#I do think the Zane that meets Darling isn’t the same Zane we’ve met

[alphawave-writes]

This is more into my personal headcanon territory than anything substantiated by the games, but I wonder if the ‘chronology’ of these events are as they are depicted. Both scenes are explicitly displayed as ‘film scenes’ that Alan travels to, with the implication that they occurred in the past, perhaps in a previous spiral. After all, room 665 is mostly abandoned when Alan finds it.

It could be that the first scene is Zane from ‘spiral A’ and the second scene is Zane from ‘spiral B’. But how do we know if ‘spiral A’ is before ‘spiral B’ and not the other way around? And what happened in ‘spiral B’ to turn Zane antagonistic might never have happened in ‘spiral A’ so he remains friendly, or vice versa the knowledge of Alan’s betrayal in ‘spiral B’ turns him hostile.

And that’s not to say that Zane isn’t going through his own spiral. He has the spiral iconography on his wall, and the ending of Yötön Yö that he created in the Dark Place uses the same ending line of “It’s not a loop it’s a spiral”, so he clearly knows something about it.

But if we go by your theory and these two Zanes are two distinct entities with the same face and baseline memories, that could be an interpretation of Zane’s last poem in the second scene.

Oh Mercy! Thousands have gone missing

Beyond the labyrinth of me

When you’re lost

You’re lost in your own company

This poem could be a bit more literal. There could be THOUSANDS of Zanes that have gone missing. In Alan Wake 2, sure you HEAR Zane’s voice on the phone, but you never SEE him except for these cutscenes, so he’s technically ‘missing’. Being lost in his own company is contextually about Alan (who we can argue is a different version of Zane) but it could also be about the other different versions of him we’ve never met yet.

This also leads into the theory that the Zane that meets Darling above is also a DIFFERENT Zane from the one that met Alan both times (let’s call him ‘spiral C’ Zane, or ‘C Zane’ for short). C Zane is almost certainly the most recent Zane chronologically that we know of, given these scenes only come about in the ‘Final Draft’ AKA Alan’s last spiral. He’s looking for a collaborator to join forces with, art and science, but what’s interesting is this line he says: “You sound familiar”.

But ‘spiral A Zane’ saw an IMAGE of Darling on the TV so he should know who Darling is or at least what he looks like, but rather than say “you look familiar too”, he comments on the “sound”. We thought this could be a cheeky callback to the whole Alan’s VA meeting Alan’s body actor, but what if there’s more to this? What if C Zane never saw the TV glitch in with Darling’s face, and only saw Alan, talked to him on the phone or chatted to him? What if C Zane never physically knew what Darling looked like until that first meeting because he’s not spiral A Zane. He’s a different iteration that never saw the TV glitch in Dr Darling’s image.

I’m slowly falling for the theory that there are way more Zanes than we know or expect, and all these different versions may be aware of each other, lost in each other’s company.

But Dr Darling ISN’T (as far as we know of) a version of Zane.

Maybe C Zane won’t be lost anymore.

Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, only time (and the upcoming Lake House DLC) will tell.

I mean I could be very wrong about this but I was wondering if this Zane...

.... and this one...

... are really one and the same person or actually two different versions of the same guy.

The first time when Alan encounters him, Zane seems to be more helpful, trying to feed Alan information (although in his own way) and giving him hints about the next murder site, even warns him that Scratch is closing up the distance to Alice.

But the second time? It's not enough for him to control the scenes and to place Alan where he wants him to be (for example makes a cut/that glitching that appears and rapidly changes the scene, to sit Alan down on the couch to share a drink with him), he wants to take control over Alan. He changes places with him and threatens him with the gun. Alan has to fight back hard to get back control over the situation. This encounter was ist more sinister, more threatening and dangerous. Zane could have killed him there and therefore erased this draft of Initiation. To stop him from escaping without him? And in the end it turns out that this Zane version isn't even dead. Or he is, and another Zane edited the whole thing to make Alan believe he can't kill Zane. If we act as if Zane is Alan's creator, then of course Alan can't physically kill him. Zane acts as a walkthrough during their first meeting, by telling him what to do. But Alan might have ended up in the wrong place or dimension or part of the spiral when he enters room 665 for the second time, because this time Zane's far away from helping Alan.

And what about this:

Who's the dark double? Scratch? Alan? Has Zane really his own version of Scratch (as I'm already considering he does)? Did Alan meet Scratch!Zane the second time? Wouldn't you expect that an artist so vain would introduce himself with his given name? Are Thomas Zane and Thomas Seine even the same person? Did the Dark Presence edit and rewrite Zane into something he's never been? Is "Tom the Poet" basically the first Alan Wake game, in which Zane played the Diver and Cynthia played the Lamp Lady and so on? You can find the movie poster in the original game after all.

More food for thought! One day this game will be responsible for my future dementia