@slashershades: this is may be less about alice exactly, but what other types of media do you draw inspiration from? having so little actual 'screen time', are there any other movies, books, tropes etc. that you look to?
i would definitely say since alice is a character who is still relatively open to interpretation, the lack of screen time works in my favor to bring her to life in my own personal way. while we do have the bones of who she is, given her background with her mother and murkoff keeping her alive, her relationship with paul as one of the main characters of the murkoff account (her interactions and influence upon him and her being his main motivation throughout the story), how she still affects the story through ripples and waves, retaining her importance despite being little more than a background presence, lighting up every page she appears in, even only with the mention of her name; i still have a good deal of blank canvas to work with in order to fill the blanks as to who she really is, how she percieves herself, what we’re fundamentally unable to see from paul’s point of view. alice’s personality and character isn’t my own creation; we know she doesn’t conform, we know she is honest, we know she is curious, we know she cares about her dad. but filling in those blanks between what we know and what we can infer about her is the most interesting part about writing alice in my opinion. she’s so different from the story she’s a part of that it can be a little bit jarring at times to jump into that point of view, but i think her role is one of the most important to consider, even if only for the contrast and different perspective it brings to the table.
all that said: she’s the perfect medium to inject a few of my favorite themes and tropes into the universe of outlast. normally, you wouldn’t find too much to be hopeful about in the absolute hell red barrels has given us to work with, even with renegade fatalists like miles or those who believe in doing the right thing like waylon and lynn in the cast of characters. there’s still a heaviness to their characters. not to say that alice doesn’t bring her own heaviness, and the themes of illness contrast her youth. but the perspective of a younger person is always going to differ from someone who’s seen it all and doesn’t have the energy to keep their faith anymore. not to mention that with murkoff being shown to directly oppose those aspects of childhood and freedom to choose (even going as far as to brainwash the cultists of temple gate into child sacrifice), i think that alice stands as a perfect foil against that sort of enemy and despairing worldview, representing a generation who never had a choice in the race towards destruction but who still oppose it. children alice’s age know in their hearts that there can be a better world. even though they have nothing to fight with, even though profit will march onward and continue to trample humanity, they continue to believe, and the simplicity of that faith can be as contagious as it is dangerous to those who want to control it. @richardtrager and i have had at length discussions about how in some of our alternate universes, alice has become a sort of beacon to those who are weary of murkoff, and how damaging it would be to extinguish that last light in the darkness surrounding the group. so i enjoy getting to comment upon that generational and social conflict whenever i write alice interacting with the other characters in outlast: fear vs. hope, resignation vs. activism, apathy vs. empathy, obedience vs. rebellion, jadedness vs. innocence, etc. she’s a platform to discuss it all in the context of the series.
there are obviously vague parallels to alice in wonderland throughout outlast and referencing alice herself. at the core, i’ve always seen alice as a story about discovering your true identity when going through a time that seems frightening and strange, when the world is unfamiliar from anything you’ve known before; when you don’t know up from down or left from right. i read alice marion as a character who is incredibly true to herself, who won’t negotiate her values under outward pressure, and who has the wits to keep her identity intact in times of duress. she almost seems to challenge her father in the respect of keeping her honesty and morality intact, as paul himself has destroyed his own values to keep what he loves safe, whereas alice is truthful about her feelings and thoughts in every moment we have seen them displayed. this likens her to the alice of carroll’s tale, who is also honest to a fault and, while receptive to outside advice and knowledge that challenges her preconceived expectations, does not compromise her personality despite upsetting the expectations of the adults in her journey towards self-realization. paul himself even compares alice to billy hope, who we could argue has also ascended to a more “realized” state of being in uniting with the walrider and miles. writing alice more blatantly in the context of outlast is also very much a scenario similar to the experiences of carroll’s alice, who is thrust into a world she does not understand and which she is almost afraid to understand, since her simple worldview is at stake.
alice is also somewhat comparable to a fairytale heroine. she is whimsical and a bit of a vision, even appearing to her father as one in chapter five. perhaps it’s my own personal take, but i draw plenty of inspiration from the princesses and maidens in grimm fairytales and similar stories when writing alice, as they are also able to overcome near supernatural odds and remain the soul and heart of the whole piece even in the face of their perilous challenges. particularly, i find plenty of similarities with her and the story of sleeping beauty or the girl without hands. she also shares a close theme with persephone as a young maiden who is closely linked with the underworld and death in her tale. persephone vanishes and her mother halts the natural order to find her in the underworld: alice is taken away with the implied threat of death and paul upturns everything he has built his life upon, even the possibility of her continuing survival after he does find her, to recover her. appearance wise, we are already given the impression of someone who is delicate and classically beautiful in the dreamy lines and muted colors of the comic: alice has long blonde hair and carries herself airily through the panels of the comic; paul calls her a string bean and we know she is long suffering of an illness even though she is pretty. she is seen bound to her sick bed much like briar rose and little snow white and rapunzel before her. her fortitude is shown prevalently in spirit if not in physical strength. i find it fun to turn this trope on its head sometimes, as even though she does represent many of these classical ingenue qualities, alice has a stubborn spirit and she is very much a rebel. this is as canon as it gets, too: just take a look at what she drew on the doll paul gave her and tell me that this kid isn’t an anti-establishment punk in the making.
as for other media or characters i take cues from when constructing who alice is, christine daae (from leroux’s novel) is the blueprint for an empathetic heroine in the face of inhumanity. in the original novel, christine answers to nobody except herself, and proves to possess the strongest mettle of the characters overall, saving everyone from death by showing empathy where it is not deserved, but desperately needed. she shares a connection to the monster of the story and is able to understand instead of shun him, even though they are ultimately differentiated due to their choices and values. i see alice as possessing similar characteristics. shilo wallace (from repo! the genetic opera) shares many narrative parallels with alice as well, from an inherited disease and a deceased mother to a father who works for a morally bankrupt company. shilo longs to be free from her circumstances and call her own shots just as much as i imagine alice might desire the same thing at times, even though her own father is nowhere near as overbearing as nathan and she doesn’t need to escape from paul so much as the excuse of a life they are currently living. shilo also holds some bitterness intermingled with grief for her own mother, which i am sure is also a dilemma alice would share, as joanne is also responsible for her disease by way of genetics and passed when she was still very young, leaving paul with the responsibility and guilt of caring for a sick child. the two girls also both strongly resemble their mothers, which i imagine is another point of resentment, even if it may be seen as enviable. shilo has the choice to reject who she is to gain material satisfaction, but she says “fuck that!” and keeps her hands clean because she knows who she is: i strongly echo this sentiment in how i characterize alice.
last but certainly not least, i listen to a ton of music to get into the mindset to write alice. i would go so far as to say that her playlist is almost a cornerstone of my portrayal, and it tells a sort of story about her that i don’t think my words will ever be able to quite surpass. this isn’t necessarily something unique about her character, though, and i do it for most of my writing.
