Who the Hell is Warlin Door?

 In Alan Wake II, when we first get to play as Alan (which is a little ways into the game - we have to complete the first big chapter with Saga initially) our favorite doomed novelist awakens in the dressing room at a late-night talk show called In-Between with Mr. Door.

Door comes off as a typical enthusiastic late-night host, eagerly introducing Alan as his "favorite author" and raving about Alan's newest work, a novel called "Initiation," which Alan has no memory of writing. He describes the novel as "autofiction," and acts as if Alan's bewilderment is just part of the whole story's narrative.

Spoilers Ahead:

Escaping from the television studio becomes a recurring element in the game - each time we return to Alan's story, he's once again showing up for an interview on the talk show.

Given his prominence here - a figure who seems to be perfectly at ease despite being in The Dark Place, Door takes on a rather sinister vibe despite his affability. He is also a character who never appear rendered as a game character - Door's appearances are only in live-action, or in photos for posters advertising his show.

Over the course of the game, we encounter Bright Falls' sheriff, Tim Breaker, who has had dreams of Mr. Door. When Tim is inexplicably sucked into the Dark Place shortly before the corpse of Robert Nightingale stands up as a powerful Taken in the Bright Falls morgue, Door's face appears for an instance, as if to say that Door is the one who takes Sheriff Breaker.

Now, I think it's important to note that Tim Breaker is portrayed by Shawn Ashmore, who played the main character, Jack Joyce, in Quantum Break, Remedy's 2016 game that came before they made Control. Quantum Break, like Max Payne, is a property owned by another company, meaning that any allusions to it in the Remedyverse need to have the serial numbers filed off, so to speak, similarly to how Max Payne had to become Alex Casey.

Full disclosure, I never played Quantum Break, so this is all second-hand.

While Jack Joyce is not, to my knowledge, ever a small town sheriff, it's notable that there's a prominent character in Quantum Break called Martin Hatch, played by Lance Reddick. Hatch is an enigma - with no apparent history prior to his role as CEO of Monarch Solutions. Over the course of the game, Hatch is revealed to be more powerful than any of the other time-manipulating characters in the story, and seems to have total unified control over his various alternate-timeline selves.

Door, similarly, is hypothesized by Tim Breaker to exist in every reality - it's why he can be in the Dark Place, but is probably also in the real world (and probably the Astral Plane as well). He is a "door" in the sense that, because he has a foot in every reality, he can effectively travel between them by simply already being there.

While it's easy to forget because we never actually see him, in Control, one of Dylan's dreams he relates to Jesse involves meeting a Mr. Door, who can apparently travel to every reality. But when Dylan tries to get Door to let him introduce the Hiss to all these different realities, he does not allow it (which is impressive - that he even can prevent the Hiss from coming, which is something  even the Board does not seem capable of doing.

That's all well and good, but what are his goals? His motivations?

Near the end of the game, the final time that Alan meets Door, the lights in the studio are all out and the meeting is not quite as cordial as before - indeed, Door more or less tells Alan that if he doesn't "play his part," there will be hell to pay.

Now, I read something into this that apparently was confirmed by puzzles I never actually finished - apparently if you find all of the Nursery Rhyme puzzles, you'll discover that the man Tor didn't like who was with his daughter Freya (Saga's mother) was actually Mr. Door, making Door Saga's father. Saga has paranatural abilities, which could simply come from being an Anderson, but it's also likely that having a father who is some kind of interdimensional being would have a big impact on her capabilities.

But... that's about it. Much as Ahti has a rather significant presence in Alan Wake II, I would not at all be surprised to see Mr. Door popping up in future Remedy games.