The more I think about it....

[Froge]

The more I start to believe that Alexander is just one giant manchild.

The game attempts to humanize Alexander by telling us that he tortures people in order to return to his world so that he can reunite with his "love" (does it ever mention that this person is his wife? Alexander's sexuality isn't known). The old "love" device is repeatedly apparent in many pieces of literature, film, games, music, art, etc. - basically all of human history. Authors consistently emphasis the painful part of love, which creates some explanation for Alexander's obsessive desire to return to his home world.

However, my own personal experience with love is that, while it can cause crushing sadness, it can't possibly be justification for Alexander's level of douchebaggery. In today's society, you'll of course see teenagers do crazy things for love (e.g. making a fool out of themselves to get their crush's attention). This seems to be the state of mind that Alexander is stuck in. You never really see older people do crazy things for love, and I think it's because they're mature enough to realize that personal love isn't necessarily everything in life, and that sometimes there are more worthwhile things to pursue. Some people, for example, are happy with just platonic love.

Somewhere along the lines of Alexander's torture, he should've realized that other people can love too, and that by kidnapping and killing what one can only presume to be hundreds of innocents, he is destroying the bonds or possible bonds of love that these people also have. Yet the fact that Alexander ignores this makes me believe that he may be psychopathic; his extreme love for his wife or husband, however, suggests that he can, indeed, feel empathy for others. Alexander appears human enough; he should be able to sympathize with other humans. The only possible explanation that I can think of is that he is stuck in a very young state of mind; he'll do anything for love and doesn't care who he hurts to achieve his goal. Therefore, he could just be a very old manchild.

[CorinthianMerchant]

He's a sexy beast, dammit!

[Obliviator27]

I don't think he really cares for the creatures of this dimension, as he's from a different one. Though he resembles a human, he clearly isn't one. To him, humans are just animals, creatures, and means to an end for him.

[Bridge]

Maybe Frictional wanted to create some artificial sympathy for Alexander with the players. Don't know why they'd want to, but the same thing happened with The Invisible Man movie (it still makes me cringe because it's so out of place).

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I don't think he really cares for the creatures of this dimension, as he's from a different one. Though he resembles a human, he clearly isn't one. To him, humans are just animals, creatures, and means to an end
for him.

This. Frictionals games are very Lovecraft-inspired and isn't the insignificance of the human species a recurring theme in the world of Lovecraft? How, compared to all the other beings out there, we are barely above earthworms? So from Alexander's point of view he wasn't even doing anything wrong. The only reason he even considered using animals instead, was because they were a bit easier to get.

Edit: argh! Can someone please tell me, why the formatting of my posts is always f***** up and needs to be repaired with an edit? It's annoying!

[Froge]

Spoiler below!

It's ironic, then, that Alexander's very unmaking was due to the hands of a human. Even more ironic because this very human, Daniel, carried the Orb he needed to return to his home world.

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Indeed It's a bit of a spanner in the works story... (gotta love tvtropes ) I guess Alexander underestimated how much trouble a single human could cause if he were to surprise him while he was at his most vulnerable. So maybe it worked in Daniels favor that Alexander thought humans to be barely worth his attention?

[Bridge]

post

You might want to wrap some spoiler tags around that. Plus, it's not true, because of the stupid multiple endings.

[Froge]

I would say that Agrippa's ending is generally accepted as the true ending to the game, because a) Alexander's ending makes no sense (why would Daniel choose to fail after going through the entire castle?) and b) Daniel's ending makes him a douchebag to Agrippa.

[Bridge]

I would say that Agrippa's ending is generally accepted as the true ending to the game, because a) Alexander's ending makes no sense (why would Daniel choose to fail after going through the entire castle?) and b) Daniel's ending makes him a douchebag to Agrippa.

It doesn't really matter because all the endings suck. I have several different endings I wrote down that I'd like to make should I ever decide to start modding for Amnesia, which I feel would have been much stronger (some of them difficult to implement with the technology). It just blows my mind why they even considered having multiple endings. The player is not given any choice at any point in the rest of the game which is why it is artificial and feels rushed.