Monsters wear many faces. In Alan Wake 2, continue the writer’s story and experience Remedy Entertainment’s first foray into survival horror. Alan Wake 2 is OUT NOW on PC on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Discussion
It’s hilarious to me that Mr. Scratch’s nightmare ending is literally just him being the best writer ever and such a cool guy who everyone admires and lots of Deerfest too (big Midsommar vibes, another Finnish tradition)!
As much as I loved the amped-up evil Scratch who is on par with a real horror title, I did miss a bit of the charismatic sympathy for the devil Scratch we got from American Nightmare. Revealing that his manuscript manifested was him being a huge narcissist with everyone becoming his fan really felt like a callback to that character.
OK, I get there’s a bit more to it than that, but this is the version I’m sticking with.
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I loved the Deerfest by Scratch! Finally getting to experience Deerfest was great, even if it was…little focused on Alan Wake.
If we compare Deerfest to Finnish holidays, I get more vappu (may day) vibes from Deerfest. It, after all, is the biggest holiday to gather Finns to celebrate together in the streets, with shopping stalls and funny costumes. Juhannus (midsummer) is more like…go away to your summer cottage to drink and watch a bonfire, empty streets in the city.
Good to know!
I was also specifically thinking in terms of the horror movie and how it uses the light as a horror device, and we know Sam Lake is very into film and filmmaking and takes a lot of inspiration from certain things. I didn’t know much about the holiday as I’ve only seen pictures online of people in Northern Europe celebrating around a dinner table. Wish we celebrated here in the U.S.!
I interpreted that really as proof of Scratch being the sum of Alan's insecurities even more so than Mr Scratch from AWAN. I had a feeling that in AWAN he contrasted Alan's "stick up his ass" attitude with his more cheerful albeit psychopathic existence.Let's not forget that Alan was Scratch all along (at least until Casey got inhabited)
Edit: typo
The more I think about it, the more I believe that Mr. Scratch had always intended to be Alan’s dark side, his Jungian shadow. The entire American Nightmare (Failed Return) didn’t work because it highlights Alan’s worst qualities as a writer, and Mr. Scratch represented Alan’s narcissism, but not his violence. However it didn’t work because it wasn’t true enough and because Alan didn’t go through Initiation. He tried to write a cheesy story with a happy ending and it didn’t work.
Therefore, the real Return is a dark horror story written by Alan at his worst. Scratch in AW2 is the real dark side of Alan, his rage, violence and despair which literally possesses him at his worst moment. For Alan to finally be free of Scratch, he literally needs to absorb/accept the darkness within himself like how we must accept the good and the bad within ourselves.
Tom is Alan without Scratch (kind, but feckless) and Scratch is Alan without Tom (passionate, driven, but ruthless). I think that's how that works.
I think that Zane, Alan, and Scratch are all interchangeable and are all aspects of the artist. That’s why the Andersons and Ahti keep calling Alan by Tom. In Yoton Yo, Seine played both Alan and Scratch.
I see Seine as the pretentious auteur who is obsessed with creating a provocative work of art. Alan is the perfectionist who abides by the conventions of whatever genre he’s writing which results in him getting in his damn way. Scratch is the brutal editor who violently edits/scratches out Alan’s work. Scratch is Alan’s insecurities as a writer.
I love this idea as well as I think they are all different aspects of the same person.
It feels as though Zane in AW1 was different though and maybe the original Zane? It feels as the Zane in AW2 is a creation that he made while in the dark place.
Love this take. I also love that AWAN is easily still canon.
It's possible that Scratch from AW2 is a different presence from Mr. Scratch. I remember AWAN mentioning multiple Dark Presences in the Dark Place in a manuscript. I always thought this explained why Scratch is so different and even referred to differently from Mr. Scratch in AWAN. I think this also gives room for Zane/Seine to be Mr. Scratch just using Zane's form that he left behind after he went into his pocket dimension because the only time Scratch is actually scratched out in this game is when we say his name when we are with Zane. Nevermind other connections I'm sure you've seen on here.
I agree with your take on how these presences take Alan's insecurities. I'm hoping the DLC will shed more light (pun intended) on if there actually are multiple presences or not.
In the AW1 DLCs Alan asks Zane (light presence at the time) if Mr. Scratch is also a part of him (the first DLC it's said you're playing as a part of Alan, his Will to not go insane), and is very directly told "No".
So I really don't think that Mr. Scratch is the same as Scratch from 2. Mr. Scratch is made from the collective conscious perception of Alan, but he's not Alan himself, unlike Scratch is.
I feel like I missed some of that when I played the DLCs the first time so that all makes sense but Scratch being able to go into Casey at the says to me it's not Alan himself but was born of some insecurity or view of Alan like Mr. Scratch was. Unless we are saying the same thing in different ways while Scratch and Mr. Scratch are different I think they are both Dark Presences born from a twisted view of Alan.
Most of the Dark Place in AW1 is shown as a dark swirling fog or cloud and it's a lot of nothingness beyond where we play. Where as in AW2 it's Noir York even beyond the edges of the map. I think it's very possible that given how powerful Alan is the Dark Place/Presences have been completely shaped by his mind which is giving is these different Scratches and a completely different Dark Place than before. Alan is the dreamer.
I believe everything we see of the Dark Place in AW2, aside from Saga’s mind place, is all a creation of Alan’s subconscious. The “dreamer/sleeper” will always see a projection of his/her/their subconscious manifesting the worst of themselves and their fears.
Maybe we need to draw a line between the Dark Presence and Scratch (or Mr. Scratch, to differentiate between the entities in AW2 and American Nightmare). The first time we met the Dark Presence, it was using Barbara Jagger's form. But we don't see Dark-possessed Barbara - or Dark-possessed Alex Casey - as separate entities. They're just people who have been taken over and subsumed by a supernatural horror.
Scratch seems to manifest as an entirely individual being because that's how Alan thinks of him until almost the very end. "The hero turns to looks inside, is destroyed by what he sees...and is redeemed."
I thought about this and wondered if maybe they were just retconning Scratch a bit for AW2. I love the whole concept of a collective unconscious though and its ability to create something very real (think Slenderman). I forget what the term is for the creation. Maybe Eidolon or something?
I love this take. Scratch's goal sounds like typical horror movie motivations but when you take into account that he's the dark side of Alan, Scratch's motives are purely narcissistic. He wants the entire world to fall in line with him and for everyone to only think about him. That's very much in line with what a cartoonishly sinister writer would want. They want to dominate the conversation, they want to be in every headline.
Damn
When Alan steps into the “dark” reality that Scratch has created and it transitions to being bright and sunny with Deerfest and everyone celebrating I was just like… now this isn’t so bad.
Can I also point out how brilliant it was that this is literally the “nightless night?”
It was funny, but they did say that it was a temporary state. Keep everyone happy until suddenly BLAM nightmare mode!
Also I wouldn't say the charismatic form of Mr. Scratch is gone, just split and taken new form. (Tom the Filmmaker)
I may need to go back and rewatch this scene, but I thought it said this deerfest mode was temporarily just in this location before it spread out into the whole world.
I think it’s fairly notable the only time we ever see shit really fucked up in nightmare mode is when we’re inside Alan’s mind.
It is temporary as it spreads, but the deerfest itself is temporary too. Once it takes over the whole world it will swap to its true form.
It is literally called the endless deerfest, so I imagine if things went scratch's way the deerfest would never end.
Its a lie! I think, maybe.
I'm doing my final draft playthrough. So I'll get to review the info again.
Cuz it's not Scratch, it's just Alan + His Own Dark Presence
Or maybe it would be more fair to say it is Scratch cuz that's what they call him, but at least it isn't Mr Scratch. Actual Mr Scratch was teleported by film at the end of Alan Wake American Nightmares and now pretends to be Tomas Seine Director.