Disappointed with AAMFP

[Cuyir]

Personally I wish the Shadow was given a bit more time in-game. It seemed to only serve as a writer's mechanism to force Daniel into the castle

This is basically what I take from TDD's dividing of antagonistic forces between Alexander, and the Shadow:

Alexander was the brains behind the evil operation, the minds, the one who taunts our hero, and has the motives that makes him the main villain.

The shadow on the other hand is the mysterious destructive force which we are intently kept in the dark with knowing about it, which is for the better I'm sure. It's meant to be taken as the real source of terror as the main unstoppable yet silently efficient force that hunts you down. It is the supernatural force of might that we are supposed to "truly" fear at our very core as opposed to the twisted atrocities Alexander has done.


In AMFP I feel that they were melding both these roles into on, taking form of the machine. The voice takes on the role of the diabolical mastermind while what he "does", through twisting his gears, and exhausting terrors onto the world fits the role of unstoppable force of nature that we fear at a primal level.

Personally I got some Lovecraftian flashbacks to "The Shadow Out Of Time'' (the Shadow being the ancient Flying Polyps and Alexander being part of the Yith) but they never developed it. It just seemed to me like the writer went ''HRRRRRMMMMMM...how do I force Daniel into the Castle and keep prodding him to go deeper? I KNOW." A lost opportunity in my opinion.