so, we get to see alan wake in the dark place talking to thomas zane, right?

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

and when he doesn't have his face covered by the gear, it's redacted

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

fast forward back to the Control AWE DLC

/sits here

We see Zane, and at first, yes, he looks like Alan

He's dressed the same, he has the same hair, the short beard, even the body language is mostly similar - but still, a little different

But it's easy to take this all at face value, because after all, we only see Zane for VERY brief moments

enough to mistake someone for a look-alike

A Stunt Double

if you will

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

BUT

what else does he call himself?

An ~auteur~

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

work, taking on multiple creative roles in the development process)

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...

they are not the same

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

but considering all the themes introduced in Control, this takes on new meaning

Because Jesse and Polaris are two different beings... until they aren't

They become the same person, and in some theories, people belief that Polaris is Jesse's Jungian self

people have theorized that Zane is the same for Alan, however I don't believe that to be true

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

his cheekbones also sit lower

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

Porretta being the VA for Alan and McCaffrey being the VA for Zane in AW1

I went looking again because as I was capping it started haunting me again

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

I found a clip and listened

It's him, indisputably it's him

Which is interesting because of the implications

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)?

There is Much to Think About Here

and that's all my screaming about this

phew i feel better after getting it out

one more, but in this still you can more clearly see their silhouette are not entirely the same

silhouettes plural oops

coming back to this a second

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

Thomas Zane is voice-acted by THREE different people at this point

James McCaffrey - AW1, Matthew Poretta - also AW1, at the end when Alan returns to Cauldron Lake, and then here in the AWE DLC by Ilkka Villi

Departure/Return is also interesting, using my word choice got me thinking about this

because

While Departure is supposed to be indicative of Alan's "departure" from his old life into his hero's journey

and Return is supposed to be Alan returning home from The Dark Place

Technically, Departure begins with him leaving the lake and ends with him returning to it

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

some people theorize that Initiation is the story of Control, and the establishment of this manuscript is off-screen, but I'm still not entirely sure

putting this here because AWE-related:
from AW2 Extended Demo

from AWE:

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

but based on the AW2 caps, I think it's safe to say that it is too

much to think about, but i also gotta get ready for bed

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

but because the flow of the narrative affects the game world/environment, it makes sense why you can't

was watching the hotlines video again and just

just now noticed something

the old gods tour

it's called the Return comeback tour

it's capitalized and everything in the subtitles and the transcript

which is the one that they were doing during American Nightmare

which was the Return manuscript

i'm

screaming inside

THEY'VE THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING

E V E R Y T H I N G