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The Vale of Tears is an area of Wonderland that Alice Liddell visits in American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns. In both titles, it is a valley with a river running through it; it may have been the remnants of the tears Alice shed during her first adventure in Wonderland.

Residents and creaturesEdit

American McGee's AliceEdit

During her quest to find the White Rabbit, Alice had to make and drink a shrinking potion at the Skool, and jumped into a portal which led her to the Vale of Tears. While travelling through the valley, she found the Mock Turtle, crying and shell-less. Turtle didn't know where Rabbit was, but said that the Caterpillar would know. In return for Caterpillar's whereabouts, Alice had to retrieve Turtle's shell, which he lost to the Duchess while he was running away from her and her soup pot.

After fighting through the insects and sailing down the river, Alice found Bill McGill outside his former home. He told Alice that the Duchess had taken over his house in order to hide from the Queen of Hearts, who wanted her dead. As the two of them where going to storm the house, something inside the house scared Bill off, and Alice was sucked into the house.

Inside the house, Alice came face-to-face with the Duchess, who had become mad from inhaling too much pepper and had turned into a murderous glutton (she even expressed an interest in making Alice into a "light snack"). Since the Duchess was not willing to part with the shell, Alice faced her in combat. After the fight, the pepper became too much for The Duchess and she sneezed so hard her head exploded, killing her.

With the Duchess dead, Bill and Turtle entered the house, and Turtle got his shell back. Keeping his promise, Turtle led Alice down a tunnel into an underwater cavern, which led them to the Wonderland Woods. Bill stayed behind, saying he would get some leeches in to get rid of the corpse.

Alice: Madness ReturnsEdit

One year later, Alice was released from Rutledge Asylum, but was still mentally unstable. After she had a terrifying hallucination of Pris Witless turning into the Jabberwock, she had a relapse and returned to Wonderland, landing in the Vale of Tears. Although the valley looked peaceful enough, Alice is greeted by the Cheshire Cat, who tells her that a new evil reigns in Wonderland.

Wandering through the valley, Alice gains her bearings again, learning to jump and float. After bathing in a pool of Drink Me Potion, she also learned how to shrink and use Shrink Sense, and she acquires the Vorpal Blade again, after finding it in the corpse of the Jabberwock. She also meets up again with The Duchess, who has become more pleasant and lost her cannibalistic desires. Now with a taste for pork, she gives Alice her Pepper Grinder so that she can gather Pig Snouts for her.

However, it soon becomes clear that all is not well, and Alice comes to blows with the deadly creatures that have appeared here, and other signs of corruption become more obvious and frequent. As Alice leaves the valley to go to Hatter's Domain, it starts to fall apart around her.

When Alice returns to the valley later on, much to her horror, it has become the Vale of Doom, a burned, hellish incarnation of itself.

AppearanceEdit

In Alice, The Vale of Tears appears to be in a continuous morning fog with a gray sky above. The ground is hard and barren, and almost all of the plant life seems to be dead. It is a very bland and dark-colored place, and ironically the only relatively vibrant color found here is in the form of creatures and plants that will try and harm Alice. There is a river that flows through the valley, and although clean enough for fish, appears to be cloudy. By the side of the river, there is a crying statue of Alice, possibly made to tell others that the valley was formed by Alice's tears, or of Alice's inner anguish. The only other deliberate construct here is Bill's house, which looks like a shack made out of various bits of junk. After the Queen of Hearts is defeated, Wonderland is restored to its former self, life returns to the valley: blue skies, grass grows, plants grow, the water clears, and the crying statue becomes a normal one of a more cheerful and confident looking Alice.

In Madness Returns, a large, vibrant, and lush forest has grown around the river, with tall trees, colorful mushrooms, and lots of flowers. A new statue of a crying Alice provides the tears that make up the rivers and streams. The river forms into various waterfalls, and there are other large crying statues along the path that secrete blood and Ruin substance, indicative of the worsening situation in Wonderland. There are also large game pieces around the place, including marbles, jacks, dominoes, and dice. The Duchess' Home can be found here, although it's just three walls forming one room, as well as a giant snow-globe monument to the Mock Turtle, who had become lost at sea. There is also a platform for the Looking Glass Line here, with the ruined remains of what was the train running through the lines, though, later, the remains slide down the cliff down to the void below, meaning that the valley was a place for visits. The Vale of Tears could be what Alice wishes the rest of Wonderland could be.

EtymologyEdit

A "Vale of Tears" (or valle lacrimarum) is traditionally a Christian phrase which refers to the causes of suffering in life that are left behind on one's journey from life to heaven. In English, "Valley of Tears" may also be used.

The "Vale of Tears" could possibly represent Alice leave her life suffering on her journey from her life in London (in the real world) to her journey into Wonderland, as Wonderland is her "Heaven" while London (and the Asylum) is where she suffers.

TriviaEdit

The Cat's Radula Room resembles the Vale of Tears.
Near Hatter's Domain, within the junkyard of porcelain and teapots, a dead Automaton can be found leaning against a wall with its chassis broken open. Inside are the skeletal remains of an Insane Child.
A enemy called Dark Snail was scrapped from the Vale of Tears and can only be seen in the Extra Content.
The Vale of Tears' origin is probably a reference to the scene from "The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland" where, after eating the "Eat Me" cake, she grows so much that she is stuck inside the room, Alice starts crying in despair, and since she is giant, her tears are large; flooding the entire room. After drinking the "Drink Me" potion, she shrinks and find herself in an ocean/river made of her own tears and manage to go further in Wonderland swimming.
In Madness Returns before Alice sips from the Drink Me potion, she remarks she'd been there before. While this is true, it's worth to note that in her first visit to the Vale of Tears, she had shrunk from the potion she made in the Fortress of Doors, instead of being her usual size.
If the player has played Madness Returns before, all of Alice's abilities will stay as they were from when the player completed it, giving Alice shrink sense in the scene just before the received shrink sense. Before the shrink sense scene, there is a small door Alice can only go through with shrink sense. If the player goes through it while on a second playthrough, she'll enter the Drink me bottle section from a different angle resulting in a glitch where Alice does not make it over to the pool, but shrinks in an area of land as if she is in the pool.