Amnesia: Where did the Servants Come From

[Diz]

Warning! This post may contain spoilers.

I always understood this as being a one-time event that took place sometime between when Daniel took the amnesia potion and when Daniel wakes up at the beginning of the game.

I assumed this because it doesn't seemed probable that the servants were the same way we see them in the game as there's no way Daniel would have stayed in Brennenburg had the servants been as deformed as they are in their current state.

This makes a very interesting subject of speculation. I, too, started thinking that the horrible sounds and screaming were originating from Wilhelm and his men who were poisoned as mentioned in Alexander's note and lived through in Daniel's mysterious flashback.

However, I do believe I read a loading screen text which stated that Daniel noticed a strong scent of spicy wine coming from the servants around the time he first arrived at Brennenburg Castle, not to mention their silent and suspicious behaviour so it could be that they were camouflaged somehow. Also consider how much telepathic control Alexander seems to have over them. In the library, there is also a folklore that describes malformed creatures roaming the woods, hinting that the servants' appearance as we know them were not only a recent attribute.

Additionally, how did they know to attack Daniel after he took the amnesia potion? There's no sign Alexander communicates with the gatherers, they kinda just wander around the castle. And even if he does, it took a ways into the game, way after the first encounter with a servant if I remember, for Alexander to even realize what Daniel was doing (i.e. trying to kill him).

It took Alexander a while to figure out exactly what Daniel was doing, but he became suspicious even before the game takes place, thus he locked himself into the Inner Sanctum, as I believe is described in one of the loading screens. Daniel no longer appeared to be the same, and he could no longer be trusted. Whether or not the intention was to actually kill him at first might be harder to clarify, though you could hear Alexander asking the servants if Daniel was safe, and that something would be for his own good.

How they would know to attack Daniel could be a trained instinct of theirs. They were to bring prisoners in to Brennenburg Castle, and as seen in one of the pictures revealed before the game's release (I think), you can see a gatherer dragging an unconscious, if not dead, human body. What I think makes more sense, however, is that Alexander simply used his otherworldly abilities, or borrowed Power from the orb, to use telepathic communications, as you can pick up on later in the game. Also, when you are struck down and brought to a cell toward the end of the game, Alexander starts talking to you almost immediately after waking up as the servant goes away. This shows that Alexander is more or less controlling them, and perhaps the servant even communicated with Alexander, telling him that you are now awake.

Come to think of it, although Alexander states that he can hear Daniel breathing, he appears to know what he is doing at certain points, like "I cannot allow you to go any further", so it might be the gatherers are reporting to Alexander regarding your whereabouts.

This all might sound stupid, but this is a game that allows for heavy speculation, in my opinion. =)