Alice Liddell

Alice redirects here. For the game, see Alice: Madness Returns

“

I know I am guilty of something, but punishment never suits the victims of the crime.

”

Alice Liddell
Biographical info
Full name	Alice "Pleasance" Liddell
Gender	Female
Relative(s)	Arthur Liddel Mrs. Liddel Elizabeth Liddel
Residence	Houndsditch Home, London, England
Political info
Affiliation	Wonderland
Nationality	English, Caucasian
Occupation	Caretaker in Houndsditch
Miscellaneous info
Appearances	Alice: Madness Returns
Role	Main Protagonist
Actor/Actress	Susie Brann

Alice "Pleasance" Liddell is the main protagonist of Alice: Madness Returns, American McGee's Alice and the original two stories that the games were based on. She is based on the character from the original stories by Lewis Carroll and her design is based on that of Alice Liddell; the young female who the original stories were based on.

With American McGee's Alice, a casebook was provided that included all sufficient information on Alice's life in Rutledge Asylum (where she resided for ten years of her life after a fire which devastated her family). It is confirmed that Alice was 18 during the events of the first game, but in her reappearance a year later was 19.

Alice is voiced by Susie Brann in both American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns.

Appearance

Alice was born with brown hair which varies during the series, the other colour being jet black. During Madness Returns, it is a common misconception that her hair is black, however, in lighter sections of the game it can be revealed to still be brown. She has a necklace with a pendant in the shape of an Omega symbol (Ω) around her neck, along with a blue dress and white apron with similar symbols on the pockets. The apron is secured with a large white bow which runs through a skull, known as Hollow Yves (pronounced Hollow Eve). She also wears black-and-white striped stockings which are partially hidden by her knee-length black boots, which are tightly concealed by several rows of buckles.

Personality

Alice is a clever and quick-witted young woman, with a curious nature, a sharp tongue and a direct way of approaching things — she is not afraid to speak her mind. Alice is shown to be very ruthless and cynical towards others. Despite her cynicism and morbidness shown in the game, Alice truly wants to set her mind free and restore peace to Wonderland and her own mind. She has been described as stubborn, and becomes enraged when someone says something she hates, disagrees with, or when she is talked down to, and will attack back verbally or physically.

Although often showing a brave face during times of danger, and quick to debunk bullying and harsh words from others, Alice is constantly haunted by the memories of the fire which claimed the lives of her parents and her sister, and is shown to suffer from survivor's guilt as a result, which can manifest into extreme self-loathing and suicidal tendencies. She has shown to have understanding, or maybe sympathy towards the Orphans and Insane Children who have experienced a history similar to hers. In Madness Returns, her guilt in having turned a blind eye to the sufferings of the other children is manifested in the Dollhouse level as well as Caterpillar's final speech. Dr. Wilson thus describes her as having a "hero complex," with her inherent desire to help those around her. She is fond of animals, particularly cats and rabbits.

Biography

Childhood

Alice Liddell spent most of her childhood in Oxford in the south of England, where she lived a comfortable, happy life with her father Arthur, who was a dean at Oxford University, her mother, and her older sister Elizabeth. The family also owned a cat, Dinah, and two of her kittens later on. Around the age of seven, Alice, who had a strong sense of imagination, invented and explored the strange world of Wonderland and made friends with its inhabitants.

During the course of a winter night on November 5, 1863, a fire was started within the Liddell household. Although seriously burnt, Alice managed to escape with her life, but her family were less fortunate, and Alice was forced to witness them incinerated within the fire that destroyed her once beloved home. Alice was sent to Littlemore Infirmary to have her physical wounds taken care of, but the event had a huge impact on Alice's mentality, and she fell into a catatonic state. After an investigation, it was concluded that the fire was started due to the clumsiness of Dinah and a still-lit oil lamp in the downstairs library.

Rutledge Asylum

Eighteen-year-old Alice in Rutledge Asylum. Alice was transferred on November 4, 1864 to Rutledge Asylum in London, where she would spend the next ten years under the care of Dr. Heironymous Q. Wilson. During his many interviews with Alice during her catatonia, he was able to record many of her supposedly "insane fairy tales" of Wonderland, while she was actually living them in her mind at the time. During her time at the asylum, Alice had faced her own guilt and the mistreatment from other patients and the cruel caretakers at Rutledge. One of nurses, Pris Witless, overheard Alice blaming herself for the fire that killed all of her family; Witless would later use this "confession" against Alice in the form of blackmail.

American McGee's Alice

One night, the White Rabbit came to her, and led Alice back to Wonderland, which over the years had become corrupted by the deadly dictatorship of the Queen of Hearts. The residents of Wonderland saw Alice as their only chance to get rid of the Queen, due to the stories Rabbit told of a champion, so she was placed into the role of their savior and began her journey to face the Queen. After re-meeting the Cheshire Cat, who became her guide through her quest, Alice followed Rabbit but quickly lost him as he shrunk into a tiny hole and ran off without her. Along her search to find him, the Torch Gnomes of the Village of the Doomed tell her that the Fortress of Doors held the secret to becoming smaller, and she should seek the Elder Gnome, who still lived as a free man.

The Elder Gnome offered to take Alice to the Fortress of Doors, if she could return with a key to open doors. She managed to retrieve the object, killing several Card Guards in the process, and the two of them traveled to the Fortress. Inside the Skool within the Fortress, Alice and the Elder retrieved ingredients and made a shrinking elixir. After drinking the elixir about becoming small, Alice jumped into a portal which took her to the Vale of Tears.

Traveling through the valley looking for Rabbit again, Alice came across the Mock Turtle, unshelled and sobbing his eyes out. Although Turtle had not seen Rabbit, he said he would take Alice to the Caterpillar who known everything, but first she had to retrieve his shell from the Duchess, who had tried to turn Turtle into soup. Downstream, Alice found Bill McGill, who had been kicked out of his own home by the Duchess, who was hiding out from the Queen.

After defeating the now-murderous Duchess in combat, and giving Turtle his shell back, he led her through the underground water tunnels to the Wonderland Woods. Here, Alice finally found Rabbit and the two went together to find Caterpillar. Unfortunately for them, the Mad Hatter was traveling through the woods and stomped on Rabbit, killing him. Blaming herself and her bad luck, Alice broke down into tears briefly but quickly got control of herself again when Cat reminded her of her task. When she found Caterpillar, he told her that it was her own guilt and insanity that had turned Wonderland into a dark and twisted version of itself, and she was brought back to kill the Queen to save the land and herself. He then created a portal for her, which took her to the Fungiferous Forest. At the forest, Alice killed the Voracious Centipede and took a bite from the Mushroom of Life to return to her normal size.

Traveling on, Alice came across an oracle who told her she had to defeat the Queen's main defense, the Jabberwock with the Jabberwock's Eye Staff. Having already obtained one piece of the staff, Alice set off to the Pale Realm to get another from the White Chess Pieces. The White King asked Alice for her help to save his queen from the red side and gave her a pawn to help her. Storming the Red Castle, Alice arrived too late and witnessed the White Queen's beheading. However, after defeating the Red King, Alice used her pawn to revive the White Queen. As the White Queen went to battle the red pieces, Hatter appeared and knocked Alice out cold.

When Alice came around, she found herself in Hatter's Domain, and she set off to find him. After getting rid of Hatter's goons, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Hatter arrived and commented on that Alice feared the truth, and returning to Rutledge Asylum, but all of that could be avoided. Although Alice asked for an answer from him, she didn't get one and the ground crumbled below her. Moving further in, she encountered the Dormouse and March Hare, imprisoned and being experimented upon by the insane Hatter. As she could do nothing for them. Alice went deeper into Hatter's lair, and found the gryphon trapped in one of the cages. After learning from him that Hatter arrived at six o'clock everyday to check his experiments, Alice used this information to change the clocks to read six o'clock, which drew him out to her.

After killing Hatter, and gaining the second piece of the Eye Staff, Alice allied with Gryphon and they flew together to the Land of Fire and Brimstone. Here, Alice found out that the oracle was actually Caterpillar, and he explained that when Alice answered Rabbit's call, she had began to recover from her madness, and only she can save herself and in turn Wonderland. Soon after, she faced the Jabberwock in battle, and although she didn't manage to kill him, she did gain one of his eyes to complete the Eye Staff.

Alice leaving Rutledge Asylum. With Gryphon and some rebel troops, Alice stormed Queensland and the Queen's castle. During the battle, Alice witnessed Gryphon take on the Jabberwock alone, and die in the process. In revenge, Alice killed the Jabberwock herself, and continued with her mission. Just as she was about to finally face the Queen, the Cheshire Cat tried to tell her that she and the Queen were one and the same, but was killed doing so.

After a long and deadly battle with the Queen, Alice came out as the winner, and Wonderland became a peaceful world once again, with many of her old friends revived from death. In the real world, as part of the aftermath of her victory, Alice's mental state had improved greatly, and in November 1874, Alice was deemed sane enough to be released from Rutledge.

After Rutledge

After being released from Rutledge Asylum, one of her former carers, Nurse Witless found Alice a home and a job at the Houndsditch Home for Wayward Youth in London. Even after a year of being out of the asylum in late 1875, Alice was still dealing with her tragic childhood memories along with serious survivor's guilt, and also began to suffer from auditory and visual hallucinations. While working at Houndsditch, Alice was attending hypnotic therapy with Dr. Angus Bumby. Bumby's mental treatment suppressed some parts of Alice psyche (Most parts pertaining to Wonderland) which into caused her to suffer from frightening hallucination of Wonderland.

Alice: Madness Returns

One day, after her session with the doctor was over, Bumby sent Alice to pick up medicine at the pharmacist. On her way, Alice became side-tracked with following a stray cat. Upon entering a dark alley, she experienced a hallucination of several monstrous figures with Jabberwock heads surrounding her, until it was interrupted by Nurse Witless, who had found her wandering around. Alice was not very happy to see the old woman - as Witless was now using Alice's "confession" to blackmail her, to get money and alcohol from her so she wouldn't report Alice to the police - Alice was surprised to hear that the woman might have information about her missing rabbit toy.

Witless then brought Alice to her rooftop, where she had another hallucination of Nurse Witless transforming into the Jabberwock. The fear Alice had from seeing Witless turn into a monster triggered an even greater mental break-down, and Alice fell into Wonderland again.

Alice landed in the Vale of Tears, and found Wonderland appearing to be much more peaceful than when she was in Rutledge. However, greeted by her old friend Cheshire Cat, he told her that there was a new ruler in Wonderland and Alice's sanity is at risk once again. After traversing through the Vale of Tears, watching it fall apart around her, she entered Hatter's Domain again, and found said madmen in the rubbish in pieces, after the March Hare and Dormouse turned against him and took over the factory. The Mad Hatter informs Alice about the changes Dormouse and March Hare made to the factory. Alice agrees to reconstruct him in exchange for information about the source of Wonderland's corruption. After recovering his limbs, Alice and Hatter broke into the main hub of the factory, and Alice witnesses the sight of the Infernal Train leaving the factory and heading into Wonderland, which several Wonderlanders consider the cause of all the corruption. Upon the departure of the Train, Dormouse and the March Hare lifted the Hatter away with a giant hook and confronted Alice in a mechanical robot controlled by the both of them. However, the Hatter freed himself and dropped a teapot upon the battle robot causing to fall apart and eject Dormouse and March Hare on to the floor in front of Alice. The Mad Hatter's Factory begins to fall apart around the Mad Hatter, Alice, and the corpses of Dormouse and March Hare. The Mad Hatter suddenly slips into a delusional state and began conversing with Dormouse and March Hare, claiming he only wanted another tea party. Alice urges Hatter to give up more information about the Infernal Train, but the Hatter quickly turns downs Alice's questions and returns to his conversion with his dead friends. Alice pleads with the Hatter only for him to be crushed by the debris of the collapsed roof of the factory. Alice scoffs, claiming he deserved to die from not keeping his end of the bargain by helping her and is quickly overwhelmed by a sea of tea and drowns.

Alice awakes in the real world to find two fishermen that pulled her out of the River Thames (how she got into the river is left unexplained). She navigated the docks to find Nan Sharpe, her former nanny, at the Mangled Mermaid, a whorehouse. Inside, she interrupted an assault between Nanny and Jack Splatter. Alice orders Jack to leave Nan Sharpe alone but is knocked unconscious by him, which triggered a return trip to Wonderland. Waking up in Tundraful, she meets Mock Turtle again, the former stationmaster of the Looking Glass Line and now the captain of the HMS Gryphon. They both go underwater to the Deluded Depths, but when Alice questioned Turtle about the Train, he was unable to give her information, too terrified to speak of it after being replaced as stationmaster. Mock Turtle gives Alice a ticket to the Carpenter's show, urging her to use it. Traversing the depths, Alice arrives Carpenter's show, and performed several errands for him in exchange information about the train. However, Carpenter betrays her and trapped her in a ghost-filled cemetery. Alice managed to make it for the start of the show, where Walrus started eating the Oyster Starlets and other fish. Alice became angry with Carpenter for his actions, but he told her that he was only trying to hide Wonderland from the Infernal Train. As the said train came crashing in, he implies that Alice is partially responsible for the train and that someone is misleading her. His last words of advice to Alice was to seek Caterpillar. Alice woke up to find that Splatter had set the Mangled Mermaid on fire. Her nanny, unwilling to talk about the fire that killed the Liddells, escorted Alice to Wilton J. Radcliffe, the Liddell family lawyer so she could ask him questions and collect her rabbit doll, but after Radcliffe voiced his suspicions regarding Alice's role in the fire, she has a psychotic break. Alice arrives in Wonderland in the abandoned house of Radcliffe. She exits the house and into the twisted and corruption Vale of Tears now called the Vale of Doom. After traversing the disjointed Vale of Doom, Alice comes to a small pool with a tiny mountain reach out from the middle of it. Caterpillar surrounds her in smoke, shrinking her into Oriental Grove, Caterpillar's domain. While going through the area and dispatching the vicious wasps, she recovered a repressed memory: she remembered that Dinah was in her room with her on the night of the fire, and the only lit oil lamp in the house was upstairs serving as a hallway night-light, so it couldn't have been Dinah that started the fire. Upon reaching Caterpillar's temple, Caterpillar leads her to the bottom of the temple where he is encased in a cocoon. Alice is distressed about saving the world, claiming, "How could she save Wonderland when she can't save her?" Caterpillar replied by saying by saving Wonderland meant she also would help herself. Caterpillar also said the train was Alice's creation, and that she must seek out the Queen of Hearts, which Caterpillar describes as 'someone she once knew and loved'. The mountain begins to crumble and shake as Caterpillar breaks free of his cocoon and flies out of the mountain and into the sky. Alice is exposed to the blinding sunlight which beckons her back to reality.

Alice woke up again, this time in gaol, where the police brought her in after she had a hysterical fit in the middle of the street. Upon leaving gaol, Alice quickly fell into another fit and entered Cardbridge, a land high in the sky of wonderland consisting of numerous platforms made of playing cards which move randomly. After leaving Cardbridge, she descends from the sky to the rotting remain of Queensland. Cheshire Cat converses with Alice about Alice's triumph over the Queen and urges her to proceed forward. She reaches the entrance to the palace to find it blocked by the defeated White King. He informed her after Alice left that the Queen took over and imprisoned him there. The White King said that destroying him will allow her to move forward. Just before Alice kills him, the White King warns her of an "out-sized killer" or the Executioner patrolling Queensland and discourages Alice from fighting him. Soon after, Alice meets the Executioner and escapes with her life. Cheshire appears saying the Executioner normally doesn't chase after those who escape him but Alice was his only exception. Through her trek through Queensland, the Executioner finds Alice and either tries to kill her or send her to different parts of Queensland. However, while Alice makes her way through the Red Queen's Courtyard, she is pursued by the Executioner and finds a cake labelled "Eat Me." Alice eats a slice and grows to enormous size and proceeds to stomps on the Executioner, killing him. While looking for the Queen, Alice deduces that Elizabeth (her older sister) - who was found dead but unburnt - had not been killed by the fire, but had been killed by the real arsonist. However, she still didn't know who the arsonist was. When she reached the center of the castle, the Queen angrily chastises Alice for allowing the train to run amok and not seeing what is around her. The Queen wraps Alice in her tentacles and consumes her which send her to a nightmare.

After seeing a vision of Dr. Wilson, Nurse Witless and Dr. Bumby, Alice goes on a surreal walk through Rutledge and it seems that she had become fully insane, and had been incarcerated there. However, this turned out to just be another hallucination mixed with Alice's memories of her time in the asylum. Alice enters the waiting room where Bumby, Nan Sharpe, Nurse Witless, and Mr. Radcliffe rumble about Alice's resistance to forget from their point of view, claiming either she conforms and forget or goes back to Rutledge forever. Alice soon breaks free of the hallucination and found herself in Hyde Park. She encountered a mortally wounded insane child, who told her that a new evil reigns, worse than the Queen, before entering the Dollhouse.

Within this wasteland of abandoned toys, Alice met the Insane Children; their leader asked for her help and offered a very cryptic explanation for what is going on, saying that 'parts' of the children are being taken from them by the mastermind behind the Train and the Ruin monsters, the Dollmaker. However, the resistance is forced into hiding before they could explain further. After traveling through the Dollhouse, Alice came to realize that Bumby was the person that was in her house on the night of the fire; this is confirmed as she met the Dollmaker, who greatly resembled Bumby, and he essentially bragged about what he did. The Dollmaker captures Alice and makes her into a doll.

Almost immediately after this confrontation, Alice, in the reality, confronted Bumby at Moorgate Station. He bragged about his abuse towards the children placed in his care, making them forget everything and turning them into prostitutes. At the same time, in Wonderland, Alice made her way through the Infernal Train, and along the way talked to Hatter, Caterpillar, and the Queen. The Hatter rumbles in delusion about Alice's quest for the truth and mentions in a very roundabout way that forcing herself to forget wasn't her solution but the source of her confusion. Next Alice confronts Caterpillar, who said that because Alice was obsessed with her own wants, she became oblivious of Bumby's obvious actions towards the children, making her just as bad as him. She also talked to the Queen, who told her that her sister wasn't talking in her sleep the night of the fire, which made Alice realize that Bumby, who was obsessed with Lizzie, had raped her before starting the fire. The Queen told her to make her survival of the fire mean something or Wonderland and herself would all be doomed.

After Alice destroys the Dollmaker, she finally stands up to Bumby in the real world and threatened to tell the police about his crimes. Bumby wasn't scared of her words however, knowing no one would believe a madwoman and simply told her to go away. As she was about to leave, Alice hesitated and, in her Wonderland dress, turned back and pushed him in front of an oncoming train, killing him. As she walked out of the station, Alice walked into Londerland, where Wonderland and London have woven into one existence, and Cat tells that she can't go home (meaning she's freed herself from the pain and suffering in reality and psychological worlds she was forced to call her home) and while much devastation has fallen onto Wonderland, her memory was safe for now.

Quotes

• "How many times must I tell you? I only take tea with friends!"
•  "I'll teach her manners!"
• "I want to forget! Who would choose to be alone, imprisoned by their broken memories?"
• "I'm not afraid of her or her creatures. Never was, really. You should stand up to them."
• "Save myself from death, is that it? Is that why I've come here? I'm not afraid to die! Times I've welcomed death."
• "Wonderland has become quite strange. How is one to find her way?"
• "You and my dentist's assistant have much in common."
• "Spare me the platitude. Do you have any useful advice?"
• "Mushrooms, poppies, sugar and spice, all those things are very nice. When combined, the proper mixture makes a getting-small elixir. Hmmm... I don't really like sweets."
• "If not there may be more than one way to skin a cat. If you'll pardon the expression."
• "Tragic I'm sure but I'm a bit pressed for time. Have you seen a rabbit?"
• "Everyone I love dies violently; unnaturally. I'm cursed! Why go on? I'll just hurt others."
• "Blasted cat. Don't try to bully me! I'm very much on edge!"
• "Promise only what you are prepared to deliver. I am destined to battle with the Red Queen. The outcome is uncertain."
• "I wish I were hallucinating. What a terrible choice: eat a toadstool or remain food for insects!"
• "I fear nothing."
• "I'm not edible."
• "This is good for me. I'm not insane! I didn't kill my family. I am fine. I'm not mad. I am innocent, I mean, not guilty!"
• "I know I am guilty of something, but punishment never suits the victims of the crime."
• "You oozing sore of depravity!"
• "I'll see you charged. In prison, some half-wit bruiser will make you his sweetheart... and then you'll hang!"
• "Is it mad to pray for better hallucinations?"
• "Let's pretend I'm a Hyena, and you're a bone! GIVE ME THE REPORT!"
• "Oh no! Poor Lizzie!"
• "Children wearing their names around their necks, as if they're breeding livestock!"
• "You've used and abused me, but you will NOT destroy me!"
• "I've not come back here looking for a fight."
• "The destruction of Wonderland is the destruction of me?"
• "I'll frighten myself, when necessary thanks very much. I was hoping to escape from all that."
• "Am I not the most wretched and selfish of fortune's fools? Oblivious, I live in a training ground for prostitutes!"
• "I believe I know that way and I'd rather not travel further along it."
• "I won't miss your tentacles."
• "Not all change is good!"
• "My Lizzie...what is this train's destination?"
• "My mentor is an abuser and purveyor! I've been complicit with my sister's murderer and the killer of my family, as he corrupted my mind! I sought relief for my pain and you turned me away from the truth!"
• "Everyone has an excuse for doing nothing. Reminds me of the asylum."

Trivia

• In PewDiePie's playthrough of the game, Alice is given the ability to use Shrink Sense, allowing her to grow small. To get this ability, she must drink from a small bottle labelled "drink me" pouring into a pool. Once she has this ability, she may shrink as she please, and as she shrinks she makes a hiccup sound; this is associated with being "drunk." When "drunk," PewDie describes her as "having the weirdest ideas."
• PewDiePie admitted in Episode 10 that Alice was one of his favourite female protagonists because she was interesting (probably referring to her story).

References

1. Alice Liddell on the Alice Wiki