somethingwrong ufff, ima tu puno teorija, meni ovo ima nekako najviše smisla sto sam pročitao na internetu:
This type of story is a paradox. How you choose to engage with the paradox is up to you. We can see several methods of engagement play out over the course of all three games (including American Nightmare). Ultimately, what you bring to this story from your own life and your own intuitions is going to determine what you individually get out of it.
Before going further, a contrasting example would be a linear story that has a discrete beginning middle and end. For example, Dune 2 is currently very popular. Dune as a story exists within a universe that has a history infinitely older than the current conflict our protagonists find themselves in. However, the story is not about the universe as much as it is about Paul and the people he encounters across the story. There are non-linear aspects, but overall the narrative has a clearly defined beginning, clearly defined midpoint (turning point), and a clearly defined endpoint. After that endpoint, the universe the story is set in continues. But this particular story is over.
Going back to AW, we as the audience enter the story at a specific point, and there are specific points where we leave the story. But unlike linear narratives, this story doesn't end simply because we no longer see onscreen things happening. And it did not begin at the point where we started to see onscreen things start to happen, despite the narrative attempting to hide this from us for at least the beginning of the first game.
Tom isn't Alan because they are the same person. They are not the same person. Tom does things on his own that Alan does not ever do, and vice versa.
Their relationship is about roles. It's much more akin to how a parent with an eleven year old child is the same person that used to be eleven themselves. But the role has shifted, and they are no longer eleven, or a child, or a childless adult. However, in the real world, we experience time in a linear fashion. The past and the future cannot be directly altered or interacted with, and past me will never do anything again because past me doesn't physically exist anymore outside of my memories and the memories of people who knew me.
In contrast, Tom is a past version of Alan that has autonomy. Alan is a present version of himself that also has autonomy. Alan also has other versions of himself that are just Alan.
If you recall, towards the end of Alan's part of the AW2 game, he gets a phonecall from one of these other Alans. Alan asks if the person he's speaking to is speaking from the future, and hopefully asks if this means he will get out of the Dark Place eventually? Future Alan says he is calling from the future, but it isn't Alan's future. And yes he will escape, but it won't be him that escapes.
This is because these different "versions" of Alan are not clones, nor are they mere phantoms of the past and the future. They are all Alan, at different points in time. Disconnected and able to act with agency of their own. This is how Alan can be both Alan and Scratch. This is how Alan/Scratch can be outside of the Dark Place, at the motel with Casey while Saga talks to Alan who is still trapped in the Dark Place. And Alan outside sort of knows her but sort of doesn't.
And we might say, "Well that's because he's NOT Alan, he's Scratch!" and this is true, except that we know he is Alan because we eventually follow Alan's story all the way out of the Dark Place until he ends up on the shore being picked up by Saga and Casey.
So.... Alan doesn't have to be Tom to be Tom. In the same way that Same Lake (the character) doesn't have to be Casey to play Casey. He doesn't have to play Casey to be Casey either. Casey is Casey, and also Sam Lake. And that Sam Lake, (the game director and voice actor from our reality outside the game) is also Sam Lake in the game, and is also Alex Casey, even when he isn't voicing Alex Casey. And he is also Sam and Casey in Nightless Night, even though that version of Casey isn't Sam or Casey at all.
Now... In case your head is spinning... The paradox is that these people are all the same person. But they are all different versions of the same person. None of them are "The Real Person" and none of them are the "Fake Versions". They are all themselves. Living their own lives, doing their own things for their own reasons. The story can never end the way a spiral doesn't end. The range of your vision might end, but the spiral doesn't. It extends infinitely in both directions. There is no distinction between past, present, future. There is no difference between Alan, Tom, or Scratch, or Mr. Scratch. There is no difference between Alice or Barbara, or Dark Presence Barbara.
This is what AW2 tries to illustrate with how Alan "discovers" crime scene ideas that mirror what Saga finds in the real world that creates an overlap.
And lastly, why are there so many Alan's? Multiple versions of Tom? Why are there more than one Casey? More than one Sam Lake?
But perhaps more importantly, why is there only ONE Saga? Only ONE Tor, ONE Odin? Because, as explained by Odin and Tor, they are in control of their stories. The Dark Place almost breaks Saga at the end, but she is resilient and is able to use her Mind Place to organize her thoughts and chooses her own story.
Alan didn't, or wasn't able to, or didn't want to, or something else. I don't know for sure. All I know is that he didn't choose his own story, he went along with the story that was told to him by the Dark Presence. And that's why he's trapped, and Saga isn't.
