History Characters / RemedyConnectedUniverse

* TurnTheOtherCheek: [[spoiler:In "The Final Draft" they reveal once they entered the Dark Place, they quickly came across their old enemy Mr. Door. They tell Saga they made peace with their one time son/nephew-in-law, as they happily work alongside him to help Alan out.]]

* GoodCounterpart: He is one to the founding Watery citizen Ilmari Huotari. Both were twin brothers and respected members of their community (played by the same actor as well), but while Ilmari succumb to the impulse to kill innocents and his brother, Ilmo remained true to his own honor and fought off the influence of the Dark Presence when it tried to make him [[HistoryRepeats follow in Ilmari's footsteps]].

* [[Characters/RemedyConnectedUniverseParanaturalPhenomena Paranatural Phenomena]] [[note]]The Hiss, Dylan Faden, The Anchor, The Board, Astral Spikes, Astral Copies, FORMER, The Oldest House, The Oceanview Motel and Casino, The Blessed Organization, The Cult of the Tree, The Cult of the Word, Hedron, The Not-Mother, esseJ, Unless You, Fra, The Clog, The Mold, The Third Thing[[/note]]

* AFriendInNeed: [[spoiler:Alice relates in her documentary he spent several nights caring for her and cooking for her in the throes of depression after the events of the first game. She admits when push came to shove, he was a far better friend then she ever gave him credit for.]]

* WalkingArmory: Even her default inventory space allows her to carry a questionably large amount of ammunition and weaponry, and the small pouches that upgrade this inventory are visibly too small to hold her guns, or even her larger healing items. By the end of the game, she can be toting ammo, flares, several charms, and up to ''five guns'' at a time, which other then her handgun in its holster and the one she has equipped, which SticksToTheBack, simply appear from {{Hammerspace}}.

* YouHaveResearchedBreathing: Some of the weapon upgrades she can use manuscript pages to empower herself with are far more lackluster then others. Notably, "Fluid Motion" for the Sawed-Off shotgun and "Under Control" for its Pump Action counterpart allow her to [[BoringButPractical reload faster and walk faster while aiming]], respectively.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Kooky and somewhat insensible at times. While they turn out to have more going on upstairs then it first seems, they still both (especially Odin) seem to have early onset dementia which causes them to ramble and lose focus easily.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: After years of senility and falling out of mainstream focus, Barry manages to spur one last tour out of them. They're described as rocking harder then they did in their glory days and have the time of their lives before peacefully retiring into a personally funded nursing home to have some peace and quiet in the time they have left. [[spoiler:Unfortunately in ''Alan Wake II'', circumstances force them to battle the Dark Presence again and enter the Dark Place, although while in the Dark Place, they become their younger selves...at least while performing on Warlin Door's show. When Saga runs into them at the end of a NG+ run, they're still the same cranky old men they were in reality, though they aren't bothered by this]].

* EliteMook: As an Overlap Guardian, he's significantly stronger then the average Taken, having multiple Darkness shields and hitting much harder with an entire dead tree as his weapon of choice.

* DeadpanSnarker: He comes equipped with the sharp wit of a man taken from a FilmNoir style narrative, though he is significantly more lighthearted about it then his grim, [[VideoGame/MaxPayne cross-franchise]] counterpart.

* DrinkBasedCharacterization: Other then his obsession with coffee, his favorite drink is a twelve years aged bottle of Whiskey. When Saga recalls sharing a glass with him, she remarks on how awful it tasted going down.

* FalseMemories: [[spoiler:By the time he and Saga reconvene at the Sheriff's Station, the story has effected him enough he believes Logan drowned just as the people of Watery do. She comes closer to convincing him these memories have been inserted then anyone else, but he remains skeptical as to what is the story and what is reality until she properly ends the story.]]

* MustHaveCaffeine: Expresses a hankering for coffee at every opportunity, and acts on his desire far more often then Saga, often sipping from a cup or mug during investigation. His room at Elderwood is also ''littered'' with cups, and Saga can find a note reminding himself to find out what exactly makes Bright Falls Brew so delicious.

* VagueAge: It's left ambiguous how old he's meant to be, other then the implication he has at least a few years on his 35 year old partner Saga. He has a fairly youthful appearance, but the disposition of a GrumpyOldMan, and a voice actor in his mid-60s at the time of ''Alan Wake II'''s release. Saga cracks a few jokes about his age early in the game, but he defends himself each time as not being ''that'' old.

* MeaningfulName: The town of "Watery" is flooded with excess water by the time of ''Alan Wake II''. Saga even notes the flooding is far worse then the nearby Bright Falls.

* SirSwearsALot: Peppers a lot more casual expletives into his dialogue then his brother, which is especially notable given how much [[TerseTalker less he speaks.]] [[spoiler:His last words are various swears thrown at Scratch, first in mutual panic with his brother, then in sole defiance before he is killed.]]

* HiddenDepths: When asked about the nature of fate by a random caller, he suddenly launches into a sophisticated monologue about the ideas of beings greater then us deciding our fate. Oddly enough, his voice is briefly intercut with that of the Night Springs narrator for no explained reason.

* [[Characters/RemedyConnectedUniverseBrightFalls Bright Falls]] [[note]]Sarah Breaker, Tim Breaker, Deputies Mulligan & Thornton, Deputy Grant, Dr. Hartman, Ben Mott, Nurse Birch, Nurse Sinclair, Rudolf Lane, Thomas Emerson, Rose Marigold, Vlad Blum, Pat Maine, Cynthia Weaver, Thomas Zane, Rusty, Carl Stucky, Frank Breaker, Jake Fischer, Ellen Adams, Sam Smith[[/note]]

* EarnYourHappyEnding: After years of senility and falling out of mainstream focus, Barry manages to spur one last tour out of them. They're described as rocking harder then they did in their glory days and have the time of their lives before peacefully retiring into a personally funded nursing home to have some peace and quiet in the time they have left. [[spoiler:Unfortunately in ''Alan Wake II'', circumstances force them to battle the Dark Presence again and enter the Dark Place, although while in the Dark Place, they become their younger selves...at least while performing on Warlin Door's show, as when Saga runs into them at the end of a NG+ run, they're still the same cranky old men they were in reality]].

!!''Alan Wake''
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/MatthewPorretta (voice), Creator/IlkkaVilli (model)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakesAmericanNightmare'' | ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alan_wake_2_rain.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"My name is Alan Wake. I'm a writer."'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see him in ''Alan Wake Remastered'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alanremake.png[softreturn]''"A story is not a machine that does what you tell it. A story is a beast with a life of its own. You can create it, shape it, but as the story grows, it starts wanting things of its own."'']][[/labelnote]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see him in ''Control'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image_2_22.png[softreturn]''"How can I ever know for sure I've escaped and not just lost in my own fantasy of it? That thought alone can drive you mad."'']][[/labelnote]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see him in ''Alan Wake's American Nightmare'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/americanalan.jpg[softreturn]''"To change reality, you nudge it into the right direction. Your version of it is there, waiting; it wants to come true. All you need to do is to help it achieve its potential."'']][[/labelnote]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see him in ''Alan Wake'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alanclassic.jpg[softreturn]''"There's light, and there's darkness. Cause and effect. There's guilt and there's atonement. But the scales always need to balance. Everything has a price."'']][[/labelnote]]

->''"In a horror story, the victim keeps asking "Why?" But there can be no explanation, and there shouldn't be one. The unanswered mystery is what stays with us the longest, and it's what we'll remember in the end."''

A best-selling novelist who is vacationing with his wife in the small town of Bright Falls while wrestling with a severe case of writer's block. She disappears abruptly, and Alan comes to in a wrecked car in the wilderness, missing a week's time, and searching for clues as to what happened to his wife, all while fighting a dark supernatural force.

* ActOfTrueLove: He sacrifices his life (with the potential of a FateWorseThanDeath) at the end of the first game by plunging into Cauldron Lake and stopping the Dark Presence. While it is also to save Bright Falls, his first motivation is to save his beloved wife
* ActionSurvivor: He's literally just a novelist who spent a bit of time on the gun range and wears a quite dapper tweed jacket. This is generally shown in his performance in-game; Wake can't run very far without getting tired, he can't take too many hits, and he's not an exceptionally good shot. If the enemy is more than twenty or thirty paces away, he's not likely to hit them, even with a more accurate gun like the hunting rifle.
** ''Videogame/{{Control}}'' indicates that this may be [[InvokedTrope invoked]], as some of the information in the ''AWE'' expansion that Alan was already a Parautilitarian even before he came into contact with the Dark Presence, and that Alan was in turn created by Thomas Zane to be a RealityWarper ActionSurvivor.
* AdaptationalJerkass: In the novelization of the first game, Alan's HairTriggerTemper is played up even further. While being in the serene Bright Falls with his wife cools his temper on the ferry in the game, when he overhears Mott leering at him and Alice he nearly comes to blows over it in the novel. This could be a case of CharacterizationMarchesOn as the sequel establishes that Alan is ''very'' well known for his temper, almost for it as much as his books.
* AesopAmnesia: [[spoiler:In the Special Episodes of the first game, he briefly succumbs to his despair and tries to give up, only to learn to regain the will to escape the Dark Place. The problems of the sequel are caused by him succumbing to his despair and giving up. This is somewhat justified, from a combination of a ''13 year'' process of failure [[HeroicFatigue weighing him down]] and his mind being [[LaserGuidedAmnesia altered]] to make him literally forget.]]
* TheAlcoholic: Due to parties he's thrown for the success of his final Alex Casey novel, he wakes up drunk and goes about taking medicine and putting on glasses as a remedy in a way to make it clear it is far from his first time. He even lets himself get drunk with Barry at the Anderson farm, only briefly trying to reject the drink before succumbing to the temptation.
* AlternateSelf: He has an alternate version of himself in ''Quantum Break'' that mostly followed the life of the "main" Alan, but somehow got a movie about [[ProductionForeshadowing Mr. Scratch and the FBI]] into production following his disappearance. While in-game evidence ties the game to the wider RCU multiverse, due to the [[ScrewedByTheLawyers franchise rights belonging to Microsoft]] they cannot officially place it in the same SharedUniverse.
* AlwaysIntroducesThemselves: The way he introduces himself throughout the franchise is practically his [[CharacterCatchphrase catchphrase]] for how often he says it. He can be heard saying it ''at least'' once in ''Alan Wake'', ''American Nightmare'', ''Control'', and ''Alan Wake II''.
* AmbiguousSituation:
** The exact nature of the [[ChickenAndEggParadox relationship between Thomas Zane and Alan Wake]]. Did Zane write Alan into existence to fix his mistake and defeat The Dark Presence for good? Or did Alan write Zane writing Alan into existence so that he would have a way to defeat the Dark Presence? If trying to figure it out [[MindScrew makes your head hurt]], don't worry, you're not alone.
** In the climax of ''Alan Wake II'', he has a conversation with Saga within her Mind Place in a manner similar to a conversation she had with Odin, something Saga and Odin accomplished because they were both {{Seers}}. With the FBC labeling him a parautilitarian, does he have the same parautility the Anderson Family has, or could they only accomplish that because they were both in the Dark Place? The FBC had labeled him a parautilitarian long before the events of ''Alan Wake II'', so is this what they were talking about? And for that matter, in the ''AWE'' DLC of ''Control'' he wrote down the events Jesse had been experiencing in real time, so did he use the power of Cauldron Lake to write the FBC and everyone in it into reality, or did he learn about the FBC through his visions and merely nudge everything into place as part of a long-term solution in his escape from the Dark Place?
* AmbiguousSyntax: [[SequelHook At the end of the ''AWE'' DLC]], he is found manically muttering about "[his] double" coming for him. While this tracks to mean his EvilDoppelganger Mr. Scratch, the imposter Tom Zane also inexplicably looks identical to him, leaving it ambiguous who he is truly so troubled over.
* AmbiguouslyHuman: He seems to be somehow altered after his plunge into the Dark Place. Despite aging normally and otherwise seeming human, he no longer requires sustenance and is able to contact Jesse over the Hotline, which only [[EldritchAbomination paranatural entities]], the dead, and those who have AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence have been shown to be able to do otherwise.
** Beyond that, ''Control'' and ''Alan Wake II'' essentially state that Alan was a parautilitarian even before coming to Bright Falls. It's implied that he has a level of psychic power, which was likely what caused all of his nightmares as a child. And the fact that the fictional Alex Casey is so very similar to the real Alex Casey is heavily implied to be because Alan was unwittingly psychically inspired by the real man to create the fictional one. [[spoiler:This gets used as a loophole to free the real Casey from possession by the Dark Presence at the end of ''AW2''. As Casey wasn't a creation of Alan's but a real person, he should be off limits to the story.]]
* AndIMustScream: The exchange for releasing Alice was that Alan confined himself to the darkness underneath Cauldron Lake so he could write a definitive end for the Dark Presence through a new story. As of ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'', Alan has been in the Dark Place for ''10 years'' with no apparent hope of escape, and not only is his will to escape starting to wane, more mysteries are piling up.
* AnimalMotifs: In ''Alan Wake II'', Alan is associated with owls, specifically the taxidermized owl in the Writer's Room. Owls are nocturnal creatures, and he's trapped in the Dark Place, where it's eternally night.
* AntiHero: His many attempts to escape the Dark Place while keeping to the direction of the horror story puts a lot of indirect blood on his hands in Bright Falls and the FBC. Despite this, he never stops being a good man at heart, never gives in to the Dark Presence's desires, and when push comes to shove, he is just as willing to sacrifice himself as anyone else for the greater good.
** This gets played with in ''2''. [[spoiler:In one cycle, Alan simply chooses to stop writing, as his attempts to escape have caused so much suffering for other people (though incidentally, this actually leads to the beginning of the plot as in this period of time, the Dark Presence comes to Thomas Zane masquerading as Alan and together they write Return, which in its uneditted state is the Dark Presence's ticket to reality). And Saga is ''very'' pissed that Alan writing her into his story to stop the Dark Presence and save him comes at her daughter retroactively being dead for years.]]
* ArbitrarySkepticism: In ''American Nightmare'', he remarks that "Just because I say crazy things doesn't mean I believe everything." when explaining why he doesn't put a lot of credit in [[GranolaGirl Emma]]'s New Age beliefs, despite his own talk of reality alteration, shadow zombie attacks, and time travel.
* ArchEnemy: Mutually establishes this relationship with Mr. Scratch during the events of ''American Nightmare''. While he is theoretically a liaison of the Dark Presence, his plans for Alan are incredibly personal and made specifically to ruin every positive aspect of his life. Alan briefly stopped Scratch in Nightmare, but ''Control'' confirmed him to be still kicking (much to Alan's distress) and even more dangerous, as he has dropped the LaughablyEvil pretenses.
* AuthorAvatar: He has quite a few things in common with the game's writer Sam Lake. Both are established writers of a popular detective series (VideoGame/MaxPayne and [[SelfParody Alex Casey]], respectively) who endeavor to write a departure from the previous works by developing a horror story.
* AuthorAppeal: He seems to have developed a subconscious preference for the heroes of his stories to be [[ActionGirl competent women]] in some form of unique high-ranking position. In order, he's had Sheriff [[TheSheriff Sarah Breaker]], Director [[EmpoweredBadassNormal Jesse Faden]], FBI Profiler [[ActionMom Saga Anderson]], and FBC Agent [[BadassNormal Kiran Estevez]] be among the heroes of the stories he's written for the Dark Presence.
* AutobotsRockOut:
** During a climatic showdown on the Anderson farm, Alan guns down the Taken hordes with the [[FakeBand Old Gods of Asgard]]'s song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-l_kbZbXRQ Children of the Elder God]]" blaring in the background and fireworks roaring through the night.
** As he fights through Mr. Scratch's hordes in ''American Nightmare'', the Old Gods' new pop rock single "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6RKKCQt82Y&list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- Balance Slays the Demon]]" starts up to give him an additional push to take Mr. Scratch down once and for all.
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:"The Final Draft" mode of ''Alan Wake II'' clarifies the status of his UncertainDoom in the base game's ending: His gambit to put an end to the loop works, which allows him to spring back to life a few moments after being shot, the Bullet of Light harmlessly fading away, and leaves him confident to face the future, find Alice, and finally escape the Dark Place.]]
* BadassBookworm: He's a decorated novelist that also turns out to be an abnormally good shot for someone who spent just a bit of time in range practice.
* BadassInANiceSuit: He's ditched both his previous attires in ''Alan Wake II'', now sporting a sharp suit and tie as he fights through the Dark Place's twisted version of New York. The deluxe edition "Celebrity Suit" bonus skin for Alan is the even sharper suit he wore for the premier of ''The Sudden Stop''.
* BatmanGambit: In the ''AWE'' expansion of ''Control'', he is all but confirmed to have sent The-Thing-That-Had-Been-Hartman to the Oldest House in a bid to turn Jesse into a heroine capable of saving him from The Dark Place. Going even further, there's evidence to suggest that he created Jesse, the FBC, and the Hiss invasion as part of this plan: His writings reference aspects of Jesse's backstory that he would have no way of knowing otherwise, and if you look around the Investigations Sector, you can find pages of a Night Springs spec script that he wrote with a plot similar to that of the base game, indicating that he may have adapted this story into his current work.
* BeardOfSorrow: After thirteen years of isolation in the Dark Place, he's grown out a shaggy beard from his {{Permastubble}} to showcase just how far he's mentally fallen into his own psyche.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He voices a quiet hope early in ''Alan Wake'' that the new environment of a small town would give his mind new ideas for his next novel. By the end of the game, he's made his next book with the town's influence, and has suffered dearly for it.
* BerserkButton: He's very touchy when it comes to his writer's block being prodded on, especially when it comes up during what he thought was just going to be a simple vacation. Alice trying to trick him into writing again causes a heated argument, and Dr. Hartman touching that nerve again later is one of the many reasons for why Alan wants to punch the smug grin off his face.
* BigDamnHeroes: Late in "The Clicker", Sarah and Barry's helicopter has been taken down, so Alan decides specifically to leave the safety of the lit concrete pipe he's traveling in to help. He arrives as Taken are swarming the two. Sarah notes "You sure know how to make an entrance. Barry and I were just about to make like [[BolivianArmyEnding Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid]]".
* BlingBlingBang: In ''Alan Wake II'', the preorder-exclusive "Ornate Revolver" is available for him to wield. It features a marbled white grip and intricately detailed floral gold patterning down the barrel.
* BondOneLiner:
** In "The Truth", he is told by [[AlmostDeadGuy Walter]] about his friend Danny going crazy and attacking him, only for a Taken to bash into the building they are in and attack. After gunning it down, Alan remarks:
-->'''Alan:''' Let me guess, Danny?
** He also quips "Down boy" after defeating a combine harvester blocking his path midway through his final push through the Taken in "Depature".
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:Saga is forced to shoot him in the forehead with the Bullet of Light to end Scratch's invasion of reality in ''Alan Wake II''.]]
* BrokenAce: Outwardly a successful, talented, charming writer who's happily married to a beautiful woman and beloved by the public. On the inside, a deeply insecure man with anger issues and a severe case of writer's block.
* TheCameo:
** In ''Quantum Break'', he shows up early on in an advertisement, narrating for a new story following up the events of Alan Wake as ProductionForeshadowing for his [[VideoGame/AlanWakeII next proper game]]. A Monarch employee also can be seen playing the [[MindScrew real-life Alan Wake game]].
** In the base game of ''Control'', his only appearance is a short cameo from picking up one of his typewritten pages, causing him to appear in an apparition to talk about his situation. His role is expanded from this in the ''AWE'' expansion.
* CarFu: In combination with the strong headlights and the fast speed, Alan has the choice to use any car he comes across as a weapon against the Taken. Even during a cutscene in "The Truth" he runs a few down while fleeing Cauldron Lake Lodge.
* CassandraTruth: Most of the people of Bright Falls are skeptical whenever he tries to reveal the nature of the threat to the town to be shadow monsters coming from the lake. Even his main allies Barry and Sheriff Breaker have a hard time trusting him and only start believing him after seeing the Dark Presence with their own eyes.
* CelebrityIsOverrated: His exasperation at his fanbase and his strong writer's block are the motivation for Alice to bring them to a small, out of the way town in the hope of having a break from it all. Even then, he comes across a radio host clamoring for an interview and a LoonyFan.
* CharacterDevelopment: His standoffish qualities from the first game gradually fade away throughout the series, and he becomes far more grateful toward his allies in ''American Nightmare'' and ''II''. For comparison, he was snarky and blunt to even his best friend in the first game, while he's cracking lighthearted jokes with Tim Breaker by their third proper meeting in the second.
* ClassicalAntiHero: He's felt like a hack writer for a while and his attempts to write in a new genre is to prove to himself he is a good writer even out of his comfort zone. He is also not the best physically, only being able to run for about ten solid seconds before he's doubling over wheezing for just as long.
* CruelToBeKind: He holds Sheriff Breaker at gunpoint and has her gun taken even after they become FireForgedFriends. He does this in her best interest, though, as he wants her to remain in the Well-Lit Room while she wished to go with him when [[HeroicSacrifice he didn't intend to return]].
* DavidVersusGoliath: The David in multiple regards. In a wider sense, he's an [[ActionSurvivor out of his depth writer]] fighting an EldritchAbomination. More specifically, he's also the physically smaller David to the [[GiantMook Assault Taken]] in ''Alan Wake'' and the [[EvilIsBigger Giants]] in ''American Nightmare''.
* DeadArtistsAreBetter: He's not ''dead'' exactly, but it seems that there was a surge of interest in his work after his disappearance, enough for his last published novel, ''The Sudden Stop'', to be adapted into a film. It's also implied that his other books were adapted too, but it's unknown if this was before or after he disappeared.
-->'''Langston:''' ''The Sudden Stop'' hits theaters tonight. I can't believe I'm missing an Alex Casey movie for this.
* DeadpanSnarker: Always has a quip or deadpan remark at the ready, no matter the seriousness of the situation. The majority of these moments are often out of frustration considering his circumstances, as we see when talking with Barry late in "Taken" after Barry previously refused to believe a word Alan said:
-->'''Barry:''' What-- What the hell was that?! I saw it from the window -- I saw -- I saw something!\\
'''Alan:''' [[SarcasmMode Forget about it, Barry, it's just me going crazy.]]
* DemonicPossession: By the time of ''Alan Wake II'', Alan [[spoiler:cannot safely leave the Dark Place because Scratch has gained the ability to do this to him in our dimension, and would escape into reality with him no matter what, with the ability to hijack his body to boot.]]
* DespairSpeech: Has a brief one during one of his cutscenes in ''Control''. He forlornly recalls he once had a plan to escape the Dark Place that it made him forget. Luckily, he recovers quickly, if only out of a desperation to escape before Scratch comes looking for him. [[spoiler:''Alan Wake II'' shows in at least one of his previous loops, he devolves into a lunatic gibbering about the hopelessness of his situation.]]
* {{Determinator}}: One of his most enduring character traits is the fact when he has his mind set on something, '''nothing''' will stop him from getting it done. Fighting through a forest of shadow monsters just to get his wife back, fighting his way out of an endless loop made by a version of him MadeOfEvil, and he will not falter even after a decade of complete isolation in his efforts to remove himself from the Dark Place.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: His rewriting of the Dark Presence to give it a weak spot. He metaphorically [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu broke his arm]] in the process, but was aware that it was going to happen because [[GenreSavvy that's how horror stories work]].
* DiligentHeroSlothfulVillain: Throughout ''American Nightmare'', he is the Diligent hero to Mr. Scratch's Slothful villain. While Scratch is willing to sit around and wait for Alan to die in Night Springs, Alan fights to find a way out without rest and eventually defeats Scratch by piecing together a way to end the [[GroundhogDayLoop looping nightmare]].
* DisappearedDad: It's referenced by numerous sources that Wake grew up never knowing who his father was and was raised alone by his mother. Considering he is suggested to have been written into existence by Zane, he may not have a father to begin with to minimize the amount of people that Zane needed to write into reality.
* DreamingOfThingsToCome: In ''Alan Wake II'', it's expressed multiple times that Alan had based his best-selling novels off of visions he had confused for dreams and ideas he came up with himself, implying that he possessed prophetic parautility long before he started experiencing explicit paranatural phenomena in the first game.
* DualWielding: Unconventionally, Alan fights wielding a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Due to the Taken's darkness shields, the light sources are certainly of equal value to the firearms he carries in keeping him alive.
* EnemyMine: He figures out Ben Mott is his wife's alleged kidnapper, but ends up fighting side by side with him against the Taken. It's solely out of necessity to survive and their TeethClenchedTeamwork ends quickly at Alan's fist.
* {{Expy}}: In-Universe, he's one of Thomas Zane. Notably, some characters and/or entities such as the Old Gods of Asgard and Ahti don't seem entirely capable of seeing him as a different person. It's implied Alan is a creation of Zane's, being the linchpin of Zane's backup plan to defeat the Dark Presence. This is further shown in ''Control'', where Alan in turn created Jesse to free him from the Dark Presence as well.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler:When the time comes for Saga to shoot him with the Bullet of Light, he accepts his fate with grace, [[BringIt defying Scratch for a final time]], and serenely noting in his narration he simply hopes for the nightmare to end, even if [[TheNothingAfterDeath nothing awaits him.]]]]
* {{Foil}}: The opposite of Mr. Scratch, despite the fact he was made to be Alan's EnemyWithout. Alan is humble, lowkey, and deep down insecure of his talents. Scratch is an over the top egotist who relishes how good he is at killing people, but is insecure in his own way: deep down he knows he's just the negative parts of Alan's reputation, and will [[ThenLetMeBeEvil never truly have the chance to be anything else]].
* FromNobodyToNightmare: From a meager human writer with a crumbling self-esteem to a reality warper whose writings influence multiple planes of reality and who successfully [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu Flips Off Cthulhu]] several times.
* GenreSavvy: He's aware that horror stories have a tendency not to end well for the protagonist, and that there can be a lot of casualties along the way. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since he wrote some of them in-universe and needs to keep the tension believable so the Dark Presence won't wrestle control of the narrative away from him.
-->'''Alan:''' No one is safe in a good horror story, certainly not the protagonist. That's what makes them fun. This was anything but.
* GoAmongMadPeople: Halfway through ''Alan Wake'' he is forcibly taken to Cauldron Lake Lodge and [[{{Gaslighting}} gaslighted]] into believing that he is insane. For the brief time he is there, he is obviously the OnlySaneMan among genuinely mentally ill creators.
* GreaterScopeParagon: Implied to be this, as he [[MindScrew might've written]] Jesse Faden, Polaris, and even the FBC itself into existence in order to help him eventually escape The Dark Place. Complicating matters, it's also implied that he created ''[[BigBad the Hiss]]'' (or at least engineered its invasion of the Oldest House) just for the sake of his hero (Jesse) having a villain to fight, suggesting that he might unintentionally be getting close to HeWhoFightsMonsters territory in his desperation to escape his torment.
* GuestFighter: He made a playable appearance outside the RCU as a purchasable skin in ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}''.
* HammyVillainSeriousHero: He's become fairly reserved and low key from everything he's seen in the Dark Place and dutifully works to escape in-between his [[SanitySlippage mental breaks.]] In contrast, his enemy and counterpart Mr. Scratch is loud, manic, and a complete sucker for attention.
* HappyEndingOverride: The end of ''American Nightmare'' has him reuniting with Alice and kissing as the sun rises. While the narration notes it may not be real, the truth is left ambiguous. By the time of ''Control'', it is confirmed he never left and has been suffering in the Dark Place for the entire decade since.
* HappilyMarried: He and Alice do fight occasionally, but Alan wouldn't keep looking for her with such determination if they didn't have a good marriage. There are quite a few scenes and flashbacks dedicated to showing just how devoted the two are to each other.
* HairTriggerTemper: He can get very riled up very quickly, which usually culminates in him throwing a haymaker at whoever his anger is directed at. This happens when confronting both Hartman and Mott throughout ''Alan Wake'' and helped establish him as a troublemaking celebrity prior to the games.
* HelpYourselfInTheFuture: Just about every useful item in the game was written into the plot by Alan himself, either directly or through the Lady of the Light. Lampshaded in his internal monologues when noting that flash grenades aren't exactly standard electrician equipment when he finds them in company trucks parked all over the place.
* HeroWithBadPublicity: ''Alan Wake II'' reveals that after his disappearance he was pinned as the murderer of Agent Nightingale, setting the FBI on his trail when he (or rather [[EvilDoppelganger someone with his face]]) resurfaces over a decade after the first game. Rumors also spread of him being the DarkMessiah of the Cult of the Tree.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** He willingly plunges into the Dark Place and begins writing the manuscript within to finish the StableTimeLoop of the story and save his wife by writing an ending where she resurfaces.
** Again in ''II'', as he [[spoiler:learns there is no way for him to escape that wouldn't let Scratch back out, and he allows Saga to shoot him and end Bright Fall's nightmare.]]
* HiddenDepths: In the second game, he proves to be a talented singer when he gets roped into the "Herald of Darkness" song during the fourth chapter of Initiation.
* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: In his first game, he recalls his missing week from getting drunk on the Anderson's moonshine. In ''Control'' we see him suddenly remember his situation with Mr. Scratch after downing a shot with the Doppelganger claiming to be Thomas Zane.
* IconicOutfit: His look from the first game, a tweed jacket covering a black hoodie, is both his most enduring look throughout the series, but by far also the most popular. The noticeable shoulder patches gave the outfit a unique quality that endeared it to the fanbase, and they became synonymous with the character, to the point where his appearance in ''This House of Dreams'' leaves him nameless, but describes the elbow patches on his jacket to clue the reader in.
* IcyBlueEyes: He has quite a striking set of pale blue eyes and has a coldly ruthless streak towards his enemies. Otherwise subverted, as he tends to be quite [[HotBlooded temperamental]] and otherwise emotional.
* IdiotBall: Despite him usually being quite perceptive of other's motives, in "Ransom", he automatically trusts Rose despite her having a CreepyMonotone and inexplicably having the lights out in the middle of the day. This gets him drugged and almost late to his meeting with Mott.
* ImpossiblyTackyClothing: It's a RunningGag throughout his journey through Bright Falls that no one can take his jacket with elbow patches seriously. In ''This House of Dreams'', the mention of them is even used as an identifier for the otherwise unnamed Alan.
* IndyPloy: He tends to act without really planning things out, such as his attempts to force Mott to give him Alice back. In the end, he jumps into Cauldron Lake and takes on the Dark Presence with only the hope the Clicker could destroy Barbara and he could work something out from there.
* InkSuitActor: In every game since ''Quantum Break'', Alan has looked physically identical to his model Ilkka Villi. This is in no small part due to the fact Remedy's MediumBlending meaning he has been repeatedly played by Villi in live-action segments.
* TheInsomniac: We never see him willingly going to bed ''once'' throughout the franchise and spend most of the game running around after sunset. To be fair, he does get sedated, knocked out, and other involuntarily put to sleep more then a few times, and after his first game, he doesn't even [[TheNeedless need to sleep.]]
* IntergenerationalFriendship: Strikes up a quick friendship with the elderly Anderson Brothers in ''Alan Wake'', and grows mutually fond of the salty old janitor Ahti throughout the second game.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He has a reputation as a somewhat smug writer with a hair trigger, but he's approachable otherwise and a good man who genuinely loves his wife and cares for his friends and allies. The game essentially serves to make him realize he needs to think bigger than his own issues.
* JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind: Alan does this throughout the two Special Episodes. Due to the Dark Place being formed from his own memories and psyche, he travels through memories of his life to find and restore his mind to working order, conjuring up flashbacks and a [[ReplacementFlatCharacter one-note perception]] of Barry to assist himself.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia:
** After diving into Cauldron Lake to save Alice, he wakes up a week later in a crashed car with absolutely no memory of what happened. This holds until the end of "The Truth", when the Anderson's moonshine kicks him into a flashback.
** One of the Dark Place's traps is that Alan immediately forgets what he was writing if he loses focus. This causes him to take a brutalist, nothing left to the imagination style of writing to minimize the consequences of him re-writing something without even being aware of it.
* {{Leitmotif}}: Alan has a fairly simple four note leitmotif associated with him, as can be heard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_l8ZYXrTT0&t=49s here]] at about 49 seconds in to the trailer. It can be heard in all three ''Alan Wake'' games, as well as his SequelHook at the end of the ''AWE'' DLC for ''Control''.
* LightEmUp: Its subtly implied his time with Tom Zane / the Bright Presence may have given him some level of control over light. In the games, aiming Alan's flashlight at a Taken uniquely stuns them and even slightly boosts how quickly their shield is broken. [[LampshadeHanging He comments on it]] in ''American Nightmare'' on how inexplicably to him, his mental desire for the light to burn away the Taken's shields seems to amplify it in reality.
* LiteralSplitPersonality: Is briefly split into two halves of this with Insane Alan during the Special Episodes. In practice, the playable "rational" Alan is no different from the {{Determinator}} from the main game, but is physically separate from the part of himself that wants his suffering to end after the fumes he was running on to save his wife wore off.
* MadeOfIron: He can take an indefinite amount of punishment as long as he has enough time between when he is hit. Being hit by possessed cars, thrown axes, and chainsaw swings will only cause him to stagger for a few moments, and he [[BloodlessCarnage only ever sheds any blood from the opening car crash]].
* MeaningfulName: He's named '''[[PunnyName A. Wake]]''' spends most of the series running around at night and generally not getting enough sleep. He's also one of the few people "awake" to the reality of what's happening in Bright Falls.
* MessianicArchetype: Despite his temperament, he ends up making a great sacrifice to save the people he cares about from the influence of a great, all-consuming evil. His fall and time in the Dark Place is even comparable to a descent into {{Hell}}. In later games starting with ''Quantum Break'', he begins to look more like Christ at a distance as well, with longer hair and a thicker beard.
* MistakenIdentity: The Anderson brothers mistaken Alan for Thomas Zane and identify him as "Tom" well into the sequel. Whether this is because of their age and mental health [[spoiler:or because Alan and Zane greatly resembles each other]] is unknown. Ahti also identifies Alan for Zane though his reason for doing so is unknown.
* MostWritersAreWriters: He's a best-selling novelist and the protagonist of his game series.
* {{Motifs}}: Spirals.
** One of the doors in the Oceanview Motel & Casino in ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' has a spiral painted onto it, the ''AWE'' DLC revealing that the door leads to The Dark Place where Alan is having a conversation with Thomas Zane. This same door would reappear in the Valhalla Retirement Home in ''Alan Wake II'' where it is guarded by Ahti [[spoiler:who opens the door for Alan in the climax when he needs to return to the writer's room]].
** In ''Alan Wake II'', he becomes convinced that the Dark Place has trapped him in an endless time loop he can't escape from, only for the end of the game for him to realize that it's not a loop, but a spiral, meaning that he isn't truly trapped, merely experiencing events out of order and that not all hope is lost. It also applies symbolically to his journey throughout the game: in order to escape the Dark Place, he has to dive deeper into its depths (like water circling a drain) in order to write an exit back into the Real World.
---> '''Alan:''' It's not a loop... it's a spiral.
* MrExposition: Throughout ''Control'''s ''AWE'' expansion, his hotline calls serve as narrated explanations of his efforts to escape and how The-Thing-That-Had-Been-Hartman was born, captured, and escaped between games.
* NailEm: One of the first new weapons he totes in ''American Nightmare'' is a fully automatic nail gun. He even poses with it on the game's cover art, though in the game itself it is quickly overshadowed by the stronger, easily unlocked Submachine gun in terms of value.
* NecessaryDrawback: After becoming the RealityWarper in the Dark Place, he could theoretically just write himself the powers of a god and curbstomp the Darkness. Unfortunately, the price of his powers is his requirement to adhere to a reasonable plot: if he summons up a DeusExMachina or leaves any PlotHoles, it will be the exact conduit the Darkness can use to escape from its prison.
* TheNeedless: It's implied that the Dark Presence has intentionally taken away his explicit needs for food, water, and sleep in order to keep him alive and writing as much as possible so that it can eventually escape.
* NervesOfSteel: In spite of all the horrors he's faced in Bright Falls, he manages to mostly keep a cool head, especially after the event of the Special Episodes, where he comes to terms with the insane half of his mind. In ''American Nightmare'', he notes multiple times that he has a hard time getting stressed out anymore, even while fighting with his EvilDoppelganger in a GroundhogDayLoop.
** Subverted in ''Alan Wake II'', where he is noticeably more panicked and confused due to his SanitySlippage and the ever-increasingly [[MindScrew incomprehensible]] nature of the Dark Place.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler:He hit a DespairEventHorizon between the first and second game and decided to simply stop writing to lock himself and the Dark Presence in a permanent stalemate. Unfortunately, this allows the Dark Presence to take advantage of him and begin trying to write unimpeded, leading to a new story in its favor being nearly completed before he realized what had happened.]]
* NotSoAboveItAll: After the We Sing portion of ''Alan Wake II'', he admits to Ahti that "Herald of Darkness" is catchy, and his tone of voice suggests he enjoyed himself just a ''little''.
* OhCrap: His reaction after walking up to an (unbeknownst to him) recently Taken Carl Stucky and seeing him rip his axe out of a freshly deceased corpse:
-->'''Alan:''' Oh, hell.
* OldShame: Downplayed, as he expresses he never truly ''hated'' Alex Casey, but relates that half of dozen consecutive books with someone as "dreary" as him as the star began to weigh on Alan, motivating him to [[KilledOffForReal finish the series]] and try something new.
* OneManArmy: He defeats hundreds of Taken people, as well as everything else the Dark Presence throws at him, with nothing but a few sources of light and whatever guns are laying around the area. It's amped up in ''American Nightmare'', where he's a full blown ActionHero with better equipment and more {{Mooks}} thrown at him.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Most of the people who try and antagonize him or use him for their own ends end up meeting a horrible fate. To wit, Mott turns into an EliteMook in a tie in book, Agent Nightingale is dragged off by the Dark Presence, and even Hartman, who [[KarmaHoudini initially escaped his fate]], is arrested by the FBC, has his assets confiscated, becomes TooDumbToLive and dives into Cauldron Lake, and is [[HumiliationConga finally deformed into a complete monstrosity held in the Oldest House.]] He ''really'' hated Hartmann.
* PetTheDog: Even in the confines of the Dark Place, he makes sure to write as many happy endings for his former allies as he can. A secret hotline call in ''Control'' reveals he gave the Anderson brothers a last blaze of rock and roll glory, and he kept Barry successful in the business through making him their agent.
* PermaStubble: In his first game and ''American Nightmare'', he has an unshaven look that accentuates just how tired and desperate he is throughout both games. It's been replaced by a thicker beard after ''Quantum Break''.
* PopCulturedBadass: Has a large repertoire of pop culture knowledge that he draws from, though the [[Creator/StephenKing King of Horror]] tends to be the most often referred to in his monologue.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: His model in the original game is far more stylized compared to a real person and looks quite disheveled. By the time of ''Alan Wake II'', his playable model is now a one-to-one recreation of the attractive and youthful ([[OlderThanHeLooks though not young]]) Creator/IlkkaVilli.
* RealityWarper: Due to the effect's of the Cauldron Lake, his writings begin to enter into the real world. This is magnified to greater levels within the cabin, as he is able to write up entire alternate dimensions for the FBC to interact with. In ''Control'' and ''Alan Wake II'', a real version of his detective character Alex Casey himself shows up trying to investigate the going-ons of Bright Falls.
* RedBaron: Since ''American Nightmare'', he has gained the title of "Champion of Light" for his efforts to escape the Dark Place and combat his rival, the "Herald of Darkness" Scratch.
* RevolversAreJustBetter: Throughout the series, the revolver is by far his most dependable weapon no matter the situation he finds himself in.
** In ''Alan Wake'', while it is the only small arms choice, it gets the most ammo of all his weapons and is always given freely while the shotgun and rifle are often out of the way.
** In ''American Nightmare'', it is now a PunchPackingPistol in comparison to the new base weapon, the 9mm, while anything stronger is AwesomeButImpractical and the faster firing weapons are [[ArbitraryGunPower weaker per shot]].
--->'''Alan:''' ''[picking up a revolver in Night Springs]'' Can't go wrong with a classic!
** In ''Alan Wake II'', it's the only weapon he has for the first few chapters of the game, but it's quite reliable and stronger than Saga's own semiautomatic pistol.
* RobbingTheDead: Gets his hands on his first revolver in ''Alan Wake II'' from the freshly killed Detective Casey after he [[GenreBlind rounds a corner to investigate a mysterious noise by himself.]]
* SameLanguageDub: Due to Creator/IlkkaVilli's natural thick Finnish accent contrasting with him playing a character born and raised in New York, Creator/MatthewPorretta was brought in to dub his lines in English.
* SanitySlippage: His decade stuck writing for the Dark Prescence has left him unable to fully tell reality apart from his stories. Both ''Control'' and ''Alan Wake II'' that over the years of his torment, he repeatedly had mental breakdowns that left him raving like a lunatic.
* SealedEvilInADuel: [[spoiler:Unsuccessfully attempts this with the Dark Presence in ''Alan Wake II''. Tired of having to fight to escape the Dark Place, and believing the world is safe, he simply stops writing. Unfortunately, the Dark Presence takes advantage of this and has Scratch write his own manuscript which ends with [[TheBadGuyWins it finally winning]], which Alan realizes he needs to be there to actively subvert.]]
* SecurityBlanket: The "Clicker" acted as this to him, a small button his mom gave him when he was a kid to fight off his fear of the dark. In a flashback he gives it to Alice to serve the same purpose during a blackout, and it ends up being the secret weapon needed to defeat [[HumanoidAbomination Barbara]].
* SelfDeprecation: He plays along well with the jokes Harry Garrett cracks at his expense on his eponymous talk show. When he notes the reputation he developed as quick-tempered, he jokingly notes it isn't the ''only'' thing people know him for: he's written a couple books on top of that.
* SeriesMascot: The first of the Remedy Connected Universe's protagonists and by far the company's most prominently appearing character throughout the franchise. He even appears in [[VideoGame/QuantumBreak cameos not technically a part of the universe]].
* ShabbyHeroesWellDressedVillains: He serves as the shabby hero in ''American Nightmare'', as he's dressed in a casual but worn plaid jacket and jeans, while Mr. Scratch is the well-dressed villain as a quintessential SharpDressedMan.
* SharedDream: The dream he has in the opening of ''Alan Wake'' is revealed in ''[[AllThereInTheManual The Alan Wake Files]]'' to have been both reoccurring, and shared with a real man named Clay Steward.
* ShutUpHannibal: He wordlessly responds to Barbara's last taunts to him by sticking the Clicker in her empty heart cavity. She is immediately destroyed by the light without any further issue.
* SignificantWardrobeShift: A late manuscript page in ''American Nightmare'' reveals the plaid jacket he's wearing to be this between the original game and ''AM''. It was a comfortable outfit he wore during a vacation through Arizona with Alice, and he is reminded of that good memory by wearing the clothes again, giving him extra motivation to persevere in the GroundhogDayLoop.
* SirSwearsALot: Coinciding with the game's age rating being bumped up to a Mature from the previous game's Teen, Alan reacts to most of his misfortunes throughout the second game with a worried or resigned "fuck".
* SkewedPriorities:
** Alan's on his way to meet his wife's kidnapper when he sends Alan a text message. The first thing he takes note of, instead of anything particularly useful Mott tells him in the text, is the multitude of ''spelling errors'' he makes.
** It's confirmed in ''Control'' that over the course of the week he fought the Dark Presence, he went out of his way to search for and [[HundredPercentCompletion collect scattered coffee thermoses]] for an unknown reason.
* StraightManAndWiseGuy: He's the straight man whenever he's travelling with the wisecracking Barry throughout the game. His confused, indignant reaction to Barry inexplicably deciding to lug a cutout of Alan around the forest just to crack wise about it is the most prominent example.
* StepfordSmiler: He exudes a lot of confidence in his decision to end the ''Alex Casey'' franchise when interviewed about it on a late night talk show. It's revealed throughout the series the decision was made in an attempt to force himself out of his boundaries, as he felt a serious case of Imposter Syndrome over his series of cheesy cop books being a hit.
* SuperDrowningSkills: He is completely incapable of swimming in ''Alan Wake'', in regard to both gameplay and cutscenes. He needs to be saved by an outside influence or otherwise instantly dies when he is knocked into Cauldron Lake or its surrounding rivers. Story-wise, this is suggested to be the Dark Presence within the water pulling him in.
* ThisIsGoingToSuck: A common reaction he has to the Taken threats around him, especially if it is part of his internal monologue, is a blasé regard of how dangerous the thing in question is. A bulldozer running the building he's in off a cliff? "This is bad." A combine harvester gunning for him? "YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe".
* TimePassageBeard: By the time of ''Control'' and ''Alan Wake II'' following it, his PermaStubble has grown out into a full beard, hammering home just how long he's been in the Dark Place.
* ThrowTheDogABone: What ''American Nightmare'' is for him in the long term. While he is unable to escape the Dark Presence, he gets to defeat Mr. Scratch for a decade, see his wife is happy and safe, and briefly see himself as happy with her to give him motivation and keep his head straight while he writes to find a way out of the Dark Place.
* TookALevelInBadass: Twofold in ''American Nightmare''. He's much better at working with the plans he's written into being as well as his own instincts. However, he's also altered the genre of the story from Surreal Horror to a surreal form of Action, allowing himself access to bigger and better weaponry (albeit necessary for [[GiantMook bigger threats]]).
* TookALevelInKindness: In ''American Nightmare'', Alan is far more patient with the other survivors than he was during his time in Bright Falls. He notes that, given the sheer insanity of the challenges he faced in the original game and beyond, there's next to nothing that could really get his blood pressure up anymore.
* TheUnSmile: Alan mentions that he has never been capable of smiling in a convincing way. In a taped interview you can watch at his home in a flashback, you can tell his smile is kind of strained.
* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler:His fate at the end of ''II'' is rather ambiguous. He is shot in the head in a way that starts up a StableTimeLoop, but spontaneously returns afterward, with his dialogue suggesting there is enough small differences for him to somehow break the loop in a way that saves himself. [[spoiler:With the end of "The Final Draft", it is confirmed the loop eventually alters enough for him to survive the wound.]]
* UnwittingPawn: As the messages from himself that flash on televisions reveal throughout ''Alan Wake'', the events of the game were started by the Dark Presence playing him for its own ends. It tricks him into thinking he can write Alice back to life by making a story that frees it, and it nearly succeeds without Alan subconsciously writing in a loophole for his escape, which throws things out of the Presence's control.
* VitriolicBestBuds: With Barry, his manager. They'll always throw a jab or two at each other whenever they talk but if Barry happens to be in danger, he'll drop everything to go after him. The backstory revealed through the manuscript is the two are childhood friends and have been TrueCompanions since their schoolyard days.
-->'''Alan:''' I've known Barry Wheeler ever since we were little boys. I'd get us in trouble, and he'd talk us out of it. Things haven't changed that much now that we're grown-ups. He's the most loyal and dependable person I've ever met -- in all the things that count, anyway.
* WalkingArmory: He is able to carry a small arms weapon, a shotgun or rifle, heavy duty flashlights, flash grenades, flare guns, and dozens of batteries and ammunition for it all. It's a bit hard to believe, especially in ''American Nightmare'', where his thick layers that served to make this somewhat plausible are gone in favor of a light jacket, making the fact he is pulling these weapons out of {{Hammerspace}} especially obvious.
* WalkingSpoiler: His appearances in every game outside his own series makes him this, as he tends to be confirmation they are within the same connected universe, especially in ''Control'' as ''AWE'' as his appearance completely upends the player's interpretation of the entire Hiss crisis.
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: [[spoiler:Late in ''Alan Wake II'', he gets the opportunity to escape the Dark Place with no other strings attached as long as he [[EquivalentExchange leaves Saga behind]]. He ultimately chooses to make another sacrifice to make sure the Anderson family isn't torn apart by his actions.]]
* WritersBlock: He is unable for the life of him to start writing his new horror series, contributing to his fears he was a hack writer all along coasting on "cheap thrills". By the end of the first game, he has managed to write the story "Departure" (albeit in a very recursive way) and has been gearing up to write the sequel, ''Return".
* YouCantFightFate: His reasoning for leaping into Cauldron Lake at the end of the first game. Everything else that happened has gone according to the manuscript, and the page kept in the Well-Lit Room describes him doing so. To maintain the story, he must complete it as it has been written and work from beyond its BittersweetEnding.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Alice Wake]]
!!Alice Wake
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Brett Madden (voice, ''Alan Wake''), Jonna Järvenpää (model, ''Alan Wake''), Christina Cole (''Alan Wake II'')
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakesAmericanNightmare'' | ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]] | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_alicewake.png]]
%%[[caption-width-right:300:some caption text]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see her in ''Alan Wake Remastered'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alicewake.png]][[/labelnote]]

->''"Alan... thank you for coming here with me."''

\\
Alan's wife, an accomplished photographer and the cover designer for several of his books. She gifted herself and her husband a trip to Bright Falls hoping to help her husband with his writer's block. But she disappears during their first night at the town and Alan now has to save her from the Dark Presence.
----

!!Bright Falls, Washington
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bright_falls.png]]
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls'' | ''Night Springs'' | ''Psycho Thriller'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]] | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''

->''"I forgot there will still places like this. Towns where everybody knew everybody."''
-->--'''Alan Wake'''

A small lakeside town in Washington known for its annual Deerfest celebration, though something far more sinister lies under the surface of its outwardly sleepy appearance.

* CloseKnitCommunity: It's described as a "town where everybody knows everybody", and the locals seem to look out for each other specifically.
* CultOfPersonality: [[spoiler:The entire town briefly become this from the influence of Scratch's story coming to fruition. They all become utterly, murderously obsessed with Alan Wake and his newly published novel Return, and celebrate an eternal Deerfest in his honor.]]
* DyingTown: While not as severe as its neighbor Watery, the town isn't faring well in 2023, with businesses failing left and right and the younger townspeople desperate to leave due to Bright Falls picking up a reputation as a "haunted town" thanks to a string of mysterious disappearances since 2010. A late-game article notes that the FBC sealing off Cauldron Lake utterly destroyed their tourism industry.
* LandmarkOfLore: The majority of the landmarks around the town hold some form of signage for tourists explaining its prominence to the community and/or its origins early in the town's history.
* OurFounder: A statue in the town's park commemorates the dual founders of Bright Falls as the town it is in the modern day, Hubert Biltmore and Amos Gunderson. The two fur trappers are still stood vigil over the town they formed in the late 1800s.
* SmallTownRivalry: They have this dynamic with the neighboring town of Watery. The previous year's tourists were dominated by Watery's "Moosefest" party, which Bright Falls sought to updo with their heavily marketed Deerfest.
* SupernaturalHotspotTown: The town is noted to be full of strange happenings that go under the radar due to their relative obscurity. While the Dark Presence has only actively threatened the town twice before Alan's appearance, it's influence has caused a number of [[AnimalisticAbomination Animalistic Abominations]] and "ghosts" to pop up over the decades.
* TownWithADarkSecret: It's eventually revealed the town has its own secret codes and a small society formed by the town's old guard. In the wake of the prior attacks from the Dark Presence, the town banded together to keep the town safe and off the radar. [[spoiler: As of Alan Wake II this appears to have taken a darker spin, as this small society appears to have evolved into the Cult of the Tree, likely as a side effect of Mr. Scratch's writing of Return.]]

!!!Bright Falls Sheriff Station
[[folder:Sarah Breaker]]
!!Sheriff Sarah Breaker
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Jessica Alexandra
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sheriffbreaker.png]]

->''"Wake, I'm gonna trust you with this."''

Former head of the Bright Falls sheriff's office, who is investigating Alice's disappearance and eventually joins Alan in fighting the Dark Presence. Her father was the sheriff before her as well as an agent of the [[Characters/RemedyConnectedUniverseFBC Federal Bureau of Control]].

* ActionGirl: In Episode 5, when she ''finally'' sees the Dark Presence herself and ''immediately'' asks Alan for how to fight it. Through most of the episode, she provides cover fire while Alan and Barry make their way through the dark streets of the town.
* AttackAttackAttack: Her AI as a gameplay companion just has her shoot away at Taken without taking off the darkness covering them first, which is left to Alan with the flashlight. This is at least mitigated by her lack of ammo cap and the fact that her shotgun can still work as a push-back.
* BadassNormal: With nothing but her wits and shotgun, she survives several extended Taken attacks and lives to see the ending of Alan's story.
* DaddysGirl: Looked up to her father, Frank Breaker, growing up, comparing him to Alan's pulp fiction character Alex Casey. He also gave her loads of advice as she grew up and trained to be a sheriff, including chiding her for dismissing Cynthia Weaver as a loon, saying she shouldn't be made fun of and she just wants to tell people something important. [[spoiler:The fact he's a confirmed [[VideoGame/{{Control}} FBC agent]] probably helps.]]
* {{Foil}}: To Agent Nightingale, the other authority figure pursuing Wake throughout the game. Sarah is calm and rational, but skeptical of the supernatural until late into the game. Nightingale is loud and trigger happy, but instantly believes in the supernatural happenings in Bright Falls.
* FriendOnTheForce: She is far more cooperative and helpful then Nightingale and even the rest of the Sheriff's station in working with and helping Wake on his journey.
* GenerationXerox: Her father was the sheriff of Bright Falls before her and just as no-nonsense as we see her to be.
* HiddenDepths:
** She's a ByTheBookCop in a small town, but she turns out to be an avid reader and enjoyer of the ''Alex Casey'' books, a big city thriller starring a CowboyCop.
** The Special Episode cutout of her reveals she also serves as Bright Fall's librarian in her free time from being a cop.
* OddFriendship: She develops a genuine rapport with Barry Wheeler throughout the latter half of Episode 5. She finds his "...in Night Springs" gag funny and they were left to fight off a horde of Taken together after Sarah's helicopter goes down, quickly making them FireForgedFriends.
* PutOnABus: No longer Sheriff of Bright Falls by the time of ''Alan Wake II'', with dialogue revealing she left the town to join up with the FBI.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Unlike the trigger-happy Agent Nightingale, Sarah's actually willing to listen to Alan and try to understand his weird behavior in light of the situation surrounding him, also wanting to interrogate him properly instead of just using brute force out of a personal revenge scheme like her federal "colleague" wants to do. After she finally sees the Dark Presence with her own eyes [[spoiler:when it whisks away Nightingale]], she immediately starts helping Alan and fighting the Taken herself.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Uses a pump-action shotgun during gameplay. It helps that, unlike Alan, she doesn't have an ammo cap and can just fire away at approaching Taken.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: She ends up unintentionally doing this while flying with Alan. When the topic of his books comes up, she gives an honest, positive but critiqued review of the series. Alan notes that it's something he's literally never heard before, and seems to put some more confidence in his writing ability afterword.
* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Her appropriate reaction when Nightingale tells her the police force she sent with him (including a helicopter) had apparently been decimated singlehandedly by the unarmed, actively fleeing civilian.

[[folder:Tim Breaker]]
!!Sheriff Timothy "Tim" Breaker
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/ShawnAshmore

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sherifftimbreaker.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You know, I've never been to New York, but I can tell you this ain't it."'']]

->''"I have no idea what happened, but I'm trying to find out. Things always get better if you just keep moving forward, Alan."''

Sarah Breaker's cousin, who has taken over the Bright Falls sheriff's office by the time of ''Alan Wake II''. He's transported to the Dark Place by Mr. Door in order to save him from a revived Nightingale.

* AgentMulder: Has a strong open belief about the paranatural, contrasting with most of the town's residents [[FantasticallyIndifferent approach to the fantastical.]] Of course, given the strange happenings around the town, this is justified.
* AlternateSelf: His dialogue about his vividly real dreams where everything feels real until the second he wakes up, as though he’s in a different life completely, suggesting he is seeing through realities to another world. Along with the numerous small MythologyGags, this suggests he may be a distant self to [[VideoGame/QuantumBreak Jack Joyce]].
* ArbitrarySkepticism: He's hunting for Warlin Door, but when Alan says that he's a talk show host in the Dark Place, Tim brushes him off, saying that it doesn't sound like him.
* CrazyPrepared: He puts together a fairly accurate map of the Dark Place's current form, and assembles numerous supply caches all around the area for Alan to take advantage of in his trials.
* DreamMelody: Alan can tell he is near because he is constantly humming the theme song to [[ShowWithinAShow Night Springs]]. A conversation with him reveals he is only distantly aware of the show and just feels compelled to hum it. He chalks it up to Door's influence.
* HiddenSupplies: He's responsible for hiding supply caches around the Dark Place in ''Alan Wake II''.
* IChooseToStay: [[spoiler:Saga makes it clear to him she intends to use the page he gives her to escape the Dark Place, but Tim makes no effort to come with her and doubles down on finding Door.]]
* InexplicablyAwesome: No matter what, he always ends up ahead of Alan in his journey, already with a marked up map of the location. He makes no mention of having to deal with any dangers of the Dark Place other then an inability to leave and in his last appearance, he sits outside in the middle of the city without fear, despite a Break Room being a few steps to the left.
* NiceGuy: A helpful, and courteous man who assists Saga in her investigation as well as Alan in his otherworldly endeavors, simply because it is the right thing to do.
* PunnyName: He's implied to be an alternate counterpart of Jack Joyce from ''VideoGame/QuantumBreak'', and his shortened name is one letter off from "Time Breaker".
* PsychicDreamsForEveryone: He dreams of alternate universe counterparts of himself; his "board of crazy" in the dark place implies that one of these counterparts is none other than Jack Joyce from ''VideoGame/QuantumBreak'', another role played by Ashmore.
* SeekerArchetype: His main motivation is to find the location of Warlin Door and uncover who he is after years of seeing visions of Door in his dreams and being dragged into the Dark Place by him.
* SeenItAll: Takes to the existence of the Dark Place and the dangers within without much reaction.
* SharedDream: He is sucked into Alan's "dream" within the Dark Place at seemingly random instances, and dedicates his time to helping Alan out and recovering information for him. Based on his dialogue, this has been happening to them for a while, masked by Alan's memory loss.
* TheSheriff: He took over the role of Sheriff of Bright Falls following his cousin Sarah stepping down.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: His appearances throughout the base game of ''Alan Wake II'' are short and sporadic in both Return and Initiation, but [[spoiler:the last manuscript page he gives Saga is instrumental to her getting through the Dark Place.]]

[[folder:Deputies Mulligan & Thornton]]
!!Deputy Mulligan and Deputy Thornton
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awii_dptmulligan.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Deputy Mulligan]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awii_dptthornton.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Deputy Thornton]]
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''Night Springs'' | ''Psycho Thriller'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
!!!'''Voiced by:''' '''Mulligan:''' Bill Buell (''Alan Wake''), Mark Heenehan (''Alan Wake II'') '''Thornton:''' Bill Lobley (''Alan Wake''), Todd Boyce (''Alan Wake II'')
!!!'''Played by:''' Robert Peterson (Mulligan - ''Bright Falls'' miniseries)

->'''Mulligan:''' ''"There's been all sorts of trouble this year. Vandalism, fighting, public disturbances... A lot of people gone missing, too."''
->'''Thornton:''' ''"Yeah yeah, it's -- it's pretty much the, uh, usual, Pat, just, you know, a lot more of it."''

A pair of Deputy Sheriffs from the Bright Falls Sheriff Station. Mulligan is an expert officer who's lived in the area most of his life, while Thornton is a relative newcomer who's lived in the town since the 90s as a dispatcher most of the time.

* AccidentalMurder: The sequel reveals they [[spoiler:accidentally shot a civilian after mistaking her for a Taken and dumped her corpse down a well.]]
* AmbiguousSituation: The sequel reveals that Thorton and Mulligan are actually a pair of racist assholes [[spoiler:but whether is this really their true personality or have they been changed as the result of "The Return" is unknown as their prior appearances didn't potray them as such]].
* ArcVillain: [[spoiler:Both become the main Taken threat and are killed by Saga after stealing the Clicker and fleeing to the second Overlap over the course of "Return 3: Local Girl".]]
* AscendedExtra: They are voice only characters in the original game who can be completely missed if certain radio broadcasts are not listened in on. In ''Alan Wake II'', they are fairly major side characters who appear in person.
* AssholeVictim: Alan Wake II makes it ''abundantly'' clear, especially [[spoiler: before their boss fight]], that you shouldn't feel too bad for them. To wit: [[spoiler: they were perfectly willing to frame an innocent black couple for a murder ''they themselves'' helped commit, they show nothing but contempt for Saga and Casey, refer to "people like [Saga, Tammy, and Ed] sticking together," and were planning on mocking Saga (at least, the Saga they ''think'' they known) for letting her daughter drown.]]
* TheBadGuysAreCops: [[spoiler:They're secretly members of the Cult of the Tree.]]
* BewareTheSillyOnes: They play a comic relief role in every game they appear, but ''Alan Wake II'' shows a darker side to them, despite retaining their bumbling nature. [[spoiler:They successfully covered up a murder prior to the events of the game, and become dangerous Taken who give Saga a harder battle then the more outwardly intimidating Nightingale.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: They show up at the Cauldron Lake Lodge in the ''Psycho Thriller'' tie-in comic, saving Hartman and Nurse Sinclair from the Taken Mott and putting him down for good under Hartman's instruction.
* ButtMonkey: Thornton is constantly talked down to by Mulligan, and is suggested to be disliked by the rest of the town, as he is picked to be the cop in the dunk-me tank for Deerfest by town vote, which Tim suggests is the people's {{Revenge}} for a speed strip.
* TheCorruptible: [[spoiler:Both of them steadily succumb to their dark and violent impulses enough for the Dark Presence to slowly fill them and make them Taken. This is in contrast to the Koskelas, who were the Darkness's first choice for the Huotari well Overlap, but were able to fight off their worst impulses and keep a clear head to combat the Dark.]]
* DemotedToExtra: Mulligan has a physical-yet-minor appearance in the ''Bright Falls'' miniseries as he investigates the disturbance at Jake Fisher's cabin, and is the cop that Shel Dyke attacks and bites the hand of. In ''Alan Wake'' proper, he's delegated to a voice-only role with Thornton. This is averted in ''Alan Wake II'' when they become proper supporting characters.
* DependingOnTheArtist: Mulligan and Thornton have some noticeable differences in appearance between the two tie-in comics, ''Night Springs'' and ''Psycho Thriller''. In the former, Mulligan looks closer to how he does in the ''Bright Falls'' miniseries, somewhat unkempt and unshaven. In the latter, he's clean-shaven, with darker hair and a more serious appearance. Meanwhile, Thornton in the former looks younger, while in the latter his hair is closer to grey than brown, and he's the one who seems to have stubble. They're also wearing the dark green department uniforms in the former comic, while in the latter, Mulligan is wearing a blue set and Thornton has a brown jacket.
* DualBoss: [[spoiler:Saga fights both of them during the same boss fight in the sequel.]]
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler:Joined up with the Cult of the Tree to feel powerful and protect their DarkSecret of a body they left in the Watery well. Later ascends to FaceMonsterTurn when they are Taken on top of this.]]
* {{Fingore}}: During ''Bright Falls'', Mulligan arrests a Darkness-touched woman smashing lamps and she bites him on the hand. His next appearance shows it prominently bandaged.
* HiddenDepths: According to Thornton, he does yoga to deal with his anger toward others, though his obviously passive-aggressive commentary toward Saga and Casey suggest it doesn't work out well for him.
* TheKillerBecomesTheKilled: [[spoiler:After their murder of the young woman in the woods and their work to cover up the death, they steadily became consumed by their dark impulses. This allows the Dark Presence to easily turn them into Taken, where anything [[EmptyShell left of them]] are killed off by Saga in the ensuing fight in the Overlap.]]
* KillerCop: [[spoiler:The cause of all their issues in the sequel. Their carelessness meant they fatally opened fire on an innocent young woman in the woods while on patrol.]]
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: A manuscript page in ''Alan Wake II'' describes them [[spoiler:shooting and killing what they believe to be a Taken, only to be horrified when they recognize the person they just killed. It's implied that the guilt they felt from this is the catalyst for them turning into Taken themselves]].
* NeverMyFault: [[spoiler:Both of them blamed each other for not realizing the woman they were killing wasn't even a Taken. In the end, they simply conceded it wasn't ''either'' of their faults and hid the body together to avoid any punishment.]]
* OldCopYoungCop: Downplayed, Mulligan is clearly the more experienced cop of the two with Thornton as the easy-going newbie, but the latter does have years of experience under his belt and has been an acting police officer in Bright Falls at least since the 90s.
* PoliceBrutality: Relish in the violent side of their job, and [[spoiler:gunned down a woman walking out of the woods without even trying to stop or arrest her. While they feel bad about it, it doesn't change their way of operating.]]
* PoliceAreUseless: Justified. Whenever you hear from the two in the game, they're always going to be picking up the pieces after the events are all done with, and neither of them will be much sure of what's going on in Bright Falls or how Alan is involved, meaning they're essentially minor comic relief at best. Of course, this is largely because they're chasing a tweed-wearing writer and not even ''considering'' the fact they're now part of a CosmicHorrorStory with a much bigger force at play.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: [[spoiler:Show some hidden prejudice toward black people, planning to pin the killing of Nightingale on the innocent Booker couple before Saga appears, and accusing her of showing favoritism to them based solely on their shared race.]]
* ResurrectiveImmortality: [[spoiler:As Taken, both of them can be killed by Saga, but the blots of Darkness scattered throughout their arena allow them to return from the Huotari Well. It's only when all the Darkness is burned away do both of them stop coming back.]]
* ShooOutTheClowns: After two games of being goofy [[CluelessDeputy clueless deputies]], they are [[spoiler:killed and Taken into the dual second Overlap Guardians. Downplayed, as they were also revealed to be far grimmer characters then was first obvious.]]
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: They make it out of the events of the first game without a scratch, [[spoiler:only to be Taken and made into Overlap Guardians during the events of ''Alan Wake II''.]]
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Neither of them seem particularly fond of Hartman and have an idea of the BitchInSheepsClothing he really is. Despite this, their duty as policemen come first and they refuse to leave him for dead when they come across each other at the Lodge, but both of them make it clear they aren't happy to be bossed about by Emil.
* TokenEvilTeammate: [[spoiler:With the reveal of the Cult of the Tree's hidden heroic nature, they turn out to be this: Two arrogant, murderous bullies who joined up with a bunch of TerrorHeroes simply to relish in the terror and cover their asses about a murder they covered up.]]
* UnseenNoMore: After their only main appearance in ''Alan Wake'' had them never appear in person, they both show up in the second game, from the very beginning of Saga's half of the story.
* VitriolicBestBuds: The two of them are constantly arguing and snarking at each other -- Mulligan toward Thornton especially -- but the two are still always around each other in spite of this and work well together when push comes to shove.
* TheVoice: In ''Alan Wake'', they don't make physical appearances. They do in the game's tie-in comics though, and Mulligan also has the extra live-action appearance in ''Bright Falls''.
* ThoseTwoGuys: The two are investigating the mass disappearances around town together, as well as being included in the manhunt launched by Agent Nightingale as he chases Wake. If you hear from the two in the game, the dialogue is likely going to be comedic due to Mulligan needing to play babysitter for the excitable Thornton.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: [[spoiler:Unlike any other Taken encountered before, they're capable of using guns; Mulligan uses a shotgun and tries to get into close range while Thornton tries to snipe you with a rifle from the surrounding rock formations.]]

[[folder:Deputy Grant]]
!!Deputy Grant
%%!!!'''Portrayed by:'''
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''Night Springs''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grant_2.png]]


->''"Mr. Wake, can I help you with anything?"''

A deputy of the Sheriffs station who often takes the role of front desk receptionist.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Gone from her usual post at the Station without mention by the time of ''Alan Wake II''. Given her advanced age, she likely retired or past away in the 13 year time gap, assuming she was never Taken herself.
* CoolOldLady: She looks to be the oldest member of the current staff of the Sheriffs station, but is friendly, competent, and ends up surviving the night of the Dark Presence's biggest attack.
* GossipyHens: She is stated to be this, and willingly discusses both the poor conditions of the Majestic Motel and local drunk Walter's reasons for being in the station with borderline stranger Alan Wake.
* OlderSidekick: She's got a few decades on her superior, Sheriff Sarah Breaker, and seems to be the last holdout from the previous generation which Pat Maine and Frank Breaker also worked during.
* ShoutOut: She's more or less a direct translation of [[Series/TwinPeaks Lucy Moran]] in terms of personality, appearance, and job.
* SkepticNoLonger: She dismisses Cynthia Weaver when she comes in and raves about keeping the lights on. ''Psycho Thriller'' shows her having an encounter with a poltergeist and relating to the other deputies about the Dark Presence.

!!Cauldron Lake Lodge

!!!Staff

[[folder:Dr. Hartman]]
!!Dr. Emil Hartman
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/MarkBlum, Bruce Katzman ('''Bright Falls''' minisseries)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''Psycho Thriller'' | ''VideoGame/{{Control}}''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/drhartman_4.png]]


->''"Right now it's very important that you stay calm. We don't want you to have another episode."''

A psychiatrist, writer and former writing assistant who owns a clinic reserved for artists near Cauldron Lake. He's also the one who convinced Alice to bring Alan to Bright Falls under the pretense of psychiatric care, although Alan is immediately suspicious of him.

For information regarding his transformed state, see [[Characters/RemedyConnectedUniverseParanaturalPhenomena here]] for the Thing-That-Had-Been-Hartman.

* AGodAmI: He admits in an excerpt in his book that he sees creators themselves as gods in their ability to create something from nothing. Even more so, as a creator looking to influence and control what other creators produce, he wishes to place himself at the [[TopGod top of the creation pantheon]].
* AndIMustScream: He is eventually transformed into a Taken by the Dark Presence when he went scuba diving into Cauldron Lake.
* AssholeVictim: Alan locks him inside his own office when the Dark Presence starts invading Cauldron Lake Lodge. Given all the things he's done to his patients, Wake and Thomas Zane, the proud grin on Alan's face as he walks away is warranted.
** In ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' it's revealed that he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Control for the way he treated his patients and for essentially causing an Altered World Event. While they let him go, it was only done after they confiscated his life's work, causing him to sacrifice himself to the Dark Presence out of desperation. By the time he is encountered in-game, he has been warped into a horrifying HumanoidAbomination as the result of ''two'' malevolent paranatural entities fighting to possess him.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Aims to control the Dark Presence. By the end of Episode 4, he's taken and possibly killed by it.
** ''Control'' reveals it was even worse for him; he actively gave himself over to the Dark Presence after the FBC essentially liquidated his career and assets, losing his own body to the thing he wanted to have power over to begin with.
* BigBadEnsemble: Shares the role of BigBad of ''Alan Wake'' with the Dark Presence and Agent Nightingale, but his interaction with the latter is barely even a plot point. Instead, it's recorded in one of his tapes.
* BigBadWannabe: Despites his attempts to take control of Alan to have the narrative under his command, he is only a threat for an early portion of Episode 4 before the Dark Presence attacks and Alan leaves him to its mercy. Even his attempts to continue his work with Cauldron Lake afterward only results in his death.
* BlatantLies: Although it's slightly [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] because everything he says does make some logical sense, so it rings as truthful as possible to both Alan and the player as he tries to manipulate them. Of course, remembering that this is a horror game with supernatural elements quickly brings his cascade of self-aggrandizing BS back to this trope.
* DisneyDeath: He looks to be KilledOffscreen in the first game when Alan locks him in with the Dark Presence. ''Psycho Thriller'' reveals he survived and regrouped from there, which is followed up on in ''Control''.
* DrJerk: Alan knows Hartman is a terrible doctor with a smug smile on a magazine front cover but he's even worse than average corrupt doctors; he treated his patients like test subjects to turn artworks into reality and caused the Dark Presence to go free, turning many residents of Bright Falls into Takens.
* EvilCounterpart: His history with Thomas Zane makes him one to Barry Wheeler. While Hartman was Zane's assistant instead of his agent, he still acted like one to try and get him to produce stories so the Dark Presence would bring them to life, proving Hartman's theories. He essentially takes the agent role in the present through his psychiatric sessions with the patients at his lodge, encouraging them all to create so he can test which kind of medium better resonates with the Dark Presence's powers, and wanting Alan to do the same through his writing. Except Barry, despite thinking about money, is Alan's closest friend and wants to help him above all else, while Hartman is an exploitive monster who is so power-hungry he willingly allowed an evil Lovecraftian entity to regain power in a futile attempt to harness it for himself.
* EvilIsNotAToy: Emil sincerely believes he can control the reality-warping powers of the Dark Presence and Cauldron Lake, going out of his way to attempt this through manipulating Zane and Wake’s connection to it for his own ends. It ends up costing him the lives of some of his staff and nearly his own the first time when the Dark Presence comes knocking. Completely ignoring this brush with death, he still tries to make one last, vain effort to control the powers of Cauldron Lake despite the FBC pulling the plug on both his career and his research in the wake of the incident, ''by diving into it''. It [[CameBackWrong really]], ''[[FateWorseThanDeath really]]'' doesn’t end well for him.
* FalseFriend: In the past, he was this to Tom Zane as his writing assistant, nominally working for Zane's "best interest" while he really only wished to learn more about the mechanics of Cauldron Lake. He is also this to varying success with his patients, as Alan and the Andersons can see through him rather easily but the rest seem to think he genuinely works to help them.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He never drops the pleasant, affable tone of speaking towards others even as he manipulates them to his own ends.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Writing Barbara Jagger back to life was an idea he proposed to his then-boss Thomas Zane, which makes him indirectly responsible for giving the Dark Presence an avatar and enough power to break free, and he was also the one who asked Alice to take Alan to Bright Falls, which sets off the events of the main game.
* HateSink: He was the one who caused the Dark Presence to be released back in 1970 by manipulating his "friend" Thomas Zane into writing a manuscript where his wife is resurrected, with horrific consequences, out of petty ambition. Even discounting the fact that he's arguably responsible for several of Bright Falls' residents dying by being Taken, the man is simply rotten and unlikable to the point many players will rejoice when he finally does get a taste of his own medicine.
* ItsAllAboutMe: His only real concern in life is finding a way to harness the Dark Presence for his own personal ends.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: At the end of ''Psycho Thriller'', he begins to muse on his deceased friend Thomas Zane and notes how if he knew before what he knows about the Dark Presence, he might have been able to save him. His brief moment of humanity is made hollow when he changes his tune immediately afterward and notes:
-->'''Hartman:''' Still, better him than me.
* JustThinkOfThePotential: He urges Alan to do this in regards to the reality warping powers of Cauldron Lake. Alan is hardly in the mood to listen after everything Hartman pulled to try and get Alan under his thumb.
* KilledOffForReal: After miraculously escaping his fate, he decides to dive into Cauldron Lake, since despite it resulting in everyone ''else'' being Taken, he would be strong enough mentally to take it. He was instantly [[DeathOfPersonality corrupted into a Taken]] and even his monstrous form would eventually be killed off in the [[VideoGame/{{Control}} halls of the Oldest House]].
* TheManBehindTheMan: He was Mott's boss ordering him to stage the "kidnapping" plot with Wake, and was also the one who suggested the idea of writing Barbara back to life to Thomas Zane.
* ManipulativeBastard: He's dedicated his career to manipulating others and convincing them his methods are in their best interest. His work with psychology helps him understand how people tick and how to use that to get them working for his interests, least of all his employees. Mott was so obsessed with making him proud as a pseudo-father figure that even as a Taken he [[BeyondTheImpossible retained his sanity]] just to find Hartman.
* MeaningfulName: The name "Emil", is derived from the Latin "aemulus". This roughly translates ''to imitate or rival'', which fits his attempts to be a replacement for Thomas Zane in taking control of the Dark Presence.
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: A doctor of psychology who utilizes his talents and abilities to manipulate mentally ill creators within his clinic.
* NasalTrauma: Alan socks him in the face when they first meet, and he is shown wearing a splint for the rest of the game. According to a manuscript page, Alan managed to get another hit in before one of his sedations between Episode 3 and 4.
* NervesOfSteel: To put credit where it's due, when his life is personally put on the line, he proves to be no coward. He openly laughs in the face of the Taken Mott and calmly finds a way to dispose of him, even actively putting himself in his line of fire to make sure he doesn't escape to be a problem later.
* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: He talks about utilizing the powers of the Dark Presence for the altruistic reason of making the world a better place. The way he goes about trying to take control of the entity makes it clear that even if he did want to change the world for the better, he would only allow it if he was the one in control of it all.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: He kills off Mott during the events of ''Psycho Thriller''. Given how much of a petty thug Mott was throughout the game, it's one of the few things he does that can be considered positive throughout his appearances.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: ''The Alan Wake Files'' reveals he gave one to Nightingale when he came knocking for Alan. He condescendingly, but accurately talks down to him about his alcoholism and general uselessness during his investigation, before bluntly refusing him entry to the Lodge.
* SmugSnake: His default expression is a smug, condescending smile plastered on his face, which is also on the cover for his own book. Alan even notes at one point that just seeing his face on the cover is enough for him to want to punch Hartman, which speaks levels on how unbearable this guy is. He's so self-centered and focused in his own objectives that it doesn't seem to occur to him that maybe [[EvilIsNotAToy the Dark Presence is more powerful than he's giving it credit for.]]
* SuicidalOverconfidence: He incorrectly thinks he can expertly manipulate and keep Alan under his thumb, even when the man is holding a gun to his head. To more fatal results, he also goes diving into Cauldron Lake with no means to defend against the Dark Presence.
* TooDumbToLive: In ''Control'' he dives into Cauldron Lake despite knowing what's down there and what happens to people who touch what's down there. Despite his complete confidence to the contrary, he lasts no longer then any other Bright Falls citizen.
* UnexplainedRecovery: An official post-game comic shows that he's alive and well after his encounter with the Dark Presence. It's never explained why he was spared, or if he's truly still himself at all.
** As ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' reveals, he was still himself, but the FBC took all of his research on the Dark Presence and left him with nothing. The only way he could continue his research was to dive into Cauldron Lake himself to research it up close and personal, so he did, confident that he could emerge unscathed. [[InstantlyProvenWrong He was Taken immediately]]. Then when he came back out the FBC pretty much immediately snatched him up and locked him in a cell to study. Then the Hiss got him. So anyone who felt he didn't get enough comeuppance can now rest easy.
* TheUnfought: Despite all the harm he's caused, you never fight him in the main game after the Dark Presence corners him at his lodge. The closest you get to fight him is during the DLC Special "The Writer", when the imaginary Barry sends a Taken Hartman after Alan, but that's still part of Alan's nightmare. It takes [[VideoGame/{{Control}} an entirely different game]] to finally face Hartman as a boss.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom:
** He's indirectly responsible for everything that happens in the game. After Barbara Jagger's death, he was the one who encouraged Thomas Zane to use the powers of Cauldron Lake to resurrect her, which woke the Dark Presence from its slumber.
** More directly, he invites Alan to Bright Falls through Alice, leading to the events of the game directly when Barbara intercepts them.
* VillainProtagonist: He serves as the main protagonist and narrator of ''Psycho Thriller'' despite being just as villainous in his actions as he was in the main game.
* VillainousValor: He does prove to be quite independently resourceful (though completely ruthless) when left to his own devices to survive. He keeps ahead of the Taken Mott and sacrifices Rudolf to buy him time before the authorities arrive and convince them to gun him down before the sun rises.
* WalkingSpoiler: It's impossible to talk about Hartman at length without giving away major reveals about the nature of the story and backstory.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: He used Randolf as his most talented conduit toward the Dark Presence as a painter. When Mott comes after them, he has Randolf wear his sweater and leaves him for Mott to find to buy him and Sinclair time to escape.

[[folder:Ben Mott]]
!!Ben Mott
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Jason Muzzo
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''Psycho Thriller''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mott_1.png]]


->''"Stop talking to the law. You'll do exactly what I say if you want to see your wife again."''

The "kidnapper" who contacts Alan claiming to have his wife and offering her in exchange for the manuscript pages of Departure.

* AintTooProudToBeg: When Barbara gets her hands on him at the lookout, he starts begging for mercy, which she is in no mood to give.
* AlasPoorVillain: His final death in ''Psycho Thriller'' is this. The narrative plays up Hartman's manipulations of him and the [[DisappearedDad past]] that made him such an easily manipulated brute. In the end, he dies screaming as Hartman manipulates him one last time and forces him to his knees in submission.
* ArcVillain: He's portrayed as the main threat of ''Alan Wake'' in Episodes 2 and 3 with his unknown machinations and capture of Alan's wife. He's then killed off by the Dark Presence and it and Hartman replace him for the remainder of the game.
* BadassNormal: Does remarkably well fending off the Taken. Indeed, he's well-versed with their weaknesses, and is entirely unphased with fighting them (so much so that he has absolutely no problems setting up his meetings with Alan to take place in the middle of the night deep in the Taken-infested woods).
* BaitTheDog: When he shows up in the woods, he comes across as a complete badass, taking down three Taken back to back and striding in to save Alan. Then Alan recognizes his voice and his demeanor shifts to condescending and aggressive as he forces Wake into danger without even a gun.
* ChekhovsGunman: First seen on the ferry at the beginning, leering at Alan from the backside. Try to approach him and he'll [[ImStandingRightHere audibly complain about the "yuppies"]] visiting town. There's a solid chance you might not even notice since you don't have to interact with him at all to progress.
* ConspiracyTheorist: He genuinely believes in government conspiracies such as fluoride being used to control the masses. As a Taken, other then his obsession with Hartman, it's all that remains of his former personality.
* DisneyVillainDeath: The Dark Presence forms a tornado, picks him up and launches him into the lake.
* TheDragon: To Dr. Hartman, not that he thinks Mott is all that capable.
* EscortMission: Played with. At the mid-point of Episode 2, Mott actually escorts Alan after seizing his gun and keeping him with only a few flares handy to keep himself in power during "negotiation" as the Taken attack. Problem is, [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy Mott is a lousy shot]] and will miss constantly, endangering the player even further.
* EverybodyCallsHimBarkeep: He's never referred to as anything but "the kidnapper" in dialogue. His name is identified only by the manuscript pages, and even then refers to him only by his last name.
* IHaveYourWife: Kidnaps Alice near the beginning of the game and threatens her death if Alan doesn't comply with his demands. Except not really. It was a ruse to get Alan to finish the manuscript for Dr. Hartman.
* InferioritySuperiorityComplex: To someone like Mott, Alan Wake is someone who has everything; smarts, money, and a beautiful wife. When faking Alice's kidnapping, Mott expects Alan to beg him but instead, Alan fights back. Because of his ego, Mott decides to give Alan two days to complete the manuscript, which ruins his boss' plan. Apparently this is how he is all his life, which Hartman uses to control him.
* ItCanThink: After being turned into a Taken, Mott seems to have significantly more going on upstairs compared to the others, retaining a fairly large degree of his former self despite being reduced to a psychotic thrall of the Dark Presence.
* {{Jerkass}}: Being a supposed kidnapper will do that. Especially when he gives a ''writer'' only 3 days to finish an entire manuscript. Even in his appearance much earlier in the game he'll grumble and complain about Alan and Alice within earshot.
* ManipulativeEditing: By using an edited recording of the call Alice made to Hartman, Mott is able to trick Alan that he had Alice.
* ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: The two-day limit he imposes on Alan finishing the manuscript is something even he realizes is stupid, but he panics while trying to remain in control of the conversation and simply says the first thing he thinks.
* UnexplainedRecovery: In the tie-in comic ''Psycho Thriller'', he's somehow survived his fate in ''Alan Wake'', albeit as a Taken with higher function than most, and goes on to hunt Hartman at the Cauldron Lake Lodge before being killed for good by Hartman and Deputies Mulligan and Thornton.
* VillainousRescue: Rescued Alan in Episode 2 after he lost his gun. Downplayed, however, in that he still keeps Alan relatively unarmed and only gives him flares, since he knows he needs to have the power in that situation.
* YouHaveFailedMe: One manuscript page reveals that Hartman was incredibly frustrated that Mott gave Alan only 2 days to finish his manuscript instead of the full week Alan wanted. Unlike most examples of this trope, Mott doesn't get killed until the Dark Presence comes along.

[[folder:Nurse Birch]]
!!Nurse Birch
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Andrew Totolos
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake''

->''"Hey, Wake, why don't you humor Doctor Hartman and give writing a shot, huh?"''

A towering goon who serves as Hartman's muscle within the Lodge, threat of his involvement being used to keep the patients under control.

* BlackEyesOfEvil: Sports them as the visual indicator he has been Taken by the Dark Presence.
* TheBrute: He is a tall, intimidating man who works under Hartman and does all of his dirty work behind the scenes, assuming more of this role than Mott did during his time as TheDragon. Alan even bluntly calls him Hartman's "gorilla" when he wakes up at the Lodge in Episode 4. Tellingly, when he's Taken, he becomes an Assault type instead of a Tele-Flanker like the last two named victims in the game.
* FlatCharacter: He shows no hidden depths or deeper characterization then to be Hartman's additional hired muscle who keeps the patients under control.
* FlunkyBoss: He has hordes of Ravens swarming you while you fight him in tandem with his own attacks.
* KingMook: He is one of the strongest Assault Taken in the game, with his powerful strikes and quickly regenerating Darkness shield.
* LargeHam: As is standard for the Taken, what he says before and during the fight are loud, over the top, and completely without context.
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: When Tor came knocking with a real hammer, he boarded himself up in a storage room and waited for them to leave. He evidently didn't make it far when they did.

[[folder:Nurse Sinclair]]
!!Nurse Sinclair

!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Shari Albert
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''Psycho Thriller''

A control freak and Birch's associate within the Lodge.
----
* ActionSurvivor: She turns out to be this by ''Psycho Thriller'', being able to survive the Dark Presence's attack on the Lodge and Mott's hunt of her and Hartman afterward.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: She is fully compliant with Hartman's creator-manipulating schemes and isn't particularly pleasant. That said, she has far more of a conscience and quits by the end of the night after seeing just how quickly Hartman turns to disposing of his former patients.
* TakeThisJobAndShoveIt: Quits her role at the Lodge after the events of the game, not that Hartman cares for her services after that point.
* TapOnTheHead: Tor beats her over the head with a hammer to knock her out. When she comes to, she is perfectly able to move around quickly and shows no sign of injury.
[[/folder]]

!!!Patients

[[folder:Rudolf Lane]]
!!Rudolf Lane
%%!!!'''Portrayed by:'''
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''Psycho Thriller''

->''"Oh, hello! I've painted you."''

\\
One of the creatives housed in Hartman's lodge, a painter struggling to find a subject matter for his works.
----
* AndIMustScream: In ''Psycho Thriller'', being so close to the Dark Presence causes him to begin painting uncontrollably. He tells Hartman he ''tried'' to leave with Tor and Odin, but he physically couldn't stop himself from continuing to paint.
* MadOracle: The work of art he made prior to the game were portraits of Taken and environments shrouded in darkness. Amplified in ''Psycho Thriller'', where he paints direct events of the game with what is implied to be his own blood.
* PushedAtTheMonster: During his escape from Mott, Hartman runs into Lane. He uses his opportunity to give Lane his sweater and keeps moving without him as Mott crashes into the room. Mistaking Lane for Hartman in the moment, Mott kills him while the doctor makes a clean getaway.
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: From what little we see of him, he's a nice guy who simply wants to repursue his passion of painting. Dr. Hartman doesn't hesitate to use him as fodder when push comes to shove.
* UnwittingPawn: He seems to genuinely believe Hartman has his best interests at heart and wishes for him to start painting as he pleases again. Ultimately, he was just another experiment into how the Dark Presence can manipulate and be manipulated, and quickly discarded when a more promising candidate appears.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Thomas Emerson]]
!!Thomas Emerson
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Mike Doyle
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]]

->''"Yeah, you'd like me to go away so you won't be scared. But you can't just decide what kind of dream you have or when you have it!"''

A disturbed video game developer who is tolerated among the residents of the Lodge.
----
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Goes into winding, unhinged rants about nightmares, the creative process, and "[[BulletTime Mullet Time]]", doing karate all the while. It all serves to establish why Hartman's attempts to recruit other artists have failed to yield any meaningful results.
* CreatorCareerSelfDeprecation: A loony video game developer within a video game. Hartman openly talks down on the profession as trash, suggesting it only allows a "small creative effort" compared to the written word or paintings.
* GuestFighter: Appears a guest racer in the Remedy-developed ''Death Rally (2011)'', along with Barry Wheeler.
* {{Hypocrite}}: In the middle of a lengthy MotorMouth rant, he disparages characters who are made by the writers to ''always'' [[ObliviousToHisOwnDescription talk all about how they feel and never know when to stop talking]].
* PaperTiger: Tries to talk a big game as a danger to Hartman, but a single sharp admonishment from the doctor causes his confidence to crumble.
* SanityStrengthening: By the time of ''Alan Wake II'', he is lucid enough to have been appointed a major member of the Bright Falls Film Society and give lectures about the history of the Zane the Finnish Filmmaker.
[[/folder]]

!!Valhalla Nursing Home

!!!Staff
[[folder:Rose Marigold]]
!!Rose Marigold
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Benita Robledo (''Alan Wake''), Merette Bartles (''Bright Falls'' minisseries), Jessica Preddy (''Alan Wake II'')
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awii_rosemarigold.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see her in ''Alan Wake'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rosemarigold.png]][[/labelnote]]

->''"Welcome to the Oh Deer Diner!"''

\\
The waitress at the Oh Deer Diner in Bright Falls, and one of Alan's biggest fans. She becomes an incidental character during the game's events as she hopes to see him more often, but it ends up being to her detriment...
----
* AmbiguousSituation: In the sequel, [[spoiler:she states that she has gained all her knowledge about how to fight the Dark Presence and advice on things to do (such as steal Cynthia Weaver's angel lamp and put it in a shoebox and throw it in a lake, which ends up being critical for Alan's success in the Dark Place when it reaches him) from various messages that Alan has been sending her in her dreams, on the radio, in the clouds, etc. When Alan meets her at the end of the game, he is very confused by her claims as he states he ''hasn't'' been sending her messages of any kind. Did the messages possibly come from Alan in a past loop that Alan doesn't remember, a future loop that he hasn't experienced yet, or perhaps another source entirely? Or is Rose just kinda nuts but in a way that conveniently is very useful?]]
* AndIMustScream: When she is [[spoiler:touched by The Dark Presence and unable to control her actions as she drugs Alan and Barry under its command. It's heavily implied she knows exactly what she's doing but is powerless to stop it]].
* BeAsUnhelpfulAsPossible: [[spoiler:She's been convinced only the "hero" of the story Alan is writing should know about the Dark Presence and its effects on the town. This means she flatly denies any of the paranatural happenings around her and Saga, no matter how blatant they are, until she is able to convince Rose she is Wake's hero.]]
* BreakTheCutie: [[spoiler:Being used by the Dark Presence sours her cheerful demeanor very quickly, to say the least. When Alan comes to in her trailer, she's cradling herself and rocking back and forth in a state of shock, repeating her waitress routine in monotone. Finally, we only see her again in the ending with a lantern on her hands and a grim expression, implying she's become the new Lady of the Light.]]
* ChekhovsGunman: She [[spoiler:assists Alan in a critical moment during the climax of ''Alan Wake II'', claiming her loopy behavior was [[ObfuscatingStupidity just an act]] so she could evade notice until she could help Alan in his moment of need]].
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Becomes "spacey" in the same way as Cynthia after her exposure to the Dark Presence, knowing things with so much additional context she simply comes across as completely insane to an outside observer.
* CrazyPrepared: [[spoiler:As Cynthia's replacement, she has been helping Alan's future hero by preparing lunchboxes containing scrapped manuscripts and leaving them throughout the area]].
* CreepyMonotone: While [[spoiler:under the influence of The Dark Presence, which makes her repeat her workplace dialogue similarly to the Taken]].
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: In ''Alan Wake II'', she is the same obsessive fangirl she always has been toward Alan, and seems to be going steadily insane. Despite this, she runs two jobs without issue [[spoiler:on top of hunting Taken in the night, all the while keeping off both the police and the Cult of the Tree's radar and hiding her lunch boxes around the woods.]]
* CuteBruiser: [[spoiler:In the second game, her bubbly disposition returns and we see she adorably ThinksLikeARomanceNovel in her fanfiction pages. She also regularly goes on lone Taken hunts with Vlad's rifle, and she successfully stays one step ahead of the entire Cult of the Tree despite prowling the same woods.]]
* DarkAndTroubledPast: One passage of the manuscript implies that life's been pretty rough on her in general, and another passage implies that she was in an abusive relationship at one point. [[spoiler:Things go FromBadToWorse for her, unfortunately.]]
* DissonantSerenity: [[spoiler:By the time of the sequel, she is blasé toward the Taken at best. She casually locks up anyone at Valhalla at the first sign they are being Taken, and a note in her office at the Oh Deer Diner brings up Cynthia being Taken with all the importance of a particularly inconvenient chore.]]
* FalseMemories: [[spoiler:The first person in Bright Falls we see to be affected by the changes the ''Return'' manuscript writes into reality. The moment she sees Saga, she suddenly has known her from years back before she moved away when Logan drowned.]]
* GreenEyedMonster: Implied, but in Episode 3, [[spoiler:despite being under the influence of the Dark Presence,]] when Alan asks her if she has the manuscript pages, she'll strike a pose and comment that Alan "needs a muse to inspire him", hinting at some possible jealousy towards Alice Wake. This isn't helped by the fact she has an actual mini StalkerShrine (although thankfully it's just publicity photos) dedicated to Alan in her bedroom.
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: She has dirt-blond hair and is genuinely a nice girl, both to the townsfolk and Alan, just wanting to help. [[spoiler:It's heartbreaking when the Dark Presence utterly destroys her mentally.]]
* HasAType: [[spoiler:Her final page of fanfiction shows her getting into a LoveTriangle with Alan and a man whose description is suspiciously similar to Jaakko Koskela. Both are brown-haired, bearded, and hot-tempered but well-meaning men.]]
* HerCodeNameWasMarySue: [[spoiler:The fanfiction Saga can find in the Alex Casey lunchboxes portrays herself as the protagonist. While her [[TookALevelInBadass many levels in badass]] have a basis in reality, she also portrays herself as an expert mycologist and the one true love of Alan Wake. It's all so out of touch the Dark Presence can make no use of it despite it nominally being a creative's work.]]
* HiddenSupplies: [[spoiler:She's the one leaving the collections of Alex Casey lunchboxes filled with manuscript scraps throughout Washington for "the Hero" to find.]]
* HistoryRepeats: [[spoiler:Like Cynthia Weaver before her, Rose is a bystander who harbors a personal crush on a famous writer who's already with someone else, and ends up touched by the Dark Presence and traumatized into staying in the light. The ending implies she'll essentially take Cynthia's place as the "Lady of the Light", especially with the comments Cynthia often makes about being tired of the role and not being able to keep it up forever.]]
* IJustWantToHaveFriends: A manuscript page reveals she's very insecure under her smiling work persona, and ultimately just wants to be friends with Alice and Alan, even if it's implied she harbors a genuine crush on the latter.
* ImYourBiggestFan: Is a die-hard fangirl for Alan, having a cardboard cutout of him propped up at the Diner.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Begins her conversation with Saga by acting like she already knows the federal agent and "telling her" about her daughter dying long ago. This notably disturbs Saga, despite Rose treating it like casual conversation. [[spoiler:As it turns out, Rose's memory about Saga has been altered by Scratch who incorporated the latter into his story]].
** One manuscript page describes how [[spoiler: she stole Cynthia's Angel Lamp and sent it to Alan. She thought nothing of doing so because Cynthia has so many other lights, and the page goes out of its way to describe how happy she was with doing it... completely unaware that she was depriving Cynthia of the one thing she had left of her beloved Thomas Zane. And worse, it leaves her completely helpless to being Taken.]]
* LastOfTheirKind: [[spoiler:With Cynthia dead and the rest of the people who knew about them deciding to radicalize themselves into the Cult of the Tree, she can be considered the last of the Torchbearers.]]
* NewJobAsThePlotDemands: In addition to running the Oh Deer Diner, she's also the main nurse and caretaker at the Valhalla Nursing Home in ''Alan Wake II''.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler:In order to help Alan, Rose stole Cynthia's prized Angel Lamp and sent it to him. Without the lamp, Cynthia is Taken by the Dark Presence.]]
* PassingTheTorch: [[spoiler:Implied to be the new Lady of the Light after Cynthia, if the ending scene of her holding a lantern while being peered on by an implicitly-possessed Nightingale is any indication. The sequel confirms this.]]
* StrongerThanTheyLook: [[spoiler:Most people touched by the Dark Presence either become a Taken or go insane. Rose, however, manages to retain her sanity and is still human]].
* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler:In the sequel, she has come to take role as the Lady of the Light ''very'' seriously and spends evenings taking out Taken all by herself. As she states, the hardest part is hiding the bodies. At the end of the game, she and the rest of Bright Falls have been transported into the Dark Place but she manages to keep her sanity in check again, with the only other person being Ahti and that's because the latter is implied to be a god while Rose is a normal human]].
* TrustPassword: [[spoiler:No matter how blatantly weird things are getting, she denies all evidence of the paranatural to Saga, knowing only "the Hero" should know these things. It takes Saga Profiling her to learn and say a phrase Rose expects the Hero to tell her to get Rose to finally begin cooperating.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Vlad Blum]]
!!Vladimir "Vlad" Blum
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Alec Newman
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''

Rose's coworker at the Valhalla Nursing Home, who handles the resident's visits to town and technical issues.
----
* EgomaniacHunter: Hunting is a major hobby to him and even writes to Rose about it, considering his skill at it one of his best traits. He keeps several trophies in his office at the Wellness center, and Saga can find and take his rifle.
* FalseMemories: Like all residents of Bright Falls and Watery, his memory is rewritten to believe Saga has been a member of the community for years. He is one of the first people she can discover this from when she meets him in Watery.
* FunnyForeigner: The only Russian immigrant in Bright Falls, who is a comical character with his slightly broken grasp of English and self-aggrandizing tendencies.
* KilledOffscreen: [[spoiler:Saga finds him in the basement of Valhalla with a knife through his head, having been killed by Cynthia before Saga arrived at the building.]]
* StockForeignName: The only Russian in the game, with the common stock name of Vladimir.
* TemptingFate: [[spoiler:After he is inducted into the Cult of the Tree, Saga can find notes where he talks about how great his life is and how excited he is for the future. The same night he wrote these notes, he is killed by Cynthia, and he is largely forgotten about afterword.]]
[[/folder]]

!!!Residents
[[folder:Pat Maine]]
!!Pat Maine
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' R.J Allison (''Alan Wake''), James Carroll Jordan (''Alan Wake II'')
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_patmaine.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see him in ''Alan Wake'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/patmaine_8.png]][[/labelnote]]

->''"Now, let's go to the phones. Caller, you're on KBF-FM."''\\

\\
A retired cop who is now the host of a late night radio program popular in the Bright Falls area. Alan first meets him on the boat into town where he asks him to [[{{Foreshadowing}} stop by later for an interview.]]
----
* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:During ''Alan Wake II'', Pat is under the belief that his biggest sponsor is the locally-run "Davis Family Beef Jerky", and is trying to promote samples given to him recently by the owner, Wendy Davis. However, several people (including her disgruntled widower, who insists that the jerky company doesn't even exist) point out that Wendy went missing in 2010 and was found dead later. Despite all this, Pat remains insistent that he had seen Wendy that Sunday, and believes the whole thing to be a practical joke. While Pat's behavior throughout the radio show points to senility or dementia, it's entirely possible that Wendy's death is caused by "Return" affecting reality, and that Pat's memory hasn't been fully rewritten.]]
* BoringBroadcaster: What he has devolved into by the time of ''Alan Wake II''. His topics are mundanities such as park bench rankings and new Jerky flavors, and his only consistent guests are usually his neighbors in Valhalla.
* CoolOldGuy: It may not be obvious the first time you meet him, but he is definitely more awesome then he first appears. Even as a spacy, far older man he possesses a polite wit and charm he extends to Saga.
* ExcellentJudgeOfCharacter: He claims to have this while talking with Nightingale, and from what we see it's accurate. He notes he only knew both Nightingale ''and'' Wake for a short time, but from he determined of their character, the "danger to the town" is the raving madman with a gun, not the nervous author politely asking for his help.
* GoshDangItToHeck: His years of work on a public radio channel have dampened his vulgarity. Nightingale shooting at Alan only a few feet away elicits nothing more then a surprised "Judas Priest!"
* IRejectYourReality: No matter how many people tell him otherwise, he maintains he is seeing the deceased Wendy Davis from the Davis Family Jerky Company in ''Alan Wake II''.
* MrExposition: If you wait around in the radio station instead of going right in, he'll start to give a rundown on Alan's life and history as an author.
* NiceGuy: He's very pleasant to everyone he meets. The exception is Agent Nightingale, whose violent and reckless attitude outright offends him.
* TheNightOwl: He's always up and talking as the host of the night time radio show, and we only ever see him during the day twice, at both the start and tail end of the game. He notes in one conversation this is not entirely from his job, as he doesn't particularly enjoy trying to fall asleep every night.
* TheOneThatGotAway: He reflects on love with Dr. Nelson during a radio call and mentions how he thinks he had already found "the one". Unfortunately, they drifted and Maine's had nothing but his work since.
* OnlySaneMan: By the time of ''Alan Wake II'', his guests on the talk show are so [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} unfocused and weird]] he takes this role by default on air. This ends up being gradually subverted as his own madness around Wendy Davis takes over.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: ''The Alan Wake Files'' reveals he gave one to Nightingale between Episodes 3 and 5, lambasting him for his idiotic way of going about his investigations and his general attitude issues toward the entire town.
* RetiredBadass: He's a former police officer, and is on the list of people Sheriff Breaker gives to Barry to call with the message "Night Springs", which tells us he knows something about the town's DarkSecret and is prepared to fight it. This might even be the reason he runs an all night radio program.
* RippleEffectProofMemory: [[spoiler: In ''Alan Wake II'' Pat seems to land on a sliding scale between this and senility, with the scale sliding further toward senility as the plot progresses. He remembers Wendy Davis alive and handing him jerky samples while Wendy's widower calls in saying she died in 2010. It's not made clear if the new reality Mr. Scratch is creating rewrote Wendy to having been drowned in 2010 with Pat remembering the true reality, if Pat is slowly becoming senile, if the new reality asserting itself is making him senile as a way for Mr. Scratch to spite another one of Alan's allies in Bright Falls, or some combination of the therein.]]
* SanitySlippage: In the second game, he develops an unbreakable belief the deceased Wendy Davis is still alive and visiting him to hand out new jerky samples, no matter what his listeners try to tell him. [[spoiler:Considering the rest of the weirdness surrounding Bright Falls, it's entirely likely Wendy Davis ''was'' alive until recently and Mr. Scratch [[RetGone rewrote reality so that she drowned in 2010]], but the contradicting realities cause Pat to become rapidly more senile and confused until he's barely able to work out his own radio console]].
* ScatterbrainedSenior: He was already getting on in years during the first game, but in the sequel thirteen years later he's still running his radio show out of the Valhalla Nursing Home and definitely doesn't sound quite as collected as he used to. Gets much worse as he continues fixating on the whereabouts of Wendy Davis, to the point of probable dementia.
* SnarkingThanks: In an uncharacteristic bout of sarcasm, he "thanks" Lorna Miles for a compassionate viewpoint after she goes on a rant about police resources being wasted on the people of a trailer park instead of normal citizens.
* TooDesperateToBePicky: An early sign of his show's declining quality in the second game. He reached out to a local meteorologist for an opinion on the weather... and she never got back to him. He instead tries to make do with her insane uncle Tapio, whose only commentary on the weather for the next few days ends up being "rain" before he loses focus.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Cynthia Weaver]]
!!Cynthia Weaver / the Lady of the Light
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Linda Cook (''Alan Wake''), Linda Marlowe (''Alan Wake II'')
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''Night Springs'' | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cynthiaweaver.png]]

->''"Young man. I've been waiting for you. For a long time."''

\\
The "town eccentric" of Bright Falls, who is obsessed with making sure all the lights in the town are working properly. There's a very good reason for it.
----
* ArcVillain: [[spoiler:The main Taken threat of "Return 5: Old Gods", brainwashing Tor and dragging him into the third Overlap at Valhalla.]]
* TheAtoner: [[spoiler:She protects Bright Falls in remembrance of Tom, who she feels she let down in the past.]]
* TheCameo: Appears in the background of ''Night Springs'', first silently observing Wake taking the Clicker, and then Frank and Sarah's reunion in the Well-Lit Room following the events of Episode 6.
* TheCassandra: Despite her warnings to keep the power on and lightbulbs maintained, along with the strange happenings around Bright Falls, many of the townsfolk simply see her as the local crazy lady. This dismissal gets several people Taken when the Dark Presence starts cutting power to the town.
* ChekhovsGunman: Among all the Bright Falls residents Alan meets at the Diner, she is easily the most vital to the plot, but the game still frames her as just another kooky bystander.
* CrazyPrepared: Guess who left [[spoiler:all of those safe havens and supply caches for Alan to conveniently find]]. Not to mention [[spoiler:the Well-Lit Room]] (which is the absolute end all of crazy, but is completely necessary and useful) and [[spoiler:her underground tunnel (lit the whole way)]] that goes right to it.
* DeadlyBath: [[spoiler:Once the Dark Presence realizes she finally forget to keep a lantern with her on a trip to the bathroom, Scratch wastes no time in dragging her into her tub and drowning her in it.]]
* {{Expy}}:
** She has quite a lot in common with the Log Lady from ''Series/TwinPeaks''. An elderly lady seen as the weirdest resident in a small, weird town, who constantly cradles an object associated with their nickname and obsession (the log of the Log Lady, Cynthia's lanterns).
** [[spoiler:As a Taken, the initial portion of her boss fight mimics the Kaernk (aka the "Water Monster") from ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent'', with her hiding under the dark water and ambushing Saga by following her movements while in it.]]
* GlassCannon: [[spoiler:Her wave attacks pack a punch and will come quickly at Saga, but her actual health is negligible and she only has a Darkness shield while on the ground, leaving her exposed to being shot down quickly.]]
* HoneyTrap: [[spoiler:After becoming a Taken in ''II'', she tries charming Tor in order to acquire one of his records in order to bring him into the Overlap]].
* IntrepidReporter: Her occupation years before. She supposedly quit it after her encounter with the darkness.
* ItRunsInTheFamily: Supplementary materials suggest this may be the case for the Weaver family. It goes into the career of her ancestor Bartholomew, an architect who steadily went mad trying to rebuild a large manor on the outskirts of town despite heavy financial burden. Given the home's proximity to Cauldron Lake, it is also a possibility multiple generations of the Weavers [[HistoryRepeats ended up "touched" by the Dark Presence]].
* MakingASplash: [[spoiler:As a Taken, she can shoot blasts of water at Saga while levitating, likely in reference to how Scratch killed her by drowning her in a bathtub.]]
* MysteriousProtector: [[spoiler:She is the Lady of the Light mentioned in the song written by the Anderson Brothers, and has left a bunch of supply caches around Bright Falls precisely so Alan or someone else fighting the Taken could use them.]]
* NoodleIncident: How exactly she was "touched" by the Dark Presence after Zane's disappearance is never specified.
* ProperlyParanoid: A timid-looking old woman who carries a lantern and is afraid of the dark? Well, there's a good reason...
* RippleEffectProofMemory: She still remembers Thomas Zane and his works, despite Zane writing both them and himself out of existence. It's implied he deliberately left her memory intact so she could help the next person to fight the Dark Presence. [[spoiler:In the second game, she is one of the few people who remember him as a poet instead of the filmmaker the imposter Zane made him between games.]]
* RoomFullOfCrazy: During Episode 3, Alan can find the ruins of an old house in the woods, presumably where she used to live before moving into the power plant. The basement walls are absolutely ''covered'' in graffiti that alternates between professing love for Thomas Zane and cursing his name, when it's not just writing out "TOM" multiple times. Smack dab in the middle of it all is a giant heart with "CW + TZ" written inside.
* ShaggyDogStory: The poor lady never caught a break in her life. The love of her life loved someone else, she lost them both to the Dark Presence and was made into the town loony keeping all the lights on to defend herself, [[spoiler:only to die a horrible death 13 years later and be used by the darkness she fought against as another one of its puppets]].
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: [[spoiler:Her role as the Lady of the Light protected her well during the first game, but losing the title left her exposed at her own home to Mr. Scratch's will, getting her killed and Taken as a result.]]
* TragicKeepsake: The second game reveals one of her lamps is uniquely this among the ''many'' she owns, as she recalls it as belonging to Tom before he disappeared. [[spoiler:It proves to have been essential to her declining mental health, as when Rose steals it to send into the Dark Place for Alan, Cynthia instantly succumbs to despair and loses track of herself long enough for Scratch to make his move.]]
* TragicVillain: [[spoiler:Compared to Nightingale and the two deputies, Cynthia's fate as a Taken is a lot more tragic. She dedicated the majority of her adult life to keeping the Darkness in Cauldron Lake at bay. In her old age however, she became frailer and demoralized over time at her eternal work. And when Rose takes Zane's lamp from Cynthia's collection (to give it to Alan), this breaks Cynthia's spirit enough for the Dark Presence to finally possess her.]]
* WentCrazyWhenTheyLeft: The impetus of her mental state shattering completely was the disappearance of her unrequited love Tom Zane. While she distracts herself for a time with her obsession with bringing light, with nothing to do at Valhalla, she [[spoiler:quickly turned to senility and obsessed over him until her own death.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: As much as she loves Zane, she is also furious at him for cursing her to a decades-long mission and messing up her mind. There are several light-sensitive texts that read "I curse you Thomas Zane".
* {{Yandere}}: Judging by the above, Cynthia has bi-polar feelings for Zane, loving him from afar but at the same time hated him for making her help him. [[spoiler:In the second game, the Dark Presence takes advantage of her complicated feelings on him as it makes her a Taken, twisting her mind to think she's simply getting ready to join Zane and carry out his work.]]
[[/folder]]

!!Other Townsfolk
[[folder:Thomas Zane]]
!!Thomas "Tom" Zane / Thomas Seine / the Diver / the Poet
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Creator/JamesMcCaffrey, Creator/IlkkaVilli (''Alan Wake II'')
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' | ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]] | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tomzane.png]]


->''"Beyond the shadow you settle for, there is a miracle illuminated."''

\\
A poet and apparently bestselling author ([[AmbiguousSituation or rising auteur filmmaker]]) who lived in and around Cauldron Lake in the 1960's, and was in love with a woman named Barbara Jagger. He disappeared one day due to mysterious circumstances, and so did his works, with only a few people remembering him, either truthfully or as a local legend.
----
* AmbiguouslyHuman: In the present day, it is left vague how much of him is still human within the diving suit, and how much has been warped by the Presences within Cauldron Lake. In the Special Episodes he seems to be experiencing a loss of identity and is slowly becoming just a hollow vessel for the Bright Presence.
* AmbiguousSituation: A doppelganger of Alan calling himself Tom Zane and mentioning the "Diver" as a role he played appears in ''Control''. What the imposter's motives are, and what happened to the Tom we see in the first game goes unrevealed.
** The mystery only deepens when, in ''Alan Wake II'', the world only seems to acknowledge Thomas Zane as a filmmaker who spearheaded a film ''called'' "Tom the Poet" in Bright Falls, which he starred in as the protagonist; ''how'' this change was so wide-reaching it actively "corrected" [[VideoGame/{{Control}} Jesse's memory]] of him being a poet despite her having one of his poems (somehow), alongside the ''when'' and the ''why'' of it is never concretely answered.
*** Not entirely helping the confusion, [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/alanwake/images/3/31/Diver_poster.png/ even in the original game]], in Alan's nightmare which functions as the tutorial and prologue, the cabin is filled with "Tom the Poet" film posters, with the remastered version of the game [[https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F1ov9zdoohs181.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D19ba2e96c10ccda30356d7f52ca717e6ab507a9c altering the posters]] to look even more like ones used to advertise a film outside a theater. What this purely visual detail means, if anything, regarding Zane's true backstory, is somewhat unclear.
* TheAtoner: The Dark Presence obtaining a vessel is mostly the fault of his poor decision making, and he does everything he can to make up for it.
* BigGood: He's the mentor for Alan, Cynthia is the Lady of Light because of him, and he's the one who provides Alan with the Clicker, the item that finally finishes things off in the Dark Place.
* DeusExMachina: Deconstructed. Writing Barbara's survival without a plausible reason allowed the Presence to take over her body when she returned, since it exploits a written work's plot holes to its advantage.
* {{Doppelganger}}: [[spoiler:As seen in ''Alan Wake II'', he looks nearly identical to Alan. The only real difference is the lack of any facial hair, at least assuming the Tom Zane met in the Dark Place is the same one seen in the first game.]]
* EnigmaticEmpoweringEntity: Provides Alan with the power to defeat the Dark Presence for good, although he was written into this by Alan himself which may subvert it somewhat.
* TheFaceless: He's only ever seen in his thick scuba gear, which in tandem with the bright light pouring out from the helmet completely obscures his face. In ''Control'' his alleged appearance is simply a {{Doppelganger}} of Alan. [[spoiler:His appearance is finally shown in ''Alan Wake II'' ([[AmbiguousSituation supposedly]]), in which he bears a strong resemblance to Alan.]]
* GenreBlind: His undoing. He tried to take shortcuts in defeating the Dark Presence, but it didn't work, leaving him trapped in Cauldron Lake.
* HeroicSacrifice: When Alan was initially trapped in the Dark Place, he appeared and cleared Wake's mind enough to make a run for it. When the Dark Presence caught on, it threw him deeper into the Dark Place, eschewing any chance of escape from the Darkness.
* LightIsGood: Zane gave himself over to the Bright Presence, which seeks to defeat the Dark Presence through him and Alan. This is manifest by the inside of his suit constantly being filled with a blinding light.
* TheMentor: He acts as Alan's guide and aids him, though indirectly. He is also considered as the Obi-Wan to Alan's Anakin. Becomes much more direct in [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind "The Signal"]] and [[EnemyWithin "The Writer"]] [=DLCs=], which are almost completely about Zane trying to guide Alan through the Dark Place and teach him to fight its influence. This somewhat carries over in ''II'' helping Alan finding murder sites in the Dark Place to escape despite all the massive changes to his character.
* MyGreatestFailure: Attempting to revive Barbara, and thereby giving the Dark Presence a host.
* NaturalizedName: ''Alan Wake II'' reveals he is a Finnish immigrant, and his birth name is Thomas ''Seine''. He had it changed to better fit in with the American population.
* PosthumousCharacter: He died before the game begins, drowned in the collapse of Bird Leg Cabin on Cauldron Lake. He still exists as a manifest form of the Bright Presence, and is thus still able to effect the plot.
* RealityWarper: As a poet on Cauldron Lake, his words could bring things to life.
* RetGone: Did this to himself in order to keep the Dark Presence at bay for as long as he could while trying to think of a way to defeat it. Only the memories of the townsfolk (and [[VideoGame/{{Control}} Jesse Faden]], for a time) and the works in the shoebox are indicators he ever existed. Though by ''Alan Wake 2'', it has come undone, though now he is remembered as an independent film maker rather than a poet. Even more confusing, his most famous film made in the US is stated to be based off a book written by Alan Wake, who wasn't even alive when the movie was made.
* SameCharacterButDifferent: The Zane from the first game is unrecognizable in pretty much every way from whom appears in the second game. The only thing the two Zanes share is their role as a guide to Alan in the Dark Place
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: His DeusExMachina that he used to revive Barbara is what gave the Dark Presence its avatar, leading to the events of the entire connective universe.
* UnwittingPawn: All of the poor choices he made with the Dark Presence were egged on by his "editor" Dr. Emil Hartman. He apparently caught on, but by then it was too late.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rusty]]
!!Ranger Rusty
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Jeff Gurner
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rangerrusty.png]]

->''"Crazy poachers. Max here got his foot caught in a trap. They're illegal to use here -- hell, you're not supposed to hunt within the park at all, but that doesn't stop some lowlifes!"''

\\
A park ranger who rents out cabins outside Bright Falls. Has a crush on Rose.
----
* AllLoveIsUnrequited: He's harbored an unspoken crush on Rose since he divorced his previous wife. As the various pages you find around him as he's Taken lament, it will never come to fruition now that he's been killed.
* BlackEyesOfEvil: After his transformation into a Taken.
* DiscoveringYourOwnDeadBody: Before his death he suffers a variation of this trope. At the Elderwood Visitor Center he comes across a [[RewritingReality manuscript page]] which details him suffering a mortal injury just before it happens.
* EliteMook: The second named Tele-Flanker Taken of the game.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: When you meet Rusty at the Diner, Rose comments that he loves the coffee so much that he's "no longer human", adding that he's "just black coffee under a thin layer of skin".
* HopeSpot: After being severely injured by the Dark Presence, he begs Alan to go find the circuit breaker and restore power and light to the Ranger's Station. Alan investigates the other building where it's located only to find an axe sticking out of it ruining that plan. Before Alan can return to Rusty to give him any other assistance, the Dark Presence strikes again with Rusty screaming in pain and terror before he's Taken.
* LargeHam: As a Taken, naturally. Given that he was Taken as he was screaming for his life, the empty shell that he is now reflects this by keeping the same expression and tone of voice until he's put out of his misery.
-->"Obey... '''the park ranger's instructions''' ...at all times!"
* NiceGuy: His main characterization is a humble, welcoming man whose compassionate toward animals. This only makes it a greater tragedy when he is arbitrarily killed off by the Dark Presence.
* NoFullNameGiven: He's only known by his first name, Rusty. A last name or potential middle name are never mentioned or otherwise revealed to Alan or the audience.
* SacrificialLion: He is established as a likeable, competent member of the community with some depth to him in his love for Rose. His death relatively early in the first game establishes the threat of the Dark Presence if left unchecked.
* TragicMonster: Compared to the other characters who don't make much of an impact before being Taken, Rusty makes multiple appearances and establishes himself as a pleasant, friendly man who cares about the forest and its wildlife. His last moments before being Taken are spent in intense agony and fear with his final thoughts being of the woman he never managed to profess his love towards.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Carl Stucky]]
!!Carl Stucky
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Gary Swanson
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/carl_stucky.png]]

->''"Hey, wait! Mrs. Wake? Your -- your keys?"''

\\
Owner of a gas station and the cabin that Alan and Alice rented for their vacation. He never got to give Alan the keys, though.
----
* BlackEyesOfEvil: Gains these after he's turned into a Taken.
* BrickJoke: In a bit of BlackHumour one of the manuscript pages Saga finds in the overlap describes the Taken getting trapped in the lake after Alan defeated the Dark Presence, wandering the Dark Place and muttering their WordSaladHorror, the one non-generic quote is clearly Stuckies.
* LargeHam: As the first Taken to speak more than a single line before attacking, showing how they talk fresh off their DeathOfPersonality.
-->"Carl Ssstucky. '''Pleased'''... to ''meet'' you. Non-re'''fundable'''... '''reservation''' deposit ''required''. Fair and '''SQUARE'''!"
* RealMenEatMeat:
-->"I! '''Nnnever!''' ''Touch'' salad, though! A man like me needs a hefty... '''meal!''' TO GET THROUGH THE DAY!"
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Hot dogs, according to his instinctual dialogue. He even lists off his top three dogs from the local hot dog stand! In the following chapter you encounter said hot dog stand and can see that the three he listed [[BigEater are just the three biggest ones on the menu]].
* WakeUpCallBoss: He's the first Tele-Flanker you'll face in the game, surrounded by common Taken and with Alan still having only the base handgun at this point. This is all so the game makes sure there will be no bones thrown during Taken fights. However, this is ''heavily'' [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] if Alan found Cynthia Weaver’s caches of weapons and got the flare gun and a double barreled shotgun, [[CurbStompBattle which will make killing Stucky and his Taken allies a walk in the park]].
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Within the context of the game's narrative, Stucky only had one scene where he's shown completely normal, and he doesn't get much more screen time until after he's been completely smothered by the Dark Presence and turned into a Taken offscreen.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Frank Breaker]]
!!Frank Breaker
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]] | ''Night Springs'' | ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frankbreaker.png]]

->''"So it's gonna be like that."''

\\
The father of Sarah Breaker, uncle to Tim Breaker, and the former sheriff of Bright Falls.
----
* ActionDad: Sets out into the Dark Presence-infested Bright Falls to reach his daughter and ensure her safety.
* BusCrash: According to his nephew, Tim, Frank has passed away by the time of ''Alan Wake II''.
* CallToAgriculture: After he retired as the Sheriff of Bright Falls, he bought a local apple farm and took up agriculture in his elder years.
* TheCavalryArrivesLate: Is pretty much a few steps behind Alan and company the whole time, arriving late to both the power plant and the dam. He even sees Alan walking away but isn't able to stop him, though he does ultimately reunite with the people left behind in the Well-Lit Room, including Sarah.
* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Due to the weirdness of Bright Falls, he's experienced horrors of all sorts, such as being attacked by a "man with the head of a wolf" and having something pretending to be his wife in bed with him after her funeral.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: We see he had to deal with a DeadPartner in his early days as an NYPD cop. The narration of ''Night Springs'' alludes to it not being the only trauma he's worked through.
-->''"There had been a lot of bad nights in New York."''
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Frank responds to Barbara Jagger's threat against him and Sarah is to shove a flare into her face.
* FathersQuest: Frank's main motivation in "Night Springs."
* HeroOfAnotherStory: We follow his perspective of Episode 5 throughout the Night Springs tie-in comic, organizing the remaining cops and going after Sarah. He's revealed in ''{{VideoGame/Control}}'' to have been a former member of the Federal Bureau of Control, and reported the events of ''Alan Wake'' to the Bureau.
* LastStand: Faced with a horde of Taken on the way to the dam, he is prepared to go down fighting, and barely survives thanks to Alan turning on the lights at the Well-Lit Room.
* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Subverted, but he is led to believe this when he sees the crashed rescue helicopter previously used by his daughter [[ItsPersonal and suddenly is filled with rage.]]
-->''"There was something almost sublime in the realization that he couldn't possibly cope with the death of his daughter. Suddenly, the world was uncomplicated. She would be alright, or he would bring hell."''
* PapaWolf: While he knows Sarah is more than capable of looking after herself, Frank is going to make sure she is safe and no way in hell he is going to let creatures of the night stopping him.
* ProductionForeshadowing: When Barry calls him, Frank at first thought he is a Bureau agent. While initially thought to be the FBI, [[spoiler:the Bureau he meant is the [[{{VideoGame/Control}} Federal Bureau of Control]] which he used to work for. Later, he tried calling them to get reinforcements to no avail]].
* RetiredBadass: Has seen a lot of action in his time, serving as a NYPD police officer, a Bright Falls sheriff, and even [[spoiler:an FBC agent]]. It's telling that Pat Maine and the Bright Falls deputies all listen to his orders when they receive Barry's call and meet.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jake Fischer]]
!!Jake Fischer
!!!'''Portrayed by''': Christopher Forsyth
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jackfischer.png]]

->''"I'm Jake Fischer. A reporter."''

\\
The protagonist for the miniseries, a writer and journalist who arrives in Bright Falls to interview Dr. Hartman about his new book, only to start seeing weird things happen around him.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: There is no official explanation for what exactly happens to Jake during his stay in the town. While many believe he was being slowly transformed into a Taken, WordOfGod said it's not the case, as a Taken wouldn't be having episodes of lucidity like he did.
* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: ''Possibly.'' Official word from the miniseries' staff is that Jake wasn't Taken, at least not when he was still able to remain conscious during the day, as Taken are dead the moment they are consumed by the Dark Presence. But if he wasn't Taken before, the shot of him ''literally'' vanishing into the night right out of his car all but confirms he's become one.
* AnimalMotifs: Deer. On his first night in Bright Falls, he accidentally runs over a deer on the road, which somehow reacts to his flashlight despite being mortally wounded, as well as seeing flashing images of deer haunting his nightmares, a hunter walking down the road with a deer head on his hand, and his trashed hotel room is stated by Mulligan to possibly have been the result of a deer running wild.
* IntrepidReporter: Not by choice, as he only went to Bright Falls to do an interview with Dr. Hartman and get a signed copy of his book. The weird events he experiences just come for him or might even be caused by him.
* NeverFoundTheBody: He quite literally vanishes into the dark of the night as it sweeps over him, implying he's been Taken by the Dark Presence. The police find his empty car and shrug it off as an accident, but Jake himself is never seen again.
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: The lapses in Jake's memory and him waking up in random places all invoke classical North American mythology regarding werewolves, including the usual pop culture depiction of a man restraining himself at one point so he won't break loose and possibly kill someone, except here it involves deer motifs instead of wolves.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Ellen Adams]]
!!Ellen Adams
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Allison Lange
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ellenadams.png]]

->''"I get it, don't answer. You're here for business."''

\\
An old colleague of Jake's that now lives in Bright Falls and works as a reporter at ''The Bright Falls Record''.
----
* AmbiguousSituation: There's a slight chance she knows about the Dark Presence in some way, even warning Jake a few times that he should leave Bright Falls as soon as possible, but it's never elaborated upon. Also, much like Jake, she's never seen again after she disappears from the car. All that's left is one of her shoes in the backseat with a single bloodstain.
* FlatCharacter: While her implied break-up with Jake is amicable, there's not much she does in the miniseries outside of showing Jake some support as he faces the weird things happening in the town.
* NeverFoundTheBody: At the final episode, when Jake wakes up in the car, Ellen is nowhere to be seen despite being the one driving not long before. All that's left of her is one of her shoes in the backseat with some blood on it. She's never seen again, either killed or Taken before Jake.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sam Smith]]
!!Sam Smith
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Cooper Huckabee
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''Bright Falls''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sam_smith.png]]

The owner of the Mountain Air Motel in Bright Falls.
----
* CrackOwMyBack: He shows some signs of back pain while fixing a light bulb, but powers through it to get the job done. Later, when he trips, the fall seems significantly more impactful then it would be if he hadn't fell right on his back.
* CrazyPrepared: He definitely knows about the Dark Presence a little more than others do, as he has back-up lightbulbs for his motel and a wall practically stacked with hunting rifles and shotguns.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: He fires a warning shot with his shotgun at the woods to try and scare off the creature he hears. When it actually approaches him, he tries to back up and slips on the ejected shell.
* NeverFoundTheBody: He's attacked and grabbed by something off-screen, never to be seen again.
[[/folder]]

!!Watery, Washington
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWake'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]] | ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' [[note]]Mentioned only[[/note]] | ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''

->''"Greetings from America's little Finland!"''
-->--'''Post card'''

\\
A small town near Bright Falls, whose population is comprised mostly of Finnish immigrants.
----
[[folder:In General]]
* AmusementPark: The Koskela brothers set up a kitschy local amusement park nearby the town known as Coffee World. It serves as an AmusementParkOfDoom, as Saga has the misfortune of needing to explore it at night for a valuable key.
* DyingTown: The Manuscript describes the town as slowly dying out, as the lumber mill that served as its main economic driver closed down years ago, and the fishing yields from the nearby lake are starting to decline. Ilmo's endeavors, chief among them Coffee World, have managed to stave off total collapse, but Alan states it has merely delayed the inevitable and the town has visibly declined to mostly the elderly by the time of Saga's arrival.
* FakeMemories: When Saga arrives in the town, most of the townsfolk have their memories altered to have believed she is a resident of the town herself who left for a time, instead of an FBIAgent.
* MeaningfulName: The town of "Watery" is flooded with excess water by the time of ''Alan Wake II''. Saga even notes the flooding is far worse then the nearby Bright Falls.
* PrivatelyOwnedSociety: A fairly small and benign example, but the ownership of most of the products and properties of Watery can be traced back to Ilmo Koskela. It is portrayed sympathetically, if not positively, as a native of the town doing everything in his power to keep his faltering community afloat after a steady loss of industry.
* SmallTownRivalry: The residents of Bright Falls have one with the town for their conflicting annual ceremonies of Deerfest and Watery's own Moosefest.
* UnseenNoMore: After small mentions in the first ''Alan Wake'' and ''Control'', it becomes a fully explorable area in Saga's half of ''Alan Wake II''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Ilmo Koskela]]
!!Ilmo Koskela
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Peter Franzén
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_ilmokoskela.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Introducing the brothers who need no introduction: the Koskelas!"'']]

->''"Many local attractions have recently been fenced off by the government. And that's why at Koskela Brothers Adventure Tours, we say, 'Fuck the government!' We have bolt cutters!"''

\\
One of the Koskela brothers, an ambitious businessman and tour guide behind many of Watery's local businesses.
----
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: He makes up one half of the only explicit set of twins in ''Alan Wake II'', and along with Jaakko, the pair are identical twin brothers.
* AngstySurvivingTwin: [[spoiler:He survives his encounter with Scratch at the Sheriff Station while watching his twin Jaakko die [[BloodSplatteredInnocents right in front of him]]. In his last conversation with Saga, the perpetually cheerful persona he built up throughout the game erodes completely, and he is obviously crushed at the loss.]]
* BadBoss: He has elements of this, if the dilapidated state of Coffee World is anything to go by. Notes depict him skimping on repair costs, and several of the park's foolish ideas are the result of his direct orders (an employee explicitly calls him out for selling [[MyLittlePanzer sharp toy knifes]] for children).
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Zig-Zagged throughout his treatment of his mascot, Mocha the moose. While was never outright violent or cruel toward her, and he appreciated the animal as an asset to Coffee World, he let her caffeine addiction get to the point of a heart attack, and promptly had her carved up into steaks without a care when she dropped dead.
* BilingualDialogue: Peppers his dialogue with the occasional Finnish words or phrase in his conversations, otherwise speaking perfect English.
* BirdsOfAFeather: The false memories of Saga made them close friends, and they share a love for [[IncrediblyLamePun cheesy, pun-based]] humor. Saga even finds a joke book he gifted her in her home in the trailer park.
* BlatantLies: At his worst, he's not above directly lying to the viewers in his ads, with the only hint of the truth coming from [[SideEffectsInclude small text at the bottom or sides of the screen]]. Most prominently, he lists the Bright Falls Brew as empowering its drinker's energy, lovemaking, vision, and connection with animals. The latter three are all noted to be ''completely'' bogus, and even any perceived "energy" coming only from a high concentration of caffeine.
* BloodSplatteredInnocents: [[spoiler:After Scratch's fatal attack on Jaakko, he is left coated with his twin brother's blood, only adding to the horror of the scene.]]
* BunnyEarsLawyer: When it comes down to the nitty gritty of his businesses, it quickly becomes apparent the man is a complete mess when it comes to management and is frequently blatantly dishonest with his products. That said, it is also noted he is a successful entrepreneur in spite of this, and his efforts are the only thing keeping Watery from faltering as a community completely.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: [[spoiler:While giving a review of the novel Return in his "Book Club" commercial, Ilmo focuses on the make and quality of the book's materials instead of the story or content. Even being mentally overwritten by Scratch can't stop him from being slightly off the mark with his commercials.]]
* ComplexityAddiction: Absolutely adores puzzles, and insists upon them throughout his business ventures, to the point of locking up valuables behind a puzzle he changes weekly in Coffee World. [[spoiler:This extends to the Cult of the Tree, who he insists keep their supplies locked in impromptu puzzle boxes throughout the wilderness.]]
* ConsummateLiar: Lies (either directly or through very blatant omission) about the quality of his products as easily as he breathes. [[spoiler:He is also very natural at feigning ignorance over the {{Cult}} he manages and, as early as his first appearance, places seeds of doubt of them even existing in the FBC's minds with plausible "theories" of raccoons causing the tech problems.]]
* DamnedByFaintPraise: This is the best he can come up with to advertise his businesses on television. The Kalevala Knights' floats won the previous year's "Best Float featuring an Animal that is NOT a Deer" award, and Coffee World is "[[OverlyNarrowSuperlative Washington's best coffee-themed amusement park]]".
* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: [[spoiler:Thanks to his "[[HeroicSpirit Finnish Sisu]]", when the Dark Presence comes knocking to influence his mind and make him kill his brother, Ilmo outright resists until it gives up in lieu of easier targets.]]
* DitzyGenius: Genuinely clever and resourceful, but he often lets his imagination run wild with his entrepreneurial concepts, to severely AwesomeButImpractical levels. [[spoiler:The culmination of this is the plan he thought up to fight the Taken: "[[OperationBlank Operation: Bigger is Better]]", a massive aimable flashlight on top of the Watery lighthouse, noted by Jaakko to be completely wasteful as a hypothetical weapon, and implausible to make a reality with their limited resources.]]
* EnemyMine: [[spoiler:Following Scratch's attack, he decides to put aside his differences with Saga and cooperate in their shared goals. She lets him leave prison to rally the last of the Cult of the Tree and protect the people from the Taken while she goes to summon Wake.]]
* EvilCostumeSwitch: [[spoiler:In the scene where he is confirmed to be a member of the Cult of the Tree, he is in their robes and mask (until it is knocked off) instead of his usual outfit. In the subsequent scenes, where he reveals the [[GoodAllAlong true nature of the Cult]], he's back in his normal outfit.]]
* FrontlineGeneral: [[spoiler:Leads the Cult of the Tree in their assault on the Elderwood Palace Lodge, and personally goes to finish off Alan until Saga [[BlastingItOutOfTheirHands shoots his knife out of his hand.]]]]
* GoodAllAlong: [[spoiler:Most of the story implies that Ilmo and the Cult are pawns for Mr. Scratch and the Dark Presence. Scratch's possession of Wake flips that all on its head. Ultimately, while Ilmo is definitely shady, his sole motivation is to protect his community from the Dark Presence, and his efforts have held back the Dark Presence for well over a decade.]]
* GoodCounterpart: He is one to the founding Watery citizen Ilmari Huotari. Both were twin brothers and respected members of their community (played by the same actor as well), but while Ilmari succumb to the impulse to kill innocents and his brother, Ilmo remained true to his own honor and fought off the influence of the Dark Presence when it tried to make him [[HistoryRepeats follow in Ilmari's footsteps]].
* HeroicWillpower: A manuscript reveals the Dark Presence tried to twist his story to make him [[HistoryRepeats repeat history]] with the [[SiblingMurder Huotari brothers]] on his own brother. If nothing else, his pure familial love for Jaakko allows him to fight off these mental intrusions, forcing the Dark Presence to change targets.
* IdenticalTwinIDTag: To tell him apart from his twin Jaakko, he has much shorter, better-groomed facial hair, and is usually wearing a baseball cap instead of his brother's wooly hat.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He's a poor employer and a bit of a snake-oil salesman, but his business schemes are pretty much the only thing keeping Watery from falling apart completely. [[spoiler:He becomes much more sinister as the horror story tightens its grip on him and his dealings with the cult come to light, but this is subverted when the Cult's goals are cleared up]].
* KnightTemplar: [[spoiler:He is actually the leader of the Cult of the Tree. And the Cult is actually trying to help Bright Falls and Watery by killing those who leave Cauldron Lake before the Dark Presence fully possesses them again and turns them into Taken that will attack innocent people. And by using such an ominous name, people who might got wandering the woods and get attacked by Taken will stay clear of the forest]].
* LargeHam: Very over the top, loud, and exaggerated while acting in his commercials. This offers a humorous contrast to his [[TheComicallySerious brother]] while they act alongside each other.
* TheLeader: [[spoiler:The undisputed leader of the Cult of the Tree, though far from a perfect one. His mostly hands-off leadership and insistence of puzzles in their nightly operations lead to fractures within the group and poor communication among them.]]
* PolarOppositeTwins: A charming PerpetualSmiler with a constant stream of entrepreneurial ideas and goals. His brother is a PerpetualFrowner who simply goes with the flow and supports his family from home.
* RedOniBlueOni: The perky, outgoing entrepreneur of the two brothers. Manuscripts portray him as a constant stream of half-baked ideas, which his brother encourages and helps him fully think through when they decide to make them a reality.
* RenaissanceMan: He does it all. He's the salesman of his own beer and coffee brand, local tour guide, leader of a local biker gang / parade float construction crew, amusement park owner, director, amateur actor, and [[spoiler:a [[BreadEggsMilkSquick Cult leader.]]]]
* RightForTheWrongReasons: [[spoiler:Right to assume Alan is a danger to the town, but he assumes he is simply another "bad news" Taken who has to be stopped since he came from Cauldron Lake. [[WrongAssumption Wake is still completely human and innocent]], but instead carries the much more dangerous Scratch [[DemonicPossession in his mind.]]]]
* ShamelessSelfPromoter: Whenever he's around, even casual conversation he's in tends to veer into an advertisement of his businesses and products. Despite his hatred of them otherwise, he's not above offering FBC agents his Ahma beer in the name of the sale.
* SiblingTeam: He and his twin brother Jaakko do almost everything together, including the two of them collaborating on most of Ilmo's business ventures. [[spoiler:As well, the two [[SiblingsInCrime work together to lead the Cult of the Tree]] and infiltrate FBC facilities for their own uses.]]
* SurvivorsGuilt: [[spoiler:After Jaakko's death, he can be heard mourning over his brother's covered body, declaring him the better of the two brothers and expresses guilt for wrapping him up in his Cult idea.]]
* TalkingToTheDead: In his final commercial [[spoiler:within Scratch's distorted reality, he repeatedly delegates to Jaakko, who has already been killed by Scratch, after giving his opinion on Alan's book. It is only after an extended beat each time does realize his brother isn't present, morosely looks at the ground, and continues with his brainwashed spiel.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Furiously calls out Saga when he's jailed in Bright Falls for [[spoiler:shooting his hand to stop him from killing Alan, who he ([[RightForTheWrongReasons not incorrectly]]) sees as a danger to the town. The two reconcile after his brother's death.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jaakko Koskela]]
!!Jaakko Koskela
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Peter Franzén
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_jaakkokoskela.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Family comes first, Ilmo."'']]

\\
Ilmo's quieter twin brother, who supports his family from home and assists his brother.
----
* ActionDad: A father of two, and generally the more rough and tumble of the Koskela brothers. [[spoiler:He also co-leads the Cult of the Tree, and is suggested to be among those trusted to actively hunt down and carve open the Taken.]]
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: He makes up one half of the only explicit set of twins in ''Alan Wake II'', and along with Ilmo, the pair are identical twin brothers.
* BadBadActing: In Ilmo's advertisements, Jaakko is always shown to have nonexistent acting skills, with him always coming off as flat and monotone. Ilmo is well-aware of it, but seems to recognize the certain charm it adds, as he has no problem keeping his brother on. Jaakko himself admits to it as well, and adds that he only does the commercials for the free beer.
--> '''Ilmo:''' [[SarcasmMode Jaakko here really comes alive in front of the camera.]]
* ButHeSoundsHandsome: In the commercial for the Kalevala Knights' parade float business, he refers to his "[[PaperThinDisguise disguised]]" twin brother as an "incredibly attractive martial arts master".
* CheatedDeathDiedAnyway: [[spoiler:Ilmo fights off the Dark Presence's attempts to influence him into killing his beloved brother in the style of the late [[SiblingMurder Jaakoppi Huotari's murder at the hands of his brother Illmari]]. Despite this, Scratch makes sure to take Jaakko out himself before he goes to complete his master plan.]]
* TheComicallySerious: In his brother's commercials, he often finds himself saying the most peculiar and over-the-top things. Despite this, his unshakably monotone delivery style only pushes the commercials quality further into the camp of "so bad it's good."
* TheDragon: [[spoiler:The main enforcer of Ilmo's will within the Cult of the Tree, and always seen by his side to plan with him or discuss their next steps to combat the growing Taken threat.]]
* DoNotTauntCthulhu: [[spoiler:Continues to mock and threaten what he thinks is Alan after he swaps out with Scratch with boasts against his life. Scratch proceeds to kill him as an afterthought before moving onto Saga.]]
* FrontlineGeneral: [[spoiler:Right alongside his brother leading the charge of the Cult of the Tree when they assault the Elderwood Palace Lodge to take out Alan Wake.]]
* HappinessInSlavery: Does the heavy lifting and legwork among the brothers, and unintentionally or not, Ilmo tends to direct both of their actions. He shows no resentment toward this, and a manuscript page describes him as genuinely supportive of all his brother's ideas and follows his lead by choice.
* {{Househusband}}: His role in his family, though it doesn't stop him from getting out and working as well, as he is constantly following along with his brother's ideas.
* IdenticalTwinIDTag: To tell the brothers apart, his beard is much bigger and out of control, and he never takes off the wooly hat he wears, in comparison to his brother's baseball cap.
* KnightTemplar: [[spoiler:He is a high-ranking member of the Cult of the Tree, and just as dedicated as they all are to keeping Bright Falls and Watery safe from the Taken threat, no matter the means they go about it]].
* NeverBareheaded: Unlike his brother, who is seen without the baseball cap several times, the hat Jaakko wears never leaves his head. This leads to a reoccurring visual gag, as he is far more likely to be dressed up in a silly costume in his brother's commercials, but always keeps the hat on anyway.
* OnlySaneMan: Tends to be the sole voice of reason to his brother's flightier moments. [[spoiler:He also acts as this to the wider Cult of the Tree, as the only person who does not bother with the infighting plaguing the Cult, but is still willing to call out his brother's absolute obsession with puzzles.]]
* PolarOppositeTwins: A quiet PerpetualFrowner who follows his brother's will but otherwise keeps to himself and raises his children from home. In contrast, his brother is a cheery PerpetualSmiler and the main face behind every major business still standing in Watery.
* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Mumbles and struggles with a majority of his lines throughout his brother's commercials. Second takes are not the Koskela's style, so all of these mistakes are kept in the broadcasted cut, to hilariously awkward effect which emphasizes his [[BadBadActing lack of talent in front of the camera]].
* RedOniBlueOni: The quiet and long-suffering handyman of the two brothers. The manuscripts further reveal him as the "doer" to his brother's "thinker" and he calmly works out the kinks in his excitable brother's many ideas.
* TheReliableOne: Dutiful to his work for his family, his connections in Watery, and most often his brother's businesses. His BoringButPractical advice is what keeps Ilmo's head on straight, as the man himself notes [[spoiler:while eulogizing his body.]]
* RightForTheWrongReasons: [[spoiler:Just like his brother, he is not wrong to want Wake disposed of, as he is a threat to the town. However, instead of as an agent of evil himself like the brother's assume, he is carrying a far greater threat [[DemonicPossession within himself]] that can only escape when he does.]]
* SiblingTeam: He and his twin brother Ilmo do almost everything together, including the two of them collaborating on most of Ilmo's business ventures. [[spoiler:As well, the two [[SiblingsInCrime work together to lead the Cult of the Tree]] and infiltrate FBC facilities for their own uses.]]
* SirSwearsALot: Peppers a lot more casual expletives into his dialogue then his brother, which is especially notable given how much [[TerseTalker less he speaks.]] [[spoiler:His last words are various swears thrown at Scratch, first in mutual panic with his brother, then in sole defiance before he is killed.]]
* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: [[spoiler:Without warning, Scratch teleports through the iron bars separating himself and Jaakko and instantly kills him with a single brutal slam against the prison cell.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Charlie and Charline Koskela]]
!!Charlie Koskela and Charline Koskela
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Ian Bouillion (Charlie), Jill Winternitz (Charline)
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_charliecharline.jpg]]
%%[[caption-width-right:300:some caption text]]

\\
Children of Jaakko Koskela, who work together to advertise the Oh Deer Diner.
----
* BadJobWorseUniform: The two are constantly in full coffee thermos mascot suits, and even the far more enthusiastic Charlie notes it makes him uncomfortably sweaty and are hard to move in.
* TheFaceless: Neither of them are ever seen outside of their thermos costumes, meaning neither of their faces can be seen at any point in ''Alan Wake II''.
* GenerationXerox: Just like their father and uncle's relationship, they are a pair of twins who consist of the perky, but slightly dimwitted one being reined in by his reserved sibling as they work together.
* {{Nepotism}}: Family of Ilmo Koskela, who employs them in his deal with the Oh Deer Diner. {{Downplayed|trope}}, however, as Charlie suggests Ilmo discreetly [[BadBoss doesn't pay them]] for their efforts, and their jobs are relatively demeaning.
* RecurringExtra: Neither of them ever factor into the events of the game, but they are always around in Bright Falls and Watery while Saga is investigating.
* SiblingTeam: Both of them work for the Oh Deer Diner together, and all of their appearances have them in the middle of their advertising of the brand together.
* ThemeTwinNaming: Their names are the masculine/feminine equivalent to each others, with their same age they are suggested to be a set of twins.
* WomenAreWiser: While Charlie is a talkative, coffee-obsessed weirdo, his sister Charline plays the StraightMan to his antics and seems far more on the ball, mirroring the relationship Ilmo and Jaakko have with each other in a sillier way.
[[/folder]]

!!"Night Springs"

[[folder:Emma Sloan]]
!!Emma Sloan
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Christina Evangelista
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakesAmericanNightmare''
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awemma_5650.jpg]]

->''"I did find a page like that. I don't even know where it came from. It was all this weird stuff about the oil derrick and a satellite..."''

\\
A mechanic met at her garage who somehow already knows Alan. She's also into new age stuff and has found one of his manuscript pages.
----
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: She's attracted to Mr. Scratch even after she subconsciously realizes he's bad news. Subverted, as by the time she realizes he's an out and out murderer this attraction has faded.
* BackFromTheDead: At least twice. She's killed by the Darkness at the end of Act 1 and 2, although she starts remembering her deaths in Act 2, and in 3 she and Alan figure out how to finally prevent it by stopping the Taken from knocking out her garage's fuse box.
* DirtyCoward: She thinks of herself as one, as she ran away when Mr. Scratch began killing Michael to gain access to the Mount Redtooth Observatory and didn't even call the police. Alan assures her that this isn't the case.
* NewAgeRetroHippie: She's into new age stuff and vaguely alludes to it in dialogue. She also mentions a few times that she believes in the more controversial forms of alternative medicine.
* WrenchWench: A female mechanic, and one used to getting shit for it too.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dr. Rachel Meadows]]
!!Dr. Rachel Meadows
!!!'''Voiced by:''' Yadwa
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakesAmericanNightmare''
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awrachel_1337.jpg]]

->''"I didn't expect to see anyone here tonight, but I'm relieved to see an actual person. That's assuming this isn't some kind of a cruel trick on your part, of course."''

\\
A scientist who works for the Mount Redtooth National Observatory. She's met with Mr. Scratch before Alan's arrival.
----
* LittleBlackDress: Wears one under her white lab coat. Alan asks her if she always wears it to work, and she explains it as the result of being called away from a party she was attending.
* MissionControl: Well, in and around the Observatory section of the time loop anyway. She frequently relays information and orders to you over the loudspeaker system.
* MsFanservice: A hot scientist wearing a little black dress underneath a labcoat. It's possibly the result of the world Alan's in being inspired by pulp fiction; though she mentions coming from a party.
* NerdsAreSexy: And she's got the glasses and a sexy British accent to go with it.
* StiffUpperLip: Her response to a mass of Taken swarming throughout the observatory on the last visit? "I really wish they would stop flagrantly breaking the laws of physics in my observatory. It's rather rude."
* UnfazedEveryman: She takes time looping best out of all three women (possibly because she doesn't have anything bad happen to her) and actually expresses some minor interest in letting it continue so she can study it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Serena Valdivia]]
!!Serena Valdivia
!!!'''Voiced by:''' Desi Sanchez
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakesAmericanNightmare''
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awserena_9531.jpg]]

->''"I-I love you so much. Did you know that love hurts? Are you gonna hurt me now? 'Cause you should."''

\\
A film maker and a friend of Alice Wake. Since Alice thought Alan was dead, with the help of Serena, they made a film based on Alan for the annual Night Springs Visual Art Show Film Festival.
----
* AndIMustScream: She has no control over her actions, but is left fully aware of her behavior. On the second time Alan passes through the drive-in, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential he doesn't have to help and can leave her like this.]]
* BrainWashedAndCrazy: Touched by the Darkness via Mr. Scratch, and becomes a total horny jackass. You can snap her out of it by turning on the lights to her building, which cures her instantly. As she retains full memory of her actions, she feels disgusted afterwards and thanks Alan for not taking advantage of her. Although helping afterward is optional in both Acts 2 and 3 for some reason.
* MindRape: Being touched by the Darkness leaves her very disturbed and worried about going crazy.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: Curing her of the Dark Presence is completely optional the second and third time around, but is still a nice thing to do.
** The narration even point out that you don't really have any reason to go back to her office the third time, since you entered the area from the opposite side. If you do it anyway, she'll ask why you bothered, and Alan will say that he couldn't leave her like that.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Eddie Rodman]]
!!Eddie Rodman
!!!'''Portrayed by:''' Larry Kenney
!!!'''Appearances:''' ''VideoGame/AlanWakesAmericanNightmare''

->''"Well, here you are, about to enjoy another cool Arizona night with me, Eddie Rodman, the host with the boast."''

\\
A radio host based in Night Springs.
----
* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Somewhat. Unlike Pat Maine's radio show, Rodman's has no noticeable phone call-ins or all that much attention, existing mostly for world-building within the setting of the DLC. In fact, the one listener that does respond to him doesn't do so in a friendly manner, to say the least.
* DeadpanSnarker: Has shades of this in the face of some of his less cooperative guests. For example, after giving a large speech over how long its been since he's had a proper caller, he lets one on the line and is met with:
-->'''Unnamed Caller:''' You suck, Eddie! ''(hangs up)''\\
'''Eddie:''' Ahem. Uh, did you know that this is my dream job? True fact.
* HappilyMarried: He mentions how much he loves spending time with his wife and isn't afraid to make a lighthearted crack about her with the assumption she's listening in on his broadcast even late at night.
* HiddenDepths: When asked about the nature of fate by a random caller, he suddenly launches into a sophisticated monologue about the ideas of beings greater then us deciding our fate. Oddly enough, his voice is briefly intercut with that of the Night Springs narrator for no explained reason.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: He steps on the Old Gods of Asgard's toes during his interview of them by mentioning how [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall different their singing and talking voices sound]].
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Of Pat Maine, as a voice on the radio interviewing people related to the main plot.
* TheVoice: His radio station isn't one of the locations visited by Alan during the loop, meaning he is never seen in person and only heard over the various radios.
[[/folder]]

* DeadlyBath: [[spoiler:Once the Dark Presence realizes she finally forget to keep lantern with her to the bathroom, Scratch wastes no time in dragging her into her tub and drowning her in it.]]

** She has quite a lot in common with the Log Lady from ''Series/TwinPeaks''.

* DrivesLikeCrazy: Odin takes control of their van to get to Saga with his and Tor's latest song, and drives like the one-eyed old lunatic he is. It even works out for him, as he plows through a horde of Taken in his way.

* TheLastDance: ''Control'' reveals they went out swinging once their comeback tour began, with Barry being seriously concerned they would turn up dead after all three of the shows they churned out.

!!!'''Preformed by:''' Music/PoetsOfTheFall

* EarnYourHappyEnding: After years of senility and falling out of mainstream focus, Barry manages to spur one last tour out of them. They're described as rocking harder then they did in their glory days and have the time of their lives before peacefully retiring into a personally funded nursing home to have some peace and quiet in the time they have left. [[spoiler:Unfortunately in ''Alan Wake II'', circumstances force them to battle the Dark Presence again and enter the Dark Place, although while in the Dark Place, they become their younger selves]].

* HealthyInHeaven: A version occurs in ''Alan Wake II''. [[spoiler:After their concert at the edge of Cauldron Lake, they wade into the Dark Place intent on rescuing Saga. With the suggestion the [[TimeWimeyBall bending of time]] means the Old Gods were present and helping Alan from the beginning, being in the Dark Place reverts them physically to the fit young men they once were.]]

* DespairSpeech: Has a brief one during one of his cutscenes in ''Control''. He forlornly recalls he once had a plan to escape the Dark Place that it made him forget. Luckily, he recovers quickly, if only out of a desperation to escape before Scratch comes looking for him.

* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler:His fate at the end of ''II'' is rather ambiguous. He is shot in the head in a way that starts up a StableTimeLoop, but spontaneously returns afterward, with his dialogue suggesting there is enough small differences for him to somehow break the loop in a way that saves himself.]]

* ThinkingTic: When making a serious deduction with the Case Board, she will cross her arms as she recaps the information she has put together.

* DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler:Logan is put at risk by the story when it alters reality to say she drowned in Cauldron Lake shortly after she and Saga moved back to Bright Falls.]]

* UncertainDoom: [[spoiler: Saga calls Logan after she and Alan rewrite the ending of Return to defeat Mr. Scratch, but the player isn't shown whether or not Logan answers, leaving it ambiguous as to whether or not she was saved.]]

* InSpiteOfANail: [[spoiler:Ilmo fights off the Dark Presence's attempts to influence him into killing his beloved brother in the style of the late Huotari brother murder. Despite this, Scratch makes sure to take Jaakko out himself before he goes to complete his master plan.]]

* SanitySlippage: His decade stuck writing for the Dark Prescence has left him unable to fully tell reality apart from his stories, and he starts rambling to himself like a madman about his writing while the Doppelganger Zane tries to hold a conversation with him.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_rosemarigold.png]]

* DrivesLikeCrazy: Odin takes control of their van to get to Saga with his and Tor's latest song, and drives like the old lunatic he is. It even works out for him, as he plows through a horde of Taken in his way.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alexcasey.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'm glad you're on this case with me Anderson; it's right up your alley."'']]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_dptymulligan.png]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aw2_dptythornton.png]]

* AmusementPark: The Koskela brothers set up a kitschy local amusement park nearby the town known as Coffee World. It serves as an AmusementParkOfDoom, as Saga has the misfortunate of needing to explore it at night for a valuable key.

* {{Expy}}: In-Universe, he's one of Thomas Zane. The Anderson brothers even confuse Alan for Zane when they meet, calling him "Tom". It's not a coincidence they're virtually the same person, going through the same events at a different time. It's implied Alan is a creation of Zane's, being the linchpin of Zane's backup plan to defeat the Dark Presence. This is further shown in ''Control'', where Alan in turn created Jesse to free him from the Dark Presence as well.

* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler: Alice is the source of the bullet of light and also a major player in the resolution of the plot. She is one of the primary reasons that Mr. Scratch is defeated and deftly maneuvers Alan into the position to do so, and Mr. Scratch's plans seem to not even account for her presence, possibly believing her dead. Which causes further questions on how Mr. Scratch isn't aware of her being within the Dark Place.]]

* TheCasanova: As he was both a major PrettyBoy and the only NiceGuy among the Old Gods, Bob had the most frequent and easy success among woman in the band.

* BadBadActing: In Ilmo's advertisements, Jaakko is always shown to have nonexistent acting skills, with him always coming off as flat and monotone. Ilmo is well-aware of it, but seems to recognize the certain charm it adds, as he has no problem keeping his brother on.

\\

-->'''Hartman:''' Still, better him then me.

* MultipleChoicePast: A manuscript page of Return in the second game gives a version of Odin [[EyeScream losing his eye]] that directly contradicts the events and year of the Departure manuscript. A note written by Odin, found at his bedside, [[RippleEffectProofMemory acknowledges this]], and he has jotted down the year of both events.

* TheMentor: He acts as Alan's guide and aids him, though indirectly. He is also considered as the Obi-Wan to Alan's Anakin. Becomes much more direct in [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind "The Signal"]] and [[EnemyWithin "The Writer"]] [=DLCs=], which are almost completely about Zane trying to guide Alan through the Dark Place and teach him to fight its influence.

* SameCharacterButDifferent: The Zane from the first game is unrecognizable in pretty much every way from whom appears in the second game.

* [[Characters/RemedyConnectedUniverseParanaturalPhenomena Paranatural Phenomena]] [[note]]The Hiss, Dylan Faden, The Anchor, The Board, Astral Spikes, Astral Copies, FORMER, The Oldest House, The Oceanview Motel and Casino, The Blessed Organization, The Cult of the Tree, Hedron, The Not-Mother, esseJ, Unless You, Fra, The Clog, The Mold, The Third Thing[[/note]]

* AscendedExtra: They are voice only characters in the original game who can be completely missed if certain radio shows are not listened to. In ''Alan Wake II'', they are fairly major side characters who appear in person.

* BadBoss: He has elements of this, if the dilapidated state of Coffee World is anything to go by. Notes depict him skimping on repair costs, and several of the park's foolish ideas are the result of his direct orders (an employee explicitly calls him out for selling sharp toys for children).

Family of the Koskela Brothers, who work together to advertise the Oh Deer Diner.