Warlin Door, or Mr. Door, is an interdimensional entity in Alan Wake 2 who holds the power of traveling between alternate worlds while existing in all of them at once. In a version of the Dark Place shaped as New York City by Alan Wake through his manuscript Initiation, Door plays the role of the host of the talk show In Between With Mr. Door to help Alan on his journey.
Biography[]
Background[]
Warlin Door was a resident of Bright Falls, Washington who disappeared under mysterious circumstances near Cauldron Lake in 1988. According to eyewitnesses, he was struck by lightning and subsequently vanished. A missing persons case was opened by the Bright Falls Police Department, but it has remained unsolved as of 2023, hampered by the lack of any official records related to Door. Door either gained, or always had, the power to "stand in between" worlds, which he says is also held by others in the "family of Doors."[1]
Sometime after 2010, Tim Breaker began having recurring dreams in which he lived a different life in a different world with a different name, with the only constant in all of them being Mr. Door, who would use various different disguises. Tim had a police sketch of Mr. Door created and spread it around. His cousin Sarah Breaker, who was then the sheriff of Bright Falls, recognized Door from the unsolved 1988 case file. Tim moved to Bright Falls to investigate further. After Sarah left Bright Falls to join "the Feds," Tim took over as sheriff and began searching for Mr. Door.
Possible relationship to Saga Anderson[]
Significant evidence indicates that Mr. Door is Saga Anderson's missing father, though this is yet to be confirmed outright. This would make Door the husband of Freya Anderson and the son/nephew-in-law of Tor and Odin Anderson, who left or disappeared from the family under uncertain circumstances during Saga's early childhood.
- The Manuscript page "Odin Loses An Eye" describes a deal in 1988 made by the Anderson brothers with "the dark one who yearned to stand in-between, who had always stood in-between, who would soon stand in-between." The brothers promised to help the "dark one" in exchange for him leaving the Anderson family alone. The "dark one" agreed to do so, but stated that the Anderson family would eventually come to him, and left in a lightning strike after taking Odin's right eye as collateral.[2] (Documents in earlier games state that Odin lost his eye in 1976 fighting against the Dark Presence; the discrepancy is left unexplained, although a note written by Odin in the Valhalla Nursing Home indicates he is aware of both events). This matches the case file on Warlin Door's disappearance, while the description of the "dark one" as someone who "stands in-between" also matches Door's own description of his family's powers in Saga's profiling.
- Odin and Tor, mainly Tor, are said to have disliked Saga's father for unspecified reasons, and during Return 5: Old Gods, Saga learns that Tor was involved in driving her father away, seemingly after letting his temper get the better of him.[3] When profiling Tor about "My Father," his first line is "Some doors are better left closed," which can allude to Mr. Door. Tor also describes Saga's father as "always thinking too many steps ahead," which is applicable to Door's actions as seen in Alan Wake 2.[4]
- In The Final Draft, during Return 9: Come Home, Saga can meet the Andersons in the Dark Place near the Caldera Street Plaza. Odin tells her they have been performing on Mr. Door's show (In Between With Mr. Door) and that they have finally "buried the hatchet," though Tor denies this and says he is only cooperating with Mr. Door to help Tom. This shows that the Andersons have the same relationship with Mr. Door as they do with Saga's father, further suggesting the two are the same person.
- Mr. Door is stated to not be bound by Alan's story or the rules of the Dark Place (imposed by Alan or otherwise), and is only going along with it for reasons of his own.[5] In his final meeting with Alan at the talk show studio, he states that someone important to him has been pulled into Alan's story. Unlike other people who were written into the manuscript of Return, Door apparently could sense Alan writing about him, and "allowed" it to happen one time for one reason: so that the resulting Manuscript page could be delivered by Tim Breaker and "read at the right time," helping Saga Anderson to travel through the Dark Place after she was thrown in by Scratch.
Control[]
In Control, Dylan Faden mentions that he encountered a man who called himself Mr. Door while in a dream. Dylan says that in the dream, he was in a "dark place." He met a "dark man" there, Mr. Door, who explained to him the existence of the multiverse: "many worlds, side by side, on top of each other, some inside of others." Mr. Door also said that he himself existed in every world at once, "endlessly shifting between them." Dylan wanted to spread the Hiss throughout the multiverse and asked Door how to reach other worlds; Door refused to tell him.
Alan Wake 2[]
Mr. Door first appears as Sheriff Tim Breaker attempts to give Saga Anderson, now an FBI agent, some pages from a manuscript by Alan Wake, including "Door Traverses The Dark Place." Before Tim is able to do so, he realizes something is happening in the morgue and suddenly vanishes as Door's face briefly flashes across the screen.
As Alan is trapped in the Dark Place, shaped into a nightmarish version of New York City based on Alan's memories, Mr. Door appears to him on his talk show In Between With Mr. Door. He appears several times on the talk show, at the beginning of each draft of Initiation, in the guise of the show host. The first time, he interviews Alan as the author of the newly-published autofictional novel Initiation, which Alan does not have any knowledge of writing. Door's description of the novel matches Alan's current situation: trapped in the Writer's Room, but using his writing to project himself into a nightmarish New York City, searching for a missing manuscript he wrote while being guided by visions of his character Alex Casey and tormented by a dark double. This seems to provide Alan with inspiration on how to escape. Door questions whether Alan himself is just a character in his own story, and Alan is left speechless before the scene ends.
Shortly afterwards, Alan meets Mr. Door again when he fails to escape the talk show studio. This time, Door is apparently introducing a new Alex Casey movie, Murder Case Casey, and is joined by Sam Lake, who is playing Alex Casey in this movie. Door questions Alan on how he feels about Sam Lake as an actor and the movie adaptations of his novels, then shows a clip from the movie, which introduces the Angel Lamp.
After the first draft of Initiation fails, Alan soon finds himself back on In Between With Mr. Door. This time, Door is apparently interviewing Alan about his personal life, but chooses to make it a musical instead of a regular talk. The resulting song, Herald of Darkness, covers Alan's childhood and growth, success as a writer, getaway to Bright Falls to repair his marriage with Alice Wake, and the resulting events of Alan Wake.
Alan meets Mr. Door one final time after his second visit to Parliament Tower (the failure of Initiation draft two). This time, Door drops his talk show host persona and coldly confronts Alan about how his story is affecting reality. He complains about Alan's writing rules and the "endless, convoluted loops" Alan "insists" on going through, then blames him for endangering Alice as well as someone important to Door himself. Alan is on Door's path because of how he constantly "opens doors" and reaches into them to get what he wants. Door demands that Alan find a way to end the loop, but says the talk show and Night Springs were a "nice distraction." Alan in turn demands straight answers, but Door threatens him, telling him that the circumstances will be very different when they next meet, and that Alan should either play his part or stay out of Door's way.
Saga finally meets Tim again when she is thrown into the Dark Place and navigating through Alan's nightmare New York City. Tim explains what happened to him, and reveals that he believes Door threw him into the Dark Place because of the Manuscript page he was about to give Saga in the morgue. The page allows Saga to learn how to navigate the Dark Place, and with this knowledge she manages to reach the Writer's Room in the Valhalla Nursing Home attic and change the ending of Return.
Night Springs[]
Time Breaker[]
Warlin Door is supposedly known to be the Master of Many Worlds. It was rumoured that Door had found an opening leading to a horrifying parallel reality to consume him, which allows him to have access of different realities like travelling through doors, in which he sees "doors everywhere". Door later begins his hunt for an Actor, believing that he was causing different realities to kill other variants of Door. By creating darker variants of the Actor, he went after the Actor. Instead, Door hunted down one of the Actor's variants, Branch. Door was later seen again, meeting the Actor face to face in a retro themed side-scrolling arcade game, after the Actor had successfully survived waves of fighting his darker variants. He lied to the Actor that he was the chosen one and offers him to join him, to which the Actor refused. In the final alternate universe, the Actor found out that Door wasn't actually the Master of Many Worlds, but it is instead Alan Wake.
Trivia[]
- According to Jason Schreier on his podcast "Triple Click", Lance Reddick, who played Martin Hatch from Quantum Break, was intended to play Mr. Door prior to his passing in March 2023.
- It is possible Mr. Door is a call-back to shifter Martin Hatch, if not Mr. Hatch himself from Quantum Break, portrayed by the late Lance Reddick.
- "Warlin" and "Martin" are similar in spelling. W being an upside down M and L being a t without the cross bar.
- Tim Breaker's whiteboard about Door eventually contains synonyms: "Door, Gate, Portal, Port, Opening, Access, Window." Martin Hatch, by contrast, wrote in a note: "I stand in between. I don't see myself as a gate. I remain humble. I'm something smaller. A hatch."
- Tim Breaker is described as Door's "unwilling disciple" in a Manuscript page, paralleling how Quantum Break ends with protagonist Jack Joyce becoming Hatch's protégé. Both Tim and Jack are portrayed by Shawn Ashmore.
- Lance Riddick was meant to play Mr. Door and the only reason he wasn't was due to his tragic untimely passing.
- Expansions in Alan Wake 2 as well as the lore from Quantum Break suggest all Remedy games are part of a multiverse with Door being able to traverse/exist in all of them.
- One of the night spring episodes in the expansions The Actor shows Door descending into a cave where an overlap/interdimensional entrance exists which causes him to exist in very dimensions at once. Mr. Hatch came into being by accidentally finding a naturally occuring break in time which caused him to exist in all times at once.
Appearances[]
- Alan Wake 2
- Return 1: Invitation (brief flash)
- Initiation 1: Late Night
- Initiation 4: We Sing
- Initiation 5: Room 665 (on a TV commercial)
- Initiation 7: Masks
- The Final Draft
- Expansion 1: Night Springs
- Episode 1: Number One Fan (only as host)
- Episode 2: North Star (only as host)
- Episode 3: Time Breaker
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ The Dark Place has many faces, and many names. It is a mirror reflecting all possible realities. The family of Doors have the power to shift between these realities. Here, and elsewhere.
Profiling excerpt, "Moving Through The Dark Place" - ↑ Odin Loses An Eye
- ↑ Saga: The page mentions a missing record. Do you know where it is, Odin?
Odin: Driven by passion. Raging like a storm. Your grandfather made the song to apologize. To your mother, Freya, and to you. Tor’s like a storm. Your mother did the right thing, leaving with you. Even if it broke your grandfather’s heart. And mine. Listen to the song, Saga. It’s all there. Tor only had one record made. He keeps it in the museum.
Saga: Odin knows my mom’s name. He’s saying my mom took me away when I was still a baby. Plausible. Stay on task. The record is in the museum.
(Profiling, Odin: "The Record") - ↑ Saga: Mom wouldn’t talk about my father. You knew him?
Tor: Some doors are better left closed. Your dad was a complicated bastard. Always thinking too many steps ahead. That’s not how we work. There was trouble, and then he was gone. I didn’t handle it well. Freya didn’t want anything to do with me after that. I can’t blame her.
Saga: I never knew my dad. Or my mom’s family. So many broken relationships in my past. I won’t lose mine, with Logan, with David. I won’t stop until they’re safe.
(Profiling, Tor: "My Father") - ↑ Door Traverses The Dark Place