Dark Presence

 I am much older than you. Older than your first work of art. I will find a new face to wear. Someone else to dream me free. 

― The Dark Presence taunting Alan Wake

The Dark Presence, or Paranatural entity A-010 - "The Shadow" as labeled by the Federal Bureau of Control, is the main antagonist of the Alan Wake franchise.

It is a malevolent supernatural and sentient force that existed within the Dark Place underneath the reality-altering Cauldron Lake, pursuing Alan as he searches for Alice, and being responsible for the nightmares and otherworldly happenings in Bright Falls. The Dark Presence can inhabit inanimate objects as well as corrupt living beings into being its slaves (such as people and animals), turning them into the Taken.

Role in Alan Wake

The Dark Presence has brainwashed countless artists and writers throughout the centuries to make itself stronger and influence reality, abusing and corrupting the power of the lake for its own ends. It seems to be in a continuous struggle with the Presence of the Light, Thomas Zane. The Dark Presence is bound to the lake and its ultimate goal is to finally free itself and set itself loose upon the world. This can only be achieved through the events of the writers' work, hence the desire of the Dark Presence to manipulate the work of artists in Bright Falls. To this end, it focuses on an artist, and attempts to manipulate them, usually done by taking a 'hostage', such as Odin's ravens or Alan's wife Alice.

It is unknown if the Dark Presence was created by Thomas Zane or it was there before him, but the entity has claimed to Alan Wake that it has existed long before the first work of art was created. When Zane wrote, his works were affected by the lake and began to come true. However, when he attempted to use this power to write back his deceased love, Barbara Jagger, the Dark Presence overtook her body and used it as its human mask. Realizing that what had returned was not his actual wife, Zane succeeded in sealing the Dark Presence away in the lake again, sacrificing himself in the process. It again rouses when it senses the 70's Metal band, Old Gods of Asgard, then again when it senses writer Alan Wake approaching the town of Bright Falls.

The Dark Presence most often appears as a heavy fog of black smoke and shadow, but can project itself into different forms including people, swarms of birds, or tornadoes of black "smoke".

In the 'Demo' and also 'Escape the Police', it is only heard as a loud roar and seen knocking down the trees and killing the police patrol as well as killing Rusty after his leg injury.

Powers & Abilities

The Dark Presence has many supernatural capabilities:

• Omnipresence - The Dark Presence may have a form of limited omnipresence as it is seemingly able to survey entire areas and watch multiple people at the same time. It can be anywhere as long as it's dark. This means that it can move through the shadows as well as the night.
• Super Speed - The Dark Presence can move freely and impossibly fast in darkness, blurring into nothingness, moving too fast for humans to shoot, and can travel great distances almost instantly.
• Super Strength - The Dark Presence can lift cars with ease and throw them a long distance.
• Super Durability - The Dark Presence can take brutal damage before being vanquished.
• Invulnerability - The Dark Presence is immune to all harm while in the dark.
• Teleportation - While in Barbara Jagger's form, the Dark Presence can literally teleport around a person or place at will, as long as there is sufficient darkness for it to appear in.
• Possession - The Dark Presence has the ability to take over human beings and use them as Taken. The Dark Presence seems to prefer to use one host as its main one. The Dark Presence is also able to take over inanimate objects, creating poltergeists. This can be an object of any size, including tractors, vehicles, farm equipment, train carts, tools, etc. It can possess objects to either control or simply throw them long distances.
• Daytime Travel - The Dark Presence may be able to travel in the daytime as well, albeit to a limited extent to (and/or) of the shadows . At the beginning of Mirror Peak on Episode 3 where you must drive to the old coal mine, walk the opposite direction to find a bridge destroyed. It prompts Alan to say that he had just crossed the bridge and that the Dark Presence even haunts him in the daytime.
• Influencing Touch - The Dark Presence can also choose to merely 'touch' a person, using a more subtle way to control the victim. The Dark Presence seems to do this if it needs the target to still think for itself. Examples of this are when Alan Wake had to write the manuscript or when Rose had to trick Alan into coming to the trailer park. This 'touch' can also happen simply by coming into contact with the Dark Presence, as seen in the case of Cynthia Weaver. The touch also has the ability to erase a person's memory, creating blackouts of the period during which the Dark Presence controls its victim. This can be seen in the miniseries Bright Falls, when Jake interviews Emil Hartman, and later on in episode 4 when he looks at the Deerfest commercial on TV and wakes up on the beach of the lake. Alan Wake also experiences this when he tries to rescue Alice and then wakes up in his car at the edge of the cliff.
• Control of Ravens - The Dark Presence uses flocks of ravens who seem to be made out of pure darkness and have seemingly infinite numbers. A possible origin are the two ravens the Dark Presence took from Odin, one of the Anderson Brothers. These could also be local ravens that have been turned into Taken.
• Intelligence - The Dark Presence is highly intelligent and uses this intelligence to create elaborate schemes. When it sees opportunities, it quickly tries to twist them to its own advantage. No matter how strong the Dark Presence is, even it seems to be bound by the powers of the Lake. It was forced to act out the manuscript of Alan, which meant the Dark Presence had to let Alan escape numerous times. The Dark Presence was quick to find loopholes though, using indirect means to try and get to Alan and using anything the writer didn't specify to its own advantage.

Rules

Despite The Dark Presence's immense it appears bound by certain restrictions. While some rules are outright stated others are hinted at. The "rules" appear to be:

1. It Needs An Artist

The Dark Presence is incapable of creating anything on it's own. Instead, it must parasitically latch onto someone else to create the art and alter reality. Specifically, it must have an artist create the changes through it's medium. As discovered by FBC scientists at the Lake House, the preferred medium for this reality alteration appears to be writing, possibly because (as theorized by Jules Marmont) writing is more literal and describe events in explicit detail while providing a coherent blueprint to create the changes the Dark Presence needs, whereas other artistic pursuits (such as dance, cuisine, and painting) are too subjective and open-to-interpretation. However, as noted by Alan Wake, any kind of art can still be used by the Dark Presence to rewrite reality. It is also bound by the artist's choices because while it can manipulate and influence the artist, once an artist taps into the lake's; the power it is theirs to control. For example, it cannot stop an artist from using their art to create a weapon against it.

2. It Can Only Manipulate What Already Exists. It Cannot Rewrite Reality Altogether

While artists can manipulate reality through their art, they are limited by what already exists and therefore cannot simply invent characters and scenarios out of whole cloth. For example, Alan did not write FBI agent Alex Casey into existence through his novels. Rather, an law enforcement officer named Alex Casey happened to already existed. His writings merely influenced his existence and warped him into matching his literary counterpart. However, even then there are limitations: as Alan Wake 2 explains, this reality shaping abilities can only "nudge" people and events into a different state while the details might change the core ideas stay the same. In the Alex Casey example, Alan would not be able to write a happy go lucky FBI agent into a hardened, nihilistic, anti-social detective. While the "real" Alex Casey was significantly more social and optimistic, he still had the same hard-boiled detective personality, Alan's writing just nudged these attributes to be a bit more extreme.

Just as the lake's powers are limited in how it alters present and future events, an artist cannot actually rewrite the past as they see fit. For example, while Alan Wake had written Saga Anderson to be a Bright Falls resident who took a leave of absence from the FBI after her Daughter Logan drown and divorcing from her husband 3 year priors, none of these things true. Despite characters (such Rose Marigold and the Koshela Brothers) claiming to "remember" Saga as long time acquittance, their minds are being influenced by Wake's writing and thus these "memories" mere fabrications to create a contrived emotional/personal connection in Saga to the town of Bright Falls and further the story . This can be seen how earlier in the game, when Rose tells Saga about how Logan "drowned", Tim Breaker appeared to be have equally confused over Rose's claims when Saga told him about this while walking to the police station. This is implies that the memory alterations took place gradually over time instead of all at once.

If drastic changes do occur it is a gradual process determined by rule 3.

3. In order for art to rewrite reality, it must meet certain criteria. Namely it must be good

The Dark Presence's power is bound by the constriction of the medium it empowers. In short the art must be "good" and meet the requirements of what is considered "good art" for it to work properly. For example an author couldn't write it into existence with a simple "once upon a time there was a Dark Presence that lived in a lake. Then one day it escaped and took over the world". The art would have to be a complete story that made sense and also fit the genre of its medium. Alan Wake's horror story was bound by the rules of what constitutes a proper horror story, which meant he couldn't end it with a "and they all lived happily after" as horror stories always end with some kind of loss.

The other criteria for art to affect reality is that it must have a strong emotional energy. Therefore, an artist must put emotion and care into the story for The Dark Presence to react to it. The Lake House expansion of Alan Wake 2 shows that art created mechanically with the only intent being to generate content will have no effect on the Lake and thus be essentially worthless, such as a book only written to be well liked and make a profit by an author who didn't care about the story or art made by AI. The artist must have a sincere attachment to the art piece for it to work, or else the work would simply have no effect due to lacking personal passion and emotion. For instance, Rudolph Lane created thousands of paintings while being held captive by the Marmonts but only his last painting which he painted as an expression of his pain and suffering from the cruel treatment inflicted on him had any affect.

Due to being an entity made up of both literal and metaphorical darkness, the Dark Presence is particularly drawn to extreme negative emotions such as fear and suffering. It is for this reason why it favors art and stories dealing in macabre subject matter as a conduit to influence the real world, such as urban legends and horror fiction.

4. It's effects are limited to the Bright Falls area.

While Alan Wake (who was already something of an exception) was able to expand this influence a bit after being consumed by Cauldron Lake; the lake's powers are confined to where it is located, hence why the Dark Presence is desperate to be set free. If people enter the Bright Falls area, they are subjected to the reality warping effects but leaving the area will cause these effects to disappear. For example, when Saga Anderson entered Bright Falls for a case, reality was changed to one where Saga was divorced, had moved to Bright Falls, and had her daughter die in accident. While in the Bright Falls area her daughter was dead, even calling to areas outside of the Bright Falls would show the outside world responding to this new reality as shown when she called her husband who responded in anger over their divorce, despite the fact that in reality they were still happily married. As Kiran Estevez explains if Saga were to leave Bright Falls she would find that reality was back to the way it was supposed to be.

Characters Touched

Below are a list of characters touched by the Dark Presence, making them go more insane or trapped in their own mind.

• Alan Wake
• Rose Marigold
• Cynthia Weaver
• Jake Fischer
• Anderson Brothers (May have caused their dementia)
• Serena Valdivia
• Alex Casey