Insane Child Leader

 

Insane Child Leader
Biographical information
Provenance	Wonderland
Physical description
Gender	Female
Hair color	Brown
Personal information
Allies	Alice Liddell, Insane Children
Enemies	Dollmaker, Doll Girl
Image gallery (6)

“

The unstable are more than merely mad. They have other parts. The Dollmaker will deprive them of what remains of their deranged souls. They need care. — The leader to Alice Liddell

”

The Insane Child Leader is the unnamed leader of the Insane Children residing in Fort Resistance. Much like the rest of the Wonderlanders, she suffered under the hands of the Dollmaker and had been killed with her eyes gouged out. However, she is seen again, looking alive and her eyes intact, in the main Looking Glass Railway station unable to speak and blankly staring at Shrink Sense drawings.

History

Alice: Madness Returns

When she first greeted Alice in Fort Resistance in the Dollhouse domain, she fully explained the fate of the Insane Children in Wonderland, but very cryptically, so that Alice would not fully realize the extent of the situation until later on. Alice said she would help the children in their fight against the Dollmaker, but was worried that she was too mad to be of service, mirroring Alice's failure to protect the orphans in the real world from Doctor Bumby's abuse.

The Insane Child Leader talking to Alice.

The Insane Child Leader said that Alice was not mad enough to be rejected either by her, as a champion, or the Dollmaker, as a victim, and had gone on to tell Alice that she was like the children, a prey to the Dollmaker, but at the same time, was not, as she was strong enough to fight back. She concluded by telling Alice the way to her destination was clearly marked, and that she should go now to confront the Dollmaker. Once again, Alice was reluctant to help, but their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the Doll Girl.

The Insane Child Leader's dead body outside of the fortress.

After Alice re-emerged from the underground parts of the domain for the first time, she returned to Fort Resistance, which had been breached in her absence. The fort was deserted, but the Insane Child Leader's corpse was visible on the steps outside the door. The blood surrounding her implied she was fatally hit and was either dragged for a short distance, or crawled out before succumbing to her wounds. Her eyes had been removed, and her teddy bear was nowhere to be seen.

She was seen alive and well, although without her teddy bear, standing in an area with a deserted Looking Glass Railway station in it, staring at a wall on which she had drawn the fate of the Insane Children.

Appearance

She is a small girl with long, messy brown hair and green eyes. Like the rest of her companions in Fort Resistance, she bears numerous scars from previous encounters with the Dollmaker. However, unlike her friends, who have clean cuts around their skulls wholly or exposing their brains, she has a jagged cut which slants slightly downwards that has been haphazardly stitched together without being cauterized. This implies that she escaped midway through an encounter with the Dollmaker, and either she or a friend of hers patched her up.

The signs that she escaped midway into being turned into a doll are quite apparent on her face; her eyelids have been pinned back (preparing her eyes for removal, as most of the Doll Girls are eyeless) and her lips have been pulled back and stitched into an almost permanent smile. She wears a plain white nightdress with cuffed sleeves which is covered in blood splatters from her facial wounds. The hem has been ripped just above her knees, possibly another subtle allusion to the fate of Doctor Bumby's charges in the real world. In her first appearance, she is carrying a teddy bear whose stitches match her own.

Personality

One of the Insane Child Leader's mannerisms.

Her personality seems to be one of a brave child with mental health problems, who both respects Alice as another of Dollmaker's prey and a possible savior but is also frustrated with her at her lack of action to protect her and her friends in the past. It is also implied that she is aware of Doctor Bumby's role in Alice's past.

She appears to be, and certainly thinks she is, the most sane and intelligent of the Insane Children, and affectionately refers to the others as "dimwits." Alice questions the validity of this belief. Despite her courage at standing up to the Dollmaker and protecting her friends, she still seems to be quite a nervous child, as she has several nervous behavioral ticks; such as tugging on her lower lip and wringing her hands.

Trivia

• Symbolically, her pro-activity, knowledge of the truth of seemingly both the Dollmaker and Doctor Bumby, and her frustration at Alice's lack of action make her similar to both the Queen of Hearts (in Alice: Madness Returns only) and Alice herself. As American McGee stated that the Queen represented Alice's superego, and Alice's Wonderland self represents her ego, it is possible that the Insane Child Leader is a manifestation of a part of Alice's ego; a part which has acknowledged and come to terms with the abuse that happened both in the past and presently and is fighting against Alice's repression of her memories. By being the part of Alice which refuses to forget, she therefore cannot be corrupted and turned into a doll, hence she is the part of Alice's mind that will die if Alice was turned into a mindless prostitute in real life.

The Insane Child Leader staring at drawings.

• While some fans speculate that the girl in the Railway Station was in fact a different girl with the same character model seems unlikely; she was given enough individual features to be easily distinguished from her peers (i.e. her distinctive facial wounds, more realistic eyes, a speaking part) that if it was meant to be any Insane Child standing there they would have used another character model. A more likely theory is that, like the Hatter and the White Rabbit, she did actually die, but reappears in a depowered form to point Alice towards the truth because Wonderland functions on dream logic and therefore has a tenuous relationship with true continuity. The fact that she is virtually inert in this incarnation supports this theory; her 'depowering' was the fact that she could no longer actually verbally help Alice, but instead only implies what was going on from her position in the area.
• She is one of the smallest non-insect characters Alice encounters in the game; at full height, Alice comes up to her eyes in shrunken form.
• She is the only person in the entire Dollhouse domain to speak to Alice Liddell other than the Dollmaker.
• Out of all of the Insane Children, she is the only one never actually turned into a doll by the Dollmaker, but is killed outright instead.
• She speaks with a strong Estuary accent, a trait she shares with the real life children in Houndsditch; but her dialogue is peppered with polysyllabic, latinate words, similar to the other Wonderland characters such as the Hatter and the Carpenter.
• It is possible that she has a real life counterpart in the form of the female orphan character model with two plaits, as they share similar visual motifs, behaviors, and interactions with Alice.
  • The real-life version is drawing alone in the girl's room in Houndsditch (in Wonderland she is the person who draws all over Wonderland and the Dollhouse) and exchanges dialogue with Alice along these lines. "Doctor do you right? Still sick in the head?" (Alice) "I'm past a cure." (Girl is silent.) (Alice) "Terminal condition." This reflects Alice's failure to acknowledge the children's problems in the same way as their Wonderland dialogue does in the game. Also, she is noticeably more polite to Alice than the other orphans.
  • Later on in London, it is this character model which is shown staring at a wall near Whitechapel Market, ignoring Alice and reciting the Dollmaker's poem, therefore hinting what was happening to the children. This is strikingly similar to the Insane Child Leader's after-death appearance.
  • During the Rutledge segment of the game, this is the only children model used. In it, her monochrome "asylum" version is shown strapped to a bed on the wall of one of the cells. She is eyeless, much like her corpse in Wonderland.
• It is a common misconception that the little girl running ahead of Alice in the Vale of Tears and the Foundry is the Insane Child Leader; it is in fact the small red-headed insane girl Alice encounters dying outside a hallucination of her burning house.
• There are signs of a forced breakout by either her or the whole of Fort Resistance in the Dollmaker's lair. Right before the "assembly line" area, in an otherwise nasty-looking, but well-organized area, there are some broken cabinets and smashed glass on the floor, as well as some of her drawings on the walls nearby.
• If Alice looks at Fort Resistance after destroying the Doll Girl, the player can see the leader and her companions looking out of the windows.
  • Upon investigation (using the "C" prompt), it appears they are all stuck in a figure T-position, showing that just their inanimated models are there.
• She might possibly be a reflection of young Alice, with her dark brown hair and green eyes, with her tattered nightgown and all. In a hallucination, Alice was being trepanned, and the same was to happen to the Leader.