Alan Wake 2 - Story Explained

hello and welcome to the next installment of Law and Order the video series where we look at and unpack stories from games in this one we'll be looking at the story of Remedies Alan Wake 2 the followup to the successful first installment Alan Wake which first released in 2010 but got the remaster treatment back in October 2021 now I loved the first game having played it when it first came out and Alan Wake 2 after a 13e weight is now released and remedy went for a more survival horror approach with this one which fit the tone of the story well now because of the connected remedy verse there will be spoilers in this video for Alan Wake Alan Wake 2 control and potentially for Quantum break as well so please bear that in mind before you continue watching I did do a story explain video on Alan Wake 1 so if you want to watch that then the link is down in the description don't worry I will be recapping Alan Wake 1 before explaining the story for Alan Wake 2 with all that out the way let's begin it's the year 2010 a famous crime fiction writer from New York by the name of Alan Wake is driving rather fast around a winding road when all of a sudden he hits a hitchhiker shocked and seeing that the guy is dead Alan looks away and looks back only to discover that the man is gone Allan sees a lighthouse in the distance so after he comes to his senses he heads towards it looking back here his car he sees The Hitchhiker there standing up alive and well the man now a shadowy figure runs towards Alan and attacks him forcing him to run along the way Alan is contacted by a bright light a strange figure in a diving suit who reassures him and gives him a flashlight used to banish the darkness inside the shadowy people known as taken along with a gun to finish any attackers off for good nearing the lighthouse Allen is chased by what appears to be a dark wind hurtling towards him he runs to and finds refuge in the lighthouse Alan is then attacked by something unseen and then he wakes up it was all just a dream Alan and his wife Alice a woman he describes as his Muse are headed on a vacation to the small mining town of bright Falls in Washington state and are on a ferry which is taking them to the town Allan is in need of a vacation as he's suffering from 2-year writer's block after killing off the main character from his popular series of novels detective Alex Casey Alan is dropped off by Alice at the odia diner where he is to meet a mechanic named Carl Stucky who is to give Alan a key along with directions to The Lodge in which he and Alice will be staying after meeting an Alan Wake fanatic waitress called Rose instead of meeting Stucky Alan meets a mysterious Black Veiled woman named Barbara Jagger who tells him Stucky can't make it and she gives him a key and directions to The Lodge instead thinking nothing of it Alan and Alice head to the cabin the cabin in question is idilic it's located slap bang in the middle of cauldron Lake the eighth deepest lake in the world which is also an active volcano on an island named divver Isle Alice wanted to see if working in a different local could Inspire Alan to write so she had a typewriter set up there for him thinking she dragged him there under false pretenses Alan gets mad but it gets even worse when Alice reveals that she's arranged for him to see a do Emil Hartman a man who helps creative people overcome their artistic struggles Alan then storms off outside Alan hears Alice scream he runs back to the cabin and realizes that Alice has been dragged into the lake and he Dives in after her he then blacks out and wakes up somewhere completely different not only that it's been a whole week and Allan can't remember anything from that week and Alice is nowhere to be seen he crashed his car so Dazed and Confused Alan makes his way to a nearby gas station and he's attacked by taken the same shadowy people he saw in his dream one of which is Carl Stucky the mysterious figure in the diving suit also drops a manuscript At His Feet reading the front page the title is departure by Alan Wake Alan surmises that he must have written the manuscript during the week he can't remember and he also finds what is written in the manuscript is coming true like it's been written into being the manuscript is incomplete so Alan finds more pages along the way Allan then makes it to the gas station to use a phone and contacts the Sheriff's Office the sheriff turns up a sheriff Sarah breaker she gives Alan some shocking news that diver's Isle doesn't even exist anymore and hasn't done since a volcanic eruption in 1970 breaker takes Allan to the Sheriff's Department where he's checked over by the local doctor and he then gets a phone call from a man claiming to have Alice after finding Alice's driver's license outside the station Allan realizes the man is serious and the man wants Allan to meet him at a place outside of brightfalls G Lover's Peak where Alan will exchange the finished manuscript for Alice returning to the Sheriff's Station Allan comes face to face with Dr Hartman Hartman tells Allan that he should visit him at his lodge on cauldron Lake Hartman mentions Allan's six situation that he invited Alice there in the first place and then Alan dexs him place where oh hey oh my take it easy Barry wheeler turns up Barry is Allen's agent and best friend with Hartman choosing not to press charges Allan is free to leave and after obtaining a key to a cabin from a park ranger named Rusty and after leaving Barry at the cabin Allan heads to Lover's Peak he fights Lo taken along the way but eventually he reaches the kidnapper who is seemingly being tortured by Barbara Jagger the kidnapper confesses to not even having Alice and Alan and the kidnapper are thrown over the edge and into cauldron Lake by a dark force Alan comes too and is now at cauldron Lake Lodge under the care of Dr Hartman Hartman claims that Alan was unable to come to terms with the death of his wife and has suffered a psychotic break as a result and that the bizarre goings on has simply been conjured up by Allen's own imagination Allan decides to play along in order to see what Hartman is up to and whilst in the lodge Alan finds out that Hartman knew the kidnapper who is a local man named Ben mot Harman wanted the manuscript as Harman like the idea of controlling creatives anyway Alan also meets a pair of Aging rockers by the names of T and Odin Anderson barri is also there but he had been locked in a storage coverbed by Hartman's staff Alan confronts Hartman but the lodge is attacked by the dark force Alan leaves Hartman to be consumed by it and he and Barry Escape The Lodge they have discovered that the dark force is something called the dark presence which is trapped underneath cauldron Lake in a dimension called the dark place and is trying to use the power of the lake to free itself the dark Pres had now grown strong enough to influence the residents of brightfalls to attack Allan the dark presence is trapped within the lake and is trying to escape by using the power of the lake to turn fiction into reality it had previously attempted to do so Back in 1970 by using a poet named Thomas Zayn who was the person in the diving suit that has been helping Allan Zayn had recently made a film called Tom the poet which was about a poet who lived on diver's aisle Thomas Zayn's Muse his lover was Barbara Jagger one day Barbara drowned while swimming in the lake zay's assistant n other than Dr Hartman not knowing about the existence of the dark place convinced Zayn to write Barbara back into existence by using the power of the lake he did so but the dark presence was inside of her realizing this and finding only Darkness inside her Zayn cut out Barbara's heart then Zayn using his poems wrote a volcanic eruption into existence and this was the volcanic eruptions Sheriff breaker told Alan about and Tom wrote himself out of existence and the Caldera underneath the lake swallowed diver's aisle and took Thomas and Barbara with with it the dark presence claimed Barbara's body as they sank and the light presence took Thomas's body their Spirits continued to descend and upon Tom reciting a final Master poem they would both live in happiness in the universe of Tom's creation Tom Left Behind Some belongings one of which was an old light switch in a shoe box anyway after a car crash Alan and Barry make it to the Anderson Brothers Farm and with no option than to wait until sunrise they both get drunk Allan then has a vision of himself writing departure the week before he realizes that dark presence took Alice and is holding her beneath cauldron Lake in order to use Alan to write a story where it can escape he is guided on his next steps by a song by the Anderson Brothers Band the old gods of Asgard however a bothersome FBI agent by the name of Nightingale shows up and arrests both Alan and Barry Nightingale throughout the last couple of days had tried to arrest Alan but had failed miserably anyway in their cell Allan and Barry are being taunted by Nightingale when he suddenly realizes that what is happening right now now was written on one of the manuscript Pages before he can realize what's next he is dragged off by the dark presence Sheriff breaker who doubted what was happening is now fully convinced and Sheriff breaker Allan and Barry get to the brightfalls dam where they meet Cynthia Weaver a lady known to locals as the lady of the light who is obsessed with keeping the lights on she opens a vault called the wellit room Cynthia knows all about the presence and its dangers she was at one point obsessed and in love with Tomas Zayn and hated Barbara Jagger but that's something we'll discuss later in the video inside the wellet room is the item Thomas St Left Behind the light switch or the clicker an item which can defeat the dark presence Alan presses the switch but nothing happens realizing he needs to go back to cauldron Lake in order to read the final page which is still in the typewriter Allan leaves destroys a dark force by cauldron Lake which was being controlled by Barbara Jagger and he dives into the lake Allan is now in the dark place he then finds himself inside a dream created by the dark presence and is in his apartment and is confronted by what appears to be an illusion of Alice after seeing an apparition of Thomas Zayn Zayn tells Alan that he needs to go to the cabin on cauldron Lake in order to defeat Barbara as the presence resides inside her then another version of Alan is standing next to him smiling Zayn refers to this version of Alan as Mr scratch Zayn tells him that Mr scratch will return to the real world and meet his friends and loved ones whilst Allan stays there in the dark place he confronts Barbara Jagger and finds a large hole in her chest where her heart should be she claims that the dark presence will only find a new body to possess if she is killed he places the clicker inside the hole in her chest flicks the switch burning Away the Dark presence Allan then goes upstairs and finishes the story he mentions that everything has a price that there's a duality between light and dark guilt and atonement and there needs to be a balance in the dark place and that was zay's mistake Back in 1970 time is then reversed all the way back to when Allan dove into the lake to try and save Al everything is reversed but at the cost of Allan who is now trapped in the dark place Alice wakes swims out of cauldron Lake and onto the shore the cabin is now gone and Allan is nowhere to be seen either the town is seemingly okay again and deerfest is well underway but it seems that the dark presence has now possessed agent Nightingale and he stands in the dark looking at Rose who is holding a lamp and seems terrified Rose was earlier possessed by the dark presence Alan is trapped in the dark place and says the words it's not a lake it's an ocean and Allan hears Alice whispering and telling him to wake up now in the first of two short dlc's Allan finds himself in a very different and darker version of bright Falls realizing that he's indeed trapped Zayn reaches out to Allan and guides him through the dark place via phone signals Allan encounters TV screens which show an irrational version of himself which narrates certain situations that pose great risk to Allan pushing on and surviving these obstacles Alan eventually en is a version of Barry who initially helps Alan whilst occasionally mocking him Zay tells Alan that the irrational version of himself is born out of his own fears and that his fears of the dark place are affecting the dark world around him Allan's irrational version of himself tries to kill him but rational Allen prevails however Allan passes out and wakes up still in the cabin screaming that there's no way out the second of the two DLCs sees Zayn telling Allan that the irrational version of himself is still changing the dark place from inside the cabin Alan needs to get to the cabin and along the way Alan is taunted by IR rational Allan by way of Visions involving Alice and by commanding hordes of taken to attack him the dark presence is trying to ruin what's left of Allen's rationality and Sanity anyhow Allan reaches the cabin and has to fight off an apparition of Barry he enters the cabin and finds a rational Allan on the floor Allan touches him and the two merge with two becoming one Allan then sits down at the typewriter and starts to write a brand new story called return a sequel to departure the game then ends so now we can get into the story for Alan Wake 2 we'll now be discussing the plot in its most basic form as this story has a lot of back and forth I'll split the Saga and Allen sections of the game into their own dedicated sections and this I feel will help simplify the narrative rather than jumping back and forth between story lines so with that being said let's begin with saga's [Music] story it's the year 2023 and a man naked cold and Afraid emerges from cauldron Lake stumbling through the dark woods of The Cauldron Lake Campgrounds the man sees two people up on a Verge and the two people then leave further down the trail after seeing visions and hearing voices the man is seemingly ambushed by a group of people who are wearing deer masks a cult of some sort they shoot the man stra into a picnic table and introducing themselves as the cult of the tree they cut open the man's chest and take out his heart they begin to chant but are interrupted by the couple the man saw on the verge the cult give Chase and the man is left there on the table a few hours later and after an extensive FBI investigation two FBI agents are headed to cauldron Lake and they've been in bright Falls for a few days and had been investigating three Grizzly murders the murders of brightfalls residents Wendy Davis Ted Lane and Percy wolf whose murders were all linked the agents are now headed to cauldron Lake after the two witnesses managed to evade the cultists and reported the murder to the brille sheriff one of the agents Saga Anderson speaks with her daughter Logan on the phone and then speaks with her partner agent Alex Casey Casey hands over the lead on the case to Saga and they eventually arrive at The Cauldron Lake Campgrounds and speak to the Sheriff's deputy a deputy called Mulligan Mulligan explains that the heart was taken from the body and explains that his colleague a deputy thoron is down at the crime scene migan explains that large areas of the campgrounds in the area around coldon Lake have been fenced off by a government agency called the Federal Bureau of control Anderson takes a moment to review the case notes she does this by entering into her own version of the mine palace called the mine place after reviewing the notes and after a further stroll down the path Saga discovers an Alex Casey themed lunchbox accompanied by strange rocks covered in a knitted sleeve the lunch boox contains words of affirmation Saga jokes about how much it irritates agent Casey that he shares a name with a fictional detective created by Alan Wake Saga also discovers that large areas of the campgrounds are flooded anyway after walking to the the scene of the crime Anderson and Casey meet with a deputy thoron explains that the victim is a former FBI agent its agent Robert Nightingale I guess that now explains what happened to him after he was possessed by the dark presence Casey actually knew him he explains that night Andale went off the deep and was fired prior to the events of 2010 examining the body Saga deduces that this was a ritualistic killing consistent with the previous murders the heart was left there on the table right next to the body the victim was tied up and multiple Footprints at the scene along with beer bottles points to this being a planned and premeditated murder Saga and Casey go down to the lake but find their ways blocked by a large tree and a boulder what's weird is that Footprints left by Nightingale show that he came through this Boulder Impossible The Saga then finds a page from a manuscript a page full of texts on one side not a print out written with a typewriter old school lines scratched out and edits added with a pen mhm like a manuscript page of a story killer left a message it's for us the text is about us the victim was one of their own FBI special agent Robert Nightingale and then there was the page they found the first step down into terrifying depths reading the these words felt like a message felt like a message someone knew they were here someone playing a game with them an invitation how could they not accept even if they knew it would end up hurting them Saga is considered to be a very talented agent she's able to solve cases that others couldn't get their heads around using her mind Place she's able to profile possible suspects and victims by getting into their heads she attempts this with Robert nighting Gale I carry his words close to my chest now inside The Awful Truth you must dig it out something was put inside him in his chest I must find out what speaking with Deputy thoron again the body is to be taken to the Morgan bright Falls Taking a shortcut back to the car Saga and Casey discover a strange station that was set up by the FBC Saga and Casey then leave and drive back back to the town brightfalls is getting ready for the 81st deer Fest which is 2 days away an annual celebration in the town going to the odia din Saga meets with the sheriff Timothy breaker he's the cousin of Sarah breaker who is now an FBI agent herself Saga then heads inside to speak with the witnesses Tammy and Ed Booker a couple from New York pressed on what they were doing sneaking around the woods at night the Bookers explained that they were researching Tammy is a true crime writer she was there researching The Disappearance of Alan Wake they broke into the fenced off area through the hole in the fence that Mulligan was guarding earlier on Ed explains what happened it's revealed that Tammy found a pendant belonging to the cult which has their symbol on it two triangles Tammy wanted to have the symbol on the cover of her book but Saga demands that she handed over as evidence do me a favor stick around town for now in case we have any more questions like we'd even dream of missing dear oh God Saga Saga Anderson as I live live and breathe I thought we'd never see you back here after that awful awful thing happened to your baby girl how are you um I'm sorry who are you I don't know what you're talking about it's me silly Rose you know me I don't think I do and what horrible thing happened to my baby girl she drowned your daughter that's so weird you don't remember how do you know I have a daughter oh I know what this is you're blocking out your traumatic memories happens on TV all the time no you're mistaking me for someone else if you say [Music] so well that was weird Sago and Casey walk to the Sheriff's station with Sheriff breaker getting there he reveals that they share a morg with the funeral home next door they get to work in examining Nightingale bloating on the body seems to suggest that nightingale's body was submerged for a long period of time and true to what Nightingale mentioned Saga finds a piece of paper inside his chest a manuscript it's the same type of page we found at codron Lake night Andale hunted Saga didn't see her the taken could not see into bright light light hurt them made them vulnerable night Andale had no heart but here he was killing someone's created a [ __ ] up fantasy about us hey hold on we found these kinds of pages I didn't think they were relevant to this case I have them right here no no no wait Sheriff what the hell show me the clicker Casey it's dark no didn't see her could not see into bright light how make you sh [ __ ] he's coming no weapon the pig said to get into the light Saga has to avoid nightingale's seemingly alive corpse he is now a taken and cannot see her while she's standing in the light as the taken are weak to it after shooting nightingale's corpse multiple times he falls and then vanishes speaking with a very groggy Casey they agreed they need to find out where night Andale went they surmised that the cult are performing rituals order to create monsters but the reason as to why exactly isn't obvious another manuscript page gives Saga a hint as to what was to come the page says Saga needs to go back to cauldron Lake and perform some sort of ritual in order to stop the monster so Saga and Casey head back to cauldron Lake they get there and they find that the area is even more flooded now where nightingale's body lay on the table was a cultist symbol indicating that this was the place that they completed their rituals Saga remembers that she needs needs to enter into something called an overlap and that there she will find Nightingale on the way to the murder site Saga meets a local man named ilmo Cella he's a tour guide from watery a neighboring Town founded by Finnish immigrants he's also the owner of the coffee themed amusement park coffee World he's there with an FBC engineer named Steven Lynn who claims he's fixing the bureau monitoring station after it was damaged by raccoons Steven mentions that the station checks volcanic activity after mentioning her Swedish Heritage Saga and Casey move on they find Footprints leading from the murder site all the way to a flooded area Saga feels a presence using her ability to get inside the head of a subject she finds out that the large tree that she and Casey found earlier is something called a threshold like a doorway Nightingale also mentions a place called Caldera Street Station approaching the tree Saga uses light to burn away a barrier but she still can't get through she does however find another manuscript the fuse was in place Saga stepped into the witch's Hut inside a bright light there were objects that stood out to Saga as if the light had manifested them the witch's Hut okay entering the aforementioned witch's Hut Saga finds another manuscript the manuscript mentions that she needs to find nightingale's heart and give it to the witch she goes to the convenience door and faces a cultist who tries to attack her she puts the cultist down and inside a freezer she finds nightingale's heart and on it the words the wave crashed on the far side of the mirror after fighting more taken Saga places the heart inside the sign's hole next to the tree and something happens Saga is now in the overlap the middle ground between the real world in the dark place she hears things her daughter Logan crying out for help Saga realizes that she is in a loop she sees a vision of someone asking her to help them it doesn't take long until she encounters Nightingale he's muttering stating that the writer is writing again as expected he attacks her growling something about wanting the light switch after a long fight Saga defeats what's left of the former FBI agent and then she sees something who are you what is this who are you you hear me I'm Saga Anderson FBI I can hear you cauldron Lake yes I'm at cauldron Lake where are you to escape in danger the dark [Music] pres Danger thanks got it [Music] hey are you okay no it's my fault it got out with my face scratch sir calm down I'm going to need you to take a breath he's he's changed the story The Dark presence we must stop it before easy now first things first what's your name my name is Alan Wake I'm a writer I I've been wake where did you come from you've been missing for 13 years 13 Alan is very confused to see Alex Casey there and even thinks that he's still in the dark place he stresses the importance that if they see any manuscript pages that they pick them up as they will contain Vital Information it also appears that the flooding around the area has now gone on the way back to brightfall Saga speaks to Logan and finds out that she slipped in the shower and she banged her head and that she nearly drowned back at the lodge and after getting cleaned up Allan speaks to Saga and Casey Alan describes the last time he saw Nightingale it's 13 years ago questioned on the title page of the manuscript he was carrying on him titled return Alan explains that the manuscript Pages Saga along with other people have been finding are from that story the original name of the author was scratched out and the original author was Alan himself Alan explains that his name was probably rubbed out by Mr scratch Alan doesn't remember much he says that his mind is all jumbled up like a nightmare but then he remembers something he explains to Saga and Casey that for the past 13 years he's been trapped in a nightmare Dimension called the dark place a twisted version of New York that the dark place can be reached from the bottom of cauldron Lake except that it's not under the lake and he's now managed to get out of the dark place the only problem is that Mr scratch Alan's evil Doppel Gang has also gotten out Alan explains that scratch is interchangeable with the dark presence and scratch also wears Allen's likeness and the scratch the dark presence wants to rewrite the world and turn it into a nightmare and that he wants to do this during deerfest Saga theorizes that Alan got out of the dark place by writing the novel titled return except Alan's evil doppelgang of scratch has been editing it into a horror story and those edits are coming true the horror story is changing reality and is bringing the dark place to Bright Falls Alan speaks about the clicker scratch wants it and needs it in order to bring about his perfect ending Allan says that if he can get the clicker then he can send scratch back to the the dark place Saga asks Alan as to why her and Casey are written into the story of return he responds saying he saw her in the overlap and that Saga helped Allan reach out and Escape he tells the agents they are all in danger and that scratch will want to edit the pages of return in order to hurt them so in short Alan needs the clicker before scratch can get to it questioned on whether or not he's heard of The Cult of the tree Alan says that the cult must have the clicker Saga entertains the idea that the cult may be followers of and loyal to scratch profiling him Saga realizes that Alan is hiding manuscript pages from them and that is how he knows the cult have the clicker she also discovers that scratch is there hunting Allan she questions how they both got out together maybe they are tied to each other so if one gets out the other does too Saga then gets the missing page from Allan inside the trailer at the outskirts of watery Saga had seen wake's fabled clicker for the first time in the hands of the cult of the tree a cultist St scared at her she drew a weapon so going off the information on the page Saga heads to the town of watery arriving it appears that watery is exactly that watery it's partially flooded after checking out some entertainment Saga speaks with Vladimir Bloom he drives the mini buus for the Valhalla Nursing Home in bright Falls the patients are out on a day trip to watery visiting the SAA and enjoying music he claims to have known Saga for a long time Saga asks about where she can find a trailer and Mr Bloom tells her about the watery Lighthouse Trailer Park which is owned by ilmo Cella he's there in watery with his twin brother yako they also claim to know Saga and say that everyone in town has missed her she asks about the cult but the brothers just think it's an urban legend she asks to see the trailer park and it gets even weirder ilmo tells Saga where she can find the key to what he says is her trailer they think that Saga used to live there in watery and she's now trying to work out what is real and what is fiction she needs to find out which parts of return are affecting reality they explain that the bridge of the trailer park is destroyed due to the flooding so Saga needs to use a side path and go through coffee world she profiles the ccel twins she realizes that they actually believe that the cult is real after fighting some taken Saga gets to the amusement park after some Tom Foolery with the safe in the gift shop Saga manages to obtain the key to the trailer entering the trailer park she encounters and speaks with the rocker brothers from the legendary band the old gods of Asgard t and Odin Anderson Tor is drinking moonshine but says it's not helping and that he doesn't feel like himself speaking to Saga they also seem to know her they appear to know what's going on in the area telling Saga not to be part of the story what's more they claim T is saga's grandfather and Odin her great uncle brushing off this wild Revelation Saga enters the trailer it's full of her things as well as Logan's things too it seems she did in fact live there in watery at some point point or did she she can't remember is this fiction coming true or is this reality she finds a photograph of Tor an Odin alongside a cult member and the cult member is holding the clicker they seem to be at the costella twins motorcycle club the cavala knights Saga has two things she needs to do now investigate the motorcycle club and also to visit toron Odin's nursing home also there is a newspaper reporting on Logan's death Saga inevitably starts to get worried she attempts to call her husband David but there's no answer she spots a cultist standing at the entrance to the trailer park it's Mulligan one of the deputies Saga follows him but Mulligan is nowhere to be seen and she sees thoron who is also a cultist saga follows them to the motorcycle club She searches the clubhouse for the clicker she finds emails on the computer which implicates the ccll twins as being possible cultists too they talk about something called the oop and that the cult need to keep it in the Assembly Hall at all times and that it's only to be used used for rituals entering the locked back room Saga discovers that this is indeed The cult's Hideout as well as that the FBC had been monitoring The Cult of the tree for some time underneath The Hideout leads her to a secret room the clicker is on some sort of altar Saga goes to pick it up but it disappears she assumes that Mulligan and thoron have it they seem to now be taken profiling them reveals that the cult has more than one leader a manuscript on the ground indicates that there is another overlap there in watery the parade float was the key Mulligan and thoron had gone into the overlap and taken the clicker and had left a massive taken upstairs to deal with Saga after defeating it she gets to work finding things in order to finish the parade float the float is to depict a local urban legend from watery in which two brothers killed their neighbor and hid their bodies down a well the huari well finishing the float the overlap opens and Saga enters it she is thrown through another loop hearing the growling and snarling of Mulligan and thoron she also hears music bleeding through from the dark place into the overlap eventually she confronts them they are fully taken after defeating them Saga speaks with Alan again he tells her that he was tricked by scratch he talks about the key to escaping this confuses Saga as Alan is already out of the dark place Saga asks Alan if he put her family into the horror story some of what he says to her is illegible but eventually their connection is severed why is Saga seeing Allan in the overlap if he's already out of it are the vision from the past nonetheless Saga obtains her prize the clicker Saga attempts to call Casey but no answer and her husband David too but no answer from him either time to head back to Bright Falls whilst all this has been going on Casey was having a little chat with Alan back at the lodge Casey mentioned that he's read Alan's Alex Casey novels and that there are echoes of his life inside of them which make him feel like someone has been watching him however the cult arrived at the lodge and they were armed I just want to fix this find a version of the story that fixes everything shut up get down FBI we want the rider no one else needs to get hurt [ __ ] off [ __ ] hey what are you doing scratch is close stay down wait I need a gun no chance FBI look out it's [Applause] coming alanc to covered in blood and assumed that scratch has also escaped the dark place too Alan can feel scratch's influence growing stronger by the minute and increasing pressure in his head Alan followed a path following the sounds of Casey's gunshots and the influence of scratch intensified a cult attempts to kill Alan but Saga shows up she shoots the cultist to her surprise it's ILO ccll I think it's safe to assume that the cult does not view Allan as their leader a chopper shows up it's the Federal Bureau of control LED by an agent Estes they relieve Saga of her lead on the case and tell her this is now an FBC investigation they lead Allan away and take him to the brightful sheriff station they refer to wake as something called a par utilitarian esz asks if Saga has any evidence on her she has the clicker but she lies and tells Estes she has nothing after the agents leave Saga follows up on her other lead she arrives at the Valhalla nursing home she is greeted by Rose who appears to be working there too she's being very secretive though she says that Odin and T need to rest and that she can't see them Rose does let her in though and she speaks to other residents two residents Norman and Mandy may say that Odin is sleeping and that t has been acting strangely lately Mandy May says that t smacked himself in the head with the hammer he's always carrying around Norman adds more and says that to was electrocuted confronting about t being hurt she admits that there was an incident but remains tight lipped Saga speaks with another Resident also a janitor ATI who was earlier performing in watery he says he's good friends with Odin and T upon asking where they are atti responds that only a seeing man can know that in Odin's room Saga sees a picture from 1989 on the wall of her mother next to Tor and Odin holding a baby saga In Her Arms speaking with Odin he's unable to communicate bizarrely Saga is able to communicate with Odin via her mind Place what's happening it's never felt this way before you're all grown up Saga dearest and you're back just in time the forces of Darkness are eating away at us we're too old and weak you have the power in you like all Andersons what was that he wasn't a projection Odin was really here I found a photograph of you with the cultists how are you involved we're too old for this brand of crazy but we'll drink with anyone who's offering the cult's been on our asses to join for years but we already have our band and those damn fools don't know what they're dealing with no wonder they want a pair of Legends Tor and Odin are not part of the cult the cult thinks there's something special about Tor and Odin I've never connected to someone like this in my mind place before how is this happening I was glad to answer your call Vikings are born Travelers you are a sear you can see the truth but your grandpa will want to tell you more himself wouldn't want to steal his Thunder Tor is in danger you can save him is my mind Place more than just a mental technique sometimes my mind place even baffles me you said Tor is in danger what's going on darkness is drawn to the spark Tor only thinks with his hammer never his head the prince of [ __ ] darkness is making a comeback tour is marked by Darkness I can feel it is he in his room it wants to take him and then take me beware of Cynthia Weaver bad things happen in the wellness center don't let her drag him under Saga does Prince of Darkness refer to scratch is T becoming taken I need to find him before it's too late so Saga is a Seer she returns to Rose and asks about the wellness center she demands the key and Rose reluctantly hands it over Saga visits the wellness center in pursuit of T it's dark and empty Saga needs to be careful sensing danger she carefully makes her way through the empty Wards and hallways Saga finds to's bed but he tore off his bandages and isn't in his bed she eventually spots him in the rehabilitation room but but he shuts the door behind him and of course the power to the door shuts off after rebooting the power to the door and after finding out that the cuscal brothers are actually the Cults leaders Saga makes it through the rest of the wellness center and outside there she finds T in the pond and Rose asking him to come out then an overlap opens and to just disappears Saga needs to get the overlap open again she profiles Rose and Saga finds out that Rose malan wake's number one fan was told that the hero being Saga will say Wake has returned and that we are all characters in his story as we learned earlier Cynthia Weaver has t at some point the former Lady of Light had become a taken possessed by the dark presence she led t on and was trying to drag him towards the darkness using this information Saga says the phrase to Rose and she gives Saga a manuscript page that wake specifically asked Rose to give to her the manuscript states that the key to the overlap in the pond is an old gods of Asgard record going up to the home's old God's Museum the power cuts out and Saga needs to go to the basement and restore power outside scores have taken a weit in the basement Saga finds the dead body of Vladimir bloom after navigating the spooky basement Saga finds the fuse and gets the power on profiling Cynthia Saga finds out that the dark presence is using Cynthia to ensure that Tor doesn't speak to Saga heading into the museum Saga finds that the record is no longer there it's been taken by Cynthia Weaver she manages to track the record to Cynthia Weaver's room she finds the record in the bathtub going to play the record in the Juke Box Saga has another obstacle in the shape of a new kind of Taken due to the nature of the overlap being in a pond this taken is shown as being partially underwater after defeating it Saga plays the record on the jukebox the overlap opens Saga enters and finds herself in a bunker from the messages inside it seems that a young girl aged 15 drowned in this bunker as with the previous overlaps Saga is thrown through another loop until she hears to trying to talk to during the overlap Cynthia's cackle is drowning him out though she's using the water to hunt Saga but after evading her Saga manages to get the lights on downstairs though she has to fight Cynthia she's powerful but Saga manages to beat her once again Saga speaks with Alan he tells her that she's helped him get closer to escaping Saga is still unable to figure out at what point in time she's communicating with Alan again what he's saying is mostly illegible but it makes it even more confusing when Saga says that she has the clicker but Alan is still telling her that she needs to find it saaga asks Alan if he wrote Logan into the story but he doesn't answer she pleads with Allan to change the story then they lose their connection and Saga and to find themselves back at the nursing home Saga says Logan is still in the story and that she can get wake to change it using the clicker using the Mind Place Tor explains that Saga has the same power as Tor and Odin that they are seers their ability to resist the cult and the influence of the dark place for so long was down to their sear ability abilities to peek inside people's minds to see what they're hiding to says that just having the clicker though isn't enough he says it's Tom's story so he needs to be the one to rewrite it Saga assumes he's just talking about Alan so Saga realizes she needs to visit the sheriff's station and speak to him and get him to change the story into save Logan from whatever fate he doomed her to arriving at the station Saga finds the power is out and the place has been ransacked and she eventually discovers FBC agent Estes injured and hiding in a closet she says that the station was attacked by taken the FBC refer to them as the Shaded and the dark presence the shadow she also says that they initially arrived to check out a system alert at cauldron Lake after their monitoring station had picked up a possible awe this means an altered world event at the lake she says that Casey is injured after a close encounter with the dark presence in the woods but that he is okay that was until they take and attack the station esz says he's down in the morg but she doesn't know if he's alive or not in regard to Alan Wake he's in the cells but the door to them is locked down due to the power outage Saga goes down to the morg and pretty much everyone is dead but Casey is okay he's wounded but he's okay Saga gets the fuse she needs and she gets the power back on returning to Estes she tells Saga that they have useful equipment in the parking lot which is used to fight the threat of the dark presence entering the now open cell block Saga sees that the Cella Brothers has also been arrested and she speaks with Alan you wrote Logan into the story you told me yourself from the dark place listen scratch is coming he's he's close he's almost here my daughter is dead because of you she's a child what the [ __ ] is wrong with you I'm trying to fix this I will fix this I'll save everyone but we're running out of time I need the clicker I have the clicker you will fix this you will save my daughter promise me yes I promise but we're out of time hurry don't [ __ ] give it to him he's a [ __ ] Monster Saga there it is we've been waiting for you [ __ ] I'm going to [ __ ] destroy you Saga realizes that scratch was pretending to be wake heading outside Saga uses the LI arrays in the parking lot to temporarily defeat scratch So What on earth is happening here did Allan even escape from the dark place before we continue looking at saga's well Saga let's look at what happened in Allen's sections of The Game and his attempt to escape titled initiation as this will now hopefully tie everything together and show what happened on his side of things during Saga and Casey's first conversation with Alan he recalled that he was sat in the green room watching a chat show host called Mr door introducing Allan to discuss a new book he'd supposedly written a book titled initiation the old gods of Asgard were also there performing Alan enters into the TV and finds himself on the show without a clue as to what was going on are you okay there my friend you look like you've been cooped up in the writer's room for a few too many years this is exactly how I feel you know I've waited so long to get my hands on the sequel to departure you left us on quite the Cliffhanger we've all been dying to know what it's not a lake it's an ocean really means you and me both well our wait is over your new book initiation hits the shelves tomorrow what that's exactly what every reader will be asking this book is mindbending it's so cerebral I mean how would you describe it an autofictional thought experiment a a Horror Story a postmodern detective story wait this isn't right I I haven't written anything he's so hum okay you got me good prank very funny but yeah I sad to say I I've not written this I'd remember if I'd written a book right or maybe it was written by your evil double well play man that is spoton playing the role here pretending the world of the book overlaps our own that's very meta indeed you see initiation tells the story of a fictional writer named Alan Wake who is trapped in a nightmare desperately trying to find the manuscript of a novel he has forgotten he has written the book is set in New York but it might not be New York at all he is tormented by his dark doppelganger and guided by vision of a fictional detective he has written that's right Alex Casey is in this book as well I guess we'll just keep doing this the whole show the jok's on me but isn't that what you sign up for with autofiction no but seriously I found the the structure of the reality you build in the book fascinating it reminded me of the Matrix I mean the writer is physically in his writer's room trapped there and he he projects himself out to this dark dream of New York through the story he is writing like astral projection did I get that right yeah that's exactly right go on I should be taking notes here this is great stuff notes to that other Alan Wake in that room writing this as we speak are we all in your story Alan so it appears that Alan has no memory of writing initiation escaping the TV studio Alan decides he needs to get home to Alice upon trying to escape though he is hunted down by the dark presence it seems that when the dark presence got him it killed him and a loop took him back to his writer's room again a warning that in order to get out he needs to write himself out he discovers that he already started writing out a plot board for initiation the index cards on the board explain what just happened in his nightmare he sits down at his desk and begins to write his Escape this time Alan finds himself projected back into the TV studio again to appear on Mr D's show in the hope that he can escape it appears Sam lake is there he's an actor who is playing detective Alex Casey in the TV adaptation of Alan's novels Alan projects himself into the TV again and Allan remarks that Casey looks exactly as he'd imagined him to look they then Play a clip from the show murder case Casey this city was an old scar that refused to heal the rain made it Fester it needed the Sun but there was only the night I was tired insomnia covered me like a plastic film I was watching the world through a rain slick window my own reflection haunting The View I was trying to track down a missing writer my only clue was a table lamp shaped like an angel the only thing that shed light on this sorted mystery Alan tries to ask about the lamp and the lights flicker Alan once again has to try and escape the TV studio this time he isn't stopped by the dark presence instead he meets the janitor a man called atti atti keeps calling Alan Tom and he explains rather cryptically that there's something for him in the basement a shoe box a tool to help him build his own exit sure enough in the basement Alan finds what he was looking for a lamp shaped like an angel which allowed him to shift the environment around him by using a light source what's more is that this lamp is the one that the clicker was cut from Allan finds a TV showing a past memory that shows himself writing it shows himself descending further and further into mad ramblings about having written many failed attempts to get out of the dark place but everything he creates is Twisted by the dark presence however every word he writes is one step closer to a way out and this inspires him to keep going he emerges from the TV studio building and onto the street Allan is in what appears to be New York City or rather Allan's mental manifestation of it the dark place he hears a phone ringing on the other line is a man who mentions Cura Street Station then the line goes dead but Allan spots a subway pass on the ground seeing a bright light at the end of an Alleyway Allan checks it out and he meets New York Police Department detective Alex Casey the fictional character from his stories Casey says that he's been looking into a murder that a cult are murdering people copycatting the methods of the murders written in a manual uscript a manuscript Casey claims is written by Alan Casey thinks that Alan may be the cult's leader Casey hears a commotion around the corner and goes to investigate but he is killed by the dark presence a vision of Casey mentions that he remembers dying in that alley in a dream he' had he also mentions that it would just keep killing him there Loop by Loop Casey dying reminds Allan of the fate of Casey in his books Allan feels like he is now the detective now armed with a gun and flashlight like the good old days of 2010 Allan uses his Angel lamp and manages to access a series of rooftops in a room he meets Sheriff Tim breaker breaker seems to recognize Alan but Alan cannot remember him this is a result of the loops that Alan has been subjected to sheriff breaker has been trying to find out and theorize about the origins of Mr door but more on him a bit later Alan uses his new lamp device to open up an entrance to Caldera Street Station inside Alan finds what are called Echoes the ghost of his fictional detective that would give him ins spiration on which direction to take the story with a location along with a story thread Alan had a narrative to follow and it was detective Casey looking for a missing FBI agent while on the trail of a murder cult called The Cult of the word Alan uses these story threads to rewrite reality in specific locations he follows a blood trail down a Subway tunnel and he eventually arrives at his next location a collapse tunnel Alan finds another Echo to uses an inspiration and sees an image of two police officers who found the FBI agent there were worried about the danger the cult poses the officers say that they heard Allan is the cult's leader a different Echo is of Casey speaking to someone who appears to resemble Tammy Booker who says that there is more than one urban legend about the cult of the word one is that they use the train Tunnels for their ritual sacrifices another is that the cult reenacted murder scenes from Allan's books and that wake is involved under a false identity known as Mr scratch the name for the Devil Himself Alan goes with the murder cult angle and the scene once again changes he spots an Alex Casey novel on an altar almost as if it's a holy book further down the tunnels Alan comes across a d rail train car another perfect location for the plot an echo gives him another idea it gets darker the cult would track down a Mystic group that called themselves torch bearers who lived in the tunnels they locked them up in the derailed subway car DED it with fuel and set it a light burning them alive using it Allan brings the scene to life it's very very dark writing but it's perfect for the tone he's aiming for finally Allan finds a fourth scene the end of the line a spot where Alan could elaborate further about the cult murdering the torch bearers and invading their holy place an echo gives him his story thread it's mentioned that the missing FBI agent had seen something at the scene which had made him run away Casey suggests a summoning ritual so Allan uses that for his story going back to the collapsed tunnel Allan is now able to unblock the collapse tunnel and proceeds to travel through it to the murder site however he is chased by the dark presence he evades it though and makes it to a safe haven heading down the tunnel for real this time Allan is chased once more but makes it through the tunnels he spots Nightingale on a sacrificial altar of sorts he goes to grab nightingale's heart but it disappears Alan then sees visions of saga Anderson as she's in the overlap and this is the moment directly after Saga defeated Nightingale in the overlap outside an apartment block Parliament Tower appears as a result of Alan feeling closer to home the dark plac is being altered due to Alan remembering things from the real world again heading all the way back through the subway tunnels Alan speaks to the mysterious person on the phone again he tells Alan that he needs to make sure Alice got out of the dark place that scratch can manifest as Allan's double and then the line cuts out again Allan heads into Parliament Tower entering the apartment he is greeted by a barrage of camera flashes almost as if Alice was trying to capture a photo of something very specific throughout his time walking around the apartment it appears that Alice was being tormented by something or someone she was working on an exhibition of some sort as well she also captured a photo of Mr scratch the door to Alan's study is locked he remarks on a symbol he's not seen before being on the door itself Alan finds a memory card belonging to Alice and he plays it on her camera when I was younger photography was everything to me I moved to New New York thinking I'd make it as an artist and then I met Alan we had a good thing we were both dedicated by our creative Ambitions the only difference was that Alan's work made money he brought me work when he could I took his promo shots um created covers for his books I'm sure he forced his publisher into it I was taking photos just not my photos and that noded at me things got complicated sometimes but that's life right we loved each other then Ellen hit a block I brought out a meaner side of him one I didn't like I set up a trip to see a doctor in Washington I didn't tell him until we got there we argued things went wrong then he was just gone drowned allegedly easy for people to think it was my fault hell I do too sometimes about 6 years ago I started hearing noises in the night typewriter Keys clacking voices Alan was [Applause] back haunting me then it got violent it was Alan and yet it was a monster he always did have anger in him I set up cameras around the apartment with motion sensors and flashes now when the monster comes I turn it into art my nightmares caught on fil and this is the focus of my new exhibition to show people the world is so much darker than they ever knew I'm calling this exhibit the dark place Alice scratch was terrorizing her why Alan enters into the screen that shows Alice's exhibition on it he enters into his writer's room and finds that there's no one writing in fact Allan himself is there but he's dead he's been shot in the head he picks up a page and on it return with Alan Wake scratched out Alan is then killed by the dark presence again he wakes up in his writing room again Allan remembers the page with return written on it he remarks that he doesn't remember writing it but that it felt important and he needs to find it he wasn't able to Escape using the first draft of initiation so it's time to work on the second draft the sequel to the previous story following the same murder cult so Alan sits down on his typewriter to start work on his second draft of the story with the aim being to reach Parliament Tower by using another merer site his Hope was also to stop scratch from hurting Alice Allan finds himself once again at the start of his story at the TV studio projecting himself into the TV once again Alan is pulled into a musical based on his life featuring The music of the old gods of Asgard he navigates the various set pieces hearing about his life Journey as a writer and his works on Alex Casey his trip to Bright Falls and his eventual plummet into the dark place Allan also has to fight against the taken when all that is over Alan finds himself in an empty TV studio and can now Escape which he does straight back out again into his version of New York City in another phone call the mystery man asks Alan about how much he remembers Alan responds by saying that he rememb that Alice is in danger that scratch is reaching out to Alice and that there's another manuscript return the man tells Alan to meet him at the ocean view hotel and he's left a room key for him arriving Alan discovers that he can't enter the hotel the normal way as the entrance is simply a looping hallway so he uses his lamp and traverses more rooftops until he reaches the rooftop of the hotel inside a room Allan finds a projector and he uses it to enter a screen inside he comes face to face with the mystery man who is none other than Thomas Zayn yep Tom after all that time seems to be still trapped in the dark place welcome to the house of Zan the poet the diver you look like me how the hell or maybe you look like me you handsome devil the diver was a beloved character I played in one of my films I'm a filmmaker a celebrated Aur I need answers why is turn so important what you you always get worked up like this come on I'll fix you a drink you me Alan we're in this together two artists collaborating remember crafting the keys to our Escape your magnumopus return and it's it's companion piece my film sharing our our life altering Visions a melding of higher Minds dreaming up our transcendental work of art here in this room Tom tells Alan that Alice is safe back in the real New York but that scratch is reaching out to her through an overlap and that return is the key to escaping the dark place not initiation he tells Alan the murder sight he's looking for is there in the hotel all of a sudden Tom and Allan see someone on the TV it's Jesse feden and Casper darling of the Federal Bureau of control Allan is then thrown out and back into the projector room he spots an echo Casey reveals a police report coming in from a hotel a murderer to play which itself featured a murder cult the further Echo inspires Allan by way of someone who seems to be the director of the play Ed Booker mentioning that the play seemed to have been cursed from the pre-show ritual the play was in the style of immersive theater a play where the audience can participate and it ran across the entire Hotel the play itself is alleged to have special power attached to it that if you call for the devil he will come Allan changes the scene further into the hotel Alan discovers another scene the area which would contain the final scene but it's closed off manipulating the dark place again Alan finds a prop room was moved finding the room Alan uses it to change the scene and he finds another Echo turns out that the ocean view hotel was perfect for this particular play because it is said to be haunted murder and death it's said that an actual cult once performed in unspeakable ritual there in which they summoned something in the ballroom the director thinks that they summoned the same something in their play now heading into the B room Allan changes the scene again and finds another Echo what was the scene in this room well this is what we call the writer's room in the play it's where the devil rewrites reality whilst God is asleep the devil was our star role I got a big time celebrity to play him and he was method acting the role to Perfection he never broke character always wore the cult mask his name was scratched out on the posters mhm and who was this mystery celebrity let me guess Alan Wake I wish I could tell you but turns out there were masks upon masks whoever he really was [ __ ] got weird when he was around some of the crew joke that meat actually hired the devil to play himself Mr scratch is the devil he was born to play the role I had to agree with Casey on that he's found his murder sight after changing the scene it's a dark and grizzly sight bodies everywhere scratches handiwork displayed throughout the hotel leading to an echo of Casey scratch had requested the room 666 reaching this room Alan realizes that scratch had been there another Echo it seems that the leading lady of the play was killed and this Leading Lady claimed that she knew the original writer of the play that she was his Muse which coincidentally was also her role in the play it turns out that scratch had only join the play to get to her to murder her Alan is chased by the dark presence again it's being drawn to Alan as the story he writes becomes darker with every thread Alan reaches the final scene the climax a body lies in the bathtub Alan notices a record underneath it but both the body and the record vanish all of a sudden Alan feels closer to home again even closer this time Saga mentions that she has the clicker the meeting ends and Alan goes to Parliament Tower again in the hope of helping Alice his office is locked again Alan finds a number of stations set up showing pre-recorded videos of Alice her project was filling the entire apartment she was obsessed but in trying to find Alan she only ended up finding scratch for months after Alan died I didn't leave the apartment I was flattened by the confusion Fusion shock the the guilt fear I could barely get out of bed Barry wheeler started visiting he even cooked me meals I couldn't stand the guy when I first met him but he's a better friend than I gave him credit for and he still checks in even after he moved out west there was something in the dark something I needed to see to show the more Shadows I photographed and filmed the more I felt like I was on the verge of a breakthrough I submerged myself in it I only went out at night my search became obsessive but I still had no idea what I was looking for there's a World hidden behind ours a dark tide ebing and flowing against reality faces in the shadows fear of the dark is really just fear of what could be that that vast paralyzing ocean but photography can freeze reality in a snapshot put a cage around the infinite and capture it I need to prove those faces are really there Alan enters into the TVs once again and enters his office this time there's no one there on the desk he finds the finished copy of return a horror story about the dark presence escaping from the dark place and taking over bright Falls I couldn't remember writing it I had not written it I would never write this I knew who had scratch a monster with my face if this story came true scratch would get out people would die destroying the manuscript it wouldn't stop it from happening I would have to fix it edit it I could not change the genre of the story I'd have to work within the constraints set by scratch I needed someone in the story to fight the darkness Saga Anderson I kept seeing her in my Visions she was already in bright Falls already involved but she was not in return not yet I'd ride her in try to stop scratch within the limits of the horror story it was almost impossible it was taking too long I had not reached the end the loop begins again Alan comes to in his chair in his Safe Haven his writing room scratch had stopped Alan before he could finish making the edits to return scratch was there at Parliament Tower and doing what Allan had just done it's time for draft number three this time Alan needs to go further and pay Tom Zayn another visit Allan needs a third murder sight in order to get back to Parliament Tower again he projects himself back to the start to the TV studio again Mr door is sitting there in the dark he tells Alan that he doesn't even know who is under his own mask though he keeps putting himself through convoluted Loops door tells Alan that Alice is in danger because of Alan as is someone important to Mr door someone that Alan pulled into this nightmare but Alan keeps opening doors and peeking inside reaching through to get what he wants door gives Alan a stark warning that if they meet again he needs to play his part or stay out of his way Alan speaks to atti again he tells Alan that he's left some photos for him down in the basement picking them up recognizing them as Alice's photos Alan sees that one is a photo of the clicker and the other is a bullet of light after seeing more TV showing himself freaking out Alan leaves the TV studio and goes up to the street he heads back to the ocean view hotel to speak with Thomas Zayn I'm in control now the second you try anything I will shoot you in the head scratch wrote return not me you're [ __ ] liar you'd given up you stopped riding you said it was too dangerous that that we didn't deserve to get out and then he showed up scratch he promised to write to get me the hell out of here he was magnificent a Visionary I mean it was Art then when it finished it took her return and left me behind it's still here and so is he I know I [ __ ] up but you can still catch him before he gets out before he gets to your wife when you get to him don't hesitate kill the bastard for what it did to us there's a murder sight in my cinema where my film nightless night is [Music] play so with that information Allan heads to the cinema it's playing Zayn's film nightless night a companion piece to return which was previously lost finding an echo in the lobby Allan gets his first piece of inspiration the cinema was a place of significance to the cult so Allan changes the scene once again in the back room he finds another Echo this one of Casey's speaking to a cultist the cultist claimed that two New York police officers had been doing favors for the cult eager to earn their place among them and that they were to take part in an initiation ritual the cultist threatens Casey and tells him that he will meet their leader soon enough changing the scene to fit this new narrative angle Allan enters the theater the urban legends circling Thomas Zayn were a bottomless Rabbit Hole I'd done some digging to film freaks he was a Mythic Ure in the art housee Cinema a rising star Coming to America from Finland but he only created one film Tom the poet before he went missing mirroring The Vanishing of the main character in the movie played by himself the biggest mystery was around his lost film and early work made in Finland nightless night rumored to have Mystic properties some claimed it was a snuff film that the ritual murder in the film was an actual murder there were no known surviving copies but the cult chased it as if it were their Unholy Grail just like wake's books were changing the theater Hall Allan sees that a lost film nightless night is playing on the screen Casey appears to be in the film only part of it plays though zann appears on the screen holding Allan's lamp Alan transfers the light in his lamp to Zayn's Allan then realizes that he needs to get up to the projection room he investigates a side alley first and comes across another scene he can use in this one he uses a thread involving the two police officers they are getting ready for their initiation another Echo reveals a conversation between the cultist and Casey Casey wants to know how they had him appear in the film without his knowledge the cultist responds by saying that he'll find out soon enough by meeting the Grand Master in the projection room then the cultist jumps off the roof after saying he's played his part anyway Allan heads back to the theater and after changing the scene once again he heads through what appears to be the door to his office doing so he finds himself in a room full of film reals and someone is shouting to be untied after going through a loop Alan reaches the man and it appears to be detective Casey who is wearing a cult mask the man says that he is not Alex Casey and that he only plays Casey in the movies the man talks about a ritual sacrifice in order to open the way forward eventually whilst Alan's back is turned the man escapes by bursting through a nearby door and this leads Alan to yet another Echo welcome Alex casy you've done well you've played your Ro perfect everything out of your mouth is a damn lie the only place any of this makes any sense is in your psychotic brain as a fictional character in the story you fulfilled your purpose you brought the writer of the story here you can go now Casey no I'm not going anywhere before I get some answers how was I in that movie why does all this feel so familiar what who the [ __ ] are you who the [ __ ] am I no and welcome to you Alan Wake what the hell this is the ritual to lead you on we are just one step away from your final destination Mr wake but first here is an unanswered mystery for you if Casey was fictional and you assumed his role as is the detective are you now fictional too whose story are you living Mr wake the Visions are getting under my skin coming too close for comfort not a separate layer but Ming with my own reality in the dark place Alan then comes across the ritual scene the two officers have been brutally killed and The Mask then disappears Alan counters Saga in the overlap again he tells her that he tried to fix return and wrote Saga in as the hero scratch made it a horror story and Alan needs to match the genre Alan feels even closer to home now you know what's coming next Alan needs to go to Parliament Tower getting there Alan speaks to someone on the phone it's himself he says Alan will get out and he also won't get out he says to place the photos he got in the basement in the TV studio in a shoe box at the statue at the plaza this will not only help Alan but Saga and Alice too the line then goes dead so Allan does it he places the photos inside the shoe box now getting back to saga's side of things after sending scratch away she speaks with Casey and Estes Estes is pissed that Saga almost handed what the FBC believe could be an object of power over to a hostile entity after a little squabble about keeping secrets from one another Estes hands over a key to her own set of Secrets FBC files on Alan Wake the conversation with Casey reveals more of what he thinks happened to Logan you really don't remember Logan living in Virginia with me and David I remember you and David having problems you needed a break you and Logan moved to watery and and then uh then Logan well that awful thing happened after you came back to work I thought you'd be the perfect partner for this case if you were willing to return to the area okay that's enough the story is changing your memories what you're remembering is fiction Logan is alive I'm not divorced we never moved here I remember the truth I don't know wake or scratch whoever that was said the story could be used to attack us we all need to question what's real with that said how do we know the story isn't giving you false hope I can't convince them I just need to change the story scratch then tries to infiltrate saga's mind place but she kicks him out checking out the files Estes gave her access to they detail an interview with Alan Wake which shows him exhibiting aggressive behavior more early indication that he was in fact actually scratch and another fire which details the dark presence his ability to disguise itself as others I Barbara Jagger in 2010 another details that the lake is the gateway to the dark place and the final document describes the clicker Estes Saga and Casey come up with a plan the plan is to get Odin and T to play a song about getting Alan Wake out of the dark place on The Cauldron Lake Shoreline this they hope will draw scratch out the FBC will have a containment unit set up and Saga is to lure scratch into the unit bright light to be shown into it hopefully decreeing scratch and getting wake out of the dark place in the process the clicker can amp up other works of art not just Tom's writing anything created with passion the dark power of the lake will make it creep into reality but if the holder of the clicker believes in the art they can make it all come true in the flick of a switch I can use the clicker without wake only wake's writing can change the horror story but I can use the clicker to change something else like getting wake out of the dark place the plan is a go Saga makes her way to cauldron Lake and calls her husband David David it's me where have you stop for once you need to listen you left me you took my daughter away from me then you let her she's dead because of you and I don't ever want to hear your voice again stop calling me David Jesus Christ it's getting worse it's spreading I'm running out of time after seeing the FBC Chopper carrying the equipment to the Shoreline Saga arrives and speaks with Tor and Odin and everything is set up including all the FBC equipment the song starts but unfortunately the song is drawing most of the taken nearby to the area Saga has to fight off scratch's Army of Darkness but eventually she manages to use the [Music] clicker what happened why didn't it work I did everything right art to bring him back clicker to make it real so where the [ __ ] is he going back to Alan's escape from the dark place after he placed the photographs in the shoe box he then goes to Parliament Tower reaching the apartment it's empty he attempts to enter the office but it's blocked he says that scratch is in there the only thing in the apartment is a projection of Alice wake's documentary Alan projects himself into it I it won't end like a nightmare I can't wake up from I thought I could contain Ellen in my photos but I can't the monster just keeps coming back every night like waves hitting the shore I'm so tired he's here all the time now there's so much rage inside of him I can't stand it anymore God I tried so hard I have made a decision most of you won't understand I can't keep going like a half Bean it's time for a perspective shift to go from photographer to subject from artist to art Furious Alan confront scratch Alice was dead scratch tortured her until she couldn't stand it anymore until she broke and all that time she thought it was me scratch was still here he hadn't escaped the dark place yet he was scratching my edits out of [Applause] return I had seen this before this was not scratch this was me caught in a loop I had stopped myself trying to fix the manuscript I was the one haunting Alice it was always me I killed her [Music] [Applause] we did bring wake back from the dark place with a song and the clicker but he didn't end up here now he landed on the shore after I faced night Andale in the overlap that night I found wake here he appeared because of this the summoning that was wake scratch wasn't pretending to be wake they're the same person [ __ ] he's here scratch watch out Anderson esz scratch is Wake with a dark presence inside him he wants the clicker change of plan I'll lure him to the cell when we're inside lock it and blast it with all you got Saga then fights Alan and scratch she manages to turn the lights and trap him within the containment unit and they blast it with light it blows the roof off of the unit I'm sorry wait is it you I'm so sorry did it work casy casy no don't with Saga now in the dark place along with Tor and Odin who went in after her and with Casey now possessed by scratch it's now up to Alan now free of the dark presence to fix things speaking with Estes Alan says that using the clicker scratch will go to Bright Falls and bring about the ending he wrote for return Alan needs to get scratch his manuscript or rather the ending and rewrite it Alan fights his way out of cauldron Lake and uses saga's car to drive back to Bright Falls if scratch had brought the dark place here this would take me back [Music] inside in 2010 I dived in a leap of faith for Alice with no idea that the cost would be a nightmare worse than death it had taken me 13 years to to get out now Alice was dead because of me and I was going to make that leap again this time knowing the cost all too well another way to look at it I had brought the dark place here with me I never had gotten out maybe after this I finally could it was a Fool's hope I had no choice I had to do it that didn't make me any less terrified [ __ ] [Music] [Music] it seems that scratch's ending was a lot brighter than Alan had expected Ed apparently return is breaking every literary record in existence Alan eventually finds a copy of the book The Writer's room is featured in the photo of Alan's home on the back of the book it seems that departure initiation and return were part of a horror Trilogy Allan is being approached by the residents of bright Falls who are attempting to kill him they know he's wanting to change the ending he now needs to get to the writer's room The Writer's room itself is at the valala nursing home the way into the front entrance is locked so so Alan has to go through the wellness center he hears Alice's voice at some point on his way through Alan is confronted by scratch and is chased through the wellness center he escapes with the help of Rose who after helping Saga threw herself into the dark place to try and save Alan she claims to have been following the messages Alan left her but he says he didn't leave any messages nonetheless Alan heads to the writer's room to change the ending to return she speaks to atti by the door who is still referring to him as Tom Alan enters and sits down to write he needed to take everything that had already been written and extend it into a conclusion that would save everyone the ending scratch had written in was for an eternal deer Fest which would spread over time reaching everyone in the world he would then plunge the entire world into darkness Alan plans an ending and feels a presence in the room preparing for Scratch to burst through the door to try and stop him now switching back to when Saga is thrown into the dark place she ends up in her mind place but she can't leave she's trapped there and St to panic now this wouldn't be a massive problem but for the fact that the dark presence is trying to invade it it's bringing up and highlighting her insecurities telling her that Logan is dead that she's a terrible mother and that she's a terrible partner because she put Casey in danger but she eventually finds a flashlight and burns Away the Dark Energy revealing her achievements and the things in life she holds dear to her including her loved ones finally Saga is able to leave and steps into the darkness outside she steps into alen's version of New York C City and receives a phone call from a mysterious woman she tells Saga that she needs to go to the statue at Parliament Tower Plaza in order to make her ending come true she makes her way through Caldera Street Station and goes to the plaza inside she finds the clicker along with a bullet of light another phone call from the mysterious woman reveals that Alan is lost that he doesn't have the ending and that he needs saga's help Saga enters her mind placed in order to talk to Alan indicating that the presence he felt in the room was in fact h I don't have the ending it has to be perfect but I don't have time to figure it out I don't know what to do [ __ ] I'm so sorry this whole thing is a [ __ ] mess I agree but we can still figure this out and what exactly does perfect mean the elements of the ending need to come from the story's pre-existing parts to make matters worse this is a horror story you don't need to tell me this is a horror story right the ending has to fit the genre if it's going to work in a horror story there are only victims and monsters there must be a way to bring a hero into the story if there is a hero they will ultimately pay a heavy price I can't let the horror story take Logan and Casey they were dragged into this they need to survive non-negotiable not just them we need to try to save everyone I have an idea how to help Casey he's a real person who I twisted into a character he isn't my creation so he isn't a suitable host for the dark presence I can write that into the ending to drive that [ __ ] thing out of it so the ending has to be earned set up by the story you can't build a case without supporting evidence that's the only way to make it stick well if the ending has to fit the story this is how I see it return is a story about a story that comes true and I'm a character in the story not just a character the hero okay a hero in any case I've been through hell to be here and this is my life it feels earned to me that I Rise Above the story and be there to create the ending yes that's what we're doing here now now we're figuring out the ending I need to write this isn't scratch's ending but this isn't your ending either this is our ending you aren't the only one deciding these things anymore you're right I can't do this alone every time I write things only get worse you beat this thing back in 2010 Alan and here you are doing the same again you're a hero too we're in this together then let's bring it home the ending will have to be dark no matter what more people we save the greater the cost and the hero must pay the price one of the heroes the scales always need to balance [ __ ] it let's go with this are you sure there's no time for anything better scratch could be here any second then that's our ending I have the clicker I'll find a way to get it to you and I'll get the pages down see you on the other side going back through the station again Saga approaches another monument and steps into the dark energy that engulfs it as she walks into Alan's writer's room Alan Saga I finished it the ending we talked about I have the clicker and the bullet of light let's do this I have to be the one to do it I feel like I've always been on this journey okay it must end here this Darkness what lies under the surface now shifts a play of Shadows catching my eye thrusting my face into the water he's here it's shockingly cold past the mirror of the surface and I was see K see the end scratch now a white searing light of truth that for a flash pierces the shadows and reveals the hidden horror and in that moment of silence the whispered message finally heard come on you [ __ ] come on come on what if there's nothing waiting to be revealed the play of Shadows fooled us all subterfuge to get our price of admission Darkness not as a monster but his emptiness we're none the wiser no answers no truths the hero turns to look inside it's destroyed by what he sees and is redeemed Saga said we're both Heroes I'll pay that price so she we are here to kill the master I pray nothing comes after this nothing was sleep this is how we win is it too easy what if this is still the dark place another dream to wake up from always coming back to the beginning the memory of what came before burned away by this terrible realization maybe it's a mercy forgetting to know nothing when we loop around back to is it over Anderson the game then ends all right so we've got a have a lot to go through and unpack here but I guess the best place to start would be to explain the ending all right so at the end of the game we see that after Saga presses the clicker on the shore Alan comes back momentarily and disappears her pressing the clicker is actually what brought Alan back here after she defeated Nightingale not Allan's work on initiation or her defeating Nightingale and destroying the overlap remember the dark place doesn't really experience time it's just a pocket dimension upon entering the writer's room in the dark place at the end of the game Alan attempts to rewrite the ending to return to be clear Return of the events of saga and case's investigation in bright Falls return was written but Alan has effectively been undoing all of his own and scratches earlier work it's pretty confusing but let's press on Allan struggled to find the ending when Saga was in the dark place and managed to escape the Mind place she was contacted by the mysterious woman and that woman in particular was none other than Alice awake we'll get into what exactly happened to Alice after the events of the first game shortly but essentially Alice was in the dark place she'd faked her death in order to deceive Allan and by extension scratch so that he would stop haunting and tormenting her and it worked the images of her ending things was actually her jumping into cauldron Lake to look for and to help Alan Escape at the end of the game after Saga has shot Allan with a bullet of light he comes to in his writer's room once again ready for a new cycle if you like and and he says the words it's not a loop it's a spiral essentially what Alice is saying is that a loop is never ending but a spiral hasn't obvious ending point the bullet of light purged the darkness from Allan now he's just got to progress further through the spiral with Alice's help now that he knows there's an end and it's not a loop this is explained by Alice in a post-credit scene this part is just for you I chose to come back to the dark place that is why I put on this exhibition I had to mislead you so that I could get you to where you needed to be the only way out of your Loop is destruction or Ascension light or dark and we've covered the Destruction part many times over and we're getting to the Ascension bit by bit time means nothing here you'll still need to go through the loop but I will keep showing you the images you need to see the light you need to see until you're ready Ellen I think we're getting close so we got an addition to the dark place in Alam WG 2 in the form of the overlap the first one we see is at the tree in cauldron Lake an overlap is described as existing at sites of violence and TR tragedy which are themselves laced in fiction urban legends urban legends connected to a specific place these urban legends would be retold sparking fear in people which soften the walls of reality these overlaps also need a Counterpoint which can be a work of art crafted in the depths of the dark place and that work of art has to connect to the story on the other side for example when it came to cauldron lake at the witch's Ladle where it said the witch ripped out the sheriff's heart in the real world a law man Nightingale had his heart cut out of his chest when it came to watery the urban legend was that two brothers murdered their neighbors and hid their bodies down a well who Atari well the two deputies Mulligan and thoron killed an innocent woman called Monica Thompson by accident thinking that she was a taken and they hid her body down the well in terms of bright Falls there was an urban legend near the Valhalla nursing home a young girl aged 15 named Nora drowned inside a bunker whilst playing with her friend the overlap was opened at the nursing home because since Weaver drowned in a bathtub at the nursing home as a result of the dark presence deceiving her but we'll get into what exactly happened to Cynthia a bit later on this explains the nature of the overlaps and why they were able to appear the real life incidents all mirrored the dark urban legends attached to those locations and these overlaps subsequently Amplified the dark place's influence over the area this led to the overlap causing reality to twist and loop the blending of the dark place in the real world through the overlap is why nighting Gale was able to just disappear into it in order to get into the overlap a scene or ritual needs to be completed which mirrors or bears resemblance to the legend the heart being placed into the witch's sign opening the overlap in the tree the parade float showing the brother's crimes opening the overlap in the well and the old God's record opening the overlap at the nursing home in the pond in terms of why the overlap caused flooding it's likely the lake stretching its influence over the nearby area it's important to remember as well that the dark place doesn't follow the standard rules of time time effectively does not exist in the dark place this is why Saga and Allan's meetings were so jumbled up for example Saga meeting Allan in the first overlap is actually after she defeated Nightingale Saga meeting Allan in the second overlap is after she' defeated Cynthia Weaver and Saga meeting Allen in the third overlap is after she defeated Mulligan and thoron one thing I noticed that has changed in terms of Mr scratch is that scratch's appearance is now different he was almost like a second Allen but in Alan Wake two he's more like a dark cloud that possesses Allan now we know that scratch is just Allen with the dark presence inside of him it makes a lot more sense and here's why the way we see scratch now is much more akin to the Mr scratch we saw in Alan wake's American Nightmare if you're not aware what happened in American Nightmare was one of Allen's many attempts to leave the dark place through return this time through a TV episode of night Springs only in trying to escape Mr scratch was created American Nightmare is B basically Allan writing a story so that he could defeat scratch scratch came about through public perception of Allan that he was mean and violent that he was insane scratch went out into the real world and brought these perceptions to life Allan would attempt to use the power of the dark place to utilize shifts in reality until a final confrontation with scratch where he did manage to defeat him and after defeating him the dark presence returned to its previous state a dark cloud American nightmares plac in the cannon of Alan Wick and the the remedy verse as a whole has been a hotly contested topic but Sam Lake did appear to confirm that it is in fact Canon now let's look at how the dark presence itself works and operates the darkness inside people seems to Come From words written onto people's hearts we see this on nightingale's heart where the words the wave crashed on the far side of the mirror was written in terms of Allan creating people from nothing his third draft of initiation states that he'd never created anyone the dark power of the dark place changed and just messed up lives instead of creating them for example Alex Casey Casey was a real detective in New York the use of his name by Alan in his books was in my opinion purely coincidental now since Alex Casey was a real detective the power using Allan's writing as a conduit changed what Casey thought was real Allan wrote about the cult murders in New York City as part of his drafts of initiation and this essentially rewrote Casey's past to the the point that Casey recalls investigating them and his notes in his room State similarities between The Cauldron Lake Cult of the tree murders and the cult of the word murders as well as this Casey was convinced that saga's daughter was dead and that Saga was struggling to come to terms with it story seems to be getting its hooks further into Casey judging by a conversation in the morg after the sheriff's station was attacked Logan she's uh the story claimed she died here but we can stop it wait Saga what do you um Logan is gone she has been for a long time Casey is affected by the horror story too Alan had used Alex Casey in his writing for years and the real Casey was drawn to brightfalls because of it this was all the result of Allan's writing in the initiation part of the game changing reality we see that this change went as far as the FBC even having written that into their case notes in regard to their investigations into Alan Wake that they were aware of cult murders in New York City and that Alan was potentially the cult's prophet as some of you may know from the last game the dark presence uses people's memories and fears in order to leave them open to corruption by the dark presence this is perhaps best seen through what happened to Cynthia Weaver so we know her as the lamp lady or the lady of the light during the events of 2010 she was always holding her lamp close to her chest she had an angel lamp which belonged to Thomas Zayn see Cynthia was infatuated with Zayn but she loved him she hated Barbara when visiting the power plant in the well-lit room we see that Cynthia was obsessed with making sure the lights were always on even pestering the sheriff's department for them to make sure their lights were working she was terrified not really of the dark but of the dark presence itself as mentioned the dark presence uses people's memories and fears to corrupt them Cynthia fear was the lights going out the angel lamp didn't even work as the light switch had been removed but the lamp kept her fears at Bay in the game we see what happened to Cynthia in her diary she mentions that the caretaker for the nursing home Mr Bloom was a bit laxed on checking the lights and Cynthia would go to the basement to do it herself she comments on how since she's getting older it's getting harder and harder for her to reach them and then eventually she couldn't do it anymore her angel lamp that she held dear to her just disappeared well not really you see Rose maragold had been receiving messages not just through dreams but through secret messages and newspaper adverts she was convinced that these messages were being sent to her by Alan the messages had told Rose to prepare for the arrival of the hero who would save them all which was Saga Rose then procured every single Alex Casey lunch boox she could get her hands on and left messages for the hero to find to inspire them and something inside to help them on their Journey she obtained the help of a resident at the nursing home Mandy May Alan said that Saga enjoyed enjoyed knitting so Rose had Mandy made knit pattern knitwear in order to hint that a lunch boox was nearby Alan would later State when he saw her in the dark place that he hadn't left Rose any messages he just didn't remember it was scratch preparing the hero for return but back to the lamp Rose had received a message from Alan that he needed the angel lamp so whilst Cynthia was at breakfast Rose took it placed it inside a shoe box and dropped it into the pond Cynthia was crestfallen as she had nothing else left of Tom's she needed him the fear in her started to grow she started to notice Shadows moving in her room then as she'd been preoccupied she'd forgotten to replace the light bulb in her bathroom and one day it blew she slipped getting out of the bath and fell into the water and a dark shape pushed her down and she became corrupted by the dark presence as a result every lamp in her room had been smashed Cynthia Weaver is who Alan sees in the bathtub in the hotel during his time in the dark place it's the body of Cynthia Weaver she was killed and became taken scratch had then used Cynthia to try and seduce to and to drag him into the dark place so that Saga could not get to him the last we saw of Nightingale was when he was taunting Allan at the brightfall sheriff department he was reading an all to familiar page from departure and was Swept Away by Jagger and the dark presence After the Dark presence was banished from brightfalls in 2010 every taken in the area was sucked into cauldron Lake and into the dark place and this of course included Nightingale inside the dark place Nightingale was once again subjected to Alan's writing Nightingale was effectively killed off by Alan the writer he hated had him killed off again murdered by the cult scratch then used Nightingale by ejecting him from the dark place and from cauldron Lake and Nightingale was reborn out of hate to search for the [Music] clicker in some previous videos I did an investigation where I looked at some evidence sent to me by remedy which pertained to the cult Lake murders that Saga Anderson and Alex Casey were there to investigate through that investigation we tried to piece together why these people were targeted and what the victims all had in common the three victims in question were Wendy Davis Ted Lane and Percy wolf first to be found was Brit Fall's resident and dentist Ted Lane who went missing in 2010 Ted Lane's body showed signs of bloating and he was also stabbed in a frenzy he was then buried in watery Woods in 2012 being found by a local dog walker years later in 2018 brightfalls kindergarten teacher Wendy Davis's body was found also bloated difference this time was that her heart was removed Wendy who originally went missing in 2010 was found in cauldron Lake having been submerged for 8 years then in 2023 a bright Falls tackle shop owner Percy wolf also missing since 2010 had also been murdered and his body showed up in a dumpster in a bright Falls construction site with his heart missing his body also showed signs of being submerged underwater someone wanted this body body to be found a dear mask was found near the site of one of the murders so this implicated a local Legend a cult calling themselves The Cult of the tree then around the time the FBI agents arrived in Bri Falls a fourth victim turned up and here's what really happened in this section I'll explain things as a timeline incorporating the victims and how it led to the forming of the cult for start in 2010 as mentioned earlier all those with Darkness inside them were pulled into the lake After the Dark presence was banished as a side note Rose however was not taken into the dark place as she was protected by the lamp the Federal Bureau of control had fenced off cauldron Lake after the bright Fall's altered world event and disappearances had calmed down the area of The Cauldron Lake Campgrounds was now completely abandoned but some people refus to be kept out in the words of the cusella twins [ __ ] the government we have both Cutters oh W you think of everything one evening the CasCal twin ilmo and yako Cella were smoking a joint on the shoreline of cauldron lake and a man emerged from the lake it was one of the murder victims Ted Lane that's right Ted Lane was turning into a taken freaking out the brothers attacked Ted Lane with a traditional Finnish PCO knife stabbing him in a frenzy and that was it convinced that the government was trying to hide whatever is happening and desperate not to have another incident like 2010 happen again yako ccal was seeing double and noticed the FBC seal on the FBC files they had stolen more more specifically he saw the upside down pyramid which represented the paranatural entity known as the board because yako was seeing double he saw two pyramids stacked on top of one another and they saw it as a sign that they needed to keep the woods safe by making the woods scary again and just like that the cult of the tree was born they were actually the good guys kind of they would operate out of the clubhouse of the ccll cavala night's motorcycle club and would wear deer masks ilmo would rig The fbc's Cauldron Lake monitoring station to alert the cult when something was about to go down at the lake and they'd sit in wait one day they were alerted to more activity in cauldron lake so they went to the Shoreline but found a device had been washed up the clicker the Calas had read about this clicker in the FBC Files about how Alan Wake had used it to defeat Barbara Jagger they also read about how Hartman and Jagger went into the lake and came out bad they then assumed that if Alan Wake came out of the lake then he too would come out bad as well the Cults methodology changed as a result of what they' learned mimicking what Alan Wake did they would cut out the heart of the taken push the clicker into the hole flick the switch destroying the dark presence inside of them and this would become their ritual they would then hide the clicker underneath the clubhouse in a secret meeting room on an altar they would view the taken as nothing more than animals not human all was quiet for a few years until 2018 when another person emerged from cauldron Lake it was another of The Cauldron Lake murder victims Wendy Davis the cult took action and took a down removing her heart and using the clicker they then disposed of her body and she was found on the bed of the lake over the years the cult had become an urban legend of its own considered by some in the area to be feral Maniacs but of course they were formed in order to keep the communi as of bright Falls and watery safe from the taken and the Darkness inside of them look what kind of a cult calls themselves a cult exactly we protect water and bride Falls we're the good guys a secret neighborhood walk well that was the idea anyways look we've always known about the horror inside the lake when any taken come out we kill him you don't turn people into taken you kill the ones who already have unfortunately some within the ranks of the cult were not following orders and some cultists kept sabotaging FBC equipment even though the caselas warned the cult not to do it as it would bring unnecessary attention to them nonetheless the cult would grow and many people from the Two Towns joined the cult and the cult would leave each other stashes around the woods and towns in case they needed supplies in order to fight off the taken people would receive acceptance letters welcoming them to the cult of the tree one of which was Vladimir Bloom his job was to recruit Tor and Odin Anderson mistakes started to be made in the cult though and the cultists were starting to get sloppy then in 2023 a third person emerged from cauldron Lake the tackle shop owner named Percy wolf he was killed by the cultists his heart removed and the ritual was successful but his body was left in a dumpster in a construction site and obviously for someone to find the woods were not safe so it's possible the cult left the body there on purpose to warn people against going in the woods Wolf's body turning up ignited the Ted Lane and Wendy Davis cases which were cold cases and a twers investigation team consisting of FBI agents Saga Anderson and Alex Casey were sent to brightfalls to investigate then just after the agent got there another taken emerges from cauldron Lake former FBI agent Robert Nightingale The Cult do their usual thing by sitting in wait for night Andale to stumble upon their ritual site the Bookers had broken into the fenced off area to do research and stumbled upon the ritual side they interrupted the ritual and as a result unlike other victims Nightingale became a monster the dark presence scratch had sent him along with the other three victims to find and obtain the clicker that's why Nightingale says show me the clicker when he reanimates in the morg these people all emerged from the lake around the time when deer Fest was due to take place as remember scratch's return ending had an eternal deer Fest where he spread it across the world and plunge the world into darkness anyway around this point ilmu ccll was being tormented by the dark presence and the alerts coming from the FBC monitoring equipment were getting more and more frequent the dark presence was growing stronger its influence was spreading and was trying to corrupt him with nightmares of him killing his friend and his brother the dark presence wanted to corrupt the cult leaders ilmo and yako but found that they were resistant the dark presence needed another pair of men prone to corruption and this leads us onto Mulligan and thoron they wanted to join the cult and to prove themselves and one day they saw something in the woods at night they opened fire but they'd killed a human an innocent woman named Monica Thompson and panicked they hid her body down the huari well this act left the deputies open to corruption by the dark presence and they were corrupted leading to Saga Showdown with them in the overlap in watery then as seen on this cultist stash the word was out with the cultists that the feds had captured Alan Wake and that is what led to the cult attacking the lodge during the game's opening events with thrown a curveball when Rose maragold recognizes Saga she Spooks her slightly by saying that she thinks Saga is very brave going back there after what happened happened to her daughter Logan that Logan drowned this was in the back of saga's mind and bothered her considering she'd spoken to Logan on the phone as well as her husband David only hours before during the game Saga sets up a caseboard called fact or fiction which is her trying to work out what is real and what is not so let's look at saga's background starting with what I think is fact first so Saga is in fact the granddaughter of T and the great niece of Odin in the late 80s saga's mother Freya lived in in brightfalls at the time on the Anderson farm with her father now at some point Freya met a man and they had a child together and Saga was born to didn't get along with saga's Father like at all your dad was a complicated bastard always thinking too many steps ahead that's not how we work there was trouble and then he was gone I didn't handle it well Freya didn't want anything to do with me after that I can't blame her I never knew my dad or my mom's family so many broken relationships in my past if you're not aware Tor carries around a hammer and actually does seem to be able to call upon lightning in line with his name t t is the Nordic God of Thunder Logan even drew a picture of to playing with thunder anyway things all came to her head when to drove saga's father away Freya was Furious and cut ties with t taking Saga away Saga was brought up not knowing who her father was now there's a strong Theory as to who saga's father is wall in door Freya told Saga that her father died shortly after she was born but speaking with Sheriff Tim breaker in the dark place his research tells us that Mr door was electrocuted we'll look further into Mr door in the next chapter don't worry it's certainly possible that Tor made wall Andor disappear Saga would then grow up with a knack for investigating things due to her hereditary abilities from an early age she was able to go into her mind place but her mother well aware of the power since she possessed it too told Saga that it was all make believe ultimately the other reason Freya left and moved away from her father was because she viewed Tor and Odin as dangerous due to their powers I believe all of this is fact and not fiction Saga doesn't remember watery she didn't grow up there it would become inevitable that Saga would end up doing a job where she utilized her talents so she joined the FBI she later got married and then had a child Logan Logan due to her mother having a gift likely possessed the same abilities and it's possible seeing as Saga possessed similar abilities to Mr door in the dark place that Logan shares the power that her grandfather Mr door has as well another small hint that she possesses the ability to move about is through her drawings in the trailer she seems to have drawn an image of the former one of the former board members from control she even drew the clicker too due to her ability Saga wasn't affected by the writing in return neither was Tor or Odin for that matter now saga's husband didn't have those abilities therefore he was affected by the story which is why he doesn't want to speak to Saga when she calls him blaming her for their daughter's death I think that Logan potentially managed to will herself to be somewhere else the same as Mr door was able to do so maybe but that's just a theory when Saga is in the dark place she comes across familiar face Sheriff Tim breaker he says that he was bought there by wall and door he handed her a manuscript which describes Mr door finding his way through the dark place the manuscript in question was the exact page that sheriff breaker tried to show Saga before he got bought at the dark place it says that Mr door stopped at the door to the construction yard and stepped through it simply willing it to take him where he wanted to go and it did Saga attempted it and of course managed to do the same thing Tim breaker couldn't do it and neither could Allan Alan has to follow a strict set of rules when traveling through the dark dark place Saga also seems to have no problem navigating the dark place she doesn't seem to have to follow the same directives and rules that Alan did same with Mr door who seems to be able to travel around as he pleases family traits I guess a family of doors the dark place has many faces and many names it is a mirror reflecting all possible realities the family of dors have the power to shift between these realities here and elsewhere if I can find a way to navigate through this nightmare maybe I can find a way to get back home this is also another reason why Saga was able to communicate with Alan whilst he was in the dark place because of her connection to Mr door she was able to use the dark place as she pleased anyway I believe her being assigned to the case is where fact and fiction come to blur together as getting Saga Anderson to Bright Falls to be the hero in the story was where her part in return would come to be saga's reality as well as other peoples are being Rewritten and altered temporarily the clicker is needed in order to confirm those changes and set it as the new reality Odin puts it best good work getting the light switch the light switch is like an amp you can play rock and roll without it but you won't blow anyone away art like Tom's writing can change the world but the light switch will crank that change to 11 the clicker has the power to change the story to save Logan right now let's look at what is fiction twisted and warped by scratch's Horror Story when they get to Bright Falls The Horror Story starts to take hold it's already starting when Rose tells Saga Logan drowned then when Saga is on the way back to cauldron Lake to find Nightingale she speaks to David and he reveals that Logan slipped in the bath and almost drowned but she was fine this I guess was a sign of things to come realities beginning to merge together if if you like Rose had obviously never met Saga neither had ilmo and jako the story and how it bends reality manifested that Saga had a trailer there in watery and after the death of Logan the FBI gave her time off to grieve and recover she would quickly leave to go back to work leading to her and Casey going back to brightful on the investigation as we've heard Casey was affected by return's rewriting of what was real too and he believe Logan was in fact dead ilmo claimed it was great to see her again when she arrived back in watery and going to the tra she found that ilmer had given her a book of puns indicating that they were close at one point I guess the Anderson Brothers saga's family were there waiting for her in order to warn her not to believe the story so let's talk about war and door the man who I and I'd imagine a lot of other people believe to be the father of saga Anderson the first we see of wall indor is a flash of His Image when Sheriff Timothy breaker disappears in the morg When Alan visits Tim in the dark place he pops up in multiple places and he's working on finding out more about the Mysterious Mr door and where he came from According to Tim's research Mr D went missing in the 1980s 1988 to be exact this again lines up with the timeline of when saga's father went missing and Tim also says this at one point a local man named warland door went missing near cauldron Lake I witnessed his claim he was struck by a bolt of lightning and just vanished I never found any official records of a warland door living in town or anywhere Tim says that throughout his life he's always had vivid dreams of being someone else different life a different name in a different world I think Mr door chose Tim breaker because Tim has a similar sort of gift he'd also had dreams of Mr door to I think the different person Tim breaker may be referring to is Jack Joyce from Quantum break for obvious reasons remedy can't connect Alan Wake 2 to Quantum break because the IP is owned by Microsoft but I think I know what they may be getting out here again this is pure speculation Mr door may even be Mr a hatch from Quantum break but I guess we'll have to wait a bit to find out more about the door hatch and breaker Joy connection maybe hatch is who Tim had been seeing in his dreams the manuscript that Tim gave to Saga also describes Tim breaker as Mr door's unwilling disciple being the one to pass on this manuscript at the right time this obviously means passing it on to Saga Tim Drew a photo of Mr D when he was younger and Sarah breaker Tim's cousin Sheriff at the time said she'd recognize the picture from an old case File so Tim moved after to Bright Falls to find out more Tim says Mr dor is far more than he seems and that he's connected to everything that's happening if we have a look at Tim's investigation board we can see that he mentions a red-headed woman and this is obviously Jesse feden director of the FBC Tim writes that she seems to be connected to door but that her identity changes and that she's connected to polyhedrons we know this to be the paranatural entity hedron check out my video on control if you want to know more but we know that the oldest house is located in New York City but it's only visible if you're directly looking for it it exists in some sort of other dimension if you remember in control there's a place Jesse can go called The Ocean View Motel and this has a door with a spiral on it same as Allan's writer's room thought to be the door to the dark place when Saga tries to use the spiral door in the real world version of the Valhalla nursing home ATI warns her not to go in there as she probably isn't going to like what she finds but back to Mr door but back to Mr door during a night Springs commercial Mr door says this night Springs a special place a shifting space existing in a countless number of parallel realities sometimes a quaint small town sometimes a hulking Metropolis different every time we set upon the road that leads us there and yet like a half-remembered echo of a fading dream always familiar to us these are the stories that take place there more inspiring maab terrifying heartbreaking nail-biting absurd and thrilling sometimes all of these things at once a haunting new season of mindbending episodes written by Alan Wake I am your host warland D and I will see you soon in night spring in control we learned that night Springs had been acquired by the federal bureau of control and that they were going to use it to monitor public perception in terms of paranatural phenomena Tim breaker thinks that night Springs itself is connected to Mr door Tim also hums the night Springs theme tune to himself I think that the FBC or rather Jesse and Casper darling aren't looking for Alan necessarily but they are investigating Mr door instead it needs to be said as well that Dr darling simply went missing in control during the lockdown at the oldest house and he he locked himself in a room with hedron it's possible that something similar happened to Dr darling but at this point who knows now there is an upcoming dlc about night Springs so I guess we'll have to wait for that in order to find out anything concrete hopefully it will feature Jesse faden which will make for a really cool crossover in the remedy verse another cool connection to control is that Dylan feden mentions Mr door I was in a dark place and there was a dark man there his name was was Mr door and he told me that there are many worlds side by side on top of each other some inside of others in one world there was a writer who wrote a story about a cop in another world the cop was real dor said he himself was in all of them at the same time endlessly shifting between them I asked him how I could reach these worlds I wanted to bring the hiss there but he didn't want to help me he didn't like the idea what did he know so Mr dor is clearly some kind of Guardian of the Multiverse he's very interested in learning more about different worlds judging by this book in his dressing room written by Casper darling he travels between these worlds and it's possible that Saga and too when it came to Alan Mr D isn't happy with him at all door clearly didn't like wake for dragging Saga and her family his family into the horror story Allan effectively did try to kill off his granddaughter D even tries to hint to Alan that he has an evil version of himself writing his books he has pretty strong words for Alan when it came down to his own denial as to who scratch really was just Allan with the dark presence inside of him but that's pretty much it for Mr door we've just got to wait now until the game reveals more about him but let's move on now and have a look at what the FBC have been up to we should start this section by looking at Alice wake she states at the end of the game that after the haunting she went to see an organization that organization if you've played control was the FBC she showed them a photo that she took of Mr scratch they then interviewed her Alice then States what happened afterwards after the haunting started I got in touch with an organization that was still looking into what happened in bright Falls I went into their offices and something happened there after I got home I could suddenly remember everything I remembered being trapped inside that Lake a dark ocean with with Echoes of myself my my my fears my photos inside a dark tide of of Madness the same events and images looping again again and again and then I saw a light your light you dove in just as I swam out you never drowned and you're still there reaching out that is what the haunting is I can see you because I've been there too then as we've already discussed Alice then faked her own death to trick Allan and scratch and jumped into cauldron Lake in terms of Alice as far as we know that's pretty much it so now let's go over what the FBC were doing there in bright Falls during the events of alam wake 1 in 2010 we see that Barry wheeler was calling people up and mentioning the term night Springs a code word for an altered world event taking place in the town one of the people he called was former FBC agent Frank breaker who was active in the bureau during the 70s he was Sarah breaker's father and Tim breaker's Uncle I say was as Tim reports that Frank has since passed away anyway Frank reported back to the FBC and then after the events of the brightfalls altered world event the FBC arrived in order to quarantine the area fencing off cauldron Lake it was at this point that Dr Hartman Zayn's assistant after being imprisoned and then released by The Bureau dove into cauldron Lake after being arrested Dr Emil Hartman was desperate the Federal Bureau of control had stolen his life's work this was his last chance his final experiment what he'd been too scared to do before Harman dove into the lake was taken devoured by hungry Darkness became the thing that had been Hartman in reality Dr Hartman's Clinic was just a testing ground in order for him to use artists to try and manipulate reality using the power of the lake Hartman now taken later emerged from cauldron Lake and was imprisoned by the FBC at the oldest house in their brightfalls altered world event area in the investigation sector but as shown earlier dark presence corrupted Harman got corrupted by the his 2 they merged and he became known as the third thing he broke out of containment and attacked FBC staff and the sector was a abandoned until Jesse feden eliminated what remained of Hartman around 2013 Alex Casey who was looking into the New York City Murders had started to get strange letters in the mail fragments which described the murders in detail and the words written on the pages mirrored his own Memories the fragments being sent to Casey were excerpts from Alan wake's Alex Casey books it led him to the Federal Bureau of control but they stonewalled him as some of you will remember Alan is a par utilitarian and was earmarked as a potential Prime candidate for Direct ctor of the bureau until he went missing this request from Casey ended up sparking an investigations te to be sent to cauldron Lake bright Falls and watery in order to carry out experiments using fiction to hopefully draw from the power of cauldron Lake and open a doorway into the dark place they were testing to see if reality could be influenced through works of art their chosen art would be children's chalk drawings and nursery rhymes and riddles they even tried to create the perfect environment for each test case and the used props Saga would come across these test sites in random areas along with video cameras which would film the results and Saga would find the dolls needed in order to complete these Rhymes something very interesting happened at the final test site though which was near to the lake what the who is this how do you know I'm here I've been monitoring your in tempering with my project you have made some atten this progress however what project what project so you've just been playing around with my test arrangements with absolutely no understanding of their function indeed but your interference with my research has come to its comption not interested to see the results the truth I believe is the maning of the nursery art becoming reality the door or perhaps even someone entering it guess the point little and rude I see the point is that by your unwanted accident you have opened the W and now I to observe what exactly occurs when a subject crosses the wrestled what hello hey are you there sounds like this person got more than they bargain for G this stuff again in there too the FBC agent had hoped that Saga would be sucked into the dark place but it backfired and the agent got sucked in instead during these investigations the FBC would also start investigating and monitoring the cult a file states that the FBC classified the clicker as a possible object of power and they want to examine it which is probably why they monitoring The Cult of the tree one particular report talks about the lake house and reports it being in a damaged state with everyone they dead this is why Saga after pressing the buzzer to the lake house by cauldron Lake receives no response as a side note one particular cultist presumed the FBC to be involved in people's disappearances they were trying to research the lake and they theorized that the FBC had a piece of secret Machinery at the bottom of the lake and that the FBC has a button inside the Lakehouse this site the lake house is to be covered in a future DLC so again we'll find out more soon one manuscript from return has it written into the story that after agent Estes had arrived in brightfalls and wake was taken into custody the oldest house had gone dark indicating some potential crisis which may explain why Jesse and Dr darling appeared on the TV in the hotel in the dark place one particular file shows that the FBC were monitoring operatives in the area one is the cult of the tree and the other is Alan Wake and the third is redacted this is likely atti most of you will know that atti is the janitor of the oldest house he does a lot of work to to ensure the safety of well everyone and he's not exactly human the game didn't really tell us too much more about him other than the fact that he was quite close with the old gods of Asgard he can travel between the dark place the real world and the oldest house and we learned where he likes to take his holidays watery or little Finland as it's also known oh and he likes to cause chaos at the nursing home too seems artti like to steal fuses so who who is the real antagonist in this story is it the dark presence Allan scratch well I'm starting to think that the antagonist may even be Thomas Zayn I'd like to point out that this next chapter is pretty much pure speculation but hey it's a remedy game and all we do is really speculate anyway let's start by looking at the clicker the clicker can only be used with wake's writing considering the clicker came from Thomas Zayn's lamp and was an integral part of Allen's childhood that it ended up in the well room makes me lean towards the fact that that Allan although he is a very real person had his reality Rewritten by Thomas Zayn who used Allan and the clicker sort of a fail safe in order to facilitate his own escape from the dark place the fact that the writing and the remedy verse is so layered and deep leads me to think that there could be another 50 or so angles with which to look at it but the newspaper article in the basement of the nursing home prompts more questions Thomas Zayn established an artist's commune in bright Falls and this is likely where his assistant Emil Hartman started working for for him this was whilst he was filming Tom the poet and he wanted to build a hotel which he would call the ocean view hotel along with a TV studio these things all appeared within the dark place so it's certainly possible that what we would have thought was Allen's mental projection of New York was actually Thomas Zayn's projection in the game atti along with to and Odin kept calling and referring to Alan as Tom I don't think it's any coincidence that Alan and Thomas Zayn look exactly alike then there's the link to what Jesse feden said on a therapy tape about Thomas Zayn you mentioned a poem last time we talked by Thomas Zayn yes beyond the shadow of you settle form there's a miracle illuminated I looked the poem up only I couldn't find any Poet by that name I did find a European filmmaker who moved here in the 60s named Thomas S what I don't no matter it suits you very well the poem how you see things maybe you wrote it yourself I didn't no matter only a select group of people seem to remember Tom as a poet and not a filmmaker Jesse and Cynthia Weaver to name a couple Cynthia can't figure out why everyone is calling Tom a filmmaker it's possible that Thomas Zayn rewrote himself into being a filmmaker instead of a poet Thomas Zayn may also be a villain shown by how he tried to betray Alan telling him that return is the way out of the dark place fully knowing that it was written by scratch he shows his true possibly evil side when he's tied up when he uses his power to switch places with Allan who else could manage to do that unless they had some sort of narrative power after Alan shoots Zayn this happens oh mercy thousands have gone missing beyond the Labyrinth of me when you're lost you're lost in your own company and cut now that is drama it's possible that everything Alan is doing now is actually being written by Zayn as a way for him to get out in a nutshell Thomas Zayn altered Allan's existence and wrote him into the story to get him out Allan has written in Saga and Casey to get himself out and this could all be a massive Story by Thomas Zayn another thing is that the photo featured on the newspaper in the nursing home basement regarding Thomas say Alan is posing in front of the same home on the back of return with the writer's room clearly visible but there are more similarities between the two Thomas Zayn had a muse Barbara who drowned in cauldron Lake and Alan Wake had a muse Alice who was pulled into cauldron Lake Thomas Zayn had someone obsessed with him in Cynthia Weaver who was the lady of light Alan Wake had someone obsessed with him in Rose maragold who became Lady of the light Thomas Zayn sacrificed himself for balance and Alan Wake sacrificed himself for balance too and then we get scratch perhaps scratch was so destructive and full of hatred because unlike Alan and Tom scratch didn't have a muse it's a plausible theory that Thomas Zayn Alan W and scratch all the same person just exhibiting different types of personalities Thomas Zayn being being The Reckless or ter filmmaker Alan Wake being the rational kind of level-headed personality and scratch being well the unhinged and insane personality if scratch is Alan Wake and wake is Thomas Zayn then Zayn is also scratch it is also heavily implied in both games that Mr scratch was a creation of Thomas Zayn due to the balance in the dark place Allan was needed there in the dark place and scratch was a gift to Allan it wasn't much of a gift though in Zayn's words your friends will meet him when you're gone I'm not entirely sure as to why Thomas Zay was so terrified of Jesse feden when he saw her on the TV in the hotel but it's likely because of their line of work containing powerful entities there's a lot more to Thomas Zayn than we know all right so to finish I'll speak about Barry what happened to Barry wheeler after the brightfalls altered world event Barry wheeler struggled he was plagued with nightmares and was on pills which helped him with the nightmares he was the agent for the old gods of Asgard but this brought the nightmares back the old rockers were barely making it through shows and tours and eventually Barry canceled the old God's tour using proceeds from their greatest hits record he used the money to build a nursing home which was the Valhalla nursing home it was Thomas Zayn's old commune it was refitted and converted into the nursing home and Tor and Odin unfortunately their guitar player passed away would live there finally some rest well they still pounded bottles of Anderson far moonshine like no tomorrow Barry left them to it returned to New York and he kept in touch with Alice they became good friends despite not getting on at all when Barry was Allen's agent Barry started looking after himself and lost a load of weight and joined a cult no I know what you're thinking it wasn't the murderous type it was the well-being type the Blessed Wellness Retreat and this could be the Blessed organization mentioned in control an organization under observation by the FBC an organization they dub to be a parac criminal group it was run by a man named Chester bless who was mentioned mentioned in Barry's email to Alice what will come of Barry I'm not sure again maybe one day we'll see him again seeing as the FBC put an arrest order out on anyone associated with the organization maybe we'll see him that way but that is it for this video on the story of Alan Wake 2 I hope you did enjoy it I'm sure I'll be back diving into this crazy Universe soon with the release of the eventual dlc's and since New Game Plus is rumored to have different narrative outcomes I'm sure I'll be looking at those too if you enjoyed this video then please be sure to leave a like comment your thoughts down below and subscribe my now massively scrambled brain would appreciate it a lot take care and I'll see you in the next [Music] [Laughter] one [Music]

Channel: Gaming Harry

Views: 82,577

Keywords: alan wake 2 explained, alan wake explained, alan wake 2 gaming harry, alan wake gaming harry, alan wake 2 story explained, lore and order, gaming harry

Id: nYboXPsTRts

Length: 146min 52sec (8812 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2023