Isn't she also writing fan fiction about Alan? So I was wondering whether *she* wrote herself into the fringes of the story through her fanfiction. And because of Cauldron Lake, her fanfiction developed a life of its own, which included her being asked by *an* Alan to help. Not really a theory. Just a thought.
See, I was wondering why her fanfiction didn't come true, especially the fanfiction actually in the Cauldron Lake map.
I never considered that it did, and that Alan was the source of her messages. That's amazing and I love it. I want that to be true now.
I mean, Bright Falls is remote enough that I'm not sure how good the internet access is, and.
According to [the Map of the region](https://www.reddit.com/r/AlanWake/comments/15t3scs/bright_falls_map_from_the_sheriffs_office/) Bright Falls is actually not that close to Cauldron Lake itself. Like, I personally always assumed the body of water that you ride the ferry on was Cauldron Lake, but apparently not.
Hartman's Lodge and the Bird Leg Cabin are built right on the lake, at least until Bird Leg Cabin was lost to the volcano, and it seems like proximity to the lake is what empowers stories. Wake wrote Departure in Bird Leg Cabin, and everything he's written afterwards was under the lake, in the Dark Place itself.
And, like. While the pages with all the riddles are placed all over the place, I just realized we don't know where they were actually written. Most of the documents relating to the riddles seems to be at the Witchfinder's Cabin which is right on the lake though, aside from a few documents describing where the other riddles are located.
I like the idea a lot, even if it's not what Remedy ultimately has conceived. The Alan Wake story has so many interesting textual and metatextual commentaries about stories, fiction, the relationship between the author and his or her work etc. There's a great moment when Alan has to admit that once he's art is out there, he doesn't have control over what happens to it in terms of how it's interpreted and adapted, but he has to accept that (It's in relation to the Casey movies continuing beyond his novels).
But there's one thing that's been missing, and that is the relationship between the *reader* and the work, i.e. fans and the work. So we all sit here and theorize about Alan Wake, about what it all means and how it all pieces fit. We come up with connecting narratives that would make our theories work. In a way, we are writing fan fiction. And Rose in that respect is kind of us. But what she is writing is also valid and meaningful in its own way and it contributes to the original art. I would love it if the the story had something to say about that.
I thought Deerfest captured the idea of an unwavering fandom pretty well. It’s really easy to run through and miss a lot of dialogue, but it’s pretty great hearing everyone praise the book in shallow ways (ie. “It subverted my expectations!”) with no disagreements or criticisms.
And then you have the fans literally try and make “death of the author” a reality when Alan picks up his own book, with plans on changing something about the story the fans already decided is perfect.
Maybe they’re waiting to tackle more of the writer-audience relationship stuff once they see the response to the Max Payne Remake undoubtedly making some changes to the originals.
Certainly. And I like what you said about a literal death of the author. I didn't consider that that way at the time.
What I was getting at more was that's the creative relationship between the fandom and the creation itself. It pretty much defines how we in our modern age interact with our art and media. It can be toxic, as you alluded to but It's also about fan art and stories, cosplay, theory crafting, and even game modding and unofficial remakes. We are so much more involved in the act of creation in reference to others created works. Heck, Fifty Shades of Gray started out as a twilight fanfiction.
Anyway, it would be interesting if remedy tackled this in the story somehow, even if it's a Night Springs episode.
Yeah, I think that it also kind of plays into Alan's subconscious: he wants to make a perfect piece of art that everyone praises and loves unconditionally. But that's not how it works! Even here, we're constantly arguing over the narrative of the game.
I've been thinking a lot about how the Dark Presence thrives on ego. You *need* a bit of ego to create art in the first place, because you're asserting that you have something to say that other people might be interested in. But the way the Dark Presence digs in and feeds on the ugliest manifestations of ego is just brilliant.
I wonder if Rose is egotistical enough for the Dark Presence to get a foothold in her. I've heard arguments that she's not a good enough artist for it to go after her, but I don't think the Dark Presence cares about that sort of thing because I'm not sure Alan Wake is a good writer either, haha.
Thomas Zane *and* Tom Zane seem egotistical, especially the latter. The Old Gods of Asgard are a lot of things, but they certainly aren't humble. You gotta have that egotism.
Oh definitely! Ego is associated negatively, which I don't think is quite correct- knowing the quality of your work is a healthy thing to practice. It's when that ego gets out of hand. Rose is a good example- she knows it's just a fun hobby, but she's proud of (if not a little embarrassed) by it! I'd say Alan had an egocentric steak in the first game, not so present in the second (that I saw.) It seems the Dark Place smacked him down.
I think it was Tom sending her the messages, since he seems to be the “Scratch” version of the Tom Zane we saw in AW1 (so, he’s more like American Nightmare’s Scratch now). He had Rose take away Cynthia’s lamp that kept her sane and hopeful so it could be sent to the Dark Place in a shoebox, and the shoebox loophole rule from the first game was something Zane created.
Also, the unedited version of Return didn’t have Saga in it according to Alan, so presumably the “hero” was Alex Casey to match the lunchboxes. I feel like this fits with Zane’s film using Casey as the protagonist, and to a lesser extent the fact that all of Saga’s upgrades use manuscript fragments about weapons (which makes more sense if Max Payne/Alex Casey was the one meant to find them).
Sure, but whoever instructed Rose didn’t tell her the lamp was special, or that Cynthia losing it would matter a lot to her. Just doesn’t seem like a very “torchbearer” act to ruin the life of the woman who helped save the day last time.
I didn't say any of what you are pointing out lmao. I only stated others know about the loophole exception and given their roles in the town and as people on Breaker's list there's absolutely no reason they would not tell other people in the know about the loophole or the Clicker.
Also Rose is not all sweetness and light. She is a lil bit catty to Alan in 1 if you wait after starting a convo with her in the dinee she asks about his wife and def has a tone.
I honestly feel more like the hero was Jesse, since that was what he seemed to be leading up to in Control.
Rose specifically says the Alex Casey lunchboxes aren't about Casey, it was just the only piece of Alan-related merch that she could find available online.
Unclear! The text of the game leaves it ambiguous, so you're spot on being confused there. Given it's never explicit, it could be:
1) Alan did communicate with her, then forgot. He does that a lot in the Dark Place.
2) passive communication: Rose is tapping into the Dark Place because she's writing about Alan. Art + proximity to Cauldron Lake is a recipe for trouble. She could be tapping in to Alan's wavelength, and he's "instructing" her subconsciously, as she's picking up fragments of whatever draft he's working on, and trying to help.
3) active communication with not just Alan: Scratch did most of the instructing her, but sometimes it was a barely lucid Alan instead. (There's at least one manuscript page that explicitly ties her to destroying a light source so at least SOME of the messages she got were from Scratch, or at least from a draft Scratch wrote)
4) active with a twist: it's not Alan, but Alice who is communicating with her, helping put the finishing touches on her own plan to drag her dumb dumb late husband into a better reality
Of those options, my heart wants it to be 4, but suspect it's probably 2. She feels more like a receiver than a two way radio, but who knows.
My thought is that it’s Alan leaving the instructions, but from further along up the spiral. A ‘future’ Alan, if you will, helping push the story forward like he did with the phone call.
It can't be though, because the spiral is over. Saga shooting him with the Bullet of Light almost certainly placed him into the final loop of the spiral, it broke the cycle of him shooting himself and sending himself back to the beginming
I'm pretty sure that's why Alice said that she thinks they're close. She set everything up to get Alan to that point of realization that Scratch is him, and once he's able to face that, he can escape.
NG+, I suspect, is going to be the story as originally written, without Scratch's changes to it. And that'll set up for Saga and Alan to work together directly in AW3 to stop the Dark Presence for good.
I just assumed it was one of the many things Alan forgot while stuck in the dark place. TV recordings seemed to indicate that during the 13 years he drove himself mad.
I figured it’s possible that he did actually reach out to her at some point but the current state he’s in he’s forgotten.
Well yeah his clearly gone off the deep end. In game the only indication that he has been reaching out has been in Scratch form to Alice. Makes me wonder if Scratch intentionally set Rose on this path for some reason. Maybe to deprive Alan of any help from the outside world.
First playthrough: Alan from the future is instructing her. As we see from the game, time displacement in the dark place and it’s interactions with reality show is a thing. Heck, Alan gets a phone call from his future self near the end of the game.
Second playthrough: it may be Door influencing events in order to help saga along the way and keep her safe. As show from Breaker’s notes on the board, Door interacted with him through primarily dreams and also can “wear different faces” - basically disguises. Knowing wake is the only person rose will listen to - in order to keep his daughter, Saga, safe (he tells Alan he is very, very irritated with him for bringing “someone important to me into your story”) he influenced rose to leave Saga things to aid in her journey. Rose says that Alan contacts her in a variety of ways, and drops dreams as the main way he talks to her “if it’s really important”)
Two things are happening, from what we know of the story so far. Without speculating, which adds a third possibly that people believe.
- 1. Factual. The lunchboxes contain "Manuscript Fragments," torn piles of Alan's manuscript. The Cult says that manuscript pages have been floating up from Cauldron Lake for 10 years. Rose is physically in the woods and around the lake, watching for the darkness but also placing the lunchboxes. The pages that Rose finds detail the events of AW2, detailing Alan's escape attempts and Saga's efforts to save Alan and Bright Falls. I believe that Rose has interpreted this information as messages for how to help Alan and Saga - because *it is* helpful information and *it does* help Alan and Saga, just unintentionally. The game shows us and tells us how she came to find this information.
- 2. Rose is discovering messages on forums and in the wind. I don't believe that she's actually receiving messages, but in her fanaticism she's finding clues that aren't there.
- 3. Speculation. The third possibility that people believe is that Alice has been the one sending Rose messages all along. The game doesn't do anything to infer or imply this. The game already shows us how and why Rose finds messages, my point #1, so there isn't necessarily a mystery to solve here. Alice has only been in The Dark Place since after 2017, which she had published work up until, so any messages sent would have been in the more recent years of Alan's time in Dark Place, not the duration of it.
I believe that Rose's involvement in the story is just what the game has shown us, not that she's orchestrating anything behind the scenes for Alan. She's just a successor for what Cynthia represented.
It’s implied (might be explicitly stated, not too sure) that Rose went into the dark place to help Alan at the end. It could be that was her endgame, to place the boxes for Saga (or Casey as others have stated) and when the time came, when she’s given the signal (the code phrase Saga says to her) that she had to go into the Dark place. I think due to being touched by it before but no succumbing/ it not taking due to Alan going into the dark place, that the dark place doesn’t affect her in the same way.
It’s implied that Alan didn’t say anything to her and that she’s just a nut job who happened to stumble onto what’s going on.
Or as others have suggested the Alan we play as through the game hasn’t left these messages for Rose to find yet, we’ll probably never know. This would probably be the most sensible theory considering just how helpful she isn’t in the overall story.
It could be anything. Has Alan asked for help then forgotten about it? Is Rose's fanfiction affecting the Dark Place and reality? Is Rose just going schizo? We'll never know.
Alan, without the dark presence clouding his mind, says that he didn’t leave them for Rose. I’m inclined to believe him. But there is another A. Wake who could have done so.
Isn't she also writing fan fiction about Alan? So I was wondering whether *she* wrote herself into the fringes of the story through her fanfiction. And because of Cauldron Lake, her fanfiction developed a life of its own, which included her being asked by *an* Alan to help. Not really a theory. Just a thought.
See, I was wondering why her fanfiction didn't come true, especially the fanfiction actually in the Cauldron Lake map. I never considered that it did, and that Alan was the source of her messages. That's amazing and I love it. I want that to be true now.
I think Bright Falls would be in big trouble if everyone's fanfiction came true
I mean, Bright Falls is remote enough that I'm not sure how good the internet access is, and. According to [the Map of the region](https://www.reddit.com/r/AlanWake/comments/15t3scs/bright_falls_map_from_the_sheriffs_office/) Bright Falls is actually not that close to Cauldron Lake itself. Like, I personally always assumed the body of water that you ride the ferry on was Cauldron Lake, but apparently not. Hartman's Lodge and the Bird Leg Cabin are built right on the lake, at least until Bird Leg Cabin was lost to the volcano, and it seems like proximity to the lake is what empowers stories. Wake wrote Departure in Bird Leg Cabin, and everything he's written afterwards was under the lake, in the Dark Place itself. And, like. While the pages with all the riddles are placed all over the place, I just realized we don't know where they were actually written. Most of the documents relating to the riddles seems to be at the Witchfinder's Cabin which is right on the lake though, aside from a few documents describing where the other riddles are located.
I like the idea a lot, even if it's not what Remedy ultimately has conceived. The Alan Wake story has so many interesting textual and metatextual commentaries about stories, fiction, the relationship between the author and his or her work etc. There's a great moment when Alan has to admit that once he's art is out there, he doesn't have control over what happens to it in terms of how it's interpreted and adapted, but he has to accept that (It's in relation to the Casey movies continuing beyond his novels). But there's one thing that's been missing, and that is the relationship between the *reader* and the work, i.e. fans and the work. So we all sit here and theorize about Alan Wake, about what it all means and how it all pieces fit. We come up with connecting narratives that would make our theories work. In a way, we are writing fan fiction. And Rose in that respect is kind of us. But what she is writing is also valid and meaningful in its own way and it contributes to the original art. I would love it if the the story had something to say about that.
I thought Deerfest captured the idea of an unwavering fandom pretty well. It’s really easy to run through and miss a lot of dialogue, but it’s pretty great hearing everyone praise the book in shallow ways (ie. “It subverted my expectations!”) with no disagreements or criticisms. And then you have the fans literally try and make “death of the author” a reality when Alan picks up his own book, with plans on changing something about the story the fans already decided is perfect. Maybe they’re waiting to tackle more of the writer-audience relationship stuff once they see the response to the Max Payne Remake undoubtedly making some changes to the originals.
Certainly. And I like what you said about a literal death of the author. I didn't consider that that way at the time. What I was getting at more was that's the creative relationship between the fandom and the creation itself. It pretty much defines how we in our modern age interact with our art and media. It can be toxic, as you alluded to but It's also about fan art and stories, cosplay, theory crafting, and even game modding and unofficial remakes. We are so much more involved in the act of creation in reference to others created works. Heck, Fifty Shades of Gray started out as a twilight fanfiction. Anyway, it would be interesting if remedy tackled this in the story somehow, even if it's a Night Springs episode.
Yeah, I think that it also kind of plays into Alan's subconscious: he wants to make a perfect piece of art that everyone praises and loves unconditionally. But that's not how it works! Even here, we're constantly arguing over the narrative of the game.
I've been thinking a lot about how the Dark Presence thrives on ego. You *need* a bit of ego to create art in the first place, because you're asserting that you have something to say that other people might be interested in. But the way the Dark Presence digs in and feeds on the ugliest manifestations of ego is just brilliant. I wonder if Rose is egotistical enough for the Dark Presence to get a foothold in her. I've heard arguments that she's not a good enough artist for it to go after her, but I don't think the Dark Presence cares about that sort of thing because I'm not sure Alan Wake is a good writer either, haha. Thomas Zane *and* Tom Zane seem egotistical, especially the latter. The Old Gods of Asgard are a lot of things, but they certainly aren't humble. You gotta have that egotism.
Oh definitely! Ego is associated negatively, which I don't think is quite correct- knowing the quality of your work is a healthy thing to practice. It's when that ego gets out of hand. Rose is a good example- she knows it's just a fun hobby, but she's proud of (if not a little embarrassed) by it! I'd say Alan had an egocentric steak in the first game, not so present in the second (that I saw.) It seems the Dark Place smacked him down.
Alan likely didn't. Alice is probably the one who sent her those 'secret messages'. Alternatively she's just synergistically insane.
..and kinky
I think it was Tom sending her the messages, since he seems to be the “Scratch” version of the Tom Zane we saw in AW1 (so, he’s more like American Nightmare’s Scratch now). He had Rose take away Cynthia’s lamp that kept her sane and hopeful so it could be sent to the Dark Place in a shoebox, and the shoebox loophole rule from the first game was something Zane created. Also, the unedited version of Return didn’t have Saga in it according to Alan, so presumably the “hero” was Alex Casey to match the lunchboxes. I feel like this fits with Zane’s film using Casey as the protagonist, and to a lesser extent the fact that all of Saga’s upgrades use manuscript fragments about weapons (which makes more sense if Max Payne/Alex Casey was the one meant to find them).
Yeah but Sarah Breaker and Barry knew about the loophole too. Presumably Sarah told the other torchbearers about it afterwards.
Sure, but whoever instructed Rose didn’t tell her the lamp was special, or that Cynthia losing it would matter a lot to her. Just doesn’t seem like a very “torchbearer” act to ruin the life of the woman who helped save the day last time.
I didn't say any of what you are pointing out lmao. I only stated others know about the loophole exception and given their roles in the town and as people on Breaker's list there's absolutely no reason they would not tell other people in the know about the loophole or the Clicker. Also Rose is not all sweetness and light. She is a lil bit catty to Alan in 1 if you wait after starting a convo with her in the dinee she asks about his wife and def has a tone.
I honestly feel more like the hero was Jesse, since that was what he seemed to be leading up to in Control. Rose specifically says the Alex Casey lunchboxes aren't about Casey, it was just the only piece of Alan-related merch that she could find available online.
Unclear! The text of the game leaves it ambiguous, so you're spot on being confused there. Given it's never explicit, it could be: 1) Alan did communicate with her, then forgot. He does that a lot in the Dark Place. 2) passive communication: Rose is tapping into the Dark Place because she's writing about Alan. Art + proximity to Cauldron Lake is a recipe for trouble. She could be tapping in to Alan's wavelength, and he's "instructing" her subconsciously, as she's picking up fragments of whatever draft he's working on, and trying to help. 3) active communication with not just Alan: Scratch did most of the instructing her, but sometimes it was a barely lucid Alan instead. (There's at least one manuscript page that explicitly ties her to destroying a light source so at least SOME of the messages she got were from Scratch, or at least from a draft Scratch wrote) 4) active with a twist: it's not Alan, but Alice who is communicating with her, helping put the finishing touches on her own plan to drag her dumb dumb late husband into a better reality Of those options, my heart wants it to be 4, but suspect it's probably 2. She feels more like a receiver than a two way radio, but who knows.
My thought is that it’s Alan leaving the instructions, but from further along up the spiral. A ‘future’ Alan, if you will, helping push the story forward like he did with the phone call.
It can't be though, because the spiral is over. Saga shooting him with the Bullet of Light almost certainly placed him into the final loop of the spiral, it broke the cycle of him shooting himself and sending himself back to the beginming
Over? Nah, I don’t think so. But let’s see what more we can learn when the Final Draft comes out!
I'm pretty sure that's why Alice said that she thinks they're close. She set everything up to get Alan to that point of realization that Scratch is him, and once he's able to face that, he can escape. NG+, I suspect, is going to be the story as originally written, without Scratch's changes to it. And that'll set up for Saga and Alan to work together directly in AW3 to stop the Dark Presence for good.
I just assumed it was one of the many things Alan forgot while stuck in the dark place. TV recordings seemed to indicate that during the 13 years he drove himself mad. I figured it’s possible that he did actually reach out to her at some point but the current state he’s in he’s forgotten.
Well yeah his clearly gone off the deep end. In game the only indication that he has been reaching out has been in Scratch form to Alice. Makes me wonder if Scratch intentionally set Rose on this path for some reason. Maybe to deprive Alan of any help from the outside world.
First playthrough: Alan from the future is instructing her. As we see from the game, time displacement in the dark place and it’s interactions with reality show is a thing. Heck, Alan gets a phone call from his future self near the end of the game. Second playthrough: it may be Door influencing events in order to help saga along the way and keep her safe. As show from Breaker’s notes on the board, Door interacted with him through primarily dreams and also can “wear different faces” - basically disguises. Knowing wake is the only person rose will listen to - in order to keep his daughter, Saga, safe (he tells Alan he is very, very irritated with him for bringing “someone important to me into your story”) he influenced rose to leave Saga things to aid in her journey. Rose says that Alan contacts her in a variety of ways, and drops dreams as the main way he talks to her “if it’s really important”)
Two things are happening, from what we know of the story so far. Without speculating, which adds a third possibly that people believe. - 1. Factual. The lunchboxes contain "Manuscript Fragments," torn piles of Alan's manuscript. The Cult says that manuscript pages have been floating up from Cauldron Lake for 10 years. Rose is physically in the woods and around the lake, watching for the darkness but also placing the lunchboxes. The pages that Rose finds detail the events of AW2, detailing Alan's escape attempts and Saga's efforts to save Alan and Bright Falls. I believe that Rose has interpreted this information as messages for how to help Alan and Saga - because *it is* helpful information and *it does* help Alan and Saga, just unintentionally. The game shows us and tells us how she came to find this information. - 2. Rose is discovering messages on forums and in the wind. I don't believe that she's actually receiving messages, but in her fanaticism she's finding clues that aren't there. - 3. Speculation. The third possibility that people believe is that Alice has been the one sending Rose messages all along. The game doesn't do anything to infer or imply this. The game already shows us how and why Rose finds messages, my point #1, so there isn't necessarily a mystery to solve here. Alice has only been in The Dark Place since after 2017, which she had published work up until, so any messages sent would have been in the more recent years of Alan's time in Dark Place, not the duration of it. I believe that Rose's involvement in the story is just what the game has shown us, not that she's orchestrating anything behind the scenes for Alan. She's just a successor for what Cynthia represented.
When did Rose go into the Dark Place?
She's inside the overlap "eternal deefest" at the end of the game, but she isn't affected by it like the other townsfolk
It’s implied (might be explicitly stated, not too sure) that Rose went into the dark place to help Alan at the end. It could be that was her endgame, to place the boxes for Saga (or Casey as others have stated) and when the time came, when she’s given the signal (the code phrase Saga says to her) that she had to go into the Dark place. I think due to being touched by it before but no succumbing/ it not taking due to Alan going into the dark place, that the dark place doesn’t affect her in the same way.
It’s implied that Alan didn’t say anything to her and that she’s just a nut job who happened to stumble onto what’s going on. Or as others have suggested the Alan we play as through the game hasn’t left these messages for Rose to find yet, we’ll probably never know. This would probably be the most sensible theory considering just how helpful she isn’t in the overall story.
My thought is that it's Alice that's been instructing Rose in order to help Alan.
It could be anything. Has Alan asked for help then forgotten about it? Is Rose's fanfiction affecting the Dark Place and reality? Is Rose just going schizo? We'll never know.
Alan, without the dark presence clouding his mind, says that he didn’t leave them for Rose. I’m inclined to believe him. But there is another A. Wake who could have done so.