Things are getting creepy.
And I’m not talking about your uncle!
Bendy and The Ink Machine Chapter 3 came out last week and it certainly takes the story
up a notch.
Not only did it leave me with a deep fear of animation studios going corporate, it also
left me wondering if the creator of this game has a thing or two to say about Disney.
That’s a topic for another video though.
Today we’re diving into the lovely and terrifying Alice Angel!
She’s quite a gal.
I suppose it depends what you’re into really.
Yeah I’m into it.
Nothing a great personality can’t make up for.
She’s even into torture!
UH I mean...HOW HORRIBLE!
Anyway since playing through the newest Chapter I couldn’t help but ask what exactly is
going on with Alice Angel.
You probably remember our Bendy The Story You Never Knew where Grant set the stage for
all of our future Bendy videos.
So I just gotta say...Thanks Grant.
BUT WE’RE ON TO CHAPTER 3!
In the earlier chapters she seemed to be the angel to bendy’s demon but now she’s definitely
just a demon.
With angelic qualities.
Somewhere very very very very deep down inside.
Safe to say she did a complete 180 from lovely damsel to terrifying monster but there’s
even more to it than that.
There is drama behind the scenes.
Keemstar can’t help us here but I can!
Just keep in mind this video is gonna be spoilers galore.
I can’t blow your mind without ‘em.
Seem reasonable?
Great!
Because we’re about to pierce the veil of Alice Angel.
Behind that face that looks exactly like your mom is a mystery just waiting to bubble to
the surface.
It’s hidden within the twisted, abandoned walls of this destroyed workshop.
Tape recordings, dialogue, and the unprecedented intuition of the human mind will show us the
way.
Stay classy Alice.
First things first let’s take a good look at this new version of Alice we get in Chapter
3.
Previously we’d only heard recordings from her voice actor Susie Campbell talking about
how excited she was to get the job.
Besides that the only other thing we knew about Alice Angel was what her character looked
like, that she’s “quite a gal,” and that she sings and dances.
Pretty standard stuff for a Betty Boop look-a-like.
Chapter 3, however, is where this cartoon character devolves into something far more
disturbing.
Alice greets us less-than-welcomingly from behind a glass window.
Referring to us...or rather Henry (the protagonist) as a new fly in her “endless web.”
Supposedly she’s the one in control now...but I’m not so sure.
As we continue onwards we come to a crossroads.
We can go “The Demon” route or “The Angel Route”.
If you choose angel you get a recording from Susie Campbell.
Choose demon and you’ll get one from Joey Drew himself.
Given the topic of this video, let’s focus on that recording from Susie.
Recall she’s the voice of Alice Angel and was really excited to land the job back in
the earlier chapters.
You could hear the happiness in her voice.
With that in mind, let’s talk about this tape.
In it we hear Susie in tears.
One day she came to the recording booth to find a girl named Allison had taken her job.
Guess she didn’t get the memo.
She’s clearly devastated and ends the recording with “There’s gotta be a way to fix this!”
Hmmm.
Is Susie responsible for what Alice Angel has turned into?
Only time will tell.
Next we get in an elevator with our sidekick Boris.
Who we originally met at the safehouse, just chilling there.
Just hanging out at the table.
Hi Boris.
Back to current time, Alice then proceeds to say...well I’ll just let her say it.
“You’re so interesting...so different.
I have to say I’m an instant fan.
Looks like you’ve got a date with an angel!
Come to me now.
Level 9.
Just follow the screams.”
Hear that Boris?
We’ve got a shot at an MMF!
I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.
It seems we’ve impressed her!
Nice job fam.
As we follow the screams we eventually come to a room where Boris has an identity crisis.
Yeah man sht’s fd.
Tons of Boris’ have been strapped down, gutted and stored in this room flooded with
ink.
Alice tells us she’s the one responsible for this horror.
She discombobulated all the Boris’s to use their parts to make her more beautiful.
At least...that was the idea.
She says something strange at the end of her monologue...
“I had to do it.
She made me”
You had to do it eh?
She made you?
Could this “she” be Allison?
The woman who replaced Susie?
Could “she” have made Susie so jealous she was pushed to do the unthinkable?
There’s a tape in this room that makes me think so.
It’s from Susie.
“Who would have thought?
Me having lunch with Joey Drew...But I gotta say, he wasn’t at all what I expected.
Quite the charmer.
He even called me Alice.
I liked it.”
Call me a guy who reads between the lines but I think Joey and Susie hit it off in more
ways than one.
Judging by Susie’s tone, things got a little flirty between the two.
Not saying they jumped in bed together, but it’s safe to say Joey’s relationship with
Susie had an undertone of romance and dare I say lust.
What’s odd is we got the recording of Susie losing her job before the one of her meeting
Joey Drew.
Why would Susie be smitten with Joey if he’d already pulled the rug out from under her?
So then, thinking about it logically we can assume this recording we just listened to
happened WAY before the one where she lost her job to Allison.
Clearly Joey Drew is quite the charmer.
Is it possible he charmed Allison too?
And when he found this new woman he immediately kicked the old one out?
We already know Joey is crazy...given this whole ink machine fiasco is entirely his idea..so
why can’t he also be an asshole?
A crazy asshole even!
With that in mind, let’s zoom out a bit to the situation at large.
To the grander story of Bendy and the Ink Machine.
In my last Bendy video I speculated on what exactly Bendy is.
Regardless of the specifics, it’s beyond the shadow of a doubt he’s a supernatural
entity.
With the angel and demon symbolism, the pentagram room, the cult-like following of Bendy...all
of this points towards a dark presence that is not of this world.
At least...part of it isn’t.
We discussed the idea of Bendy being an “egregore”: an occult concept representing a "thoughtform"
or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing,
the thoughts of a group of people.
That is to say, Bendy is the culmination of an entire animation team’s worth of misery.
Clocking in, clocking out, slaving away long hours in a studio that’s becoming more and
more dangerous.
Bendy used to just be an innocent cartoon..until the ink machine manifested him into reality
with all of the truly negative emotions happening behind the scenes.
Joey Drew could fool his audiences but he couldn’t fool reality.
The unbearable work environment we’ve heard employees complain about for three chapters
now has been instilled into a demon.
You might find it farfetched that the ink machine takes in the collective mental anguish
of the employees.
And I get that.
But how do you think the ink machine works?
Surely if you twist a certain combination of knobs and bells and whistles the machine
will churn something out...but what gives that something a personality?
3D printers IRL don’t print creatures.
They print objects.
So what gives these creatures a personality?
It’s not like they’ve got an onboard computer that can be given artificial intelligence.
They’re just ink!
Indeed the supernatural seems the most likely answer for where Bendy, the seekers, and of
course Alice get their personalities.
Somehow the emotions of these tormented employees are being manifested in the ink.
And so, Alice Angel took on the insecurities and image-conscious thoughts of Susie.
Susie obviously is talented but Joey also seems to just find her pretty.
Being objectified and then rejected like this sent Susie into a downward spiral of not only
physical insecurities and but also a neurotic need to be Alice Angel.
Susie and Alice Angel...they were going places.
That’s...that’s the quote from the wiki...modified into the past tense and third person.
Very poetic of me, I know.
But really this quote from Susie is important.
Me and Alice Angel...we’re going places.
Yeah.
Together you two are certainly going...somewhere.
Maybe go somewhere else?
Too late now I guess.
But yeah if you need any further proof that Alice and friends are the real-life and inky
manifestations of tormented emotions...look no further than this clip of Alice punishing
an ink creature.
“It could have touched me!!
It could have pulled me back!!
Do you know what it’s like living in the dark puddles?
It’s a buzzing, screaming well of voices!
Bits of your mind, swimming...like...like..fish in a bowl.
The first time I was born from its inky womb I was a wiggling, pussing, shapeless slug.
But the second time...it made me an angel!”
This ink is alive.
It took in all the voices, all the misery, all the frustration and insecurities and created
everything we’ve seen so far.
Alice Angel is one huge fragment of that.
Now let’s go back to that crossroads from earlier.
We saw the audio recording from Susie about losing her job when going the Angel Route.
But what do we find on the Demon Route?
Both ways ultimately take us to the same ending but each has a different audio recording.
The demon recording...is Joey Drew himself.
Saying to succeed all you need to do is believe.
“Belief can make you succeed.
Belief can make you rich.
Belief can make you powerful.
Why with enough belief, you can even cheat death itself.
Now that...is a beautiful and positively silly thought.”
Hmmm.
Funny how on one side we have Joey talking up belief and on the other we have Susie getting
her beliefs crushed...by Joey Drew himself.
According to Susie’s recording it was Sammy who gave Susie the news, but likely it was
Joey who made the decision to hire a new voice.
Susie was bright eyed and bushy-tailed, full of so much belief she was putting her all
into her character.
How ironic that the man who thinks belief is powerful enough to cheat death itself would
be so willing to crush someone’s dreams.
Joey is a demon.
A hypocritical one at that!
You could say Joey is to Bendy as Susie is to Alice.
”But Ryan if Bendy is an egregore made up of multiple people’s thoughts how can he
be a manifestation of just Joey?”
Well humble, hypothetical youtube commenter...he isn’t just Joey..just like Alice isn’t
just Susie.
Both are mostly their respective identities with a healthy dose of the swirling, collective
misery within the ink.
We have a schizophrenic angel and demon battling for power in the puddles of chaos which permeate
this studio of shattered expectations.
We see this battle when Alice asks us to destroy four bendy cutouts with the axe she provides.
Once you do that she admits Bendy doesn’t like it when you do that.
So why did you make me do it huh??!
Cause you hate Bendy I get it.
And to make matters more dramatic, our other tasks for Alice are to collect various machine
parts AND several ink hearts.
She’s certainly doing something to the ink machine with these parts.
And likely building an army from the hearts.
I don’t care if it rhymes.
It’s true people!
Susie wants power.
She wants a way...to fix this.
Because no matter what Joey’s wandering lust says, Susie knows who she is.
“I’M ALICE ANGEL!”
And that’s Alice Angel explained!
She’s a little bit bitter.
Anyone else excited to see what army she creates?
Maybe you don’t think she’s building an army at all!
Tell me why I’m wrong or right down below and if I missed anything important.
Grant will probably make another Bendy video at some point if there’s enough to talk
about before the next chapter.
You can help him with that!
Also don’t forget to subscribe and hit that little bell so you get notified as soon as
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You guys are the bestest.
But that’s all for now!
Thank you guys for watching, and I’ll see you all next time.
Tootles!