I'm really hoping Remedy is going all out and making the New Game Plus a pretty major change to the story. It would be one of the greatest rug-pulls in the history of gaming, and the game in several ways is screaming that it should be done.

So, Alan spends years writing, forgetting, going insane, going sane, rewriting, failing, and then giving up on "Return." Then he forgets he gave up and presumably writes a short-cut version of "Return" - born of his deep-seeded desire to reunite with Alice - in which the quickest and easiest way out of the dark place is to simply let the Dark Presence win. Alan then "Scratches" out his own name and begins writing out of desperation rather than craft. A new Scratch is born; assembled from Alan's basest desires, an id monster. Presumably this is why Nightingale had to be written out, to make room for Alan to be the new vessel for the DP. This is the ritual to lead you on, your friends will meet him when you're gone. It seems like, to me, that the Dark Presence structured the whole thing just waiting for Wake to break on his own failings so it could fill the void left behind.

Something else that goes well with this: When we switch from Alan to Saga or vice versa, it shows a whirlpool. A whirlpool is just a spiral made of liquid. So, as the player, we're going up/down the spiral to switch characters.

There is apart of me that is convinced that everything that happens to him in the dark place is a reaction to his writer's block. He is still in a position where he has to write for survival, to save someone. He is not naturally getting past his block so even when he does write, he always goes back behind the block and his comments at the end of the games is him resetting everything to be put back behind the block(Lake->Ocean, Loop->Spiral) and I think a good visualization of this issue is the writers room. To escape the dark place, to beat Mr. Scratch, to save/"avenge" his wife he must go back to the one place his subconscious does not want to be. the games are him forcing himself to write what he needs and not what he wants, which is a good analogy to an actual writers block and then he spirals downwards because he cannot get past his block and the only way he can ascend the spiral is if he gets past his block.

There's a thing about overlaps that I like the most: it's not only overlaps in a "fiction-on-reality" way, but also "draft-on-draft" overlaps. Alan wrote several drafts of "Initiation" about "the detective in New York", but none of them worked well enough. So, when he continued his work, he used his exact ideas in the new draft (which he expected to be "Return", but IT IS actually "Initiation"), but adapted them to the new setting. In the places, where he used those ideas unchanged in their core, but a bit adapted - there's where the overlaps happen. FBI agent killed by the cult in the subway becomes Nightingale; two cops, who killed a kid and hide the body in the well become Mulligan and Thornton; the lady killed in the bath in the hotel becomes Cynthia Weaver. Everything we see as Alan in The Dark Place has never happened and actually wasn't even in a finished book - it was his search for ideas, which led to the Saga's story in the end. The Saga's story is "Initiation". After finishing it, Alan supposedly understands how "the process of writing" works in its core, that it's iterative, so it's a spiral. The whole story is about "creating the perfect work of art", so to say

I’m honestly in awe at the shear amount of narrative content in this game has. There’s an endless amount of discussion to be had on any seemingly small aspect. You sure got your work cut out for you.

AW2 also borrowed the "3 loops of 3 acts" structure from American Nightmare for the Initiation chapters. I'm hoping that won't extend into the true ending being New Game++, though the way the beginning of AW2 already strongly hints this isn't the first loop could mean that's already taken care of.

Best analysis of AW2 so far. I have never waited to start a NG+ like that. Just waiting for an excuse to replay this masterpiece, and having more elements to the story and hopefully more fulfilling ending is a great excuse to say the least

When I finished the game, I felt pretty confident what "the spiral" was, and what Alice Wake hoped to help Alan through, was analogous to Buddhist reincarnation. Every cycle Alan goes through, Alice wants to help him get a little closer to letting go. She even uses the word "ascend", if I recall. This is in contrast to the man who claims to be Tom Zane, who is shown tempting Alan with an escape, but alcohol and cocaine. Mr Scratch's "perfect" world was the natural conclusion of Alan's obsession over his own writing, his anger, and the hedonism that comes with being a celebrity. The first huge step Alan took is rejecting that world and his own freedom because he knew it would come at the cost of Saga's life. He and those who care about him (Alice, The Old Gods, Ahti, and arguably Mr. Door now that it's clear Alan wouldn't selfishly sacrifice Saga) are helping him strip away all those temptations and stressors over each cycle. Whether his "ascension" means literal escape back to reality , moving to a higher plane like Dr. Darling from Control, or just getting to die, I don't know. My gut is that this is meant to be the end of his story though, and not a declaration of future content. If that's the case I'm perfectly happy with that.

This is one of the videos I was most looking forward to when playing through this game. I’m fascinated by how Alan has evolved over his time in the Dark Place. To me, it feels like the second version of Mr. Scratch comes, not from the dark ideas that others have about him, but his own dark thoughts about himself. He’s literally fighting his own self doubt.

You kind of said something similar here to what I imagine the spiral to be: The ending of the spiral is connected to the beginning. Now, you could use this to describe things happening in each game, but I think its better to look at it from the perspective of all games. The spiral is the symbol for all (probably 3) games and the points where the connection from the ending of the spiral to the beginning intersects, is the ending of one game and beginning of the next. The first descent (the destruction part, as Alice calls it) starts at the outside of the spiral and goes down until it reaches the intersection point, the end of Alan Wake 1. There the second descent starts and moves even deeper in until the next intersection, the end of Alan Wake 2. Now, as for Alan Wake 3, we will again start at the point we left off and we first have to go down until we reach the center. From there we will finally ascend up through the connection and be really free of the Dark Place (or will we just start descending again? Who knows). On the way up we could have flashbacks to the stories that happened at each intersection with the spiral. I immediately thought about this at the end of AW2 because of a game I played aaaaages ago, Uru. It is kind of using the same symbolism, but in a different context: "An ending has been written? You've done all that has been asked. You've traveled the full circle. You have returned to the Cleft through the Fissure. You swam among the stars and saw the remnants of previous journeys. You have returned and the pillars were returned, and now one more of the bahro, the least, has been returned to D'ni. You don't need to understand what that means, only that the hand of the Maker has set it in motion. Now the circle is complete and the tree has begun to grow again. The path is now open, and so the symbol of the Journey must change. Now the beginning is tied to the end. Now you can go where you wish." Im not sure if that made sense in writing, but I hope so, and sorry for the long comment. Also, thank you for all your great videos trying to explain all of this stuff!

Hi Dean, great video! This is something unrelated, but SPOILER I noticed that in the song "Dark, twisted and cruel" most of the lyrics are taken directly from a Zane's poem (Poem 1 April 09) from This House of Dreams. The poems are referenced only by Zane the director and this song. Also, the poems Alan finds at the end of each overlap talk about Scratch/Alan and all three end with what Zane the Diver said about Scratch at the end of the first one: "Your friends will meet him when you are gone". Not to mention how the Hiss incantation is continuously referenced throughout the game. It's amazing how they inserted all these little details!

Loved it! And kudos to the editor too, it's so visually pleasing and stimulating. On the topic of Scratch, my take on him is that this latest version was created out of the Dark Presence's desire to have Alan write it into reality so darkness can be spread across the world (this was the primary motivation in AW 1 as well). So it makes sense that it came into being when Alan was ready to give up. It then also makes sense it collaborated with Zane to write their joint escape from The Dark Place. I do think there's an extra dimension here to consider that's thematically relevant: it came into being out of Alan's despair at thinking he'd caused Alice's suicide. Throughout the game, we see people being Taken due to their own insecurities, feelings of guilt, doubt, mistakes...the darkness in their own minds, basically. This version of Scratch seems to prey on that. AFAIR the Dark Presence didn't really used to work like that, right? People just got attacked and then became Taken. But now there's this thematic link between possession by Scratch and the darkness in people's minds. Not sure where we're going with this, hope NG+ will bring more clarity. But I found that a really interesting aspect of this game.

Was waiting for the first deep dive video on Alan Wake 2! We've got a long way to go until we even scratch the surface of this game and everything it has hidden within

It’s interesting to me that the lore of overlaps in Arizona is very similar to a lot of the local lore down here about the Vortexes

I think Alan realized that the tone of the first draft didn't really match up with Departure, not to mention he was skipping Initiation altogether. I think he skipped it initially because he just wanted to go home. Then he realized the ending was too cliche and needed to be more ambiguous. So the story became a trilogy.

Oh boy! Bit of a mindfuck when I think of lighthouse stairs being a spiral and how that first dream sequence in AW1 ends🤔 Thank you. I needed that realization this morning XD It's quite possible you've already made a video on this so I can always be pointed there, but I did some spiral searching a smidge back after playing through Control and becoming obsessed with an RCU. In the original Alan Wake 1, after noclip/freecam scouring the game for any spirals, there was only ever one spiral I could find. It was a spiral that appears on a book face and that book appeared a few times throughout the game(Like a bad Remedy fan, I did not end up getting the AW Remaster so I am unsure if those books are still present or not in there at all). The spiral being so specific to Alan's world in Control, and it being represented on a book, I think it could just possibly dig even deeper into the question of who exactly wrote who. Here's the big question, how much merit is there in the possibility that similar to using influence in the cabin to write his Thomas Zane/Barbra Jagger story, maybe just maybe he could have used the spiral on a book and it's meaning as a writer, to write a bigger and deeper universe where the FBC/all these crazy entities exists?? Could be reaching, but I've had those spiral books in the back of my mind for like 5 years and I have to believe their connected somehow🥲

10:04 I think being caught in the loop with Alan is why Scratch is angrier in II than he was in American Nightmare.

Honestly, I’m considering not even calling the “Scratch” in AWII by that name, because “he” acts more like Alan’s other half in the first game’s DLC; he’s all of Alan’s negative aspects, given power by the Dark Place, and he even gives Alan headaches! To me, this makes me wonder if Alan, when confronting this manifestation of his Shadow, didn’t incorporate it like he should-which is totally in-character for an author who tries to skip the “initiation” phase of storytelling to get to the “return” part-and, instead, suppressed it; then, when Alan finally gives up and stops writing, “Scratch” comes rearing to the forefront and steals the show, with Alan blind to its machinations. Also, side note: I’ve been entertaining the idea that the Astral Plane and the Dark Place are being presented as reflections of themselves, sort of as Yin and Yang? Yin being “dark/passive”, and Yang being “light/active”, this would align with the ideas that the Astral Plane is a place of conscious/active thought, and the Dark Place one of unconscious/passive thought. Going further…it’s funny how the Board is almost like the spot of “yin” to the Astral’s “yang,” but what would be the spot of “yang” in the Dark Place’s yin? Not Alan, surely…perhaps the “Bright Presence”? Or Zane??

LETS GOOOOOO ALAN WAKE 2 VIDEOS ARE FINALLY HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I keep being reminded of the "Rule of 3" from Control

The spiral is also demonstrated in Saga's boss fights in the overlap. She sees the same "loop" when she's actually going deeper and deeper down the spiral until she reaches a final point: the boss fight itself.

The amount of content on this channel will SPIRAL out of control. After only liking the streams for the algorithm before leaving them immediately, i could not possibly resist the analysis of this game. I'm going to spoil it for me, but i still don't have time for playing this masterpiece myself.

Wow i tought your videos coudn’t get any better, but damnnn the editing, the structure of the video and the graphics are so perfect. You have quickly become one of my favourite youtuber

Great video Dean. I haven't played American Nightmare so I didn't realize Alan had to perform a serious of rituals just right to get the result he needed. The idea that NG+ might get us a different ending where Alan might be closer to his goal is intriguing. It would definitely be Sam's style

I'd love to see more videos like this about Alan Wake (from your channel and others). Always so engaging to be on the edge of new fan theories and revelations.

wow, the production quality of this video is above and beyond!

This video is spectacular! Thank you for this! Also thank you for having the scratch over Scratch's name, it adds so much to him!

Looking forward to your chapter song analysis. Great video as always. Love the addition of the "Tom Zane" film reel style. *Chef's kiss.*

Love the production style of this video! Amazing work

Amazing video and analysis... and incredible editing 🔥🔥 There are already a lot of thresholds in RCU that we must solve and figure out...

I’m only 1:45 in and I have to say that you did a great job explaining the difference in which direction the spiral goes. In a previous video, I think you used a spiral that we looked down upon, and that made it a little difficult to visualize how it might be different depending on the direction. The visual you used here made it crystal clear. Love the video so far!

This was awesome brother. American Nightmare was so underrated, nice to see some analysis of it! Thanks for making and keep up the good work.

Been waiting for these videos. Hopefully more soon

I've been hyped to see your thoughts on AW2 so thanks for this!

Thank you for this video. All through AW2 I just kept thinking how similar it was to AN. You're one of the few people out there that will talk about those connections.

ahh the EDITING in this. top notch i love it

Fantastic video as always! And the editing is awesome... as always!!! 😆

Love the new editing style!

so excited the Alan wake 2 lessons are starting. With the new lore and info we have, I think we're in for such a treat!

man, I am playing all remedy games again after i finished alan wake 2. i have to feel all the referencies so i can return and play for the second time alan wake 2

Excellent video as always. I can't wait for the NG+ and I really hope it will be the true, final draft of the story and we'll have the proper ending, that would be so cool!

Great video @10:23 the scratching was so sick

Great video as always! Thank you very much! I think I agree on most points! The Alan Wake universe has such an amazing story and lore. It’s really unbeatable. I really hope we get more story on Alan though in Alan Wake 3, as I’m not a huge fan of dual protagonists :p

Excellent content! Looking forward to more.

So happy Alan Wake is out because I get to hear your expert analysis on everything.

Are we really sure that this new Scratch is a splitted part of Alan? Because to me it seemed like he was just Alan possessed by Darkness

Great video man! Subscribed

Babe wake up, Gaming University has started dropping Alan Wake 2 content

This narrative is basically tailor-made for new stories and endless potential... They could literally do anything, it could be as realistic and silly as they want. Set in a town, a jungle a colony on mars... As long as they follow the structure of the hero's journey. I can't wait to see what they do with control 2.

I just realized that Polaris in control has a spiral

I love whenever he says “Mr. Scratch” it says like ur skipping a radio stations :)

Amazing video.

You have done a great job along the years , I thank you for that , it's a pleasure to see some of thing you theorized to be true in AW2 , thank you so much Man.

Thank you this was one on the main things I needed an explanation for because I was so confused on WTF “it’s a Spiral.” means. I’m so ready for NG+ as well as Nightmare difficulty for AW2.

Streamed this game for my girlfriend and she loved it. It was a very good game. Love the remedy-verse story and how it’s so intricate and interwoven between games

Late to the party... But here goes anyway! Played through at launch, then played other games for a while. Just finished my Final Draft playthrough. I don't think that Mr. Scratch and Scratch are the same antagonist in a literal sense, and I think Alan spells out that distinction when he describes Mr. Scratch as "a caricature of all the tabloid headlines, etc." about Alan. Mr. Scratch is the sum of all those stories as Alan sees them. He is what Alan imagines those tabloid stories must see when they see him. In contrast, Scratch in Alan Wake II is Alan's own personal insecurities. The distinction is subtle, but essentially Mr. Scratch's personality does not include Scratch, but Scratch includes Mr. Scratch. Scratch in AWII is a much more comprehensive set of all the worst things Alan secretly believes about himself. The things plausible enough to be real. And given the nature of the spiral here where Alan is Scratch in AWII... that means that Alan subconsciously believes they are truly the same person. Whereas he was able to keep some personal distance from Mr. Scratch, and recognized Mr. Scratch as something to absurd to be real. Which incidentally lead to Alan actually confronting Mr. Scratch and performing a ritual that prevented Mr. Scratch from becoming part of the real world.

I can’t watch this yet bc I’m not done with AWII, but just saw it on the playlist & how high the view count was. Congratulations! Here’s to hoping the older vids get a bump too, bc they help contextualize a ton!

Finally I found a video that is talking about what I think. It was nice to listen to the same thoughts I have. However, I don't think the story will be concluded with new game plus. This is a huge concept with really peculiar natrative and I do expect more games of this franchise.

i've been researching the remedyverse myself the past 2 weeks. I feel i have a pretty good grip on the story by now. I was now looking to see if others came to similar conclusions. Its shocking how many video essayists tried to capture alan wake but either stayed very surface level or got many things wrong. I'm going to enjoy watching the rest of your video's I think. The big thread i'm looking into now is exactly how alan contacted alice through writing those rituals about the cult of the word. It's clear alice was contacted loop upon loop. That's why she says she is haunted every day now. But i'm not 100% sure yet how alan projected himself out to new york in the real world. Perhaps because of all the prep he did with the cult of the word somehow. The story of that summoning and working for mr scratch, even though it was really alan himself creating the cult and so he IS scratch? Something like that? I think you're mistaken about a part of Mr. Scratch. You're fully correct about alice her short film being played being the vocal point of american nightmare. And this shattering Mr. Scratch. Alice playing a similar role in alan wake 2 makes sense too. Here is my problem.. Mr. Scratch is a concept. The concept of the urban legend. You're missing a key part of the puzzle. This key part is barbara jagger. Barbara jagger was created in similar fashion to Mr. Scratch. According to the story of "departure" by alan wake, She was the muse of zane. She drowned. Zane wrote a new version of her into being that came out wrong. I believe this to be a version of scratch. She was based on rumors about the witch. The andersons also call her "the scratching hag" in their song "children of the elder god". Alan resolves the story of the scratching hag in a similar fashion. During the events of signal he puts the clicker inside of her and banishes her with light. We know these kinds of things are metaphorical. Note that this is also the last time we ever saw barbara jagger and tom the poet in their current iteration. It seems to me that alan rewrote their histories and made it real with the clicker. To me this feels like the birth of the filmmaker thomas zane and the witch of cauldron lake that killed the sheriff, which is still jagger. "Retconned" in a way that still makes sense with the overarching narrative of departure. Its just the diver from thomas's film that was guiding alan now. It's become a "collaborative" story. At least.. a deeper layer down. I honestly think alan doesn't just experience loops.. he writes them. Like his projection of alan makes a projection who makes a projection. We see two instances of these projections meeting. The obvious one is when alan kills other alan. The other one is when alan meets "filmmaker zane". If you look closely at the scenes between the two in room 665 you at some points see two alans, and most importantly, at some points you see two zane's. They're the same person. Just aspects of alan. Alan is the writer and the filmmaker. Just like how alan himself wrote the diver in the first game. It's alans plan all along to trick himself to think he needs to get there before scratch. We even see snippets of tom shooting alan like a rehearsal, acting out the scene that happens later when "alan shoots scratch(himself)". This theme is then repeated by alan shooting zane and zane not really being dead. This also mimics the final scene in the game where the spiral goes into its next loop. make note of the spiral in zane's room. Make note of the ending of the scene where zane crawls away, and there being a second/third alan in the room getting out of a chair. Its like a convergence point. Alans from different places in the spiral have met in this room. Alan even mentions at some point he's completely reinvented himself a few times already. This is also the only theory i can come up with that actually makes it so theres a reason for ahti and the andersons calling alan tom. They've lived through many stories and loops. They remember various loops where alan played the role of tom. We don't know how far up and down in the spiral we are at any given time. If this still doesn't make sense to you, remember the story of the dlc "writer". Alan is tortured by an aspect of himself a layer above him luring him into all kinds of traps. the projected alan is the aspect of reasoning. They meet later in the writers room and reunite. I also want to call attention again to the song "children of the elder god". The song is about two ravens who are the "children" of odin. The birds are called memory and thought. This to me sounds like the old gods are describing a form of the astral projection alan went through. They went a little insane because their memory and thought aspects were weakend. Perhaps part of them even left or consumed by the dark place? tor also lost his "storm". And odin physically an eye. Some time after the events of the first game the story was retconned to fit into the new universe where barbara didn't became the scratching hag. And instead this fight took place 10 years later and the one they were facing was Mr. door. So the song is no longer fitting at the alan wake 2 point in the loop. I'm afraid i don't know exactly all the details of what these aspects metaphorically stand for just yet. But you get the point. Alan wrote about himself in the dark place and thus projects himself. Tor and odin created songs based of aspects of themselves that took the form of ravens. They eventually managed to beat back the dark place in a way, though it still grips them. The fact they sound like their younger selves and weaken further after every performance now likely has something to with this process too. its also very interesting that the dark place used birds and storms against alan in the first game. Concepts the dark place picked up from tor and odin maybe. These elements are gone in alan wake 2. Likely because the retcon fight with mr door that just cost odin an eye. So we have 3 scratches. One for every story alan wrote that we interact with. "the scratching hag" "Mr scratch" and now "scratch". The first two follow the pattern of rumors. BUT were also created. Jagger was written into being by zane. It had to be based on something in reality. And since the real barbara was dead, it was the rumors. American Nightmare seems to have been created specifically to deal with the version created during signal. The one zane the diver tried to sweep under the rug and didn't want us to think about. The third.. very similar but more convoluted... I think alan is just misleading us in the story. It was he himself who haunted alice and scratched out the manuscript. We know this for sure. I think alan at various points in the spiral worked with himself to set this up and dupe the alan furthest along in the spiral to think its scratch haunting alice. The scratch we encounter then in the real world is the scratch born from the rumors of alice's exhibition. The new face of the dark presence. But this time not a body double. Because this time it was alan himself that created these rumors. It was a collaborative work with alice. the rumors were real. The outward appearance not so, but the man inside the photographs was really alan so to speak. And thus scratch manifested himself inside alans actual body as the dark presence. All for the purpose of saga being able to shoot it with the bright bullet (which is a metaphor for potentially damaging truth alan was scared of, but turned out to be that alice is actually alive).

Great video, Dean! Love it! Speaking of Scratch, I'm pretty sure that Mr. Scratch from the first game and American Nightmare is the Finnish director Thomas Zane (Seine), and I have solid proof. You know the story of how Alex Casey investigated the Cult of the Word and its leader Mr. Scratch. The detective met him eventually in Seine's cinema, but we never saw this leader's face. I managed to check the game files and found that his echo is labeled as "zane_scratch". And everything suddenly made sense, you know. The popular celebrity invited to the hotel turned out to be Mr. Scratch, who killed the muse. How Zane's missing lamp ended up in Seine's possession. How Cynthia said Tom reached out to her. And Seine had been living in this very hotel all this time and knew the site of the murder to point it out to Alan. It is believed that Seine, like Thomas Zane, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1970 and allegedly never escaped the Dark Place, but Alex Casey met him in New York in 2013. This makes sense because Mr. Scratch can move between the real world and a Dark Place. There are also prototypes of phone calls in the game files, in which Seine intentionally introduces himself as Alan Wake, using the intonation of the cult leader's voice. Such calls are signed as "talk_to_zane_at_payphone_scratch". You know, there is a lot going on in the game that substantiates this conclusion, besides Seine's nickname "Dark Doppelganger" on the poster, The Happy Song (with that pulpy tone in general) and the wedding band, although Barbara wasn't Zane's wife in any version. Tom even wears the same clothes! I think when Remedy named the Dark Presence Scratch, they intentionally wanted to confuse everyone and even create the impression that Scratch may have been part of Alan the whole series. That he was his Jung's "shadow". But the Bright Presence knew the truth and said that Mr. Scratch is a separate entity. And I find it very suspicious that they "retconned" Tom's surname into Seine, as if to make the first letter match the Devil's alias. Anyway, I hope I didn't ruin the fun with this digging. I wish you all the best!

Scratch can literally mean "from scratch" in the beginning of every loop in Spiral he writes a new version of story as a Scratch

''Diving deep to the surface'' from Herald of Darkness might suggest that the spiral doesn't end in singularity, rather an escape. Here's hoping, for Alan's sake.

Stephen King did something similar in The Dark Tower series. (Spoiler warning!) “Ka is a wheel,” gets repeated throughout the books, but at the end the Gunslinger begins to ascend the Tower only to end up back in the desert where the story began before he can reach the top… except this time he has his friend’s horn, which he forgot/left behind previously, indicating that this time ‘round he knows more and is better prepared, getting closer to reaching his goal.

this is so going to be how new game plus works.

I love the graphics in this one looks great

9:29 ur giving me ptsd from teh game 💀

Its ironic that Alice is the reason Alan beats Mr Scratch in American Nightmare. In AW2 she's also the reason Saga gets the Clicker, essentially helping him again.

One could say that the Remedyverse is *Drumroll* ...spiraling out of Control!

I love your editing in your videos ,are you gonna do more psychonauts related videos?

I love the analogy between the spiral and the development of a story from idea to completion. It didn't occur to me that the spiral was also a reference to the notion of drafts. I have some additional thoughts about the idea of the spiral as narrative progression within the context of the meta-narrative itself. The game plays out with "loops within loops" - a fractal spiral, it seems sometimes. The whole game is a spiral (each time it's played will be at least a little different based on the choices of the player), each time Alan restarts a new draft of Initiation is a spiral, and different based on what he learns, and even within the various specific gameplay sections are little loops which aren't actually loops (as they change over time: thinking of Saga in the bunker, for example). We really only have a few layers, but it's possible that there are more, larger layers.

5:42 There is a quote from a poem in the game that saga can find in ng+ and alan finds i belive in the cinema overlap that has the excerpt "when night springs, bright falls" and it was talking about the overlaps i think.

The part of rituals makes me remember how in Control the Oldest House respond to certain rituals and procedures based in dream logic. The FBC records and catalogs theses "rituals" to make them standard in how they operate. These match the description of the writings of Alan Wake (a overlap it is a threshold in Control terms). The Dark Place has its own rituals About Scratch, I think in AW2 it is another thing entirely, only borrowing the name for Scratch from American Nightmare. In AW2 Scratch is just Alan Wake with the Dark Presence in him, they use that name because both are a evil version of Alan, but in American Nightmare it is just another creation of the Dark Place

Alan Wake has been such an awesome new experience for me. I remember when I was younger, I couldn't get too much into the first AW since it was really boring gameplay wise, but now the story is just mindblowing to me. And I like it most of all because it has inspired me to be a better person. Along with watching an anime that taught me the value of compassion, AW has only solidified that value in me, and also has brought me up from a dark time in my life. You see Alan, an angry yet regretful man being cast into an absolute hell because of his actions, and it is through the story being told that he goes from a hard headed and troubled man who can't control his anger to... I don't know, to be honest. The series isn't over, and we don't know what exactly he is thinking. But I like to think he is changing for the better throughout all this. I think my favorite moments from AW2 was when we realize Scratch is Wake and vice versa, and the ending where we learn 'it isn't a loop; it's a spiral.' I like the Scratch/Wake dilemma because, for most of the series, we were lead to believe Scratch was some entity conjured up by the darkness to impersonate Wake and also demoralize him, as he does evil deeds. He was not Wake; he was a tangible enemy, something to fight and kill (this is how I saw it at least). But by 2, we come to learn that Scratch is Wake, just his dark side: his anger and all other flaws of Wake brought out into the real world. There's also this line in 'Herald of Darkness' where Door mentions Wake's 'Made up furies' which I didn't at first get. Throughout the first Alan Wake, I pretty much thought Wake was understandable: he didn't like pushy fans, he didn't like that his wife went behind his back and had them go to Washington for Hartman, and he didn't like that, despite the mental block, Alice still insisted in mentioning writing to him with the typewriter gift. But, as I thought about this line more, I realized something. We are all responsible for how we deal with our anger and our emotions, at the end of the day. We see through the events of the first game that he didn't understand that and he let them run loose: he didn't appreciate his fans nearly as much as he disliked them, he punched Hartman at the first mention of Alice contacting him bc of Alan's block and then ended up not getting any help, and finally stormed out when he saw Alice's gifts. Despite the fact that these things may have touched his nerves at the moment, he failed to understand that they were done for his betterment and out of love by Alice, and he lets his anger overcome him. When it is revealed Scratch is Wake, it is essentially a metaphor that Alan's anger is like his enemy and his responsibility at the same time, and that ultimately, he could have controlled his anger, but we don't even know if Alan sees it that way, or if he is still blind to his harmful ways. But what gives me hope is the spiral bit at the ending. Personally, I have been through moments like Alan where it all seems lost: like the situation is so hurtful and feels so useless that you can't do it anymore. You want to give up and end the cycle of depression, then a glimpse of hope, then disappointment and just have peace. But when Alice's message reaches Wake, there is almost a brightness in his eyes as he wakes up and says those words. It's like he's found something to latch onto in the darkness, and he's ready to advance the spiral now with newfound hope in his heart. I know you've covered the theory of the archetypal writer, but I personally hope it may be less of him just becoming a better writer, but also a better person as well. One who learns to appreciate Alice and his fans and his friends, and he learns that his reality-changing writing is doing more harm than good and he tries to write with the wellbeing of others in mind, and when or if he comes back from the dark place, he learns to get on with life and be a better man at the same time. This is more than likely a bit of projection, but I can't help but hope that Alan escapes the Dark Place with Alice and lets go of his harmful ways so that he may have a more fulfilling and loving life- all because the Dark Place held up a mirror to him and showed him the truth and error of his ways.

This is really good, there's a lot of compelling stuff here. Something I still can't piece together is why Zane (I believe as the Light Presence) tells Alan "Don't mind him, he's Mr. Scratch. Your friends will meet him when you're gone." Why would the Light Presence be so non-chalant about it, considering he's a form of the Dark Presence and intends to do harm? Also, Scratch mentions letting Alice get glimpses of him in American Nightmare. Can American Nightmare Scratch appear in the real world and that's what Alice reports seeing in AWE, or is that supposed to be Alan who from a later version of Return as revealed in Alan Wake 2?

Thank you for shedding some light (ha) on American Nightmare and the themes it introduced. I watched some videos going over the story of each game and its dlcs and expansions and their take away was basically "writing hokey, game bad" and while I generally agree that it wasn't great, there were good things in it, things of value that were carried forward.

It’s so small, but I miss how American Nightmare would “pronounce” Mr. S(r@t(h. Granted, considering how important he was to this story, I see why censoring his name would be impractical, but it added so much to him. Anyways, GREAT video!!

Excellent video :). It's interesting that even with a seemingly infinite spiral, we the audience only see the rituals repeated in threes, where the 3rd is Alan's major success. American Nightmare was repeated 3 times, Saga goes into 3 overlaps then can pull out Alan, Alex Casey novels rewritten as the Cult of the Word rewritten as the Cult of the Tree, etc. We've seen only two drafts of 'Return', in American Nightmare and in Alan Wake II, which implies the 3rd time will work.

Finally! An Alan Wake II lore video!!!

Ah! i see you possibly read my "SPIRALS GO DOWN!" rantings that i've been posting everywhere lol! I do suppose a tree spirals upward in some sense, thats one possibility, i still see spirals as symbolically leading towards their center though. Even if the seed of growth is there, its more of an end point for all the objects interacting with the spiral. For the spiral, its center may be its beginning, and the outer edge its end, but to anyone interacting with a spiral, the natural tendency is to end up at its center, whether tracking with your eyes or exploring somehow, if you're in a spiral, you realize at the center, not at the edge. The on other important thing to consider is the 3rd option: not end, not beginning, forever, same as the loop. In purely abstract space, unhindered by the granularity of human physical or visual limitations, the spiral can move towards the center forever, fractally, and never arrive. I lean towards the other interpretations because i feel like the story is steering us towards its end-point, so naturally i want to assume the spiral ends. But to counter that statement once more, the endings of AW1 and AW2 lead me to conclude we may well end AW3 with another "Its not X its Y" moment that could easily be "it goes on forever... its not an end its a beggining"

Would love to see your view on the subject of Alice Wake and her ultimate fate. I think that we can tell with pretty certainty that shes in the dark place. She crossed the threshold to it second time to help Alan escape. In the final draft ending she tells Alan, that she came into contact with the organisation which looking into what happened around Cauldron Lake in 2010. The player is led to believe that she’s referring to the FBC, especially since we know from the AWE dlc to Control that she went to the oldest house some time after the events of the first Alan wake game. But, from the collectibles we know, that the FBC in the common fashion of secrecy didn’t actually help Alice, didn’t told her anything. What I think is that the organisation she’s referring to could be Blessed Organisation. Could be interesting story of future game content or even dlc with Alice as protagonist. She even could have her own game mechanics with her fotos and their influence on reality and the Dark Place.

When you think about it, the spiral is also a perfect description of both the Overlaps and the Dark Place levels.

Alan Wake's american nightmare, alan trapped in the dark place, was such a cool concept

Im now starting my ng+ run and oh boy, without spoiling there are already things diffirent

great !! maybe for new game plus i'll manage the timezones a bit better ^^

Hey Gaming University, I don't really usually leave a comment, but I just wanted to share a thought with you. Knowing how much Sam Lake is a Stephen King fan, don't you think reading The Dark Tower (especially the end) could be interesting because the spiral even if it's not mentionned could be considered as a reccuring theme and put some event under a new light. To me the remedy connected universe could be a reimagining of the stephen king dark multiverse, Jesse Faden could be considered a Breaker ( shining user), Alan as a writer can be considered as Stephen King himself and as a character could be seen as Roland because he is following a man first seen dressed in black (Mr scratch) to confront him. You could also argue that the oldest house can be as an analogy of the dark tower, and the main antagonist of the dark tower is the Scarlet King waiting in front of the tower, scarlet is the color of the hiss and it remains in the oldest house, I won't list more things because it'll make my comment more tedious but I guess you can see where I'm coming to with all these elements. Anyway take care and thank you very much for your content.

I do wonder how much will be changed in NG+ like will the plot remain the same and small things will be changed or will it be major changes. Alan always says the most confusing things when the game ends (from ‘Its not a lake, it’s an ocean’ to the now ‘it’s not a loop, it’s a spiral’) I really hope he actually gets out of the Dark Place. Something I’m also curious on is Saga’s role, especially in NG+ if there are going to be new things. I wonder if she will be aware of these new changes (I think most likely) and if she is aware now how much will she try to change to ensure that the stuff that happened last time won’t happen again. Gosh there’s so many theories running through my head! One thing the Remedy Games are good at is making you have so many theories and interpretations of things. Makes me even more excited for future games they are making! Can’t wait for the Max Payne remakes and Control 2! Also I do kinda miss whenever you said Mr Scratch’s name that a scratching noice plays.

I do hope we get a dlc with the same type of play style we got with saga and alan (swapping between characters) but with alice and alan. Could start off as alice when she first arrives into the dark place again and her journey to find alan and when we play as alan we are replaying certain sections of the main game but little changes that hints to alan that alice is there and eventually lead to him searching for alice. Eventually the two find eachother and end the dlc right there so alan wake 3 would be the 2 of them trying to escape and saga on the outside trying to help

Just a small theory of mine: the spiral and Polaris (from control) are connected. Every time you approach a fast travel point and every cutscene that involves Polaris, it's a spiral of sorts.

Remember everyone, we still have TWO DLCs to look forward to as well as NG+, so this story is far from over

All stories are scary. How do they truly end & what made them really begin? No one will ever know and that’s the infinite void of creativity…

I also wanted to comment on the idea of the Dark Place flowing like water (lake/ocean/etc.), because it reminded me of this bit: "What I'm looking for when I'm a player is full immersion. I don't want the experience of being a 'storyteller' when I'm a PC, and that's a little bit of a different thing, like a lot of indie games want a flat hierarchy around the table where everybody takes turns as the storyteller; I don't want that when I'm a player. When I'm a player I want to be living in a story, immersed into a character that is not, to their knowledge, living in a story. Like Evan Kelmp said in Misfits & Magic, 'I'm not a character,' right? I don't want to play a character that's thinking about their fucking narrative arc. I want to play a character that wants to save the world as quickly and efficiently as possible, right? But I, the player, want the arc. So, me and my character exist at odds, because I want the deep immersion, I want the fucking Mount Doom, Frodo's quest, all that shit, but I want to play a character that doesn't want that. I want to play a character that gets the Ring as quickly as possible to Mount Doom, because that's the immersion I'm looking for. So, what does that mean if I want to provide that experience to a player? Players are like water. They are going down the hill as fast as they can, seeking the path of least resistance. That's what the character is like, water, but the player wants anything other than a straight line. So, my job as 'rails' is irrigating a path down that, that lets the water always have taken the fastest route towards its goal, but at the end of it, the shape is the most convoluted and pleasing. Right? That, like, you achieved the shape of a story, while you were trying your hardest to go in a straight line." -- Brennan Lee Mulligan, "Game Masters of Exandria Roundtable" Alan wants out of the Dark Place, he wants to save Alice and the world, and he wants to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible (if it is possible), but as a writer he also knows that the reader/player won't be satisfied without complications and internal consistency, and those complications are also necessary for preventing the Dark Place from spilling out into the world... which it also wants as quickly and efficiently as possible.

nice vid. the seed\idea concept is interesting. it almost alludes to the fact the story is getting further and further away from the original idea with each go round of the spiral. idk if that will be a good or bad thing tho

Missed this.

After just finishing Alan wake 2 here I am ready to watch every last video on it🤣

"Ride the spiral to the end, we may just go where no ones been"

I really want to see someone compare completely American nightmare and AW2, listing all these things that were already though 13 years ago and just more fleshed out and developped in AW2.

Awesome analysis! I have a dumb question. Is Dr. Darling and Alan distinct characters besides we got the awesome Mathew Porreta as voice actor?

Im really curious on your take with the references to the Blessed Organization in Alan Wake II and the FBC and if it could be a possible video

I can believe we didn't notice the spiral. They were foreshadowing it since Control. Besides the door in the motel in the DLC when Alan and Tom were talking it was in the background.