Appearance
Physically, Alan Wake, the protagonist of then game of the same name, is modelled on Finnish actor Ilkka Villi, but in terms of appearance, he dresses smart-casual, preferring a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows layered over a generic hoodie with standard fit jeans and loafers. In the promo material, Alan is seen wearing a scarf but this is never seen in-game. In terms of grooming, Alan seems to permanently have stubble and an unfussy, unstyled haircut, reflecting his relatively uncaring attitude towards his life since he finished his last novel, "The Sudden Stop", and became afflicted with writer's block, unable to write anything at all for almost two years. In the flashbacks to two and three years before the game takes place, he is clean shaven, presumably due to having press commitments such as the Harry Garrett Show, though it should be noted that on the cardboard cut-out depicting Alan that is seen throughout the game, he has his trademark stubble.
In the sequel Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Alan wears a plain white T-shirt with a blue-and-white plaid shirt over it, as well as a faded pair of blue jeans with a 'Texan bull' belt buckle, and a pair of hiking boots. It is later revealed that this is an outfit he associates with one of his favourite memories of his wife Alice, a sunrise he watched with her while she filmed it. To defeat the monstrous Mr. Scratch, Alan clothed himself in clothes associated with such a positive memory as a method of protecting his mind from the Darkness.
Personality
Throughout the game, the flashbacks and documented in what others say about him, it's clear that Alan Wake has a very acerbic personality. While he comments that Barry Wheeler is his best friend, he spends the entire game bickering with him, same with Sheriff Sarah Breaker, both of whom comment on him always being moody and intense. Alice says that he is the most stubborn man she's ever met, and although Alan loves her fiercely, describing her as his muse, it's implied that their marriage is in danger of falling apart. This is part of the reason they are vacationing in Bright Falls. By the end of the first game, Alan seems to have repented from the way he treated Alice in the past, swearing to make things right, and when reunited with her at the conclusion of American Nightmare, he seems to have meant it.
Alan also has a very unstable attitude towards fame, displaying a love for the parties and the lifestyle the money brings, but a hatred, ranging from thinly-veiled to glaringly obvious, for his fans and the paparazzi, feeling unable to balance his own life. In his interview with Harry Garrett, they talk about his temper and a fight he had with a photographer. With Rose, the girl who works at Bright Falls' Oh Deer Diner, he is nice enough to her on the surface, but doesn't indulge in her idolization and mutters to himself that he hates 'these kinds of fans.'
Alan's Novels
Most of Alan's works are mystery novels, focused on the character of NYPD detective Alex Casey, a thinly-veiled homage to Remedy Entertainment's previous franchise, Max Payne. Like Max Payne, Casey is a gloomy, aggressive policeman who lives solely for his work, and who survived the deaths of his wife and child. The homage goes so far as to have James McCaffrey, the voice actor for Payne, provide the voice of Alex Casey on a page of the manuscript for "The Sudden Stop", the final book in the series, which depicts the death of the Alex Casey character. Alan's motivations for killing Casey were that he wanted to move on from the character and try something new and creative.
Alan's seventh novel, "Departure", which is manifested into reality by the force of the Dark Presence, is about a writer named Alan Wake vacationing in the town of Bright Falls, Washington, with his wife Alice, only for Alice to be kidnapped by a supernatural evil, forcing Alan to face the dangers of the night to save her.
At the conclusion of Alan Wake, Alan is shown to be writing a new script, "The Return", which turns out to be an episode of the television show he used to write for, Night Springs. In the episode, which depicts the events of American Nightmare, A man, the Champion of Light, appears out of nowhere in the town of Night Springs, Arizona, to do battle with the Herald of Darkness (represented by Alan's evil doppelganger, Mr. Scratch), who threatens to kill or corrupt everyone in town.
Novels by Alan Wake
- Alex Casey
- The Things That I Want
- The Fall of Casey
- What I Can't Forget
- Return to Sender
- The Sudden Stop
- Departure
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