One of the biggest and oldest questions that hasn't been answered is who/what Thomas Zane is. In the first game the answer seems to be simple: Thomas Zane was a poet that ended up getting involved with the Dark Presence and then went missing. He shows up in the first game as the Bright Presence.
But once you really start delving into Thomas Zane you find yourself in a hole that doesn't end. What once appeared like the truth is drowned in uncertainty. I hope that the question of his identity is never answered as going mad trying to figure him out is so fun.
Now that isn't to say I don't have my own theory I believe in completely after screaming into the void for way too long. Well...believe in it more so I can actually go to sleep at night more than anything else. And that theory is that Alan Wake is the reincarnation of Thomas Zane.
The Anderson bloodline is an extremely powerful one in the RCU. Everyone in that family is what's called a Seer. Basically a Seer is someone who can see when reality is altered and has the ability to go into someone's mind.
So you can say they see through all the baloney that everyone else can't help but believe.
We meet two powerful Seers in the first Alan Wake game. Their names are Tor and Odin Anderson. They are nicknamed the Anderson brothers. They used to have a band called the Old Gods of Asgard. More importantly to this post, they fought the Dark Presence and were friends with Thomas Zane.
It is a little telling that two powerful Seers don't call Alan by his name but by Tom. They obviously are able to see something that neither Alan or the player can.
.webp)
The origin of Ahti's name comes from a water god in Finnish mythology. Meanwhile in the RCU, Ahti is a powerful being whose origins are currently a mystery and seems like a janitor unless you know the truth. His role is the leader of the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC). The Director of the FBC, the one most know as the leader, is nicknamed the janitor's assistant.
So it is clear that Ahti knows a lot more than the average person. In Alan Wake 2 Ahti refers to Alan Wake as Tom. If the being that can see much more than the player can calls Alan by Tom it can't be ignored.
Now this a theory so while I have to pay attention to canon, leaps of logic need to be made. From time to time it's okay to take a small piece of canon and stretch it out so it's usable for a theory. So while this next point is the most likely to not mean anything, it still eats away at the back of my mind and so I have to mention it.
Also: it is mentioned in the games so I have to take note of it.
In one of the Alan Wake's DLC there is mention that Alan never knew his father. The way this information is presented to the player makes it clear that this disturbs the writer. He doesn't like the fact that he is unaware of who his father is.
This could be an indication that Alan's birth was far from normal to the point a father wasn't needed. Maybe reincarnation in the RCU only requires a mother to incubate the reincarnated person. If the mother isn't in a committed relationship, she would just think that one of her lovers had gotten her pregnant. Or if she was in a committed relationship then the two of them would think he had gotten her pregnant.
When you play as Saga Anderson in Alan Wake 2, you go to the Valhalla Nursing Home. This is because to be able to stay in Bright Falls, she decides to visit Odin and Tor Anderson. At this point in the game she doesn't know if Tor is actually her grandfather or not.
Anyways...in this section of the game Odin makes mention of this not being the first lifetime he and Tor have fought the Dark Presence. He makes it seem like they've actually been fighting the Dark Presence over countless lifetimes.
As I've brought up previously, the Anderson bloodline is a very powerful one. So Odin's words can't be dismissed easily. If he brings up reincarnation it is very likely that it exists in the RCU.
For the most part the Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC are a bit of fun. They're a great showcase of how Remedy Entertainment love their craft while, at the same time, don't feel the need to take themselves seriously all the time. Such as in one of the DLCs Rose gets her own story that changes the RCU into the type of romance that only exists for wish fulfillment.
But there is one episode of Night Springs that is goofy while being extremely relevant to the lore of the RCU. And that episode is Time Breaker. Now while the main character of the episode is called the Actor, I'll be calling him Tim Breaker for simplicity's sake.
The entire DLC seems to be a personal message from Mr. Door for Alan Wake. This basically means that if you pick apart the many layers of the DLC you'll be rewarded for your hard work. So while there is a lot to dissect in this DLC, I'll only be focusing on the part where the game changes into a text based adventure.
To translate for you young people: text based adventures are huge, sweeping, epics told only via words.
And if you're wondering how this makes sense in game: Tim goes through different realities and some of them are a lot different than our own. With an infinite multi-verse it doesn't make sense that each reality would be similar to our own.
During this text based adventure Tim finds himself reborn as a tree. Later the tree is reborn as him. If we look beyond the weirdness to what happened, we can see that this is talking about reincarnation. As this episode is Mr. Door talking to Alan Wake, this fact can't be ignored. Instead we must face the facts that reincarnation is a thing in the RCU.
It is also possible that Mr. Door is telling Alan how he gained so much power. While the writer was in the process of reincarnation and coming back into full power, Mr. Door was grabbing power like it was going out of style.
In the first Alan Wake game there is a character called the Bright Presence. At first glance he seems to merely be Thomas Zane who has come to help Alan Wake out with his fight against the Dark Presence. If you only play Remedy games casually, you probably missed out on how easy it is for that theory to fall apart.
The Bright Presence's identity is truly called into question during the two Alan Wake DLCs. This is due to the basic premise of the DLCs being that Alan's mind has literally been broken due to the Dark Presence. Each of the four pieces of Alan's mind has their own autonomy. What we call the Bright Presence talks with one part of Alan's mind due to him being the most clear headed.
One piece of Alan's mind is stuck in the Writer's Room and can't function at all. Another piece of Alan's mind is the most put together. Another piece of Alan's mind is the Bright Presence who can understand more of the Dark Place than the other pieces. The final piece of Alan's mind is Barry Wheeler who functions as a friendly face.
Near the end of the two DLCs, the Bright Presence tells Alan that in order for him to be able to fight the Dark Presence, he will need to kill each part of his mind so he can become whole once more. The Bright Presence also remarks that it is hard to fight against the lies the Dark Presence tells you.
You don't kill the Bright Presence or have any interaction that makes it clear he's just a piece of Alan's mind. This is due to the fact that the Bright Presence is gone right before the final fight of the DLC. It's like the Bright Presence knew he had to be killed but was too afraid to go through with it. Because the lie that he isn't a part of Alan Wake was too tempting.
Remember how the Bright Presence mentioned that the Dark Presence tells tempting lies? It tells lies so tempting that even the strongest beings can be affected. It tells lies that can slowly corrupt you so you lose all sense of who you actually are.
People have noticed that the Bright Presence is absent in Alan Wake 2. Others have stretched what the essence of the Bright Presence is to say different characters have basically taken over the role of the Bright Presence. As nothing is confirmed, we all must find a theory that helps us go to sleep. My own theory is that the Bright Presence does show up in Alan Wake 2 but has gone through such a drastic change most don't recognize it.
Between Alan Wake and Alan Wake 2 the Bright Presence completely lost its mind. It began to fully believe that it wasn't actually a piece of Alan Wake's mind but Thomas Zane. The Bright Presence became a filmmaker because Alice Wake made a film in Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Even in the depths of its delusions, it is still influenced by Alan.
And since the Bright Presence is fully immersed in the Dark Presence's influence, Scratch is more than easily able to manipulate the being into helping him. Scratch is, of course, another piece of Alan Wake but he deserves a post or two of his own to properly delve into that character.
As final proof that I'm not crazy about this theory: before fleeing the battle, the Bright Presence told Alan that he needed to kill each piece of his mind in order to become whole once again. Once Alan became whole he could finally have enough power to fight against the Dark Presence.
It was only after Alan killed 'Thomas Zane' he was able to gain the upper hand on the Dark Presence. This is due to both pieces of his mind (first the Bright Presence and then Scratch) being killed and him becoming whole once again.
Remember you can submit ideas for future posts by commenting on this post. I also talk about other fandoms, so don't feel that you have to only submit ideas for Remedy Connected Universe posts.
You can also submit guest posts HERE.
If you want to talk with fellow nerds, join THIS Facebook group.
No comments:
Post a Comment