Dear Insane Children,
Did you miss the Live Stream last week? Fret not… there’s a recording of it over on my YouTube Channel. You can view it via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjCxphrHTcg
Who Is Shadow Alice?
Did you know… the Alice you know and love from the first two games (AMA and AMR) is the aspect of Alice’s psyche we refer to as The Shadow? It’s the Shadow aspect of her personality that helped Alice survive those years of insanity in the asylum and conflict in Wonderland.
And we’ve created a scene in Asylum where, early in Alice’s days in the asylum, The Shadow takes control of Alice’s psyche. She does this to protect the Inner Child. That area of the script reads as follows…
Narrative Excerpt ?Below:
The scene ends as Alice is taken away crying, and in shock, from her smoldering ruined home. Final flashes of Alice being taken away in a straight jacket play out in a cut scene.
ALICE
At that time, I was the monster. I felt responsible… I couldn’t control my anguish, and I was caged for it.
A scene of Alice vactantly looking at her own reflection. The Shadow flickers across the child’s face. She tells her reflection;
ALICE
…all your… fault…
She screams as she cries. Scenes of Alice lashing out, she is biting and clamoring at the orderlies who hold her down. We hear the roar of the angry monster. She is in a wild, uncontrollable hysteria, as flashes of the Shadow merge with the face of the child.
The scene dissolves back to Alice’s audience with the Caterpillar.
Alice
That monster from the mirror is… me?
Caterpillar
Only a part of you. The monster lives within us all, Alice. But only a few can face it, much less embrace it.
Remove the mask, Alice. See the truth in who you are. See who you become. There is a darkness in you, in us all, that must be faced…
And Adam is working on an illustration for this scene – the first of which (C) you can see above (Main Image Above).
Let us know in the comments below which of these variations you like best.
My thoughts on this scene and the provided illustrations… I had pictured a scene in the Asylum where young is Alice is being held down by orderlies. The Shadow appears like a spirit possessing Alice – a stormy face superimposed over that of the young girl. It would be the sort of thing that would work on film – a close-up of Alice’s face with this flickering “other” taking over. This sort of fine detail is difficult to capture in illustrations – so I think we’ll go with one of these illustrations at the same time we admit that this probably won’t be anything like what we see in the final in-game version.
Let us know in the comments below what you think! And which of these illustrations do you think works best?
From Shanghai with Love,
-American