Alan Wake 2: What Is A Parautilitarian?

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• Where Does 'Parautilitarian' Originate From?

• What Does It Mean To Be A Parautilitarian?

• How Is Alan Wake A Parautilitarian?

• Can Saga Anderson Be A Parautilitarian?

In Return 6 of Alan Wake 2, Saga is now working alongside Federal Bureau of Control agent Kiran Estevez, and this agent name-drops a pretty big word connected to Control. She calls Alan a "parautilitarian," herself commenting that the word is a mouthful, but a mouthful that may leave you confused if you aren't aware of the established terminology in Control.

The 24 Best Easter Eggs And Hidden Details In Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2's mind-bending horror is scattered with Easter eggs to Remedy's greatest hits.

Remedy's 2019 game, which follows a new character named Jesse Faden navigating the Metroidvania-like design of the FBC building, began the start of the Remedy Connected Universe, and Alan Wake 2 continues to thread the storylines. On top of the cameos from Control characters, parautilitarian is another subtle way it achieves this.

Where Does 'Parautilitarian' Originate From?

While 'parautilitarian' sounds like the perfect Spelling Bee phrase to cause a stir in a contestant, it's quite an important word in the Remedy Connected Universe, first used in Control before its mention in Alan Wake 2.

Control introduces the federal agency known as the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), which uses a New York building called the Oldest House as its HQ. There, in the Oldest House, the meaning of parautilitarian becomes apparent.

Given the paranatural nature of Control and Alan Wake, with all the extradimensional travel, the Board, the Dark Place, Cauldron Lake, and the Hiss entities corrupting the Oldest House, a parautilitarian sounds like someone who can wield great power and fight off these paranatural forces.

That's precisely how the FBC chooses to define it in Control. In fact, if you separate the word "para" from "utilitarian," it simply means someone efficient or useful with the paranatural.

What Does It Mean To Be A Parautilitarian?

To be a parautilitarian, you must be in possession of paranatural abilities and form a bond with an Object of Power. This is what the FBC looks for when it considers someone for the Prime Candidate Program, a fancy name for choosing a new director for the agency.

Since the bureau is the hub of all the paranatural activity brought on by the Astral Plane, the Prime Candidate Program seeks out only the best of the best parautilitarians for the succession of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, or as the beloved janitor Ahti often refers to it — his assistant position.

The previous director of the FBC was Zachariah Trench, but the events of Control see that protagonist Jesse Faden is the new head of the agency. Therefore, all directors of the FBC are powerful parautilitarians.

What Are Objects Of Power?

Objects of Power, OOPs, or "oops" as researcher Dr. Casper Darling likes to refer to them are special objects tied to the Astral Plane, which is the dimension connecting all of the Oldest House, the Board, the director, and the Prime Candidate Program.

They are similar to Altered Items, which are random objects that survive paranatural Altered World Events (AWEs) and have those forces now inside them, but are directly linked to the Board through the Astral Plane.

The most prominent Object of Power seen in Control is the Hotline, an old pink-red telephone that gives you a direct line of communication to the enigmatic Board, often for instructions.

The Floppy Disk is another Object of Power mentioned in Control during a video explanation by Dr. Casper Darling, which is said to launch objects in the air.

Even an Ashtray and Cigarette is considered an Object of Power, pulling parautilitarians inside a shifting maze it creates from its engraving.

What Is The Board?

The Board is the most mysterious piece of the Control and Alan Wake puzzle, never seen and speaking in a muffled unintelligible language, or possibly even lacking a form to be seen.

They are a paranatural entity similar to the Hiss, but an ally of the FBC who hold a higher authority over the agency. Whenever they communicate, it all goes through the giant inverted Black Pyramid in the Astral Plane, which might be where they reside or what they're manifesting as.

From the powers that make you a parautilitarian to the Objects of Power and the forces that hold together the Oldest House, it all originates from them. The Service Weapon is also the official Board-certified Object of Power that all FBC directors must wield as an initiation for the job.

What Are The Parautilitatrian Abilities Jesse Faden Has In Control?

The protagonist of Control, Jesse Faden, was first exposed to the paranatural at a much younger age than when she became the FBC's director in 2019.

She and her brother Dylan came into contact with a Slide Projector in their hometown of Ordinary, Maine, and it turned out to be an Object of Power, which was recovered by the FBC. It also led to the capture of her brother.

Early on in the Oldest House, she forms a bond with the Service Weapon OOP, a paranatural gun that can be upgraded to change into a variety of forms, like 'Charge' to send an explosive shot, 'Pierce' to send its projectiles through the cover of walls, and 'Shatter' to mimic a shotgun.

She also has a slew of telekinetic abilities that allow her to throw objects at enemies, and she can activate her ability to levitate through the Benicoff TV Object of Power. Jesse is one of the key examples in the Remedy universe of a parautilitarian who uses the paranatural to her advantage when taking on the Hiss.

How Is Alan Wake A Parautilitarian?

There are a lot of factors that paint Alan as a parautilitarian. First, he came into contact with a paranatural dimension called the Dark Place via the portal in Cauldron Lake during the 2010 Bright Falls Altered World Event, and it manifested his ability to author stories that can alter reality. This is what also put him in the running as a candidate for the FBC's Prime Candidate Program.

Alan Wake has several items that could potentially be considered an Object of Power, and those include the flashlight, the Clicker, the Angel Lamp, and the typewriter.

One of the FBC documents in Alan Wake 2 discusses the Clicker light switch as "a possible OOP" that requires further testing for definitive classification.

The evidence for the typewriter being an OOP is the most compelling since the manuscripts it types up shape the events in the real world, the plot board literally manipulates your surroundings, and Alan has upgrades called Words of Power that grant him special abilities, precisely like Jesse in Control. The type of parautilitarian Jesse is against the Hiss, Alan is against the Taken.

Can Saga Anderson Be A Parautilitarian?

While Saga also comes into the possession of the Clicker, her powers extend beyond just an Object of Power.

She's an FBI agent and an exemplary profiler who can get into the mind of anyone within a plane called the Mind Place, allowing her to deduce information like no one else can, which is first unbelievably attributed to mere intuition.

In the story, this is explained as a hereditary ability called being a Seer, tied to Saga Anderson's lineage that reveals her as the daughter of Freya Anderson, Tor's daughter.

Tor and Odin Anderson are very big about their moonshine, which is distilled from the water of Cauldron Lake, so it may have a hand in triggering these powers in their family line.

She also can communicate with Alan through the Overlaps, travel to the Dark Place, and is still aware of the pre-altered timeline when everything shifts around her.

NEXT: Hidden Plotlines Everyone Completely Missed In Alan Wake 2