Alan Wake is a complicated protagonist. He is a writer, not adept at combat, and he's pretty quickly established as an imperfect person. His flaws are certainly more human and relatable than the average video game hero. The list below details how those faults manifest in some dire moments throughout the Alan Wake series.

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Some of these are done by accident, while others are a result of him losing control. Though some of the bad things he did are heinous, he is ultimately always trying to correct wrongs and fight the Dark Presence lurking in the Dark Place. Alan Wake's flaws make the Alan Wake series more complicated than a traditional good versus evil story.

6 He Wrote Saga Anderson's Daughter Into The Horror Story

Alan Wake 2

The main problem with fighting The Dark Presence through fiction that comes to life is that the stories and art always have to follow the traditional rules of the medium. In a horror story, there have to be real stakes, and the heroes have to make a grand sacrifice if they are to win.

Unfortunately, Alan wrote Saga's daughter, Logan, into the story the detective follows during her part of the campaign, called Return. Reality eventually changes to a point where all the characters perfectly remember Saga living in Watery and the tragedy of her daughter's drowning. The worst part is that the game ends before Saga is able to confirm whether her daughter is alive again, thanks to the rewritten ending.

5 He Wrote A Scene Where Innocent People Burned To Death

Alan Wake 2

During Alan's gameplay segments in Alan Wake 2, he gets to rewrite scenes to change the reality around him. The chapter Initiation 2: Casey, features a particularly grisly rewrite he puts in to get through the subway tunnel. He writes a scene where the Cult of the Tree traps people on a derailed train and then burns them to death.

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While this is at the hands of the cult, and one can argue about the way reality works in the Dark Place and whether those are real people or just figments of fantasy, players still have to see the aftermath of the arson. It's a horror story, so he couldn't just write a pleasant scene where he breezily walks through the train car and everyone goes home happy.

4 His Writer's Block Makes Him A Bad Husband

Before 2010's Alan Wake

2010's Alan Wake begins with Alan and Alice going to Bright Falls to get help for his severe writer's block, though he believed it was just for a simple vacation. The debut entry and its sequel expand upon the effect this writer's block was having on his marriage and on the people around him.

Alice Wake describes that it was taking him through a dark period where he was not the ideal husband and would lash out at Alice. In 2010, a character whose main issue was writer's block was an especially unique starting point for an action game. It remains a standout characteristic of Alan's even all these years later.

3 He Unleashed The Dark Presence Into The World

The Ending Of The First Alan Wake

Alice Wake is eventually saved from Cauldron Lake after Alan sacrifices himself. Unfortunately, the story is not as simple as that. In writing an ending where he trades his life for Alice's, he also unleashes the Dark Presence into the world. It most often takes the form of a doppelganger of Alan known as Mr. Scratch.

While an evil doppelganger sounds like a cheesy plot twist, it's a classic trope of supernatural stories and can be used to explore the duality of people. Alan Wake 2 expands upon Scratch heavily and throws an interesting plot twist into the character, going further to say that the Dark Presence is not creating doppelgangers but instead possessing people.

2 He May Have Created The Hiss

Control: AWE DLC

The first sign that Alan Wake was coming back appeared in Control. It was further solidified when the second DLC story focused purely on the character and all but confirmed that a true sequel was coming.

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In this DLC, known as AWE, there are numerous hints that Alan Wake created the main enemies of Control and possibly even had a hand in the events of the game's plot. It is known he wrote the incantation that the Hiss recite throughout the game. The implications of Alan's power and the influence he could have over the Remedy Connected Universe are almost unending.

1 He Killed Himself

Alan Wake 2

In Initiation 6 - Return, Alan is just about to rewrite the ending to the fictional Return novel before Mr. Scratch breaks into the writer's room and executes him on the spot. At least, he thought that was Mr. Scratch. During Initiation 9 - Gone, players break into the writer's room and execute who they believe to be Mr. Scratch.

It turns out, Alan and the player just got to be on two sides of a loop. This would have been a big problem and potentially could have ended any chance Alan had at success, but he is still able to rewrite The Return and change reality. As the ending of the game confirms, "It's not a loop. It's a spiral."