Alan Wake II takes its position as second game in the series (with an expected third game at the very least) very seriously. This is a game that's obsessed with the number two - two player characters (not counting a brief prologue in which we play as a third character,) two worlds, two Koskela brothers, two cults... the list goes on.
This also applies, interestingly enough, to two big music-based sequences. Now, one of these sequences is one of the most delightfully surprising segments of a video game I've ever played, so I dare not spoil those who have not yet experienced it firsthand. So let's get into spoiler territory:
SPOILERS AHEAD:
After their introduction in the first game, the Old Gods of Asgard have become essentially the in-universe justification for incorporating the music of Poets of the Fall into Remedy's games (I believe that Poets' lead singer Marko Saaresto is personal friends with Sam Lake, Remedy's creative director and more or less face of Remedy Entertainment).
In the first game, Alan meets a couple of geezers who were in a heavy metal band in the 1970s and 80s called the Old Gods of Asgard - likely called that because drummer and lead vocalist are Tor and Odin Anderson, brothers named after the Norse deities. In a memorable sequence, Alan and his friend Barry Wheeler fend off a group of Taken with help from the pyrotechnics set up at the Andersons' farm outside of Bright Falls, the various fireworks blasting away the shadowy shields of the Taken to make dispatching them much easier. All the while, a recording of an Old Gods of Asgard song blasts.
Later, in Control, near the end of the game, Jesse needs some kind of key to navigate the "Ashtray Maze," a region of the Oldest House that is controlled by an Object of Power set by the late Director Trench to hide an important department of the FBC, and the key she uses is a song by the Old Gods of Asgard that guides her through the maze while also more or less telling the story of her biography and her empowerment to become the hero she is.
It has thus become something of an expectation that Remedy games will have a big exciting sequence that involves the Old Gods of Asgard, with Poets of the Fall channeling some old-school metal to make it feel extra awesome.
And in Alan Wake II, we get two such sequences.
Now, these could come in different orders depending on how you play the game. I alternated between Saga and Alan on most of their missions, so for me Alan's bit came first.
Over the course of the game, Alan's chapters begin with a visit to a late-night talk show called In Between with Mr. Door, in which Alan is interviewed by the mysterious Mr. Door about a book, Initiation, that he doesn't remember writing (though, of course, given the chapters of this part of the game are called Initiation, we're likely experiencing that very story as we play). The second or third time (I want to say third) that we find ourselves in the TV studio, things play out... a bit differently. On the television that usually transfers us to the live-action scenes on the talk show, we hear Mr. Door explain that they're changing things up: that the interview will be conducted in song. And sure enough, as we enter the studio world, what begins is a 20-minute Rock Opera in a labyrinthine path through what is very clearly still the studio set (complete with gaffer's tape marking the paths and even giving instructions.)
What plays out over the course of this section is an epic theatrical-rock song called Herald of Darkness, which involves a few (sung) questions in which Mr. Door asks Alan various questions about his life while Alan sings back responses - all as live-action recordings on screens that sweep around the studio to create walls and doors. The level, such as it is, is pretty light on gameplay and challenge, though I'll confess that I couldn't figure out a very simple one involving neon signs and the angel lamp near the midpoint of the sequence, and felt like a total moron when I found the solution online.
In a lot of ways, this sequence reaches its musical climax with a moment of empowerment - you first get your hands on the Flare Gun, and that's when they actually start sending Taken after you, but they're of course trivialized by the weapon, for which there is ample and generous ammunition.
The sequence is also hilarious because there are maybe three points during it in which Alan, and likely the player, think it's over, only for it to just start a new verse or transition to another genre - at one point becoming a slow ballad and even at a later point becoming a jazzy solo from Alan literally singing about how he doesn't know how to end the song.
But, what I find interesting, is that the song, despite being upbeat and, well, kinda just awesome (even if I think Poets of the Fall's more 21st century post-grunge sound can sometimes intrude and make it a little hard to believe this is a band that likely was in its heyday in the late 1970s - though they bring that old-school needly guitar riffing) the lyrics are actually pretty negative.
The chorus goes:
"Show me the champion of light,
I'll give you the herald of darkness.
Lost in a never-ending night,
Diving deep to the surface."
This is, of course, all foreshadowing: Mr. Scratch, Alan's evil doppelganger, is actually just Alan himself, but when the Dark Presence is possessing him and pulling his strings (given that Barbara Jagger was eventually thought of by locals as an urban legend about the "Scratching Hag," I think Scratch - which has sometimes been a name for the Devil, often as "Old Scratch," could simply be what the Dark Presence goes by. And given the Dark Presence might just be the Jungian "Shadow," that makes it functionally the same as the Devil anyway.)
So, yes, if Alan is our Champion of Light, he's also our Herald of Darkness.
In fact, I think there's almost a universal idea here as well. As Nietzsche wrote, "He who fights monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes into you." Alan's sure as hell been fighting monsters, and he's not just gazed into the abyss - he jumped into it. And as Saga's story shows us, the methods he's using are not without their victims. You could even call him out as solipsistic - his attempts to escape the Dark Place have led to many deaths, and that's before we even get into the fact that he's literally got the Dark Presence inside of him when he emerges from Cauldron Lake.
But that's not the only big musical sequence in the game.
Admittedly, the latter one is not quite as unique an experience. Saga decides that they need to pull Alan out of the Dark Place to fix the problems caused by Mr. Scratch's escape, and so she summons the Old Gods of Asgard (Tor being her grandfather, as she discovers) to Cauldron Lake and gets back-up from the FBC. Tor and Odin bring with them a new song: Dark Ocean Summoning, which they play out into the lake while Saga fights massive waves of Taken.
Gameplay-wise, this is a lot closer to the sequence in the first game. The song is another banger, though more of a background piece than something dynamically changing as you move through the level (you're just defending a small area on the beach,) but what I find interesting about it is that it's very different in tone:
Dark Ocean Summoning is more or less about how Alan is actually a good person. It's trying to summon the real Alan, not his shadowy doppelganger, and essentially works to diminish the darkness with the power of rock. The second verse goes thus:
"The horror falsely claiming,
Naming you Servant of the Night.
Now, rise up by the name I'm calling
Your soul returning to the light."
So, in a weird way, the songs are giving two different messages: One is that the hero of the story is actually its villain. The other is that the hero is not the same as the villain.
But time is convoluted: which of these songs is actually right?
See, the summoning ritual doesn't work the way it's meant to. Retroactively, it's what brought Alan back the previous day - the Alan that, unmasked, was revealed to be Mr. Scratch. But then, it also brings Mr. Scratch to them, and when Saga is able to trap him in the FBC's (as it turns out, only partially successful) containment unit, the Dark Presence's exit from Alan and implantation into Alex Casey reveals that they were, in fact, one and the same.
But they're also not, really.
And as if to prove it, after Mr. Scratch (now in Casey's body) throws Saga into the lake, and thus into the Dark Place, Alan wastes no time, even though he's in theory just finally accomplished what he has wanted to do for thirteen years and actually escaped the Dark Place, in going back to the Dark Place to rescue Saga.
There's a paradox, or a seeming contradiction, that the game builds to and explores: yes, Alan has darkness within him. We all do. There's a Shadow within each of us that threatens to become our "Scratch" persona. But we also have the option to choose the path of light. Alan, when the chips are down, when it really counts, will throw himself back into the abyss in a heartbeat if it's the right thing to do.
Yes, our Champion of Light holds within him our Herald of Darkness. But that does not mean that he has to submit to the latter role. And Alan has committed and re-committed to being the Champion.
No comments:
Post a Comment