an editor? It's trying to nudge the story in its favor to achieve a specific outcome, but it can't create the art itself

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Exactly! That’s how Alan refers to Barbara Jagger in the first game

[@elijah3264]

41:02

[@kylebeechey9090]

Alice is the board

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Hmmmm

[@emaitchess3821]

28:30 dude wtf it's literally in the game multiple times, Barry Wheeler funded Valhalla nursing home, after he wanted the Old Gods to retire. And the spiral door can literally have any logic behind it, like how it's in the Ocean view motel, hotel and here, and somehow Ahti knows about it and stops u from entering it as Saga. You guys are really reaching in this episode. Theorizing is great but when u can see the frame of logic the story works from and u get out of there, it's obviously going nowhere

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

We all know what it says in the game, but there is also some conflicting information in the game regarding that building. Not everything is as simple and blatant as it initially seems.

[@martinalegre8042]

If Alan isn't playable in AW3, then they should call it something else. I like Saga but the idea of not being able to play as Alan in his own game is weird

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Fair!

[@QuestionableLifeChoices]

as for the price, a couple things: are we actually sure there HAS to be a price? because that's never actually stated anywhere except by alan and inferred by cynthia and tom zane. he's a certified unreliable narrator, he's made countless assumptions that turned out the be wrong. and if there IS a price, frankly it seems like the dark place has spent the last 13 years taking more than giving up. not even counting door, it currently has (presumably) alice, odin, tor, and tim, and that's not even getting into all the people the darkness claimed through alan's story (which we don't even know if they count! nightingale was certainly running around the dark place the whole time, i'm assuming all the missing people were, too.) if you're looking for a more conventional price, i think alan being in his own personal hell for 13 years, driven mad over and over again, is price enough. plus, like dean said in one of his video: he sacrificed himself, it doesn't matter that he ended up not dying because in that moment, he thought he would

[@Kranitoko]

Like you say it may just be assumptions, but Alan realised you can't cut corners by writing people back into existence. Zane tried to write Barbara back willy nilly, but she came back wrong and twisted. Had he sacrificed himself for Barbara instead, that may have been seen as a decent price to the Dark Place narrative.

[@QuestionableLifeChoices]

@@Kranitoko on board with that, and im not saying some of alan's assumptions aren't well founded, just that he's been wrong before. frankly, it makes sense to me that there be a price to pay, but if it's that simple, i think it's already paid. and that thing door said about making everything overly complicated, making up so many rules...that feels significant, like alan is missing the mark somewhere (or multiple places). there are just so many unknowns! fun to think about! lol

[@whendarknessfalls6969]

Zane, Wake, Scratch, the dark presence, and Darling are all the same person. Cauldron Lake is the bullet hole in The Wrtiters 3rd eye. "Zane the diver/ the bright presence" is the bullet of light helping to purify the darkness each loop. Alan's "awaken form" at the end with the symbol on his 3rd eye reminded me of Dr Manhattan in the watchman. Jesse, maybe Jack/Tim Breaker, and possibly a superchsrged Saga are being empowered to fight "awaken Alan". The 1 thing im having trouble with. Is why Saga couldn't sense "Scratch" when she profiled Alan🤔 I'd argue that in Alan Wake 1/2, probably Control,Max Payne, and probably Quantum break are all in the dark place. Though i personally think the "universe" just takes place in a old writer/artists mindseye. He's either 1 the artist going through individuation to take control. Assimilating all his artistic personas, animas, ect. Or 2 going through dementia and the dark place is death/forgetting. He's grasping trying to peace together reality from the fragmented memories and his own dark imagination with his creations. Finland has been pushing dementia awareness hard, and i got "Cry of Fear" vides playing AW2. Which was made to show depression made by 3 Swedes. Im betting money the night springs dlc will pop up during the Zane scene where Jesse appears on the tv. Theres a weird frame cut when the tv cuts like theres a scene removed. Im betting its the dlc. As for the lake house dlc will involve both Ed and the fbc technician. Either both got grabbed by the cult or Ed got grabbed by the FBC and the technician was grabbed by the cult. The Old gods are both inside and outside the lake. They're crazy because they drink their moonshine and connect with their "in the lake versions". When they rock, they connect to their "younger lake forms" to supercharge their music, much like the clicker(but this could also be Balder's guitar being used by old Odin). You can calculate when Darling disappeared and add 6(65)? Days. Forget off the top of my head, but he was counting and tells us. I think Jacco was Illmo's alternative, not his brother. Same actor and when he dies he appears as a "fadeout" on the tv. Which the fadeouts are alternative Alan's haunting himself. Hard to tell what's canon and true. But the clicker was cut from the lamp, and the lamp belonged to Alan's father but also belonged to Zane. So Zans is possibly Alan's father. If the lake has multiple arts overlapping. Then Tammy created the whole real crime aspect. Time has meaning, and every story has already been written irl. The Library of Babel website

[@markevayne]

Unexpected events kept me away from this channel and gaming university since November last year at game release, however I've finally finished the game... and back, and glad to know its not just me that's completely sucker punched by this sequel

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Glad you were able to play it!

[@bryguytyguy]

Alice is and always has been in the dark place because our tv screens are the dark place. Sam Lake’s mind is the dark place. I really wish someone would bring this up in a conversation

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

I definitely see where you’re coming from, but it’s difficult for me to fully articulate the theory

[@AhmadAli-uk3sh]

Alan becoming the antagonist would genuinely invalidate his arc throughout this game

[@HiddenMachineGaming]

Yes, but also, he’s a big fuck up

[@MantasticHams]

I groan audibly every time i hear someone talk about "absorbing alice". That is the stupidest idea ever, its blatantly patriarchal and gross as a plot device, its just impossible to me to imagine that a AAA-adjacent studio heard that in the writers room and ran with it, its mega-cringe. Maybe if she'd died, it could make a kind of sense, but we know she didn't. You DONT absorb your girlfriend, this is both a fact and advice.

[@whendarknessfalls6969]

1st. It's a AA game, not AAA. 2nd. It's about a male assimilating his Anima(or females with their Animus). Study psychology, not woke "politics" before joining these discussions.

[@UberNoodle]

​​​​​​​​​​@@whendarknessfalls6969 Hmm, Ok holster that keyboard, buddy! The commenter wasn't talking about psychology. They were talking about tropes in stories. Completely different. Nonetheless, maybe you should take your own advice, because your comment does not shout "objectivity" in the slightest. Your first point was pointless hair splitting on semantics, but the second point, where you assert the accusation of "woke" with such absolutist certainty makes me wonder about your OWN politics and need to politicise. Rather than have a discussion, you just went straight into the old well-poisoning strategy, e.g. "You must be woke!".

[@eugzo]

@@UberNoodlewoke

[@ContrastCopy]

⁠​⁠@@UberNoodlewell it is symbolic of a man absorbing their Anima. Given the series’s notable and, on occasion, outright stated connections to Carl Jungian psychology, it’s almost definitely the intended interpretation.

[@ContrastCopy]

You don’t dive into a lake that’s not a lake and talk to a diver that is Thomas Zane and also not Thomas Zane. There is no projection of reality. You don’t see dreams of other worlds and write stories into reality. You don’t get powers from a Polyhedron. You don’t see your evil twin dance on a tv. Time doesn’t stutter. The supernatural isn’t a metaphor for the human psyche.

[@dr.catherineelizabethhalse1820]

I hope they are moving away from Saga being playable protagonist.

[@AlexReyLakehouse]

Zane has been corrupted maybe because he also has become "The master of many worlds"

[@AlexReyLakehouse]

Damm Alan is repeating the short of same like Zane. I'm worry if he'll control it and don't pretend to be God.

[@AlexReyLakehouse]

Zane is everywhere, because he appears in all the remedy games as a reference

[@cregerbot8217]

I do wonder if that is how Zane fell - he already became a master, or a "god" (would match that the Diver's suit has the number "667" on it, the other neighbor of the beast - perhaps the Poet, the god, is dead now, and only the body of the man remains), and that power led him to his own folly thinking he could do whatever he wanted with the Lake. Cut corners, and bringing the darkness out of the Lake.