Alan Wake Wiki

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Quote1 Alan... thank you for coming here with me. Quote2
― Alice, Episode 1: Nightmare

Alice Wake is a major character in the Alan Wake franchise. A renowned photographer, Alice is also the wife of novelist Alan Wake. In 2010, the Wake's vacationed to Bright Falls, Washington. Alice had arranged for Alan to meet psychiatrist Dr. Emil Hartman to treat his writer's block. Following an argument over this deception, Alice was captured by Barbara Jagger and the Dark Presence, and was imprisoned for two weeks in an alternate dimension located beneath Cauldron Lake. The Darkness wanted Alan to write a story in order for it to be unleashed upon the world, as the art created in Bright Falls is able to shape reality. Alan instead took Alice's place to set her free.

Believing Alan to have died, Alice did not remember her two week imprisonment. In the following years, Alice began filmmaking and took a darker approach to how she saw the world in the perspective of grief. Alice later was haunted by a doppelgänger of Alan named Scratch, created to take his place in the real world, but was twisted by the Dark Presence. After conversing with the Federal Bureau of Control, Alice remembered what occurred in Bright Falls. She faked her suicide by plunging into Cauldron Lake and recorded it in her documentary, The Dark Place, for Alan to see. Using her film and photographs, Alice orchestrated Alan's ascension from the Dark Place with the help of FBI Agent Saga Anderson.

Biography[]

Background[]

Alice was born on November 24, 1979. Since childhood, Alice always had a fear of the dark, otherwise known as nyctophobia. According to her, she felt that darkness was, in a way, something awful and that could be felt or touched. When in the dark, Alice usually is unable to move until the lights come back on.

Alice met Alan Wake when he worked as a night watchman. They eventually married and lived in New York City. Alan went on to write short stories, episodes for the television show "Night Springs," and eventually the Alex Casey mystery thriller series featuring titular New York City detective Alex Casey, which brought Alan to fame. Alice became a professional photographer. Alongside her own works, she also served as the cover artist for Alan's books. She frequently had disagreements with Alan's childhood friend and literary agent, Barry Wheeler, both of whom disliked each other's influence on Alan. Alan would often refer to Alice as his "muse."

At some point in the 1990s, Alice and Alan took a vacation in the desert early in their relationship. It was here that Alice shot footage of their trip, including Alan watching a sunrise in the canyon. On March 21, 2006 she was due to open up her own exhibit, named "Inflammator", though it is unknown if this ever went ahead. In 2007, Alan began finishing the "The Sudden Stop", the final book of the Alex Casey series in which Casey was killed off in Alan's attempt to move on from the series and focus on an artistic departure. Alice took pictures for the book cover and subsequent advertising. A winter storm caused the power to go out. Alan brought out candles and comforted Alice with a story from his childhood about his own fear of the dark, and his mother giving him the Clicker to drive the darkness away.

In 2008, shortly after Alan published "The Sudden Stop", he began to suffer from writer's block. This caused him to be under enormous stress and resulted in many arguments with Alice. Alan started to lose his temper. This resulted in numerous violent episodes with the paparazzi, substance abuse, and insomnia. After appearing on "The Harry Garrett Show" for his book tour, Alice and Alan had a fight before reconciling. Alan promised that after the book tour, he and Alice would go on a vacation. By 2010, Alan's writer's block and subsequent issues worsened. Alice began researching ways to help Alan and found a Dr. Emil Hartman who specialized in helping troubled artists. After contacting him, Alice arranged for Alan to attend Dr. Hartman's clinic at the Cauldron Lake Lodge in Bright Falls, Washington. Upon planning the trip, Alice neglected to tell Alan about her intentions. She initially reserved cabins near Cauldron Lake from a man named Carl Stucky.

Bright Falls[]

Alice briefly appears in the Bright Falls mini-series in a car alongside Alan Wake as they are driving into Bright Falls after they drive up to a wreckage being looked into by Deputies of Bright Falls Sheriff Station, though they are told to drive on.

Alan Wake[]

On September 1, 2010, Alice arrived at Bright Falls with Alan on the ferry. It was there that they met Pat Maine, night host of the KBF-FM Radio Station. After arriving to town, Alice purchased some flashlights to help with her crippling fear of the dark. She and Alan arrived at Bird Leg Cabin on Diver's Isle, given to them by Barbara Jagger instead of Carl Stucky. Shortly after settling in, Alice revealed a typewriter and pages to Alan - hoping their vacation in Bright Falls and speaking with Dr. Hartman would inspire Alan to write. This instead infuriated Alan as he stormed out of the house. As soon as Alan left, the lights in the house went out and he heard Alice screaming in fright. Alan ran back into the house and saw Alice taken into the water, diving in after her.

Alice was taken by Barbara Jagger into the Dark Place, a dimensional void access through the waters of Cauldron Lake. The threshold has the ability of changing reality based on the works of artists who create near it. The Dark Presence within imprisoned Alice and made Alan believe she drowned. Wanting to be set free, the Dark Presence "touched" Alan and demanded he write a story in which it was unleashed upon the world, in exchange for his wife to come back to life. After one week, Alan wrote an almost completed manuscript entitled "Departure". Before he could finish, Thomas Zane intervened and set Alan free. He took his manuscript and scattered the pages across Bright Falls in order to assist Alan in his journey. With Alice still trapped in the Dark Place, Alan returned and finished the manuscript in which Alice was set free, but Alan was imprisoned in her place.

The Signal[]

Alice makes a few appearances in The Signal, all hallucinations from Alan. From time to time, words will fly up around Alan that says "memory". When Alan activates them with his flashlight, Alan will hear her voice in his head from occasions when the couple had sex. Alan is, of course, happy to hear this. She also makes a physical appearance in his dream when Alan turns a corner and sees her taking pictures of a shadow of himself. Alice does not acknowledge the real Alan, but the shadow Alan talks to her instead. Alice disappears shortly thereafter.

The Writer[]

Alice's only appearance in The Writer is through a fictional confession when TV Head Alan is speaking to Imaginary Emil, where she yells about all the crap she has had to deal with on Alan's behaviour, though in reality she never said any of these things.

Alan Wake's American Nightmare[]

Alice an

Alice seemingly reunites with Alan.

In the following two years since Alan's disappearance, Alice has come to believe that Alan is dead. She has since made a truce with Barry Wheeler. Working through her grief, she uncovered old footage she had taken of Alan during their marriage. Her friend and art curator Serena Valdivia convinced her to edit it into a film and submit it into the local Night Springs Visual Arts Film Festival in Night Springs, Arizona. The film is entitled "Sunrise", and contains a clip of Alan watching the sunrise in the Arizona desert. Scratch, corrupted by the rumors of Alan being a serial killer who murdered his wife, is possessed by the Dark Presence and has been committing murders leading up to Alice. Alan, from the Dark Place, writes a manuscript in which he can escape into Night Springs for one night and stop Scratch. While Scratch keeps sending Alan in a time-loop of a never-ending night, Alan uses the sunrise in Alice's film to destroy Scratch's body. In a fantasy element of "Sunrise", Alan is reunited with Alice.

Control[]

Wake Photograph (AWE)

The figure that had been haunting Alice.

In an interview with Alice by the Federal Bureau of Control in 2017, she stated she had nightly "visitations" from her missing ex-husband in her New York apartment. While she does not believe this is Alan himself, she believes it is using his face to scare her. She tries to keep the lights on at night, however her hallway lightbulb breaks every night and she loses sleep over these hauntings. Alice did manage to take a picture of the thing wearing Alan's face.

Alan Wake 2[]

With the photos she had been taking of the nightly visitations she seemingly had of her husband, she began work on a new documentary titled "The Dark Place". In it she discussed her time without Alan and the nightly visits she would have. By the end of the documentary, she stated she was tired of it all, where the documentary then states she took her own life. In reality, Alice went back to Cauldron Lake and jumped in to try and find Alan.

Alice isn't heard about from anyone until Saga Anderson finds herself in the Dark Place; Alice calls out to her to wake up. Saga hears a telephone ringing, and upon picking it up, Alice talks to Saga and tells her to head to Parliament Tower to obtain the items found in the shoebox, where she'll find the Clicker, which Alice caught after Scratch used it to change reality in Bright Falls, and the Bullet of Light. When Saga returns to the phone, Alice tells her that Alan needs Saga's help to finish the ending of Return.

Alice appears once more on camera, speaking directly to Alan, stating she began talking to an organization looking into the Bright Falls incident, and that after leaving their office building and returning home, she was able to recall everything about her time in the Dark Place back in 2010. From that experience, she realized Alan had saved her back in 2010, with him being trapped in the Dark Place. She realizes the man that had been haunting her every night actually was the real Alan all along due to their connection to the Dark Place. She knew that Alan would see her documentary, so purposely mislead him into thinking she had killed herself to get him to where he needed to be.

It is insinuated that Alice is also trapped in the Dark Place after jumping back in, and will continue to work and guide Alan to his ascension.

Trivia[]

  • She is voiced by Brett Madden in Alan Wake and Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Brett unfortunately passed away in September 2020 after a 4 year battle with brain cancer. She was memorialised in the credits of Alan Wake 2.
  • She is portrayed by Christina Cole in Alan Wake 2.
  • Before the end of the first game, Alice and Barry had a strained friendship as both accuse the other of being a bad influence on Alan. However, between Alan's disappearance and her "suicide", Barry is revealed (through emails found in the Wake apartment at Parliament Tower) to have done his best to help Alice through her grief at the loss of Alan. He made sure to check on her frequently, first with visits and later through phone calls and emails. While it seems she slowly stopped replying (likely due to stress over the worsening of Scratch's hauntings), it is heavily implied that they had become at least tentative friends.
  • Barry always wants to edit the designs of the book covers Alice made but Alice refuses to accept any of the changes he proposes. During Alan Wake 2 it is revealed that Alan himself insisted on having Alice as the exclusive art designer - this eventually also contributed to worsening her view of herself as an artist, as throughout their relationship, with few dwindling clients, she realised her success/talent would never be on the same level as Alan's. Doing his book covers is therefore implied to have felt more like a husband helping out his wife due to their relationship, rather than her own talent.
  • At the end of the Alan Wake novelization, after washing up on the shore, Alice is met by Sheriff Sarah Breaker. While in the water she thinks she hears her husband say "It's not a lake, it's an ocean".
  • Alice's voice actress in The Writer appears to be different, and with her comes a different delivery of Alice's character, which is interesting since the same voice actress from the main game returned for The Signal.
  • It appears that Alice is friends with Serena Valdivia, who appears in American Nightmare.

Appearances[]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Found on Driver's license visible in Official Survival Guide
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