Cynthia Weaver and Alan Wake 2

[Sardonicus]

Is it just me or does it really feels like the writers threw her character under the bus in Alan Wake 2 with a kind of hollow conclusion to her arc? In their first game she was a major catalyst in saving Alice and stopping the Dark Presence. Meanwhile in Alan Wake 2 we don't even get to see her before she's possessed and she just says generic taken lines that don't even seem to fit with her original personality. It feels like they really underutilized her character in this game to make her just another quick forgettable bad guy to defeat, and doing very little for any new players to understand her importance or value within the story other than the small glimpse we get from documents in her room.

Thomas Zane never even mentions her which is more tragic. This lady has for over 30 years been driven crazy to be the bearer of light just to be taken by the dark prescience randomly and unceremoniously in a bathtub, and the guy who used her to keep people safe doesn't even acknowledge her existence she's such an afterthought to him. It's just such a sad ending for her character with no acknowledgement by the story of her sacrifices. It just feels like her character was such an afterthought in Alan Wake 2 and that feels disappointing.

[shiv]

She was always a tragic character so it felt in line with her story arc. She was eternally afraid and the darkness finally got her. She was too visible, too major a character in the history of the dark presence for her not to be a target.

Zane never cared about her any more than alan cares about rose so its not surprising he wouldn't speak of her.

I think it'll hint at what's to come for rose. These are both the same character, infatuated with an artist and it's completely unrequited.

[Sardonicus]

Originally posted by shiv:

She was always a tragic character so it felt in line with her story arc. She was eternally afraid and the darkness finally got her. She was too visible, too major a character in the history of the dark presence for her not to be a target.

Zane never cared about her any more than alan cares about rose so its not surprising he wouldn't speak of her.

I think it'll hint at what's to come for rose. These are both the same character, infatuated with an artist and it's completely unrequited.

I feel like you're missing my point since I would have been fine with her having a tragic end if her character simply didn't feel like an afterthought by the creators. The way she's written in this game specifically feels like the devs were like, "We need another boss fight. Lets just pick a random character out of a hat from last game and turn them into a generic boss." Her character in the second game feels less fleshed out than even Mulligan and Thornton who at least got a few lines before they became Taken. A few manuscripts on them. They could have replaced her with any random npc and the boss fight would have felt the same. It doesn't even feel like Cynthia. Where alternatively even Muligan and Thorntons boss fight was given more personality, with the Taken version of them giving lines that remind people of their distrust of the FBI agent. Their fight happens right next to the place where they hid the body of the innocent girl they killed thinking she was Taken symbolizing the guilt they felt over that event that eventually allowed the dark prescence to overtake them. The generic deputies were given more thought with their boss fight than this major character from the first game.

Anyone who comes into the game from Alan Wake 2 likely wouldn't even realize what a major character she was in the first game due to how she was treated and I find that sad.