Alan Wake Wiki

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Quote1 My approach focuses not on the goal- or task-oriented practices of the recent faddish therapies. There is no twelve-step, no plan, no formula that can be applied to any and all. Herein lies the importance of joining us here at the Lodge. Quote2
― Dr. Emil Hartman, The Creator's Dilemma

The Cauldron Lake Lodge is a location appearing in Alan Wake. A replica of the lodge also appears in Control.

History[]

Welcome to Cauldron Lake Lodge!
We're here to give you the specified help you need! However, please observe the following:
Please ask friends and families to schedule visits beforehand to ensure they don't interfere with your therapy and/or periods of creativity. Also, please respect your fellow patients' need for privacy and personal space, especially when they're engaged by their creative processes.
Be patient!
Typically, our patients have long-term creative problems, and they won't be solved overnight. Give yourself permission to take the time you need. Bear in mind that you're voluntarily receiving treatment that has been specifically tailored for you. Engagement Therapy™ and its sister method, The Flow™ work best when you are actively engaged in shaping them. If you have any concerns, please don't hesitate to voice them!
--Sign on the first floor

The old Cauldron Lake Lodge used to be a hotel, but was closed off to the public. For a long time, the Lodge was a psychiatric institution belonging to Dr. Emil Hartman, where he would 'special' treatments for the patients, most of them involving some type of artistic self-expression tasks like painting or writing, and all patients being people with creative blocks. There has been much debate over whether Dr. Hartman is healing the patients or rather exacerbating the mental state of the patients at the Lodge. There is a huge garden near the lodge, including a maze.

In the end, the whole Cauldron Lake Lodge has been consumed by the Dark Presence. The building itself may have been destroyed (although this is never shown), however, a page of the manuscript describes the patients leaving the building.

Outside of the Lodge, a large sundial monument was placed behind the building. It said: CAULDRON LAKE LODGE 1912 - IN TENEBRAS CADERE (translation: to fall into darkness).

In front of the monument laid a sign with: "Beyond the shadow you settle for, there's a miracle illuminated." - T.Z. In the memory of a dear friend and a poet.

Events in Control pertaining to the Cauldron Lake Lodge[]

Main article: Control

According to official documents found at the Oldest House, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, Dr. Emil Hartman was in reality a paracriminal, acting alone, using his 'patients' to try and force them to reshape reality at the Cauldron Lake Place of Power to his own benefit. When he lost his most promising asset in attempting to accomplish this, the author Alan Wake, Dr. Hartman was forced to try and study the Dark Presence and the Dark Place himself, so he decided to dive headfirst into the waters of Cauldron Lake, an intent that he made clear on a tape recording found by the FBC agents dispatched to deal with the Bright Falls AWE. In the Dark Place, Dr. Hartman became a Taken. The Shaded or Taken Dr. Hartman was found by the FBC agents at the Cauldron Lake Lodge by Agent Estevez and brought back to the Oldest House, to be studied and contained in the Investigations Sector. Since then, Dr. Hartman has not been the owner of the lodge. Furthermore, he was altered severely physically and mentally when another dark entity, known as the Hiss and seemingly created through Wake's writing, suddenly appeared out of thin air in the Oldest House and crossed through Dr. Hartman's own body, forced to do so by Wake's writing, and the sonic resonance of said entity and the darkness of the Dark Presence combined to transform him into a third kind of entity. Eventually, the director of the FBC, Jesse Faden, managed to track down Hartman and kill him, rendering him unable to ever return to the lodge. A perfect replica of the Cauldron Lake Lodge was built in the containment chamber for the Bright Falls AWE at the Oldest House in the Lower Access area of the Investigations Sector with the hope that having Dr. Hartman enter the lodge exactly as it had looked would trigger some kind of event or special behavior in him, however this experiment proved futile as nothing happened. Furthermore, as evidenced in a recording of an interrogation made with Hartman, they squeezed information out of him, then charged him with violations of codes of their internal criminal offense system and wound up seizing the Cauldron Lake Lodge as their own property, possibly making it into the official Bright Falls AWE monitoring station that is mentioned several times in documents found scattered throughout the Oldest House.

Background[]

What's very noticeable is that all the patients have a special creative ability one way or another, which was assumed that Emil Hartman was trying to harness their abilities to his will. Alan is creative in terms of writing, Emerson is creative in making video games, the Anderson Brothers are creative in song writing, Rudolf Lane is creative in painting; however it's unknown what Wendy Desole's special talent is due to her minority in the game, though it's probably related to music.

Interior[]

First Floor[]

Dr. Hartman's office is on this floor, as well as the reception area, dining hall, and staff wing.

Second Floor[]

The second floor had a corridor for the patients at the Cauldron Lake Lodge. It contained five rooms for the patients. There are contrasting paintings of a knight on a white horse at day, and a knight on a black horse at night. Given the Dark Presence is called Baba Yaga, these paintings may symbolically represent Baba Yaga's two mythical minions: Bright Day and Black Night.

Room 1 Wake[]

In Episode 4, Alan awakes in this room inside the Cauldron Lake Lodge.

Inside this room was:

  • Two pictures of the Cauldron Lake Lodge.
  • Lamp
  • Green tapestry
  • Nightstand with lamp
  • Sofa
  • IV-bag with pole
  • Closet with a low table next to it
  • Desk with chair. On top of the desk were empty sheets of paper, a lamp and a typewriter.

Room 2 Emerson[]

Inside this room was:

  • Chair
  • Lamp
  • Green tapestry
  • A puzzle on top of a nightstand
  • Memoboard with drawings
  • Closet
  • Bed
  • Low table
  • Desk with chair. On top of the desk was a lamp, TV, placemat and an Xbox 360 with the console game version of "Night Springs"
  • A poster of "Night Springs: The Video Game"
  • A poster of "Death Rally"

Room 3 Desole[]

This room belonged to Desole but this room was locked. Inside this room was:

  • Low table with lamp
  • Bed
  • Green tapestry
  • Desk with chair. On top of the desk was a lamp.
  • Nighstand with lamp
  • Closet

Room 4 Lane[]

This room belonged to Rudolf Lane. Lane can be found outside, painting a portrait of Alan Wake.

Dr. Hartman talked about Rudolf Lane in one of his recordings:

Rudolf Lane's case is interesting, he was completely blocked, and frankly, I was about to discard him as useless. However, once Wake arrived and started writing, something changed in Rudolf! He's producing extraordinary work, increasingly dark pieces. Unfortunately, he doesn't respond to direction at all, and it's my belief that he's not so much as a creator as an...illustrator, perhaps, a recorder of sorts. I hadn't considered the existence of such a role before, let alone its implications, but the paintings he has produced are informative. At least he's easily controlled and useful. I wish I could say the same about Wake. It's frustrating that the best subject are always so damned difficult to deal with.

Inside this room was:

  • Nightstand with lamp
  • Green tapestry
  • Desk with a lamp and tools for a painter
  • Bed
  • Closet
  • Chair
  • Three picture frames
  • Low table with lamp

Room 5 Anderson[]

This room belonged to the Anderson Brothers but this door was locked. Inside this room was:

  • Two beds
  • Two green tapestries
  • A nightstand
  • Two Nordic shields hanging on the wall
  • Two sofa's and a table

Elevator[]

An elevator was located in the Cauldron Lake Lodge. The Lodge had four floors: The ground floor and three stories. The elevator had four buttons for the different floors, two buttons to open and close the doors and one alarm button and a red "stop" button.

Exterior[]

Hedge Maze[]

Hedge maze

The maze in the lodge's garden

The lodge has it's own mini maze to the south-west of the lodge. Alan has to navigate through it in two episodes. Inside the maze, you could find:

  • Benches
  • Wheelbarrows
  • A monument
  • Boulders
  • Taken (at night)

Trivia[]

  • The address of the lodge is Cauldron Lake Lodge, 2323 Overlook Drive, Off Highway 442, Cauldron Lake, Bright Falls, WA 98666
  • The interior version of the lodge found in the mini series Bright Falls closely resembles that of the video game version.
  • The Cauldron Lake Lodge scenes in the Bright Falls mini-series was filmed at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, USA. This is the same lodge where they filmed certain exterior shots for The Shining movie.

Gallery[]

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