This review contains spoilers
There's a lot to say about this game's meta narrative. The way it weaves storytelling and pop culture into a story about storytelling and the act of telling a proper story. The incredible music choices that made me immediately understand why Remedy chose to briefly pull the game from Steam rather than cut out the music when the licenses ran out. Its striking set pieces and the carefully paced story. How it all clicks together into an incredible little piece of action horror.
But I think one of the most interesting threads of the game is in the relationship between the women of the story and art. Alice Wake is Alan's Muse. She's dedicated herself completely to being the reason Alan writes and getting him to write more. She doesn't have any career outside of Alan, her only job is making his book covers. Her role in the story is to be a kidnapping victim. What makes this so compelling is the needling sense that the writers know what's happening there. The avatar of the antagonist, Barbara Jagger, is a corrupted muse. Her life and soul corrupted for the sake of Thomas Zane's art. The threat facing Alice isn't just her death at the bottom of the ocean, its the possibility that she too will become a lifeless husk centered only on expanding some creatively sterile monstrosity.
This pattern is reflected in Cynthia Weaver and Rose Marigold. Cynthia Weaver was a girl who crushed on Thomas Zane, but she had dreams and goals outside of that crush. Zane uses that crush to make her protect the town for decades to come. She abandons her plans in favor of becoming the local kook. She switches between reverence and hatred for Zane frequently, but she can't even work up the anger to mourn her lost life. All she wants is to rest. Give the role to someone else. The local waitress Rose is explicitly noted to take on the position from Cynthia, her crush on Wake forcing her into the same role. The women are never creators, only tools for men to create from. Its heartbreaking and it just feels too pointed to not be intentional. I want to believe its intentional.
If Alan Wake 2 is about writing himself out of the lake, I think the funniest possible route is for Alan to write himself as a dad. He's already shitty Stephen King who seems to just follow the trends, he might as well follow the patterns of video games and write himself a gay daughter. Use another woman as a tool to make yourself more interesting. What could be more Alan Wake than that?
But I think one of the most interesting threads of the game is in the relationship between the women of the story and art. Alice Wake is Alan's Muse. She's dedicated herself completely to being the reason Alan writes and getting him to write more. She doesn't have any career outside of Alan, her only job is making his book covers. Her role in the story is to be a kidnapping victim. What makes this so compelling is the needling sense that the writers know what's happening there. The avatar of the antagonist, Barbara Jagger, is a corrupted muse. Her life and soul corrupted for the sake of Thomas Zane's art. The threat facing Alice isn't just her death at the bottom of the ocean, its the possibility that she too will become a lifeless husk centered only on expanding some creatively sterile monstrosity.
This pattern is reflected in Cynthia Weaver and Rose Marigold. Cynthia Weaver was a girl who crushed on Thomas Zane, but she had dreams and goals outside of that crush. Zane uses that crush to make her protect the town for decades to come. She abandons her plans in favor of becoming the local kook. She switches between reverence and hatred for Zane frequently, but she can't even work up the anger to mourn her lost life. All she wants is to rest. Give the role to someone else. The local waitress Rose is explicitly noted to take on the position from Cynthia, her crush on Wake forcing her into the same role. The women are never creators, only tools for men to create from. Its heartbreaking and it just feels too pointed to not be intentional. I want to believe its intentional.
If Alan Wake 2 is about writing himself out of the lake, I think the funniest possible route is for Alan to write himself as a dad. He's already shitty Stephen King who seems to just follow the trends, he might as well follow the patterns of video games and write himself a gay daughter. Use another woman as a tool to make yourself more interesting. What could be more Alan Wake than that?
Archagent
1 year ago