Alan Wake: an Exegesis

Video games by nature tend to be strange. The two most iconic classic games involve what looks like a pie chart eating white spots (pills? balls? marbles?) while being chased by ghosts and an Italian plumber who stomps on turtles and mushrooms while eating mushrooms in order to save a princess from a giant dragon/turtle. Games have not gotten any less weird since then. This is made manifest by the "unreality theory" which suggests that as game graphics, sounds, and AIs and physics become more realistic, the game must become more unrealistic in other ways. Thus, games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed or Crackdown, while providing fantastic graphics, allow the player to have unrealistic super powers that seem to bend the laws of physics. Enemies also become more unrealistic and absurd and sometimes even the story line of the game might be quite bizarre, as with Katamari Damacy. This is because video games are, primarily, entertainment, but more specifically, an escape. Gamers play games generally speaking because they want to be able to experience what they could or would otherwise not experience.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the game Alan Wake, a horror/adventure game, is quite a bit bizarre. For anybody who has not played the game, I suggest first that if you don't want anything spoiled, do not read this, but secondly, you'll remember that the game follows the writer Alan Wake as he tries to find his wife in a rural town in Washington state. What sticks out about this game, however, is that it is bizarre in a different way than most other games. Whereas many games start bizarre from the beginning, usually with effects, physics or gameplay, and maintain an air of the strange throughout the game in predictable ways, or else start out bizarre but become more normal as the plot and storyline is revealed (this is especially the case with Square Enix games), Alan Wake begins strange, gets a little more normal, and then really gets weird toward the end.
The reader, if he played throughout Alan Wake, will recall that, much like "Silent Hill," whenever the gaming environs become dark (usually with appropriate dramatic music and visual blur), the player is in danger of being attacked by the "Taken." And while the game is, predictably, focused on somehow eliminating the Taken while getting Alice Wake back from wherever she is, the plot gets quite bizarre at the end. What seem to be Dei ex machina or other unexplainable plot devices seem to appear without rhyme or reason. Toward the end, we see Tom Zane as "the space man," the darkness as some sort of personified entity, the clicker as some sort of magic talisman that destroys the darkness, and, perhaps most strangely, "the lake is an ocean." And while I was at first upset at the lack of any sort of cohesive, understandable ending, after some reflection, I have concluded that Alan Wake is an allegory, and after further reflection, I have come across two possible readings of it.

Reading One: Alan Wake as an Existentialist Text
Much like the great novels of the Existentialists, Alan Wake presents what seems like a bizarre story told in order to make a point. All of the various aspects of the story have meaning if only we understand.
In the first place, Alan Wake is the everyman. The fact that a simple writer from New York is the enemy-destroying protagonist, while the better trained hunters and police officers are claimed by the Taken should be a clear indication of this. The fact that Alan is a writer is a metaphor for all of our lives. Alan tries desperately to try to control the world he lives in or convinces himself he will be able to provided he reach some vague, undetermined goal, all the while the world is raging violently against him. Alan spends the game picking up sheets of manuscript paper which detail events that occur in the world. He tries to convince himself that he wrote these pages, that he planned out his destiny, yet he has no recollection of this. Alan Wake desperately holds onto the illusion of control all the while trying to fight what seems to be the entire world.
The darkness represents death. This is Alan's number one fear, his wife's fear and ultimately the thing that ends up claiming most of the people of the town and Alan's wife, and the thing that he must ultimately confront. At one point, Dr Hartmann plainly declares, "Your wife is dead," which Alan is adamant is not the case. In the end, we do not see that Alan has saved her, but rather that Alan himself is claimed by the darkness. The main theme, then, of the game is Alan's journey to accepting death. The "Taken" that he fights, presumably meant to be a play on the notion of "possession," have been "taken" by death and all that remains is their spectres. Thus, even though Alan kills hundreds of what ought to have been normal town residents, there seems to be little real panic on the part of the town: for Alan is merely coming to grips with the fact that all die.
This is most clearly true when one considers that his weapons of choice to fight the taken are a flashlight and a gun. The flashlight reveals the truth to Alan: that these spectres attacking him are merely what is left of real people. The gun, then is Alan's resignation, and his acceptance that they are dead--manifested by the fact that he "kills" them himself. Ultimately, the light makes it so that the phantoms of the dead are unable to affect him. When Alan reaches a safe haven, the Taken are unable to attack him and disappear from his presence. This is a representation of the light of truth protecting Alan from the crippling insanity that awaits him if he does not accept the reality of death.
The various characters have specific roles too. Alice and Barry have no symbolic meaning: Alice is the protagonist's deceased wife whom he longs for, and Barry is his best friend who has come to try to comfort him in his suffering but does not know how to respond to his friend's increasing detachment and mania. Sheriff Baker represents the call of order and law that tries to maintain keep Alan sane but ultimately is swept into his mania. Agent Nightingale represents a sort of "hyper-order" a conspiracy theory that adds to Alan's mania and increases his inability to reach a calm state. Dr Hartmann is the plain matter-of-fact voice that speaks the truth, even though it does so in order to try to take advantage of Alan's ability. He is the voice of society that wishes the bereaved to overcome his grief in order to once again be a functioning member of society. Mott is the self-deception that society utilizes to prevent proper grieving or respect for the deceased. Mott tries to convince Alan that Alice is still alive in order to con him into producing more. Tom Zane is the experience sage who has gone through the grieving process and wishes to help young Alan accept fate. He has endured the mania and come out enlightened. The space suit and the seemingly god-like powers derive from his ability to accept things for what they are rather than struggle uselessly agains them. He is the only character who truly understands Alan's position and he brings Alan through the process. Catherine Jagger is the lost loved one whom Zane has bereaved and whom the rest of the town has tried to ignore with more or less success. Cynthia Weaver was personally affected by Jagger's death and never overcame the psychosis she felt because of it. To this day, she frets and devotes an absurd amount of time to personal safety to the extent that she is unable to function in society. The brothers, Tor and Odin represent religion: they are old characters who represent even older gods and are instrumental in helping Alan come to peace with death. However, Alan is unable to find complete respite within their ways and continues his journey even after finding them.
The clicker represents the ability to accept one's fate. The clicker appears early on as a device to help Alice not fear the dark (death) as well as a device for young Alan to not fear it. At the end of the game, the clicker has the dual ability to both dispel the dark and thus clear Alan's mind so as to not be overwhelmed by his psychosis, as well as to defeat the darkness and ultimately allow Alan to come to final peace with death. The clicker is given to him by Spaceman Tom, further proof that Tom is a kindly sage.
Finally, the lake is the ultimate thing that Alan must come to grips with. The lake seemingly represents the cause of Alice's death, but in reality, it represents the distance between the living and the dead. The lake supposedly is the source of the darkness, and thereby the source of death as well as the central locus of the dead. In short, the lake represents the afterlife. Alan has convinced himself that if he can just make it to the lake, he will be able to bring his wife back from the depths and everything will be ok. In the end, Alan himself plunges into the lake in order to reunite with his wife. While the ending is somewhat ambiguous and possibly suggests that Alan himself is dead, his final sentence is the most telling. Alan realizes the ultimate truth that death is final and there is no crossing over. "The lake is an ocean."

Reading Two: Alan Wake is battling subconscious phobias
While this version of understanding the game has fewer intricate details and does not have as much depth to it, it certainly seems more obvious. The game begins with Alan fighting the darkness in a nightmare. The nightmare itself has most of the same characteristics of much of the gameplay of Alan Wake. He is fighting shadowy figures, he is chased by a storm of tangible darkness, he must use light to fight the dark and he is guided by the voice of Spaceman Tom.
There is plenty more to be said about the game in this aspect. Much of the dialogue of the game revolves around the notion of dreams. Toward the end of the game, as Alan makes his way to Cauldron Lake for the final time, he mentions that he "was only following the logic of a dream." Furthermore, many of the story elements only make sense as dream elements: his worst fear, losing his wife to some unknown force, comes true; he gets a ransom call for her from someone who actually does not know where she is; he and his wife are on vacation on the other side of the country and somehow his best friend comes and visits him; he is chased by an FBI agent though he has no idea why; the cabin he was sleeping in the first night disappears; he defeats some insurmountable evil with a light switch; and finally, even thought the world seems to be falling apart around him, most people do not seem to notice. Furthermore, the final words heard in the game are the voice of Alice saying "Alan, wake up!" If this is not enough to be convinced, the game is called Alan Wake, that is, A. Wake.
Like any psychoanalytical philosophy, the psychology of the dream reveals truths about the reality of the character. Wake is mostly afraid of losing his wife and being unable to get her back. He is also afraid that he might go crazy and his best friends would be unable to do anything but try to offer sympathy. He has great admiration for the writers who came before him, as manifested in the way he frequently references Stephen King and sees Thomas Zane as his savior. As a city dweller, he also has an inherent fear of rural peoples, as all the Taken end up being stereotypes of rural inhabitants. He distrusts psychology and thinks that doctors all have ulterior motives to helping their patients. Furthermore, as manifested in the way Rose is portrayed, he sees fans as a sort of nuisance. He also has a sort of attraction to the rock n roll lifestyle, though, based on the age of Odin and Tor, I would guess that this is an obsession he had many years ago or else is simply a lifestyle he admires but sees as too archaic.
Ultimately, he finds himself encircled about by all the things that he fears, and he must decide to either become a recluse and a prisoner to his fear like Cynthia Weaver or else finally overcome his greatest fears. In the end, he will "take the plunge" into the lake that represents his fears and face them head on. The strange sequence that follows is him drawing on the strength of his idol, Spaceman Tom, in order to finally conquer his greatest fear.
The game, then, is a psychological exploration of fear, of friendship and love and of trying to maintain control in what seems like a mad world. The way the characters are represented is representative of the way in which Alan Wake views them--that is, they're hyperboles of real people. Barry is obnoxious, Nightingale is a drunken idiot, Spaceman Tom is nearly a god, Catherine Jagger is an evil witch, Rose is a mindless fool, Hartmann is a conniving trickster, the brothers are clearly insane, and Cynthia Weaver is paranoid. This is life through the eyes of Alan Wake.