- May 17, 2011 50+ videos Play all Mix - Alice: Madness Returns OST - Track 21 - Into Londerland YouTube Alice: Madness Returns OST - Track 22 - Outro - Duration: 2:02. Gamesoundtrack 107,685 views.
- Apr 22, 2011 Alice: Madness Returns has a great pedigree, as well as an unusual provenance. It is actually a sequel, to the only previous Lewis Carroll-based game with any credibility, American McGee's Alice.
- Alice Madness Returns Wonderland
- Alice Madness Returns Steam
- Alice Madness Returns Wonderland
- Alice Madness Returns Wiki
Angus Bumby was Alice Liddell's manipulative psychiatrist and the head of the Houndsditch Home for Wayward Youth in London. Bumby appeared to help Alice, along with the other orphans who lived there, to forget about traumatic events in their past using hypnotherapy. However, it was revealed.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/AliceMadnessReturns
Go To
The general consensus from playing this game is that all of the 'Wonderland' segments (I.E most of the game) is in her head. That might not entirely be the case. Why does Bumby see Alice in her blue dress before he is killed? Because her 'Persona', which previously only existed inside of her psyche, has now has now emerged. Instead of common psychic powers, she can manifest weapons out of thin air, transform her body into blue monarchs, etc.- Then again, Bumby may not be seeing Alice as she appears to us, since generally what we see is what Alice sees. He could have just been surprised at the Death Glare she gave him and the fact that she was standing up to him at all, but still only seeing her as the real world Alice.
- Now that you mention it...if she gain her Wonderland powers in real life, then why didn't she use her vorpal blade, pepper grinder, hobby horse, or all of the above? Maybe she figured she wouldn't need to use any of those things. Or maybe she wanted him to die by train. It's not entirely clear...
- American McGee'scommentary seems to support the original argument.
Advertisement:
When Alice actually recovers a bit, symbolized by destroying the 'corrupt' Queen, it is marked not by the Queen's destruction, but her purification into a new form-what a shadow is supposed to be, rather then the cancerous growth that destroyed Alice's psyche. She's not friendly, by any estimation, but that's normal' the shadow very much is an Enemy Within, helping one define one's identity by being what one wishes to avoid. It also serves as a catalyst of evolution-the drive to be more than one's flaws.
Advertisement:
Thus, when Bumby attempts to turn Alice back into a pliable wreck, the new, psychologically healthy Queen fights back, as the Train threatens the dissolution of the psyche-something that the shadow is supposed to prevent.
That's why he has that peg leg instead and why he's trying his best to keep him away from the Wonderland and feed him the inhabitants of Deluded Depths.
Lizzie is angry against Bumby for raping and killing her, and possesses her still-alive younger sister Alice to get her revenge against Bumby. It is clearly evident as the Queen of Hearts herself has the appearance of Lizzie. After her death, Lizzie has become angry and bitter with the knowledge of what happened to her, as well as the threat Alice is facing.

Advertisement:
The Queen of Hearts gets angry at Alice and scolds her when Alice is unclear about things, asks her questions or tries to insist that she is not insane. The Queen criticizes Alice by saying 'You don't know your own mind' as well as Alice's denial, 'What you claim not to know is only what you've denied'. When Bumby tries to make Alice forget her memories, and after Alice has collected them back, the Queen asks 'What are you doing with them?' She also gets angry at the thought of Alice being defeated by Bumby and asscociates him with unpleasant terms 'You'd prefer the hot, stinking, breath and unyielding attention of a potent, unreasoning, unfeeling hell-raiser? I don't think so.' she reminds Alice of the train and what it is trying to do, especially that it is destorying her memories, of the fire in particular. When Alice insists that she is not mad and not guilty, she says, 'The truth you claim to seek eludes you because you won't look at what's around you!', angry that Alice cannot figure it out that Bumby is the cause of her madness. And before Alice's encounter with Bumby, when she asks the Queen what the Infernal Train's destination is, she says 'madness and destruction.' hinting that if Alice should be defeated by Bumby then Alice is doomed to insanity and physical decay due to her fate as a prostitute. She continues with 'You shouldn't ask questions you know the answers to, it's not polite. And that noise wasn't Lizzie talking in her sleep.', again agitated that Alice would ask questions to things that are obvious to Lizzie, that this is all Bumby's fault, and venomously reveals the truth of her own fate to Alice.
Alice, satisfyingly horrified, overcomes her fear of Bumby and escapes of his control to gather enought courage in real life to kill Bumby by pushing him across the train track, hence avenging Lizzie.
- According to the art book, the Queen's face is supposed to be young Alice, not Lizzie. Lizzie was several years older than Alice, presumably a teenager at the point of her death, not a little girl. The Queen appears to be the part of Alice that isn't in denial about what happened in that faithful night this time round.
A girl (with long hair and not lacking at all in the beauty department) struggles to regain control over her world, destroys monsters and overcomes daunting obstacles while wearing a dress, ribbons, stockings, gloves, a necklace and an apron. What does she fight with? A knife, a pepper grinder, a teapot (items used in cooking), a clockword rabbit, a hobby horse (toys and hence taking care of children) and dodges with a parasol. She manages to triumph over a man, regain control of her world and herself, avoid a fate as a prostitute by bringing the man (who is a rapist and a pimp) to justice by killing him and avenging her family and unfortunate previously-raped sister. Doesn't that just sound feminisitic?
- Victorian London was not a pleasant place for a vulnerable teenage girl like Alice. It isn't too feministic with the prostitution and rape because it's Truth in Television. The knife is, well, a knife; the Pepper grinder is an allusion to the pepper mad cook of the Duchess and the teapot references the Hatter's tea party.
- I always thought this was the intention in the first place.
- As for caterpillar, he serves as the wise hermit but there's reason on the basis of suspicion that he's working for/with Cheshire.
- Let's not forget in Queensland that eat me cake conveniently sitting on a table. Who left the executioner's weaksauce weakness there in the first place? The Red Queen wouldn't've left it there, unless...
- Well, the Cheshire Cat is infamous for useless - I'm sorry - cryptic advice but also for being Alice's best friend and moral support. It would make sense for him to use his teleportation to help her in small ways. Not to mention that he is just as terrified of the Train as everyone else and has a sense of self preservation, him leaving the cake might not be that far off.
- I would have to disagree. The alicewiki page for this suggests that Alice's father wrote the stories for her. Lewis Carroll is never mentioned in-game. If you want to go based on history Lewis was the Liddell family friend for a few years leading up to the fire. The problem lies with the fact that the year before the fire based on a few missing pages in Lewis's diaries that something happened to make the Carroll-Liddell friendship to become unstable. The friendship became distant and then nonexistent. Besides I would think he would've stepped in as Alice's legal guardian thus avoiding Bumby completely. No, if the White Knight does appear he would be... someone else completely different.
- She had been suffering horrible times since her house was burnt down. She didn't has anybody to take care of her, nor an uncle or aunt, nor grandparents. She have to ressort to Wonderland, because the world has been so harsh to her for ten years, more than half her life. If this story is going to have a happy end, it must have a Real World Person that cares about her. And I say Person, not a Complete Monster! I would be glad to see Lewis, as a white knight, helping her.
- The whole story seems to make more sense if you bring this monster to the equation. She spent her whole life in an asylum, so her only memories and experiences would be her happy infancy with her parents and the horrible time with the psiquiatrists, who commited her to tortures. In the last episodes, there are sexual themes that only a Complete Monster could have put in a child's mind.
- Her mind was already shattered. She just added another layer of delusion on top of what was already going on there - Bumby was the only person who managed to get close to her to let her open up a little, and then proceeded to poke around in her mind. Regardless of his intention, at that point, Alice's mental defense kicks in - he's in her mind, doing things, he doesn't belong there, there's no way he's anything other than a monster according to her broken psyche. And seeing as we're in Victorian times, times of public sexual repression that often resulted in private debauchery, those scenes and themes aren't something a child couldn't have stumbled upon, so the images might have been there from before. Needless to say, this interpretation is so downright depressing and horrible that it needs to be killed with fire.
Alice Madness Returns Wonderland
Wonderland hints at the true nature of her Witch's Labyrinth. Somehow she retains enough control over her emotions to avoid a lethal dose of Corruption. The reason she does not remember making a Wish with Kyubey is that the hypnosis therapy she took has made her forget this important fact, but as she acquires weapons and powers in Wonderland it all seems too familiar to her somehow. At the end of Madness Returns, Wonderland appearing to merge with the real world implies that she has somehow transformed beyond a normal Magical Girl without becoming a Witch and acquired some powers normally only accessible to Witches, and she can now exist both in the real world and in Wonderland at the same time.If the had more than one actual boss, the Final, the following would be how each of the fights would go in all first five chapters:Hatter's Domain: This could either go in one of three ways. If the boss fight does happens, it would be a simple arena fight with the boss at the center of platform rings, with Alice firing the Pepper Grinder into various targets in order to overloads its systems and causing damage. Overall a slightly more complicated and far easier version of the final boss from the previous game. The second would be the boss trying to smash you while on a single square platform, with you attack both target and the robot's hands. Basically an easier and FAR less creepy version of the final of this game. The third way is exactly like in the final product, probably for laughs. No matter the direction, all three battles end with Hatter finishing off the boss with a giant tea pot.
Deluded Depths: You'll be obviously fighting against the Walrus in this fight, commencing before the scene in the final game when the train comes in. While mostly immobile, only capable of shuffling around, he's able to jump very high and perform powerful bellyflops on top of you and be able to spin around in a ball to flatten you. The only way to actually damage the walrus at this stage is with either the hobby horse or the teapot since his blubber protects him from anything else. The way to achieve maximum damage is to get him stunned or distracted. TO stun him, Alice must hit him with the hobby horse while he's rolling or planting a bomb under him while he's bellyflopping. The former is higher risk but deals more damage while the latter is safer but wields less damage since he's normally immune to bombs. The fight will play out on the stage, with the audience tossing in health items for Alice and occasionally garbage to temporary stun or distract him. Walrus would also be distracted by trying to eat the oyster performers and/or any audience members that somehow wide up on stage. Eating causes him to regain health, so Alice would need to lay on the hurt before he can regain the health lost. Once you defeat Walrus, the game would then saw Alice about to deliver the killing blow when the Train finally arrives.
Oriental Grove: After you enter the Caterpillar's inner chamber, the Wasp Shogun enters the chamber, demanding audience with the Caterpillar. He explains that his own homeland, including his Queen, was previously destroyed by the Infernal Train and he invaded the paper ant realm as basically his peoples' new home. He seeks the Caterpillar to find out how to stave off the train. The Caterpillar refuses to give the Shogun any answers, stating they are for Alice only. Angered, the shogun challenges Alice to a sword duel and Alice, begrudingly, accepts. In this fight, the ONLY weapon Alice can use is the Vorpal Blade, since this is supposed be a sword duel and the Vorpal Blade is the only weapon Alice has that's a blade. If she uses anything else, the Shogun kills her INSTANTLY. The battle then ends with the Shogun battered and beaten, and knowing there's no way he can help his people, perform hara kiri and kills himself. Alice doesn't give a damn and then converses with Caterpillar.
Queensland: When you enter the throne room, the Queen tries one more time to get rid of Alice, seeing herself as the one who would ultimately save Wonderland. You then fight a skeletal, decaying version of the Queen's true form from the previous game, showing how much influence she had lost in the time between games. The fact that the Queen is quite a distance away from Alice, the only way to damage the Queen is with projectile weapon entirely. Since this is merely a decayed undead version of the Queen, this fight will be MUCH easier than the first game. After defeating her, the Queen yields and the rest of the cutscene plays out like in the final game.
The Dollhouse: Like in the final game, there is no boss for this chapter. Considering the somber mood, the creepy atmosphere, and the increasingly unsettling imagery, an actual boss would seem completely pointless.
Alice Madness Returns Steam
An observant player may notice that some numbers are found on more than one child, even in the same room. This leads me to believe that the purpose of the plaques is to rate them. Whether Bumby rates them himself or gets 'customer feedback'...
- The plaques weren't used as a rating system. There's an animation sequence that shows after Alice has went through the dollhouse section, (as she's starting to piece what's really happening together) of the kids going through a factory line and having the plaques placed on them. When this is being done, the numbers are chronological in order as each new doll/child comes through. Also, if you walk through the Wayward Youth orphanage center you see that no number is repeated and in a sequence.
I know it may seem like it: The Cheshire Cat tells her to find the Hatter, who points her to the Mock Turtle, who directs her to see the Carpenter (albeit ostensibly for entertainment), who has her looking for the Caterpillar, who has her heading in the direction of the Queen, who pretty much tells her she has much to do, and swallows her. And all along the way and thereafter, she have to fight Ruin and other evils, like the Daimyo Wasps. Seems like it would be better in some ways just to go to the Queen (if she didn't need those weapons and want those upgrades both weapon and health, that is).
But wait, this isn't reality, this is taking place in Alice's head. It follows that, under the guise of sending Alice to someone more helpful — or entertaining — these manifestation's of the parts of Alice's psyche are sending her around to parts of her mind that are particularly infested with Ruin in order to expel it and therefore, perhaps, bring her that much closer to sanity.
It's... hard to say if it worked at some point after the end of the game, but that makes the most sense to me as the intent.
- The whole journey could be to get Alice to collect all the memory pieces. While the Caterpillar and the Queen know what's going on, Alice won't believe them if they told her straight that her own doctor is the one who killed her family and raped his sister, or that he's pimping brainwashed children. They're her subconcious, they're by nature inclined to being criptic, surely the naked truth would have caused Alice's mind to collapse. Alice needed to collect all those memories first in order to remember her sister's past with Bumby, his own thoughts about what he was doing and some other memories of others to understand and fill minor holes (like Radcliff saying he would burn an awful hat if he ever gets one to destroy the evidence).
Around the parts of the dress where it's thinner (her left arm for example has a thin strand) it looks like it's flowing seamlessly into her skin. It's not actually a dress, it's all her.
Think about it: she's able to travel within a mental world that's all inside her own head, upon which her own clothes change into something more fantastical and reality defying, and she can even access weapons she does not carry over into the real world.
Maybe Alice is actually a Phantom Thief of Hearts without even being aware of it. The reason she never manifests a Persona or a mask representing that is because Wonderland is really her own Palace, and her distorted desires is her own Survivor's Guilt (from the first game) and later denying the truth of whats going on around her (the second game). She still has the clothes and fantastic abilities because she has the potential to have a Persona, like Haru did.
Her Cognitions are reliably distorted by her own insanity and childishness. The Griffin could be how she sees her Father, The Mad Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse as her father's friends, the Cheshire Cat as Diana (her own cat), The Duchess as Pris Witless, the Orderlies as Tweedledee and Dum, the Caterpillar as Mr. Radcliffe, the Carpenter as Nan Sharp and the Walrus as Jack Splatter, and possibly the White Rabbit to Lizzie. The Jabberwock is a Cognition of her own Family in general, that symbolizes her survivor's guilt much like Futaba's cognition of Wakaba did so as well.
Her Shadow, the ruler of said Palace, is none other than the Queen of Hearts. The Cheshire Cat does somewhat allude that they're connected, being 'two parts of the same whole', and the Queen says in the first game 'If you destroy me, you destroy yourself!'
Alice Madness Returns Wonderland
As Alice goes through the place the first time, she rids herself of her distorted desires to not face reality and defeats her own Shadow (but not killing it completely as the sequel shows), removing most of her own insanity. The second time around, it starts reappearing partially because of her distorted desire to not see the truth (who killed her family, what's going on around her and whatnot). The Queen of Hearts is even helpful in the latter, trying to get Alice to confront the root of the problem. This somewhat mirror's Futaba's situation, whose Shadow is her repressed positive traits.
When she does start realizing the truth, she stops going into her own Palace and goes into Dr. Bumby's Palace, the Dollhouse. There, she kills the Dollmaker, who is Bumby's Shadow, which means she kills Bumby as well via Mental Shutdown and throwing him into an oncoming train.
Index
Alice in Londerland
June 2013
Been replaying Alice: Madness Returns, and have gotten the writers bug after realizing how open ended they left the ending of the game. Disclaimer: I do not own this video game, it belongs to American McGee.
Summary: Finally free from being a subject of manipulation, Alice wanders through her new and mangled Wonderland. The borders between reality and the surreal have never seemed so undistinguishable. One-Shot
Alice remembered walking this familiar road so many times before. The stone bricked road of a typical nineteenth century London clanked underneath her buckled boots. Similarly the buildings lining the streets were just like the ones from back home, all boasting simple Victorian architecture found in her lower class neighbourhood. For once during her murderous journey through Wonderland, she felt at home. Alice thought about it more, and she was sure she was back in London.
Wonderlands geography never once represented anything close to London.
The more Alice walked down the deserted and seemingly endless street, the more she realized she couldn't possibly be back in London. Most of the buildings were overgrown with moss and other green foliage, and some buildings had trees growing completely through them. She then spotted the giant mushrooms growing out of the buildings, and barely growing through the stoned road. Giant marbles, dominos, dice, and other multi-coloured mushrooms littered the sidewalks. For once Alice decided to look up, and noticed the giant cherry blossom trees cowering over the Victorian buildings.
She sighed heavily. One minute she thought she was back in London, then the next it seemed she was brought back to her surreal Wonderland. Now it seemed like her worlds were beginning to collide. Was this Wonderland with her memories of London trickling in, or London with her crazed illusions of Wonderland bleeding in? Was she in reality, or forever trapped in the surreal?
'Will I ever be able to escape this elusive Wonderland?' Alice thought aloud to herself.
Alice brushed her long brown hair over her shoulders and peered down at her short blue dress and blood stained white apron. She shoved her hands into one of her deep pockets, and she felt the wooden handle of something very familiar and deadly. Alice brought out her vorpal blade still covered in dry blood, and let her index finger dance along its fatal edges. On its own the blade seemed delicate and harmless, but in Alice's hands it was a blade bent on revenge to protect her sanity, and Wonderland.
So many creatures have died by the snicker-snack of her swift blade. Alice remembered plunging her blade into the throats of the Red Queen's Card Guards, and then stabbing it into the porcelain skulls of deadly Bitch Babies. She was a murderer, and she felt no shame saying it. Her Wonderland was a kill or be killed kind of world, and she had no intent to die when her sanity needed saving. If she died, then that meant her sanity did as well, and Wonderland at that.
There was one person she was glad her blade made contact with, and that was the Doll Maker. He was the man (or mangled creature rather) that was responsible for the destruction of Wonderland. He was the conductor of the Infernal Train, which brought forth the dark side of her Wonderland. As he drove the enormous train throughout all parts of Wonderland, he turned the surreal to the mangled and deadly. Giant forests were replaced with barren terrains and fire, beautiful creatures with killer ones, and of course the strange black ooze known as he Ruin burned every part of Wonderland it came in contact with. Even with his defeat, the destroyed parts of Wonderland were permanent.
The Doll Maker turned out to be nothing but a mental incarnation of her twisted therapist, Dr. Angus Bumby. After the house fire that killed her entire family, Alice thought his intentions were to help her with her anguish, madness, and hysteria caused by the incident. Now she knew she couldn't have been more wrong. He was the one who set her house ablaze, and his psychiatry help was nothing but a manipulative plot to get Alice to forget her past, and to cover up his murder. His true intentions for Alice were to erase all bits of her memory and to turn her into a sex object on the street. In reality she ended up pushing the man in front of a steam engine, but her mental incarnation of the man ended up being killed by her own blade. Both versions of his death signified her freedom from manipulation. Dr. Bumby would not be allowed to destroy her Wonderland any further, but of course the destruction he caused up until that point would remain permanent.
The nineteenth century architecture soon began to morph as she walked further down the street. The buildings became more and more burned down until they were nothing but rubble, all green foliage soon disappeared replacing it with a wasteland, and the surroundings soon became an excellent representation of one's hell. She looked up into the sky to not see any signs of trickling sunlight, but clouds of noxious brown clouds. The air smelled of charcoal and sulphur. Ahead of her used to be a crystal blue sea, but instead it was a sea of blood and Ruin. Below those waves used to be the Deluded Depths of the Walrus and Carpenter. The blood reminded her of all the twisted creatures she killed, and all her friends that ended up dying during her mind manipulation.
The Dormouse and the March Hare were dead, and the Hatter was presumed dead but he always seemed to sprout up after death. The Queen of Hearts was weakened, but most certainly alive in her domain. She was sure the Cheshire was aimlessly prowling around, but at this point Alice was sure he was dead. So many friends manipulated to the point of death. Wonderland was sure to consume everyone at some point, but she found it increasingly hard to call this place her Wonderland. It was part London, part Wonderland, all corrupted.
It was hard for Alice to take in that the man she looked to for refuge from her insanity, would be the one to corrupt her Wonderland. With his mental train of corruption he wanted to reconstruct her Wonderland into something much more sinister, perverted, and to his own liking. Of course Alice knew now that by changing Wonderland, he would be changing her mentality. Dr. Bumby did manage to change her mind beyond repair, but she knew he didn't take over entirely.
Even with both versions of her sick therapist dead, she could still hear the Doll Makers voice hush through the wind. 'You're lost. And where your body is, your mind will follow. Perhaps, it's already there.'

Alice stared intensively at her vorpal blade. 'I'm not lost,' she confirmed, 'I just need to readjust to this newer Wonderland.' She gazed down a side road to see it reforming to a run-down London street. She could just see the sign for the London bar known as the Mangled Mermaid, but it was overgrown with the black Ruin ooze. 'I guess I should start calling this place Londerland if I can't tell the difference between the two. Am I really doomed to be trapped in this manifestation of my mind? I surely hope not.'
Suddenly she heard the purr of the Cheshire Cat dance around her. It was a relief to hear another soul. 'Alice, you don't know your own mind. You can't distinguish between the real and the mad.' The grey cat appeared perched in front of Alice, baring its bloody yellow teeth, mangled body, and wide illuminating eyes.
'Blasted cat, what do you want? Can't you tell I'm in the middle of a pandemonium?' She tightly griped the handle of her blade.
'I can see that,' the cat replied calmly, 'You're just as fickle as ever.'
'Cheshire, I thought that once I destroyed the Doll Maker and the Infernal Train that I would return to reality, not be stuck in this blasted mixed reality. What has happened to my sanity?'
'Silly Alice,' the Cheshire looked slyly at the girl, 'Ever since Wonderland began getting corrupted, your dependence on it has increased. You've created a brittle mentality where you are more dependent on your surreal world, than the real world to survive.'
'Can I ever go back? I much prefer a world not full of surprises and horror,' Alice placed her hands on her hips.
'Afraid not,' the cat growled, 'Your mixed Wonderland is more a part of you than ever. To composite for its corruption, your mind has manipulated the two worlds you have grown up with, and merged them into one in the hopes of giving you safe sanity.'
Alice grumbled. This wasn't the outcome she expected after saving her mind from madness. She thought everything would have gone back to normal, and she would have woken up at the Asylum again out of a deep coma. Maybe her real self was dead, too mad to survive in a world of the sane.

'I guess I didn't have much waiting for me in London anyway; my families dead and I have nowhere else to go,' Alice tried to smile, 'I suppose I am safe enough here with all the killer creatures gone, the Red Queen suppressed, and the corrupted Wonderland only taking over some parts of the land.'
'Don't worry Alice. Your Londerland is safe, for the time being,' the cat grinned. He pointed his head farther down the street, and Alice followed his glare down the street, where she noticed an uncorrupted forest of Wonderland. Within that forest she could just barely see the Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and March Hare happily sitting at a table having tea. The mouse and the rabbit were no longer showing signs of dark corruption.
'How are my friends still alive? I thought they all died in Hatter's Domain…' A small smile crept on Alice's face at the sight of friendly faces.
Alice Madness Returns Wiki
The Cheshire replied with a sly grin. 'They are more mechanical than flesh remember. How can your friends die if they weren't alive in the first place?' Content enough with his answer, Alice smiled and strolled down the Londerland street to have tea with some mad friends.