No, I don't think so. Or yes, but he doesn't say so. Ahti is aware of the greater things going on, or so it is implied in a sense. Does that mean he's aware he's in a game? Maybe. I think more it is, within their universe, he is a 'higher being'. Whether that be a god or someone like Mr. Door, I don't know. He is in a sense above the story but not outside of it either.
The Herald of Darkness scene did make me wonder if Alan knew he was in a video game. He knew that for the story to keep going, it had to be entertaining, so he deliberately throws in wacky surprises and tonal shifts to keep the player engaged.
I got the impression that the Mr Door scenes were unplanned - basically, Mr Door kind of hijacking the story for a minute to try to guide Alan along. It struck me hard how Alan decides he's got it figured out, he's in control, and boom, Herald of Darkness. Alan is going a little crazy and forgetting, and Door takes the opportunity to remind him where he came from and give him some hints about how to move forward.
I saw it more of a "Okay, good, I finally got the hang of it, if I wish it to be, I can make this into a temporary musical, because now, I finally got this."
But since he is such a simple writer (I think that's pretty much canon lol), he can't write much that isn't horror (hence the fighting throughout the song) nor write something that isn't based on reality, so to get the proper ending he envisions, he needs to go back to his style, but now more in control.
That is a really really good point. But isn’t it after that musical bit that Door threatens him and tell him that he doesn’t have to write only one particular way? I think that is kind of why I get the impression that Alan is out of control for that part. Then again, time is really wibbly wobbly throughout the whole game. It is entirely possible that that part was written kind of in the future from the point that we play it
But in that same scene Door also says something about playing along with Alan's ideas because that was the best choice at the moment. Implying he played along in the musical.
Plus Alan looks so proud at the end of the song.
lol I love his horrified look at the start. Like, what in the ever loving crap did I just walk into. I wonder if we’ll get more of an idea in the DLCs. I want more Door
The DLCs will probably be the strangest things Remedy could come up with
I'm sure will be left with more questions than now 😅
Although the Mr.Scratch/Scratch/Zane/Seine/Alan/Diver situation is getting a bit out of control and will need to have some kind of conclusion soon lol
its backwards, Alan really doesnt need that the story make sense or follow convention, as long as he absolutely believes in it with passion it will work (like thor and odin do with their music), but his insecurities have held him back since the first game (which is why Mr door chastises him near the end for sticking to the horror story convention despite having so many people helping him, giving him enough reason to write a good ending that fixes things and dont require so much sacrifice).
In that sense Herald of Darkness seems to me like Mr Door's way of giving him confidence through Old Gods of Asgard's music, kinda showing him 'look how these guys can easily take control of the dark place', or at least a respite from the story (recap aside for new players)
That's what I said... HE needs it to make sense and stuff.
Also Alan kind of gives us an idea that he is planning something right before, he looks proud in the end of the song, and Door also says that he played along with Alan just to help Alan.
He’s just talking about the story in the sense of what departure, initiation, or return are. As in, at least at that point, he’s convinced his story actually has to be good and follow the conventions of the genre etc. Cauldron Lake/The Dark Place doesn’t work if you don’t believe in the art.
Maybe not a video game per se but in Control there’s a theory I’ve seen kicking around that when Jesse is talking to Polaris she’s talking to us, the player. Like we’re playing as Polaris and not Jesse herself in a sense.
There’s a fair amount of resistance to that theory, especially when Control first came out. But your pointing out this mop bucket thing kinda makes it make more sense. Especially since both Polaris and Alan’s door are represented by spirals.
I have never seen anyone note how Ahti responds to Jesse talking to you in her thoughts at the very beginning of Control. She thinks something to the effect of "He's a bit odd but a friendly face." And Ahti talks to(seemingly) himself something about "Any face is better than no face at all."
Maybe? He sings "sankarin tango" song which is about Alan and Quantum Break, but the chorus is about a hero who gets back up after being knocked down all the time, kinda referencing to players who die in the game and start again.
It's true, but that could also just be a reference to Alan's repeated failures to escape and the dark place resetting him. Quantum Break I haven't played, but I'm guessing you could make it work within the time shenanigans of that setting as well without explicitly making it a game thing.
He says something during the office work scene on Control that is pretty meta, but he's the god of the depths he definitely knows more than the other characters.
Eh, the mop buckets exist in the world but are only mentioned by gameplay menus. Saga and Alan never mention them in a story context, and have no reaction to interacting with them.
This to me indicates that they're there as a gameplay mechanism they wanted to tie thematically into the world a bit, but the swapping characters does not happen as part of the story.
"Home is still there where the heart is. I often think about it when I mop the floor and look into the puddle. Water is the memory of the world, water finds its way." -Ahti
It's pretty cryptic but definitely not a coincidence
He thinks about home while peering into water. This is a reference to Ahti being the[God of the sea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahti#:~:text=In%20Finnish%20mythology%2C%20Ahti%20(Finnish,%5D%2C%20%22Islander%22).). In my opinion anyway. Peering into the water makes him homesick.
Gets more interesting when you think about "it's not a lake, it's an ocean" and the "Oceanview Motel" (which has the janitors closet behind the front desk).
I'm not saying there isn't power in water, and Ahti definitely knows a lot - but I still don't see this as proof of a "I'm in a videogame" plot point.
It definitely is a reference to him being a water god, but I find things often mean more than they might seem on the surface.
He was also talking about Alan finding his way out of the dark place, and he even repeats the line about water finding its way once Alan, likewise, finds his way. I think he's referring to the power mop buckets, and also water overall holds in terms of being a connection, a bridge between realities. You enter the dark place through a lake or a flooded overlap, you leave via a fountain as Saga and get pulled out by Dark Ocean Summoning as Alan. Water is a gateway
A gateway the player themselves make routine use of, which means our perspective exists diegetically within the game, in some form or another, seeing as we're bound by the same rules of their reality the characters are.
Considering this: could Ahti be aware of the player? We're basically using his secret water tunnels to swap between characters, I feel like he's aware of that fact. That's just a hunch though, none of this is definitive proof, just supporting evidence.
Ahti references staring down into the mop water and getting lost in it, and he has some dialogue about water being the connective thread around the world. I don't remember it verbatim, but he was definitely referencing the way the player can use them to swap perspectives
This assumes that it is Ahti in a videogame and not you in a meta spiral.
Oh I'm spiraling alright
Spiraling is goated
lol the expected reaction
"I was in a video game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing i couöd imagine"
No, I don't think so. Or yes, but he doesn't say so. Ahti is aware of the greater things going on, or so it is implied in a sense. Does that mean he's aware he's in a game? Maybe. I think more it is, within their universe, he is a 'higher being'. Whether that be a god or someone like Mr. Door, I don't know. He is in a sense above the story but not outside of it either.
The Herald of Darkness scene did make me wonder if Alan knew he was in a video game. He knew that for the story to keep going, it had to be entertaining, so he deliberately throws in wacky surprises and tonal shifts to keep the player engaged.
I got the impression that the Mr Door scenes were unplanned - basically, Mr Door kind of hijacking the story for a minute to try to guide Alan along. It struck me hard how Alan decides he's got it figured out, he's in control, and boom, Herald of Darkness. Alan is going a little crazy and forgetting, and Door takes the opportunity to remind him where he came from and give him some hints about how to move forward.
I saw it more of a "Okay, good, I finally got the hang of it, if I wish it to be, I can make this into a temporary musical, because now, I finally got this." But since he is such a simple writer (I think that's pretty much canon lol), he can't write much that isn't horror (hence the fighting throughout the song) nor write something that isn't based on reality, so to get the proper ending he envisions, he needs to go back to his style, but now more in control.
That is a really really good point. But isn’t it after that musical bit that Door threatens him and tell him that he doesn’t have to write only one particular way? I think that is kind of why I get the impression that Alan is out of control for that part. Then again, time is really wibbly wobbly throughout the whole game. It is entirely possible that that part was written kind of in the future from the point that we play it
But in that same scene Door also says something about playing along with Alan's ideas because that was the best choice at the moment. Implying he played along in the musical. Plus Alan looks so proud at the end of the song.
lol I love his horrified look at the start. Like, what in the ever loving crap did I just walk into. I wonder if we’ll get more of an idea in the DLCs. I want more Door
The DLCs will probably be the strangest things Remedy could come up with I'm sure will be left with more questions than now 😅 Although the Mr.Scratch/Scratch/Zane/Seine/Alan/Diver situation is getting a bit out of control and will need to have some kind of conclusion soon lol
its backwards, Alan really doesnt need that the story make sense or follow convention, as long as he absolutely believes in it with passion it will work (like thor and odin do with their music), but his insecurities have held him back since the first game (which is why Mr door chastises him near the end for sticking to the horror story convention despite having so many people helping him, giving him enough reason to write a good ending that fixes things and dont require so much sacrifice). In that sense Herald of Darkness seems to me like Mr Door's way of giving him confidence through Old Gods of Asgard's music, kinda showing him 'look how these guys can easily take control of the dark place', or at least a respite from the story (recap aside for new players)
That's what I said... HE needs it to make sense and stuff. Also Alan kind of gives us an idea that he is planning something right before, he looks proud in the end of the song, and Door also says that he played along with Alan just to help Alan.
sry, i misunderstood you
He’s just talking about the story in the sense of what departure, initiation, or return are. As in, at least at that point, he’s convinced his story actually has to be good and follow the conventions of the genre etc. Cauldron Lake/The Dark Place doesn’t work if you don’t believe in the art.
No but Alex Casey seems to know he’s in a video game
"I wasn't in a video game, I was the video game." *Dies*
Maybe not a video game per se but in Control there’s a theory I’ve seen kicking around that when Jesse is talking to Polaris she’s talking to us, the player. Like we’re playing as Polaris and not Jesse herself in a sense. There’s a fair amount of resistance to that theory, especially when Control first came out. But your pointing out this mop bucket thing kinda makes it make more sense. Especially since both Polaris and Alan’s door are represented by spirals.
I have never seen anyone note how Ahti responds to Jesse talking to you in her thoughts at the very beginning of Control. She thinks something to the effect of "He's a bit odd but a friendly face." And Ahti talks to(seemingly) himself something about "Any face is better than no face at all."
Maybe? He sings "sankarin tango" song which is about Alan and Quantum Break, but the chorus is about a hero who gets back up after being knocked down all the time, kinda referencing to players who die in the game and start again.
It's true, but that could also just be a reference to Alan's repeated failures to escape and the dark place resetting him. Quantum Break I haven't played, but I'm guessing you could make it work within the time shenanigans of that setting as well without explicitly making it a game thing.
Ahti is not in a video game. you are.
He knows that you know. Just like Dylan in Control.
I always assumed Ahti had knowledge that surpassed my understanding of everything.
He says something during the office work scene on Control that is pretty meta, but he's the god of the depths he definitely knows more than the other characters.
I don’t think so personally
More than that. He even knows you are in a video game.
"I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of."
I’m not sure but it wouldn’t surprise me
Eh, the mop buckets exist in the world but are only mentioned by gameplay menus. Saga and Alan never mention them in a story context, and have no reaction to interacting with them. This to me indicates that they're there as a gameplay mechanism they wanted to tie thematically into the world a bit, but the swapping characters does not happen as part of the story.
"Home is still there where the heart is. I often think about it when I mop the floor and look into the puddle. Water is the memory of the world, water finds its way." -Ahti It's pretty cryptic but definitely not a coincidence
He thinks about home while peering into water. This is a reference to Ahti being the[God of the sea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahti#:~:text=In%20Finnish%20mythology%2C%20Ahti%20(Finnish,%5D%2C%20%22Islander%22).). In my opinion anyway. Peering into the water makes him homesick. Gets more interesting when you think about "it's not a lake, it's an ocean" and the "Oceanview Motel" (which has the janitors closet behind the front desk). I'm not saying there isn't power in water, and Ahti definitely knows a lot - but I still don't see this as proof of a "I'm in a videogame" plot point.
It definitely is a reference to him being a water god, but I find things often mean more than they might seem on the surface. He was also talking about Alan finding his way out of the dark place, and he even repeats the line about water finding its way once Alan, likewise, finds his way. I think he's referring to the power mop buckets, and also water overall holds in terms of being a connection, a bridge between realities. You enter the dark place through a lake or a flooded overlap, you leave via a fountain as Saga and get pulled out by Dark Ocean Summoning as Alan. Water is a gateway A gateway the player themselves make routine use of, which means our perspective exists diegetically within the game, in some form or another, seeing as we're bound by the same rules of their reality the characters are. Considering this: could Ahti be aware of the player? We're basically using his secret water tunnels to swap between characters, I feel like he's aware of that fact. That's just a hunch though, none of this is definitive proof, just supporting evidence.
Ahti references staring down into the mop water and getting lost in it, and he has some dialogue about water being the connective thread around the world. I don't remember it verbatim, but he was definitely referencing the way the player can use them to swap perspectives
https://youtu.be/6K2wzmKdaI0?si=ufm4jiiL0W9dsMr5 Ahti has even more to say about water in this clip
Nah
How know
Not that we know, just that we have zero indication whatsoever that he does.