During the game there are a few notes mentioning or referencing the previous game:
Both of these talk about a “Brennenburg” Mixture, which seems to be Agrippa’s tonic. This is all very interesting, but not what I want to talk about. This is the note I think is important:
If you read through it, it reveals some information about how Mandus got the idea of creating the pig monster, going to Brennenburg and getting a Grunt. He mentions his great uncle experimented on people.
Well this obviously refers to Alexander, right?
Wrong. Here’s the thing, Alexander did not seem to care much for humans. He wanted to return to his own dimension because there was nothing left for him in the dimension he was trapped in (let’s call this our own dimension to make it a bit easier). He did not seem to have a very intimate relationship with humans. It wasn’t that he did not care for humans, he seemed to care for Daniel and he seemed to be friends with Herbert, but it always felt like he looked down on humans, maybe thinking of them as we do for our pets. And he had “his love” to return to, which he seemed very faithful to. So being married to a human seems out of the question (I am going to assume Alexander did not have siblings that could have had children living in our dimension) .
Daniel, on the other hand, had a sister. We know she was very sick, but there are clues she might have gotten better and lived. She could have gotten married and had children. Or Daniel himself might have gotten married with a woman who had siblings. Either way, it seems much more likely for Daniel to have a nephew or niece that got children of their own.
Also, remember where the game takes place: London, England. The same city Daniel came from. This makes his relation to Daniel even more likely.
But the thing that makes me convinced this is the connection between the two games is this: How would Mandus know about the Grunts and Brennenburg if no one told him?
Despite that I feel Alexander is very good in keeping his true identity safe, seeing as he probably arrived in our dimension in the 16th century and there was little suspicion on him until the 19th century, he also had to be there to tell his tales.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent has three different endings you can get in four different ways. The first time you can get an ending, is when Daniel is captured in prison. If he does not escape in time, the Shadow comes and kills him. The other three times is in the final battle against Alexander. Depending on how the battle goes, you can:
- Fail stopping Alexander, which results in Daniel dying and Alexander going back to his dimension
- Stop Alexander by throwing Agrippa’s head in the portal, which results in Alexander evaporating and Daniel… Dying? Going to another dimension? I don’t know, it’s kind of vague.
- Stop Alexander by pushing over the pillars used to open the portal, resulting in Alexander dying and Daniel walking out of the castle as a new man.
Only in the last ending, there is someone to tell the tale. Daniel. In the other endings, either Daniel or Alexander die and the other one goes… somewhere. Most likely never returning to our dimension. And even if they were able to return, it would most likely be Daniel to do this, seeing as he HAS a reason to return: His old life, his sister whom he cared for. So again, it is the most likely Daniel would be the one to tell the story.
I doubt Daniel would just go around and spread his tale everywhere. I don’t think people would like you very much if you claimed you tortured and killed hundreds of innocent people for your own selfish reasons. No, it is very possible Daniel never spoke a word about what happened in Brennenburg. However, Daniel is a frequent writer. He started keeping a journal in Algeria, which he continued in Brennenburg. It is possible he continued writing after he returned. Or maybe he did stop writing, because he wrote all that he could and perhaps never got rid of all of the notes he found in Brennenburg. Perhaps he was too scared to throw those away, in fear of repercussions in case they were found. Perhaps he did destroy all those notes, but was there one thing he just couldn’t: If he did not throw Agrippa’s head into the portal, then what happen to it (besides it talking to Daniel in a never ending eternal torture)?
I don’t think Daniel and Mandus ever met each other. The way Mandus writes about his great uncle is not in a way one would talk about someone they know, it’s too distant. But I do think Mandus found something Daniel left behind, be it a new journal where he wrote his stories, his old notes, Agrippa’s head or a combination of the three, Mandus discovered Daniel’s story. Perhaps he found them when he was young and started reading them, being raised with Daniel’s journey. Or perhaps he started reading them after his wife passed away, to try and relief his grief. He might have read or heard the story about a man going through a horrible, frightening experience, fighting for his life, taking matters in own hand and surviving, despite what terrifying things life threw at him. A man who’s life changed after his expedition in Algeria.
Perhaps Mandus figured, he too, should undertake a life changing expedition…