- Wake, I'm gonna trust you with this.
- ― Sarah, The Clicker
Sarah Breaker is major character in Alan Wake. The daughter of Frank Breaker and cousin to Tim Breaker, Sarah was the sheriff of Bright Falls, Washington. In 2010, she handled the missing persons case of Alice Wake, wife of novelist Alan Wake, during their vacation in Bright Falls. Despite Alan being pursued by Agent Robert Nightingale of the FBI, Sarah did not believe Wake was responsible for his wife's disappearance. Realizing the Dark Presence was behind these events, Sarah alerted her father and the Torchbearers to combat the Taken. She then assisted Alan and his friend, Barry Wheeler, in stopping the Dark Presence and rescuing Alice from the Dark Place under Cauldron Lake. After Alan disappeared, Sarah later left Bright Falls to join a federal agency, with Tim taking over as sheriff.
History[]
Background[]
Sarah's compassion and understanding contrasts with FBI agent Robert Nightingale's shoot first attitude, and her understanding of the "crazy" happenings of the town makes it easier for her to believe in Alan Wake's dilemma. Notably, she also admits to having read and liked all of Alan's novels despite her initial nonchalance towards the writer. Surprising for a sheriff of a small town, Breaker is able to fly a helicopter, though it is left unspecified whether or not she actually has a pilot's license. Sheriff Breaker has more than enough experience in law enforcement. She worked with the FBI Forensic Branch for a number of years before becoming Sheriff of Bright Falls.[citation needed]
Alan Wake[]
After Alan Wake reaches Stucky's Gas Station and phones the police, Sheriff Breaker is the first police officer on the scene. To her, Alan seems mentally unstable, initially keeping her hand above her gun holster just in case. However, she takes him into custody but not as an arrest. On the way to the police station, she stops by Cauldron Lake and watches with emotion as Alan panics. A while later, Breaker talks to Alan in her office, trying to gain a little more sense of what is going on. She helps him regain his composure and helps him find a place to stay and holds Alan back after he hits Emil Hartman in the face.
She is later seen with FBI agent Robert Nightingale, with whom she is uneasy. Breaker does not believe that Alan is responsible for what is happening, while Nightingale is hellbent on catching Wake at any cost. A few times she has to calm the trigger-happy Nightingale down.
Sarah Breaker later joins up with Alan when agent Nightingale puts him in custody. Nightingale is taken hostage by the Dark Presence and Sarah then lets Alan and Barry Wheeler out of their cell. Since the whole town has been overcome by the Dark Presence, she arms herself and Alan with shotguns, pistols, and flashlights and charges toward the dam to find Cynthia Weaver, the Lady of the Light. Barry later joins up with her and Alan and together, the three fight their way through hordes of Taken and Poltergeists. Later, she helps Wake and and Barry escape from the town by flying a helicopter away from the town and towards the dam, but Taken Birds bring down the helicopter and Alan is separated from her and Barry.
Sarah and Barry manage to fight off a group of Taken together and Alan finds them. The group continues to fight their way to the dam where they meet up with Cynthia Weaver who leads them to the Well-Lit room where the clicker lies. Alan takes the clicker and leaves by himself, but not before holding a gun to Breaker's head and making Barry take her gun away. Barry complies and takes her gun away. Alan leaves the group in the Well-Lit room.
The Signal[]
Breaker does not make a physical appearance in the DLCs, however in The Signal she appears as a memory at the church. After Wake destroys the possessed deer float, Sarah unlocks the church doors and tells him to "run for it", which strangely did not actually happen in the real world.
Earlier in the same episode, as Alan travels through his own dream, he may stumble across several cardboard cutouts of other characters, similar to the one of himself in the Oh Deer Diner. The cutout for Breaker comes with the following description:
"Bright Falls' Finest! The red-hot cop chick with lightning-fast boomstick!
Her debut book, 'The Only Girl in the Bookhouse," delves deep into the double life of having a successful law enforcement career while being involved in a secret society. How does daddy's little trooper fit into an old-fashioned fraternity?"
Alan Wake's American Nightmare[]
Near the conclusion of the game, Mr. Scratch reveals to Alan Wake over television that Sarah still keeps in contact with Barry Wheeler, though it's been two years since they last saw Alan. Barry is convinced that Wake is still alive but it is not revealed if Sarah feels the same.
Alan Wake 2[]
Whilst she does not appear, sometime after 2012, Sarah's father died. Later, her cousin Tim Breaker had recurring dreams about a particular man. He had a police sketch done and sent it around. Sarah recognized it from a case in Bright Falls 1988, when a local man named Warlin Door was struck by lightening near Cauldron Lake and vanished. Tim moved to Bright Falls to investigate further, eventually taking Sarah's place as Sheriff after she left Bright Falls to join "the Feds".
Quotes[]
"Did you know he's been hanging out with the sheriff from that shitty little town? They keep in touch." - Mr. Scratch on Barry and Sarah two years after Wake enters the Dark Place.
Combat[]
"Keep Shooting!"
"Get back!"
"Oh, no you don't!"
"Freeze!"
"Weaver Weaver, loony believer, scared that the dark is gonna eat her!" - The rhyme Sarah Breaker made up about Cynthia Weaver when she was ten years old.
Appearances[]
- Alan Wake
- Episode 1: Nightmare (first appearence)
- Episode 2: Taken
- Episode 3: Ransom
- Episode 5: The Clicker
- Episode 6: Departure
- Night Springs (Comic)
- Special 1: The Signal (as a memory and a cardboard)
Trivia[]
- In the helicopter scene, Sarah describes Alan's writing as being "a bit heavy on the metaphors." This is a reference to Remedy's previous franchise Max Payne, which is notorious for narration saturated with metaphors and imagery.
- In the novel, Cynthia Weaver reveals that when Sarah was a little girl she used to utter a nasty rhyme about her. Sarah eventually stopped but developed a fear of the older woman.
- In the novel, she tells Alan that he needs to research firearms better when he writes about them. There is a scene in Alan's Alex Casey novels where Casey flips the safety catch off of a revolver. Revolvers generally do not have such devices.
- Her favorite weapon is the pump action shotgun.
- At the epilogue of the novel, Sarah decides to investigate the area where Diver's Isle once sat at Cauldron Lake on the guess that it would be the most likely place Alice would emerge from the dark prison. She hauls Alice onshore and wraps her in blankets then offers her coffee. Alice remarks that Sarah is special because Alan usually keeps people at a distance. The sheriff explains that Wake's most important goal was saving Alice.
- In The Signal DLC, Sarah Breaker's cardboard standee states that her book is titled 'The Only Girl in the Bookhouse' and that she is a member of a secret society. Both are direct homages to the TV series Twin Peaks (a major influence on the game), which happens to have a secret society called the Bookhouse Boys.
- As early trailers for Alan Wake show, her face model was originally going to be used for the Oh Deer Diner waitress character (Rose Marigold in the final release). On a similar note, her voice actress was first auditioned for Alice's role.
- There is avatar clothes of her outfit.
- She was originally going to wear casual clothes as well, and a model has been made. However, the episode in which it was going to be used was scrapped, and the model has not been utilized in the final game.
- According to an advertisement in a newspaper clipping, her family once owned an apple orchard. "Night Springs" confirms this, indicating that it was purchased by her father after he retired from the NYPD and came back to Bright Falls.
- It's possible that the "Feds" Sarah joined in question may be Federal Bureau of Control, as law enforcement officers who witness Altered World Events sometimes get recruited by the Agency. Sarah's father was Sheriff of Bright Falls before being recruited after witnessing the AWE of 1976. Kiran Estevez also recruits FBI Agent Saga Anderson to the FBC.