Alan Wake Wiki

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Alan Wake Wiki
For the Alan Wake game, see: Alan Wake (Game)
Sudden Stop
Why the hell did you kill Casey? What the hell were you thinking, man?
This article or a section of this article will contain full, or partial plot spoilers of an Alan Wake game or any other piece of media related to the franchise.
You have been warned...

Quote1 In a horror story, the victim keeps asking "Why?", but there can be no explanation, and there shouldn't be one. The unanswered mystery is what stays with us the longest, and it's what we'll remember in the end. My name is Alan Wake; I'm a writer. Quote2
― Alan Wake, Episode 1: Nightmare

Alan Wake is the titular protagonist of the Alan Wake franchise and a major character in the Remedy Connected Universe. Alan Wake is a bestselling novelist best known for his crime-thriller series, Alex Casey. After suffering from a two-year strain of writer's block following "The Sudden Stop", Alan and his wife Alice vacationed to Bright Falls, Washington. There, Alice was kidnapped by the Dark Presence and Alan fought through the possessed townsfolk to rescue her. Meanwhile, Alan experienced the events of a story he didn't remember writing. After realizing the Dark Presence took Alice as collateral to force Alan into releasing it using the power of Cauldron Lake, Alan instead wrote himself into the Dark Place to set Alice free.

In the following thirteen years, Alan fought his own insanity and made numerous attempts to escape the Dark Place. Meanwhile, his doppelgänger, Scratch, who was sent to reality in his place, was corrupted by the rumors of Alan's disappearance and transformed into the Herald of Darkness, placing Alice in danger. In 2012, Alan managed to destroy Scratch's body, but his essence remained with Alan and continued to haunt Alice. Alan continued to write in order to escape the Dark Place, requiring the help of FBI Agent Saga Anderson. In 2023, Alan was finally freed from Cauldron Lake by Saga, but was released along with Scratch. With the help of Saga and Alice, Alan was able to destroy Scratch.

Biography[]

Alan Wake Media[]

Background[]

Alan Wake was born in 1977 to Linda Wake and an unknown father. Since he was born, he suffered from a rare condition that made him overly sensitive to light. When he was 7 years of age, he was deeply afraid of the dark, to the point that his mother eventually gave him an old light switch she called "the Clicker". She told Alan that the light switch had the power to banish the darkness, and that it was a gift from Alan's father. From that point on, Alan was no longer afraid of the dark and kept the Clicker in his possession. Alan would later learn that these events had been written into his reality by the poet Thomas Zane, possibly implying that Zane himself created Alan.

Alan befriended Barry Wheeler at a young age, the two of them often getting into trouble. Alan was typically the one causing this, with Barry bailing them out. Their friendship would continue for years thereafter into their adult lives. In his teen years, Alan became a fan of Stephen King, who inspired him to become a writer when he grew up. Prior to becoming a full-fledged writer, Alan moved to New York City and would often take on odd jobs, with one of them as a night watchman in order to help inspire his upcoming stories. It was during the night watchman job that he met Alice, an aspiring photographer who also came to New York City with dreams of being an artist.

Alan's first short story, Errand Boy, was published in Dark Vision magazine in 1996, when Alan was only eighteen years old. As observed by Clay Steward in The Alan Wake Files, the short story contained many motifs which would become staples of Wake's writing, including absent or mysterious father figures, and a battle between darkness and light. The lighthouse that appeared in this story would also become significant to Wake in his later life. Two years later in 1998, Alan got in trouble with the law for "public drunkenness and battery", where he was charged the following year in West Hollywood, though avoided jail time. He and Alice later took a road trip in Arizona.

Some time later, Barry helped Alan land a job as a writer for the cult television series Night Springs. One of Alan's first scripts written to audition for the show depicted a secret organization, the Federal Bureau of Night Springs, investigating a parallel dimension. Alan wrote several episodes for the show, and it ultimately kicked off his larger writing career. Alan's name became internationally known when he wrote the first installment in the Alex Casey crime thriller novel series. Alan wrote five more Alex Casey books in the following seven years, all of which were bestsellers. Barry became Alan's literary agent and helped to facilitate his success. Alan also became known for his cantankerous and at times violent personality, which on multiple occasions resulted in altercations with paparazzi. One instance occurred on January 13, 2006 when he assaulted a man named Peter Villadsen when he pushed his camera into his eye. Charges were filed, but Alan avoided jail time for it. Alan also had a history of substance abuse, including heavy drinking.

Alan eventually married Alice, who became a talented photographer, the two living in an apartment in Parliament Tower. After the publication of the last book in the Alex Casey series, The Sudden Stop, Alan was met with a sudden and immense strain of writer's block, unable to write a word for years. Worrying for her husband, Alice read a book on troubled artists, The Creator's Dilemma, written by a therapist named Dr. Emil Hartman. Wanting to help Alan recover from his writer's block, Alice took him on vacation to the idyllic town of Bright Falls, Washington, secretly hoping to have him write while there and also meet for Dr. Hartman for therapy.

Pre-Bright Falls[]

Alan can be seen once in an interview, as well as shown in a news segment where Alan caused $30,000 worth of equipment damage at an unknown location.

Not long after these events, he and his wife Alice made their way to Bright Falls after initially stopping to spot a road accident.

Arriving in Bright Falls[]

While on his way to Bright Falls, Alan had a vivid nightmare of fighting against shadowy, possessed individuals, and an ethereal figure teaching him how to fight them by using light to burn away the shadows on their bodies. Upon arriving at Bright Falls, Alan and Alice visited the Oh Deer Diner to receive keys to their cabin from Carl Stucky. Alan was given the keys by a strange old woman, who directed Alan and Alice to Bird Leg Cabin on Cauldron Lake. That night, Alice revealed to Alan the intent of the trip by presenting him with a typewriter, and Alan, angered over this, stormed off. Moments later, Alice was kidnapped by an unseen force and dragged into the waters of the lake. Alan dove in after her, and blacked out, waking up a week later in a crashed car miles from the lake, with no recollection of how he'd arrived there, or what had happened to Alice after she had disappeared into the lake.

Working his way back through the woods, Alan encountered monstrous possessed humans (including Stucky) called the Taken resembling the ones from his dreams, and fought them with light. Alan also found pages of a manuscript of his own writing entitled Departure, which he had no recollection of writing. In the manuscript, events were described which Alan discovered were coming true all around him. Alan eventually worked his way to a gas station and contacted Sheriff Sarah Breaker, telling her about his wife's disappearance and the cabin on Cauldron Lake. Sarah insisted that the cabin had been destroyed decades prior in an earthquake, and took Alan to the lake to prove it, Alan shocked to see the cabin gone.

Finding Alice[]

Alan was taken to the police station, where he was subsequently contacted by a man named Mott who claimed to have kidnapped Alice. Mott told Alan to meet him at Lover's Peak in Elderwood National Park to negotiate Alice's return. Now accompanied by Barry, who had arrived at Bright Falls to find Alan, Alan headed to the park and worked his way through the Taken to find Mott. Mott demanded that Alan give him the entire manuscript of Departure for Alice, and escaped, with Alan returning to Barry to rescue him from the Taken. The next morning, Barry was contacted by Rose Marigold, a waitress at the diner and fan of Wake's, who claimed to have found Alan's manuscript. Alan and Barry arrived at Rose's trailer park, all while Barry explained to Alan the local history; the cabin on Cauldron Lake was owned by Thomas Zane, a poet, who lost his lover Barbara Jagger when she mysteriously drowned in the lake. A week later, the volcanic earthquakes of Cauldron Lake sank the island, taking Zane with it. According to Barry, all of this information had been written by Cynthia Weaver, a local recluse, with her articles being the only existing record of Thomas Zane's existence.

Alan and Barry met with Rose, only to find her under the influence of the dark force. Rose knocked out Alan and Barry, who awoke hours later to find the police arriving at the trailer park. Alan was confronted by FBI Agent Robert Nightingale, an unstable and drunk individual willing to kill Alan without mercy. Alan escaped as the Taken began to attack and kill the police officers, and made his way to Mirror Peak, where the kidnapper had said he'd be waiting for Alan. However, as Alan arrived, he found Mott despairing at the mercy of the dark force, which appeared before him in the form of the old woman from the diner. Mott revealed that he never really had Alice and that he'd made up kidnapping her in order to get Wake to cooperate with his boss's wishes. At that point, Alan and Mott were hurled off of the edge of a cliff into the waters of Cauldron Lake, with Alan losing consciousness just as an unseen figure pulled him from the lake.

Learning the Truth[]

Alan awoke in the Cauldron Lake Lodge under the care of Dr. Hartman, who claimed that Alan had suffered a psychotic breakdown as a result of Alice drowning in Cauldron Lake. Alan did not believe Hartman, but cooperated in order to prevent an incident. While staying at the lodge, Alan met Odin and Tor Anderson, former rock musicians who had past experience with the supernatural events in Bright Falls. The Andersons instructed Alan to travel to their farm, where they had hidden a clue to stopping the darkness. The lodge was then attacked by the Taken, giving Alan a chance to escape with Barry. Along the way, Alan discovered that Hartman was the one behind Mott's deception, having used audio recordings of his discussions with Alice to fool Alan into thinking he'd kidnapped him. Hartman's intent was to take advantage of the power in Alan's writings, as he had been attempting to do with the other artists under his care for years.

Alan and Barry arrived at the Anderson Farm, discovering a record of their song "The Poet and the Muse," which seemed to indicate that Cynthia Weaver was the key to stopping the darkness. That night, Alan, under the influence of the Anderson's moonshine which had been infused with water from Cauldron Lake, experienced a vision of what happened during the missing week. Alice had been kidnapped by a supernatural force known as the Dark Presence, which enticed Alan to write Departure in order to bring her back. Cauldron Lake possessed the power to turn works of art into reality, and by writing Departure, Alan was facilitating the Dark Presence's emergence into reality. The Dark Presence had done this once before with Zane in order to bring back Barbara Jagger; however, the end result only saw Jagger return as a demonic shadow of her former self, controlled by the Presence. Zane had written himself out of existence to erase what he had done, taking the Dark Presence back beneath with him. Having realized the Dark Presence's deception, Alan had changed the story of Departure, writing himself in as the protagonist and having Zane arrive at the cabin to help Alan escape.

Returning to Cauldron Lake[]

In the present day, Alan, upon awakening, was arrested by Robert Nightingale and brought to the Bright Falls Sheriff Station. That night, the Dark Presence once again attacked, taking Nightingale and forcing Alan, Barry, and Sarah Breaker to free. The trio headed to the Bright Falls Dam to seek out Cynthia Weaver, who revealed to Alan that Zane had given her the key to the Dark Presence's defeat. Alan found that this was none other than the Clicker, which Zane had written into the story to give Alan a fighting chance. Determining that he alone had to stop the Dark Presence and save Alice, Alan left Barry and Sarah behind and headed for Cauldron Lake.

Alan arrived at Cauldron Lake and dove into its waters, finding himself in a surreal alternate dimension known as the Dark Place. Unlike Alan's world, the Dark Place was subjective and conceptual, making it subject to manipulation by works of art, which then manifested in reality. Alan navigated the Dark Place with the aid of Zane, in the process encountering a mysterious doppelganger of himself referred to as "Mr. Scratch." Reaching the submerged cabin, Alan encountered Jagger, and destroyed her using the Clicker. Realizing that the story demanded balance, Alan began writing the ending of Departure, allowing Alice to escape from the Dark Place while trapping himself there indefinitely.

Quote1 It's not a lake... it's an ocean. Quote2
― Alan Wake

Trapped in the Dark Place[]

Still trapped in the Dark Place, Alan found himself pursued by Taken, seemingly controlled by an insane version of himself. Zane appeared before Alan and explained to him the Dark Place's dreamlike nature, stating that Alan had become split into two facets of his existence, with the insane Alan giving in to Alan's doubts and fears, and the rational Alan attempting to restore control. Alan worked his way through the shifting landscape of the Dark Place, evading the chaos brought into existence by the insane Alan, and eventually found his way back to Bird Leg Cabin. Regaining control of his other self, Alan began work on a sequel to Departure which would allow him to escape from the Dark Place. This novel was known as Return.

Night Springs, Arizona[]

While Alan continued to write Return, the power of the Dark Place continued to act upon reality, eventually unleashing Alan's doppelganger, Mr. Scratch. Mr. Scratch's inception was catalyzed by rumors and conspiracies about Alan, viewing him as an insane, sadistic serial killer. Mr. Scratch personified this fictionalized Alan, and came to life in the real world seeking to take over Alan's life. Alan, in an attempt to stop him, used the concept of one of his old Night Springs episodes to write himself back into reality in the nonexistent town of Night Springs, Arizona, where Mr. Scratch had also appeared. Alan began work to actualize the manuscript he'd written in order to defeat Mr. Scratch, doing so by using the power of the Dark Place to make scenes from the town match those of Return and thus catalyze shifts in reality.

Alan eventually managed to make his way to a drive-in movie theater where the ending of Return existed. However, Alan discovered that this was in fact a trap, and that Mr. Scratch had created a time loop which would prevent Alan from ever defeating him. Restarting from the beginning, Alan once again worked his way to the ending, piecing together more clues about the final scene of Return in order to make it more accurate. After a third and final loop, Alan was able to activate the ending, revealed to be a movie made about Alan by Alice as a tribute to their relationship. The film seemingly destroyed Mr. Scratch, and depicted Alan reuniting with Alice.

Federal Bureau of Control[]

The Federal Bureau of Control - a clandestine U.S. government agency tasked with investigating supernatural phenomena - deployed agents to Bright Falls shortly after the events of Departure concluded. The FBC classified the incident as an Altered World Event, having previously responded to similar incidents in Bright Falls in the 1970s (the sinking of Diver's Isle in 1970, the Anderson Brothers' fight against Barbara Jagger in 1976, and another incident in 1978). Alan's whereabouts were unknown to the Bureau, and he was listed as possibly deceased. A coffee thermos was collected from Bright Falls and categorized as an Altered Item, and contained at the Bureau's New York headquarters, the Oldest House. Nine years later, in August 2019, the Bureau discovered one of Alan's manuscript pages inside of the Oceanview Motel & Casino, a supernatural location connected to the Oldest House. The manuscript page had been pushed under one of the unopenable doorways in the motel, marked with a spiral. Two months later, in October 2019, the Oldest House was violently attacked by a force known as the Hiss, which possessed most of the Bureau's agents. Jesse Faden, the Bureau's new director, discovered the manuscript page and coffee thermos while exploring the Oldest House in search of her younger brother, Dylan. When Jesse approached the manuscript page, a otherworldly apparition of Alan appeared, describing his maddening experiences in the Dark Place, before vanishing.

Some time later, Jesse sensed Alan a second time when she received a message from him on the Hotline (a supernatural Object of Power capable of communicating with extradimensional beings). In the Hotline messages, Alan spoke in prose while frantically writing on his typewriter, describing Jesse's actions and thoughts in the third-person. Matching Alan's prose, Jesse entered a new sector of the Oldest House, the Investigations Sector, where she entered the Oceanview Motel & Casino. There, through the slightly ajar spiral door, Jesse saw Alan conversing with a doppelganger of himself. This doppelganger claimed to be Thomas Zane, despite his different appearance and voice. Zane informed Alan that the Zane he'd previously encountered was a "character" he played in his previous "film," describing himself as a "filmmaker." He told the confused and delirious Alan that he'd been writing and had found a way to escape from the Dark Place. Alan expressed concern about "his double" (possibly Mr. Scratch), but Zane dismissed these worries, to Alan's confusion and agitation.

As Jesse continued to explore the Investigations Sector, she found more evidence of phenomena related to Bright Falls and Alan. She learned that Emil Hartman had been captured by the FBC after being Taken by the Dark Presence, and was held in the Investigations Sector. Alice, meanwhile, had begun experiencing frightening visitations by an Alan-like figure in their apartment. In 2017, the Bureau brought her to the Investigations Sector to interview her about these events; when Hartman sensed her near, he broke out of containment, forcing the FBC to evacuate the sector; Alice had already left by this time. Jesse learned of these events through Alan's prosaic messages. Alan also implied having a larger role in the events of the Hiss invasion; he wrote the Hiss incantation, an obsessive chant repeated by those possessed by the Hiss. He mentioned needing "a hero" and that his hero needed "a crisis," and that he had used elements from his life, including his city and his wife, to make his story come true. A Night Springs episode written by Wake, and found by the FBC, also described events similar to those of the Hiss invasion, including the actions of former Director Zachariah Trench and former Head of Research Dr. Casper Darling.

Approaching the Bright Falls AWE area of the Investigations Sector, Jesse entered the Oceanview Motel & Casino again and saw Alan in the spiral room. After killing Hartman, Jesse was informed by her subordinate, Frederick Langston, that an AWE had been detected in Bright Falls, but the date on the alert was from several years in the future. In the motel, Alan noted that if the alarm was true, then so too was the reason for the alarm.

Quote1 It's happening again; you have been warned. Quote2

Writing a Way Out[]

For many years, Alan had been trying to write his escape out of the Dark Place, though without any success. Somehow he found himself in a television studio, where he seemingly appeared on a late night talk show called In Between With Mr. Door. On it, the host, Mr. Door talked to Alan about writing Departure as well as its sequel, Initiation, though Alan could not remember writing Initiation. Mr. Door then questioned if everybody in the studio is just part of his story, and in that moment the lights of the studio went out. As Alan tried to leave the studio, he was attacked and killed by an unseen force.

He then woke up in his Writer's Room, a location he manifested in the Dark Place as a place to write his numerous escape attempts. He realised that he must write Initiation to try once again to escape, as it appeared as a plot summary on his plot board. He began writing, where he once again found himself on the set of In Between With Mr. Door, only this time they talked about his Alex Casey novels, where an actor named Sam Lake was portraying him in movie adaptations of them. The lights went out again, and Alan searched the studio for a way out, where he encountered a man named Ahti, who told him to check the basement of the studio for something left in a Shoebox. Upon finding the shoebox, he found an object called the Angel Lamp which allowed him to pull light sources from one area and carry it to another, which would subsequently change the environment. He found a small room which he used it on, which created a way out of the studio.

Meeting Alex Casey[]

Upon leaving the studio, he found himself in a dark, twisted and empty version of New York City, full of Shadows that would fade in and out of existence. He began hearing a pay phone in the distance ringing, where upon picking it up a man could be heard that he thought he recognised. The man told him to go to Caldera Street Station though the connection then cut out. Using a subway pass he found by the phone, he began searching for the station, though he couldn't find it. He needed to find a light source in order to make the station appear, and headed down an alley way where he could pull light from, however here he met with Alex Casey, who initially he mistook for the actor at the studio, Sam Lake. Casey asks Alan about the manuscript of a novel which a cult had been using to commit sacrifices. Suddenly the light at the end of the alley went out, and Casey went to investigate, where he shot at, and was killed by an unseen force. Alan took Casey's weapon, as well as pulled the light source which reignited, and headed back to the subway entrance where he used the Angel Lamp to make it appear.

Meeting Zane[]

Alice's Fate[]

Escaping the Dark Place[]

Alan woke up on the shoreline of Cauldron Lake, awoken by Saga Anderson, who asked for his name. He panickily introduced himself, where Saga told him he had been missing for 13 years. Due to time working differently in the Dark Place, Alan was unaware on exactly how much time had actually passed in reality. Casey also arrived on the scene, much to Alan's bemusement of Casey having the same name as the detective from his books, and the pair took him back to the Elderwood Palace Lodge for questioning.

Upon being questioned, he told them about being trapped in the Dark Place all these years and how it can affect works of art. He also told them about Scratch who he claimed wrote the story of Return, the pages Saga and Casey had been finding. Alan told the duo that the only way to defeat Scratch was by using the Clicker, which Alan informed the Cult of the Tree had in their possession, where Saga headed to Watery to find it, leaving Casey to continue questioning Alan.

Casey continued to interview Alan, though Casey brought up the fact Alan's book were very closely related to Casey's own life. Suddenly however, the pair were attacked by the Cult of the Tree, claiming to be after Alan. Casey left Alan in the investigation room whilst he went to fight them off, though as Alan heard the gun shots, his head began hurting, seeing visions of Scratch, where he then passed out. Upon waking up, Alan found the investigation room to be trashed, with dead bodies of cultists all around him, as well as his clothes covered in blood. He heard Casey still fighting the cultists and went off to find him. Upon finding him, he passed out once again due to visions of Scratch, though one of the cultists, Ilmo Koskela almost killed him, but was saved by Saga Anderson. The Koskela Brothers and Alan were then arrested by the Federal Bureau of Control.

Scratch[]

Alan found himself in the Bright Falls Sheriff Station where the FBC set up their new base of operations, though it was attacked by some of the Taken. Saga arrived and dispatched them, and entered the jail cells to finally give Alan the Clicker she had found in Watery. Just as she was about to hand it to him, Alan once again had severe visions of Scratch, only this time he became possessed by him, killing Jaakko Koskela in the process. Alan, now seemingly revealed as Scratch, tried to kill Saga, but Saga managed to dispatch of him using strong lights within the parking lot of the Sheriff Station, forcing Scratch to flee.

With Saga believing Alan to still be trapped in the Dark Place, she, the Anderson Brothers, Kiran Estevez and Alex Casey tried to summon him back to Bright Falls using the song named Dark Ocean Summoning, which worked, though it sent Alan back two days into the past instead where Saga found Alan on the same shore line. This led Saga to realise than Alan and Scratch are the same person. Scratch then arrived at the lake to try and take the Clicker from Saga, though again Saga was able to use the bright lights scattered across the beach to trap Scratch in a cage, causing it to explode.

With the huge burst of light, Scratch stopped possessing Alan, and instead inhabited the body of Casey, stealing the Clicker from Saga. Scratch then threw Saga into the lake and left to go to Bright Falls. Alan, now free from Scratch, spoke with Kiran Estevez, and stated that he needed to stop Scratch, where Estevez gave him an arsenal of weapons to do so. He then made his way through the forests of Cauldron Lake, fighting Taken along the way. Upon reaching Saga's car, he then drove back to Bright Falls.

Rewriting the Ending[]

Alan made it to Bright Falls in the early morning of Deerfest, where within the main town he saw that reality had been warped in the center of it. Alan, having only just escaped the Dark Place and terrified, headed into the warped town, where he then found himself in the middle of Deerfest, where every one of the townsfolk were gushing about his new book, Return. Realising he needed to write a new ending to the book to fix everything, he had to find a copy, though everywhere seemed to be sold out. He eventually found a book on a standee of him, where upon picking it up, the townsfolk then turned on him, forcing him to flee.

After escaping the townsfolk, he made his way to the Valhalla Nursing Home, where he recognised the windows of his Writer's Room, realising that is where he would need to go to fix the ending. He was then attacked by the Dark Presence itself, though Alan managed to escape into the home, where he was greeted by Rose Marigold. Rose claimed that she had received his messages loud and clear about preparing for a new hero of the story, though Alan claimed to have never sent her any messages. Alan then went upstairs to the spiral door of the Writer's Room, where he was greeted by Ahti one more time. Alan, asking for Ahti's help, was then given access to the room. Within the room, Alan viewed a vision of him and Saga discussing how Return should actually end, where they claim the hero would have to pay a price; Saga also told Alan that her daughter Logan Anderson, who according to the story drowned, and Casey would both need to survive. Alan, knowing what he needed to do, began writing the new ending of Return, though claimed it wouldn't work without the Clicker, which he had no idea where to find it.

As Alan finished the ending, Saga Anderson suddenly appeared in his Writer's Room, Clicker in hand as well as the Bullet of Light. As Alan was going to activate the ending with the Clicker, Saga told him that she needed to do it, so Alan handed her the manuscript. Scratch, possessing Casey's body, then arrives in the Writer's Room. As he was about to attack, Saga pressed the Clicker, activating the ending, causing Scratch to leave Casey's body and re-enter Alan's. With Scratch now back in Alan's body, Saga shot Alan in the head with the Bullet of Light, lodging the bullet into Alan's skull, where it killed both Scratch and seemingly Alan along with it.

Later, still in the Writer's Room, Alan woke up, coming to a sudden realization about his journey towards escape:

Quote1 It's not a loop... it's a spiral. Quote2
― Alan Wake

The Final Draft[]

Other Media[]

Dead by Daylight[]

According to the lore for Alan Wake within the video game Dead by Daylight, one of Alan's escapes from the Dark Place between 2010 - 2023 involved him having to remember the script for a Night Springs episode named "Dead of Night".

Personality[]

Alan Wake is a complex individual whose personality ranges from melancholy and pensive to aggressive and angry. According to recollections by Wake and Barry Wheeler, Wake was a troublemaker for much of his childhood, and this behavior continued into his adult years, with Wake getting into frequent altercations with news media and others. Alan has a history of substance abuse, fighting a longtime struggle against alcoholism. Throughout the events of Alan Wake, Alan often displays an aggressive and stubborn nature, sometimes bordering on vindictive and resentful. Alan's behavior has led to conflicts with those closest to him, including Barry and Alice; it is also implied that Alan has very few friends because of this. Alan's fame also resulted in a bout of narcissism and arrogance, which is reflected in Mr. Scratch. He can also sometimes be sarcastic and mean, even towards those he considers friends, such as Barry.

However, there are also more positive aspects of Alan's personality, which are primarily reflected in his intimate relationship with Alice. He deeply cares for his wife, and is willing to sacrifice anything in order to save her in the events of Alan Wake. Alice sees a brighter side of Alan and is more sympathetic towards him. In Alan Wake and particularly the Rick Burroughs novelization, Alan is depicted as caring for the people of Bright Falls and doing his best to protect them from the Dark Presence, even being willing to sacrifice himself to ultimately ensure their safety. He develops a friendship with Sarah Breaker and the Anderson brothers, the memories of whom are fond in Alan's mind as he struggles in the Dark Place.

Behind his outward aggression and cynicism, Alan is a deeply insecure, self-derisive, and troubled man. Since the ending of the Alex Casey series, he has lived in a constant struggle against his writer's block, one that has only deepened and amplified his frustration and confusion. In the Dark Place, Alan's troubled mind is reflected as chaotic and nightmarish, and Alice herself describes Alan was writing "horror stories" in his head whenever he makes a mistake. Alan is ultimately able to overcome his self-doubt in order to retake control of himself in the Dark Place, enabling him to begin plotting his return.

Alan practices at a shooting range, and has a decent knowledge of hunting rifles, shotguns, and pistols. In the novel, it is explained that he spent time at the shooting range to get research done for his Alex Casey crime series, though Sarah Breaker comments that Alan's knowledge of guns is limited. Alan is also a quick thinker, using his knowledge to get past environmental puzzles and to evade numerous Taken at once. He can adapt to a wide array of weaponry quickly.

Prior to his experiences in Bright Falls, Alan was a self-proclaimed skeptic, rejecting the supernatural as little more than a reflection of the human psyche. This attitude would later be reflected in the universe of Control, in which paranatural phenomena are intrinsically tied to the human psyche, particularly the Jungian concepts of collective unconscious, synchronicity, and archetypes.

Bibliography[]

Errand Boy[]

Errand Boy was Alan's first published story, published in a magazine called Dark Visions. A transcript of Errand Boy was featured in Clay Steward's book, The Alan Wake Files.

Night Springs[]

During Alan's time on Night Springs, he wrote several episodes for the show, which kicked off his larger career in writing fiction. One of these episodes focused on the "Federal Bureau of Night Springs," and was possibly later adapted into the events of Control. Another episode was adapted into the portion of the Return manuscript from the events of Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

Alex Casey[]

Alan's books

The first 5 books of the Alex Casey series

Alex Casey was an action thriller series written by Alan, which revolved around the titular character, a hardened New York City cop. Six books were made in the series:

  1. Alex Casey
  2. What I Can't Forget
  3. Return to Sender
  4. The Things That I Want
  5. The Fall of Casey
  6. The Sudden Stop

Alan ended the series by killing off Alex Casey in The Sudden Stop, as he wanted to move onto other projects. He planned to write a new story, Departure, but instead faced a severe strain of writer's block which held off his writing for more than two years. Following Alan's disappearance in 2010, a Hollywood studio picked up the rights to create a film series adaptation of the Alex Casey books.

Alex Casey has numerous similarities to the Remedy Entertainment video game Max Payne. In Control, Dylan Faden makes a comment lampshading this similarity:

Quote1 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. Quote2
― Dylan Faden[src]

Alan Wake 2 reveals that Alex Casey is a real FBI agent whose life story had been used in Alan's writing, which Alan was completely unaware of. It is suggested that Alan had been receiving visions of the real Alex Casey even before entering the Dark Place, which he had always assumed to be inspiration from his own mind, and had worked them into his writings.

Quote1 Had I always written this way? Even before? Seen things without realizing I was seeing them? Thinking they were mine. Was this what inspiration was for me? Quote2
― Alan Wake, Vision 02
Quote1 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 fucking thing out of him. Quote2
― Alan Wake[src]

Departure[]

Departure was originally intended as Alan's new project following the conclusion of Alex Casey. While Alan suffered from writer's block and was unable to write Departure, he was eventually forced to work on the manuscript by the Dark Presence in Barbara Jagger. The completed Departure rewrote reality and told the story of most of the events of Alan Wake, with Alan himself as the protagonist, and ended with Alan trapping himself in the Dark Place.

Return[]

Return is the sequel to Departure and Initiation which Alan wrote in the Dark Place. Alan wrote many drafts of the Return manuscript, including one which created the events of Alan Wake's American Nightmare, before realizing that he would not succeed because he had failed to write Initiation first: Alan was following Campbell's Monomyth (a three-stage hero's journey) but was attempting to skip from the hero's "departure" to the "return" without the middle step.

At some point, Alan actually gave up on writing Return, depressed by the realization that his writing was causing actual harm to people's lives in the real world. According to the filmmaker version of Thomas Zane, Zane grew desperate at this point and started collaborating with Scratch to write Return, which went undetected by Alan because of his constant memory loss from the Dark Place's effects. In reality, "Scratch" was Alan, having given in to his negative emotions and become taken over by a Dark Presence generated as a result. This version of Return became a horror story which would see the Dark Presence escape the lake during Deerfest 2023, giving way to the events of Alan Wake 2.

Initiation[]

Initiation is the second book of Alan Wake's "hero's journey," which he wrote in the Dark Place as part of his plan to escape Cauldron Lake. While it is only the second book in his escape plan, it is technically the last book he "wrote" since he had been working on many drafts of Return before writing Initiation, and he wrote it while attempting to edit the final draft of the Return manuscript created by "Scratch."

This House of Dreams[]

In the alternate reality blog, This House of Dreams, Alan Wake is mentioned, not by name but by appearance and description. In the beginning of Samantha's second "Shoebox Dream", she was visiting the previous owner of her new house at the nursing home. The person she was visiting wasn't an old woman like she thought, but a young man. She remember that the man had dark hair and was "wearing a funny jacket with old-fashioned elbow patches". Samantha explains that even though the place was brightly lit from the sun outside, the man was "very anxious and wanted her to turn on the lights on". He kept telling her that "the place was too dark". She remembered that "all of the lights were on already, but that didn't calm him down". Then, Samantha started to freak out, thinking that "something horrible was coming to take them away, and that's when she woke up". Suddenly, right after she woke up, Samantha was thirsty and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. And in the hallway, coming back, she saw a dark silhouette of a man outside of the window. Being really frightened, she rushed through the house and turned on all of the lights. (Just like the man told her to do in her dream). She was about to dial 911 but thought about it first, thinking that it was all apart of her imagination, she instead called her friend, Joss. Joss then wanted to check on her and look around her house just in case there were robbers in the area, but there was "no sign of anyone outside". (http://thishouseofdreams.blogspot.com/)

The man "wearing the funny jacket with old-fashioned elbow patches" was most likely Alan Wake, trying to warn Samantha to "turn the lights on" in the real world after she woke up, right before she was almost attacked by a "dark silhouette". (most likely a Taken).

Trivia[]

  • Alan Wake is voiced by Matthew Porretta and played by Ilkka Villi.
  • He has previously won an award called "The Golden Glocks", which sits on his office shelf in his apartment.
  • Remedy Entertainment has called Alan "kind of a dick," noting that he "hates most people" and has many problems with his marriage. The intent of this characterization was to separate him from most golden-hearted characters and "space marine" G.I. Joes. This is intended to add a layer of realism and depth to Alan, making him a more relatable character with moral failings of his own as opposed to a larger-than-life hero with high moral standards.
  • As with other Remedy Entertainment games, Alan Wake's name is a pun, in this case on the word "awake." This is evidently meaningful, as it has been lampshaded several times in the story of Alan Wake 2.
    • One of the Writer's Journey videos, Drowning, has Alan questioning his own name, wondering if he is merely a character in a story someone has written.
    • The Dark Place is, several times, referred to as a "dream" of sorts. In The Final Draft, one of Dr. Darling's messages has him calling the Dark Place a "dreamscape," wondering who the "dreamer" is and how he can "wake them up." The dreamer's voice is revealed to be that of Alan Wake. In the second QR code video from Alan Wake Remastered, Vision 02, Alan describes the Dark Place as an "endless waking dream" where he receives visions "carried by the ebb and flow of different dream states."
  • One of the books in the Alex Casey series that Alan wrote is titled The Things That I Want. This is the name of a level in the Remedy game series, Max Payne. Another is titled "The Fall of Alex Casey", just like the subtitle for Max Payne 2. On some of the TVs in that game, a 'return to sender marathon' of the fictional show 'Address Unknown' is played, giving another book title. Max muses that "when entertainment turns to a surreal reflection of your life, you're a lucky man if you can laugh at the joke". He refers to the coincidental parallels between fiction and his life as opposed to the rewriting of events that the manuscript pages of Alan Wake describe.
  • The idea behind Wake ending the Alex Casey series by killing off the main character is most likely influenced by the Stephen King book Misery, where the main character Paul Sheldon, also a writer, ends his series of books by the same method and for the same reasons.
  • There are several Xbox avatar outfits of Alan's clothes.

Appearances[]

Gallery[]

Artworks and References[]

Live Action[]

Alan Wake (original)[]

Alan Wake's American Nightmare[]

Control[]

Alan Wake Remastered[]

Alan Wake II[]

In-game and Renders[]

Rose's Shrine[]

References[]

  1. In Alan Wake 2, the statue of Alan Wake in the Dark Place's version of Parliament Tower Plaza lists his birth year as 1977. Previously, Alan's age as of September 9, 2010 had been given as 31 in The Alan Wake Official Survival Guide, which would have placed his birthdate in 1978—1979, though it is noted the guide appears to insinuate the events of the first game took place in 2009, which is incorrect. As the Official Survival Guide is a supplementary source, this page will use the Alan Wake 2 date.
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