With Alan Wake 2 out, you'll see the conclusion of the troubled writer's saga may be. But what about the clues we were given in Remedy Entertainment's previous game, Control? Read on to find out whether Alan Wake wrote that game into existence.
Who Came First? Solving One of Alan Wake's Mysteries
Chicken or Egg, Writer or Bureau, Zane, Wake, or the FBC?
Major spoilers ahead for Alan Wake 1 and Control. If you haven’t played those games yet, please do so. They’re great games and are available in most major online game stores, so check them out.
With that out of the way, let’s start discussing one of the mysteries surrounding Alan Wake and its connection to Control. As we discussed in an earlier article on Control’s connection to Alan Wake 2, both games are third-person shooters that are set in the same universe. To recap a bit, the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) in Control is a government agency that investigates paranormal phenomena called "Altered World Events" or AWEs. One of these AWEs was what happened in Alan Wake, which the FBC would refer to as the "Bright Falls Incident"
The FBC investigates the incident, taking in both Dr. Emil Hartman (the man who wanted to use Alan Wake’s creativity to manipulate the powers of Cauldron Lake) and Alan’s wife, Alice, on separate occasions. At this point, however, Dr. Hartman had been ‘taken’ by the Dark Presence for quite some time, and escaped from FBC captivity when he sensed the presence of Alice Wake. This led the FBC to close off a section of The Oldest House, the Investigations Section, while letting Hartman roam free inside.
Eventually, though, Hartman - who had been twisted during the Hiss invasion into "The Third Thing" - was destroyed by the FBC’s new director, Jesse Faden, in Control’s "A.W.E." DLC. Here, it’s implied that Wake had influenced, or even outright wrote, the events of Control to happen; for a hero in the form of Jesse Faden to save him from the Dark Place he was currently trapped in. Wake’s influence could’ve even gone as far as writing the Bureau (and, by extension, Jesse) into existence as well. We ascribed to this theory ourselves in our past articles on the subject.
So that would beg the question: If Wake wrote the events of Control and the people involved into existence, then how much did Thomas Zane (the poet who first encountered the Dark Presence at Cauldron Lake way back in 1970) write the events of the original Alan Wake game into existence? Did Zane write Wake into existence? Does this mean there was no such thing as the FBC in the first place, and it only came into being because Zane influenced reality?
It is easy to assume that is the case, especially if you’ve only played Control and not Alan Wake 1. But, having looked deeper into official sources such as supplementary materials on Alan Wake and the Control Art Book, "The Art and Making of Control," it turns out that this is right… and wrong at the same time.
Because while Alan Wake could influence events to happen in reality from the Dark Place, he’s not powerful enough to write things into existence. The FBC predates him, and Jesse’s adventure through the Bureau is her own - not something that Wake wrote into existence all to save himself.
By extension, the poet Thomas Zane (who first encountered the Dark Presence at Cauldron Lake in 1970) didn’t write Alan Wake into existence to eventually deal with the Dark Presence at Cauldron Lake. Just like Wake, he simply nudged real-world events in the right direction to suit his purposes.
Now, with this hypothesis in mind, let’s look at how exactly Alan Wake didn’t write the events of Control into existence. Keep in mind that some of the information can be conflicting, given that Control came out in 2019, nine years after the release of Alan Wake.
Why Alan Wake Didn’t Write The Bureau or Jesse Into Existence
Okay, let’s first discuss the events of Alan Wake 1, especially its backstory. Around 1970, the poet Thomas Zane and his muse, Barbara Jagger, went to Bright Falls and Cauldron Lake to write poetry. It turns out that, due to the lake’s mysterious influence, Zane’s poems could somehow alter reality. Just in time, too, as Barbara drowned at the lake. In an attempt to revive her, Zane wrote Barbara back to life. Unfortunately, she was possessed by the Dark Presence - a malevolent being that resided within the realm of unreality within Cauldron Lake called "The Dark Place."
Seeing that it wasn’t really his Barbara, Zane sealed the Dark Presence by writing himself and everything else responsible for its emergence out of existence. Unfortunately, Zane’s assistant Emil Hartman was interested in using Cauldron Lake’s powers to alter reality - leading him to open up a clinic for troubled artists. This is where Alan Wake comes in.
To sum up the entire game, Alan’s wife Alice gets whisked away to the Dark Place within Cauldron Lake, and he works to write a story that would save his wife and prevent the return of the Dark Presence - in exchange for his own sacrifice. Which is, to say, trapping himself in the Dark Place as well. From there, Wake does his best to write a story that would one day lead to his escape from the Dark Place without triggering the return of the Dark Presence.
Now, the important part of this backstory is how Alan Wake 1 explicitly shows how both Zane and Wake couldn’t have written either one of themselves into existence. It’s because the rules of Cauldron Lake dictated that the story’s narrative had to make logical sense. It’s why Alan could only affect reality in small ways, and why Zane ended up summoning the Dark Presence in the first place. You cannot just write something into reality the same way Zane tried to just write into reality the resurrection of his dead muse.
If Alan Wake couldn’t write a single person into existence without risking the emergence of the Dark Presence, an entire organization as big as the FBC is out of the question.
Okay, how exactly did Alan Wake influence the events of Control, then? Let’s start off with what Remedy Entertainment themselves have said in the video game’s artbook, "The Art and Making of Control" (which, by the way, is unfortunately out of print). This blurb is in the section of that book which discusses the A.W.E. DLC.
"Alan Wake Returns! We knew long-time fans would expect a big, loud scene with trumpets announcing his return, but we wanted to subvert that expectation and to be clear that here, in this game, Wake is a side character, a visitor. While Wake can nudge events to suit his own needs, he is not some all-powerful hand of (fate?). Jesse’s journey in Control is her own. She is doing what she believes to be right. Jesse is herself, and no one dictates her life. She’s a hero, which is exactly what Wake needs right now."
Take note of what Remedy Entertainment themselves say about the extent of Alan Wake’s powers: "While Wake can nudge events to suit his own needs…" Remedy Entertainment has made it clear, just as they did in the original Alan Wake, that the writer can only influence reality so much. Also, they made clear that Wake was a side character in A.W.E., and that Jesse’s journey in Control was "her own." This means Alan Wake didn’t simply write Control into existence.
But how would Alan Wake know about an ostensibly secret organization like the FBC? Wasn’t the Bureau nigh unnoticeable because of the nature of its headquarters, the Oldest House, which allows it to go undisturbed by most people and the U.S. federal government?
The answer to that question is the same reason why Alan Wake wrote a series of crime novels starring a detective named Alex Casey, while at the same time, an actual FBI agent named Alex Casey exists. It’s because Alan Wake is clairvoyant and can glimpse info that he should not actually have any way of knowing about. In the unlisted YouTube video "Vision 02" by Remedy Entertainment, Alan Wake himself has this much to say about his powers as he’s trapped in the Dark Place.
"The Dark Place was an endless waking dream. I saw visions carried by the ebb and flow of different dream states. They seeped in from the reality beyond. Things I had a connection to, but also things I couldn’t possibly know. I used them in my writing, to make it real, so that the parts that weren’t would become so. And there were visions that I knew were not real, ideas I had lost, often of Casey. I had written about him for years. I used them as well. The lies had to feel true for them to become true. Had I always written this way? Even before? Seeing things without realizing that I was seeing them? Thinking they were mine? Was this what inspiration was for me?"
There’s a lot to unpack from that paragraph, though the most crucial line is "I saw visions carried by the ebb and flow of different dream states. They seeped in from the reality beyond. Things I had a connection to, but also things I couldn’t possibly know," which outright states that Wake’s writing is influenced by these visions. Hence, he may not know that he’s writing about the FBC or Jesse in particular, but he does know the general ideas behind them (a government agency, a hero, etc).
So Wake wrote a story during his time in the Dark Place, taking inspiration from his visions of the FBC, Jesse, the Hiss, and the other major personalities in Control. This story would help mold Jesse into the kind of hero he needed to break him out of the Dark Place, though he may not necessarily know who she exactly was outside of pure coincidence.
So What Does This Mean?
With the circumstances cleared up, Alan Wake did not write the FBC, Jesse Faden, or the Hiss into existence. He merely influenced them with his writing, which is consistent with the reality-bending rules of the Dark Place. What’s also interesting is that Control’s A.W.E. DLC has set up a situation where Alan Wake and Jesse’s paths are bound to cross one way or another. The FBC might even have a hand in his rescue from the Dark Place.
Though we’ve already reviewed Alan Wake 2, we won’t reveal anything. What we will do, though, is suggest that you get the game, as well as Control, and even the original AW, so you can see the full extent of the Remedy Connected Universe. Will Alan get out of the Dark Place? Will the FBC come and get him as he hoped? Or will something else entirely happen? Only you can find out.
