during this, we get reminded of something that happened throughout the course of AW1: people calling Alan "Tom" because apparently to the people who knew him, he looks just like Thomas Zane - we the viewer don't have this confirmed for a long time because Zane is in the diver's suit, and even in the This House of Dreams blog, he's in diving gear
Rolling with the parallels for a little bit, let's look at the War video by Poets of the Fall: The actress who plays Alice Wake doesn't appear to be the same face model from the games HOWEVER
she plays both Alice AND Barbara Jagger in this video
interesting... as far as we know, no one in game mistakes alice for barbara, however we also don't see Alice socialize with anyone else in town before or after she is taken and then returns from the lake
Because in this, we also learn that, gasp, Zane isn't a poet? He's a film director? He played the role of a poet in a movie he made? Hmm. Well, there is evidence to back this in American Nightmare, with the poster, which is also seen in the AW2 trailer
a french word that literally translates to "author" used in cinema to describe directors with strong visual and narrative themes across their work and an almost draconic control of the film process (examples include Citizen Kane and many works by Orson Welles - this term is applied to many directors, but especially ones that write, act, direct, etc. in their
When we see Zane, for the most part we only see half of his face, the rest of him in shadow, so again, it's easy to take things at face value and go "yeah, this guy looks just like Alan!" but if you stop and look closer...
which makes sense, they're two different people with two different lives that took place during different times in their world before they were trapped
I won't say what my theory is in the meantime because I intend to make a video talking about all of that, but for now I just want to leave you all with these still images as I'm capping
Zane has somewhat different facial structure: softer cheeks, his hair is styled somewhat differently, and he appears younger than alan. his jawline is also different as is his forehead and brow
And having said that, here's the theory about the uncredited voice actor that I have had since I first played the DLC: I had only heard very little of Ilkka Villi speaking english in some promo vids remedy has done, and not enough to be sure entirely, but I suspected that it might be him because he sounds somewhere between Matthew Porretta & James McCaffrey
I found a reddit thread where someone mentioned watching Bordertown with Ilkka Villi and then playing AWE and how it has to be him because it sounds just like him
My one questions is this: why did they leave him uncredited? To build mystique? Was it going to come back later in AW2 or Control 2? Is it going to tie into something Bigger (as Vin has pointed out some introduced Lore From Control That Has Implications As Well)?
AW2 has the whole two character/two worlds twos down the line thematically thing happening, however in the past there has usually been in AW1/AWAN/CONTROL the Rule of 3 (also... rule of 3rds, director, cinematography /strokes chin) and so it's interesting to me (will it be significant or just coincidence?) that
Return ends up being the name of the manuscript in AWAN because it had already been established that Alan's sequel was called this, and it's implied that Return will be the name of the manuscript in AW2 so are they different manuscripts? Are they going to clarify that AWAN was a scrapped manuscript and Alan started over?
Also, there's the whole thing where initially Alan had been planning a book trilogy, Departure/Initiation/Return, and Initiation has never been mentioned
with regard to the third AWE screenshot: I had wondered but had been unsure if the double exposure showing the bright falls map with notes on it regarding the cult of the tree and such was alan's face being distorted and mirrored like the first two caps, but was unsure since it looks the least like his face
thinking about all the stuff in control and how much alan knows about it. i imagine none of it is the whole picture about anything, and that it's all disjointed fragments and impressions. he knows enough about the hiss to know its words and how it twists the people it infects, so likely he's gotten impressions from the infected
and this does include the board at one point. i wonder how he parses the board if he's aware of them and the astral plane. what language would he use to describe, what logic
would alan have gotten impressions of some of the contents of FBC documents? how much? the not-mother stuff is truly harrowing and the former is also interesting
the former still poses the question of whether or not it's actually good or bad, or is its morality simply beyond our comprehension? is it unburdened by morality entirely?
sigh, i wish there was a way to replay missions without doing a whole new run bc sometimes there's just parts I wanna experience individually at my own convenience
so, we get to see alan wake in the dark place talking to thomas zane, right?
she plays both Alice AND Barbara Jagger in this video
from AW2 Extended Demo
from AWE: