Mad Hatter

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In American McGee's Alice

The Mad Hatter remains a fanatic of time, but is no longer the tea party-loving hatter that he was during Alice's last visit to Wonderland.

Personality

The Mad Hatter is a psychopath, literally gone "mad" and obsessed with time and clockworks, who considers himself to be a genius. He invents mechanical devices, often evidently using the bodies of living organisms for the base of his inventions, as he plans to do to all of Wonderland's inhabitants. His automaton victims include the March Hare, the Dormouse, and countless insane children taken from the Hatter's asylum; the Hatter himself is also mostly mechanical, as revealed in the conclusion of his battle with Alice when his body short-circuits and his head explodes.

Appearance

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Tenniel's original illustration of the Hatter from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Like most of the Wonderland creatures, the Mad Hatter's physical appearance in the games has drastically changed from what he originally looked liked in John Tenniel's illustrations. From a fairly normal-looking, short middle-aged man, the Hatter has turned into a giant, long-limbed humanoid machine.

He is now green-skinned, with a large nose and ears, tiny eyes, and his teeth bear a underbite. His body is made out of metal and wood, and he has a rusted cog sticking out of his back. In Madness Returns, it shows that he is able to disable his head and limbs from his torso, and still be able to live, talk and think. His clothes consist of a loose straightjacket, black trousers, and dress shoes. He also wears a large black-and-white checkerboard tophat, covered in alchemy symbols.

In the game

While Alice and the White Rabbit were seeking out the Caterpillar in Wonderland Woods, the Mad Hatter killed the Rabbit, crushing him flat beneath his foot (as both he and Alice were still shrunken down at this time). Though not revealed in the game, the Deadtime Watch Alice discovers after killing the Mad Hatter is a recalibrated version of the White Rabbit's pocket watch. The Mad Hatter is also presumably responsible for having repaired the Jabberwock by replacing body parts with metal and machinery, having been left drastically disfigured by the Vorpal Blade. The Hatter is referenced to in the casebook of Dr. Wilson, Alice's doctor. The asylum's superintendent is described with similar traits as the Hatter, and his two nephews are orderlies who torment Alice - a reference to the Hatter's henchmen, the Tweedles. Despite his villainous role in the game, it is ironically the Hatter who urges Alice to flee her burning home at the start of the game. He is revived when Alice regains her sanity, apparently regaining his own as well or at least as much as he had to begin with.

Alice: Madness Returns

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The Mad Hatter as he appears in Madness Returns

The Mad Hatter returns in the sequel, having been ironically torn apart at the hands of his former victims the March Hare and the Dormouse. Alice finds his head and torso in the garbage dump of the Hatter's Domain. Alice offers to collect the Hatter's arms and legs for him if he will help her. After retrieving all of his parts, Hatter is delighted, but when Alice asks him about the Infernal Train, he jabbers nonsense, but then does carry Alice to the main part of the factory, where the infernal train was built.

After the train passes through, the Dormouse and Hare appear in a huge imposing looking mecha, taunting the pair and promising to destroy them. The Hatter becomes furious with them for their part in Alice's potential downfall by unleashing the train, to which they respond by snatching him up with a hook. Hatter frees himself and destroys the mech within seconds by dropping a giant teapot on it, killing the two. After their deaths, the severity of his actions finally reaches him and Hatter suffers another break with reality, and cradles his dead friends in his arms, telling them that all he wanted was another tea party as his domain crumbles around him. He wraps the March Hare in his arms and offers both of them tea. Alice demands to know about the train, but Hatter doesn't answer her, only telling her to talk to the Mock Turtle before he is crushed by his falling roof (in his dying actions, he shields the Hare and the Dormouse from the falling debris with his body, showing that he still believes them to be alive.)

Much like the White Rabbit, the Hatter appears after his death in Wonderland in the Radula Room Endurance Challenges.

He later appears on the Infernal Train, criticizing Alice for her methods of solving her problems, reminiscing about a party he had with Hare and Dormouse before they turned on him. He remarks that insanity is no excuse for forgetting, and tells Alice that he had tried to forget what Alice had done, but couldn't. This post-death appearance is analogous to that of theInsane Child Leader, in that he has appeared in a de-powered form to guide Alice towards the truth (as Wonderland functions on dream logic, it makes perfect sense for the "defeated" aspects of her psyche to reappear in her narrative.)

In interview, American McGee has stated that the Hatter is a reflection of Alice's emotional state; part of her rage in the first game and a different kind of anger and self-preservation mechanism in the second.

Quotes

American McGee's Alice

• "Bad timing. Pity. Reliable help is so hard to find these days. Come in, my dear, you're just in time for tea!"
• "Your hair wants cutting; and your neck could use a trim!"
• "If you knew time as well as I, you wouldn't dream of wasting it!"

​Alice: Madness Returns

• "The world is upside-down, Alice! The inmates are running the asylum- no offense. And worst of all... I'm left tea-less!"
• "Cross my heart... If I had one."
• "Everything's a nail, is it, Miss Hammerhead? First it was your search, freighted with fear and fragmented memories. Now it's the train! Never time for tea. While your brains on holiday, we're ruined! Now we're all mad here and that's a good excuse for going to hell in a teapot, but not for forgetting what your senses saw. Forgetting is just forgetting, except when it's not. Then they call it something else. I'd like to forget what you did. I tried, but I can't."
• "The law is just...Just a whisper away... A way home to wonder...Wonder who...Who knows how to measure rules...With a ruler! Cruel rules..."
• "I feel like a new man! - or whatever I am. I feel like an unsprung spring; like an uncorroded gear; like an untarnished bit of metal that sticks in your eye!"
• "They are destroyers of Wonderland! Defilers! Diluters! Derangers! Delightful..."

Gallery

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Concept art for American McGee's Alice

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Concept art for Alice

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Concept art for Alice

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Promotional image for Alice

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Concept Art of the Hatter's Head

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A Render of The Hatter in Alice: Madness Returns