Jesse Faden

Director Jesse Faden is the main protagonist of the 2019 supernatural action-adventure video game and its 2020 DLC expansions The Foundation and AWE, a minor character in the 2023 survival horror video game , and the playable character of Alan Wake II: Night Spring's second episode North Star.
She is the current director of the Federal Bureau of Control, succeeding Zachariah Trench, and is seeking answers on the disappearance of her younger brother, Dylan. With the aid of Polaris and the Bureau employees, Jesse battles the Hiss to remove the lock down that is on the Bureau's oldest house.
She is voiced and motion-captured by Courtney Hope, who also voiced Beth Wilder in Quantum Break, another Remedy Entertainment video game.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Jesse Faden was born in 1991 to unnamed parents and the older sister to Dylan, who was born in 1992. She and Dylan grew up in the town of Ordinary, Maine, and the two were very close, and would often play at a local landfill site. During their childhood, Jesse was friends with Dylan's classmate Neil Hosenberg, who was often teased at school due to his asthma. In later therapy sessions, Jesse admitted to having felt "lost" during her childhood, and harbored some resentment for her parents.
===Ordinary AWE===
On August 30, 2002, Jesse and Dylan discovered that the dump site they played at had seemingly shifted, allowing them to travel deeper inside. The siblings discovered an old slide projector, and realized that it had the ability to open door ways to other dimensions (or "slidescapes"), by projecting the images seen on individual slides. Jesse later reported that there were nine slides, though Dylan claimed that there were only eight slides. After discovering the projector, Jesse, Dylan and Neil began to explore and play in the slidescapes, but Jesse was averse to some of them.
In one slidescape in which the children named "Hand", Jesse and Dylan encountered a mysterious, unseen intelligence that communicated to them telepathically. The entity told the children that they were special, and grew fond of Jesse, who named it "Polaris" after the star. The children continued to visit the slide dimensions over the next two weeks, and Neil in particular would visit "Meadow" quite often. However, Neil was forced to reveal the location of the slide projector when his bully, Tom Barlow and his gang, beat him up one day. Neil was then trapped in "Meadow" as Tom and his gang stole the projector, taking it to their hideout at Sled Hill Cave.
Tom and his gang began their own explorations into the slidescapes, and fell under the influence of the "Not-Mother", who fed them her "milk" and began to alter their behavior. Tom and his gang eventually attacked and murdered their math teacher, and were then taken away by the police. Jesse and Dylan were interrogated about the slide projector by their parents, and Jesse wished for her parents to disappear. The next morning, Jesse and Dylan found that the entire adult population of Ordinary had vanished without explanation, and the siblings decided to follow Tom and his gang to their hideout. Jesse and Dylan made it to the hideout, and discovered that the Not-Mother was transforming Tom and his gang into monstrous entities, which they dubbed "Dung Monkeys".
Jesse grabbed the slide project and the siblings began to run away, and were pursued by the Not-Mother and the Dung Monkeys. When the two were almost attacked, Neil suddenly reappeared and saved them, through according to Dylan, Neil had the appearance of a "melted dog". Asking for Polaris' help, Jesse was instructed in how to turn off the slide projector, which resulted in the disappearance of the Not-Mother, the Dung Monkeys and Neil. After their disappearance, Jesse burned all of the slides from the projector, except for Hand.
The Federal Bureau of Control sent a team led by Director Zachariah Trench and head of research Casper Darling to investigate the disappearance of the adult population, and the group were led by Jesse and Dylan to the slide projector. Upon getting to the slide projector, the FBC attempted to apprehend the two, and Jesse managed to escape. Dylan, however, was captured by the Bureau and taken away, and Jesse was consumed with guilt over this event.
===After Ordinary===
For the next seventeen years, Jesse drifted between jobs and residences across the world, and at one point worked as a janitor. She was placed under psychiatric care for a number of years due to telling people about the events that happened in Ordinary, and her psychiatrists claimed that she had invented the stories from her imagination. Jesse remained absolute that the events happened, and spent much of her life searching for the FBC and her brother, but was unable to find them. Unbeknownst to her, the FBC monitored her consistently due to her unique paranatural abilities and connection to the Ordinary Altered World Event.
She also remained in distant contact with Polaris, who would occasionally receive messages to her. However, the messages did not become significant until September 24th, 2019, when Jesse was convinced by Polaris was summoning her to New York City. Upon receiving the message, Jesse left her residence in Cheyenne, Wyoming and crossed the country to reach Manhattan.
==Control==
Reaching the Federal Bureau of Control's building, Faden finds it seemingly vacant until she encounters the janitor Ahti, who tells her to reach use to elevator to reach Zachariah Trench's office. Jesse finds Trench's corpse, having seemingly committed suicide with his service weapon, and Polaris tells her to obtain the gun. Upon touching it, Jesse is contacted by the Board, who have her complete a challenge to become the bureau's new director. Leaving the astral plane, Faden finds portraits of her as director, and encounters the Hiss, whom have taken over the bureau's agents. After clearing the control point of the Hiss, Jesse meets Dr. Casper Darling's assistant Emily Pope, who explains that she and the survivors weren't taken by the Hiss due to Darling's device, the Hedron Resonance Amplifier.
Jesse speaks with Pope, who asks the former if she could free the Hiss agents, but Faden discovers that she cannot cleanse them. After failing to save the agent, Faden returns to Emily, and reveals that she is seeing an echo of Trench, who spoke of something called the hotline. Emily explains that it's an object of power that allows the director to communicate with the Board directly, and Jesse travels to the executive sector to obtain it. During her travel, Jesse battles more Hiss, including a corrupted Alberto Tommasi, who escapes during their fight. Reaching the Hotline's chamber, Faden uses the cord to reach the phone, allowing her to understand Trench's message. Trench tells Jesse to find his management team, which consist of Dr. Darling, Tommasi, Helen Marshall, and Lin Salvador. Deducing that Marshall possibly knows of Dylan's whereabouts, Jesse heads to the research sector to find her. 
After assisting Marshall in reaching the lab to have more HRA's made, Faden learned from Helen that both she and her brother were candidates to become the new director, but Dylan was was considered dangerous and sent to the containment sector. Traveling to the sector, Faden reaches the Panopticon to find her brother, but discovers that he is no longer there. She is then contacted by Pope, whom explains that Dylan turned himself in and that he's been exposed to the Hiss, but isn't affected like the others. Meeting with her brother, Dylan reveals that he embraced the Hiss, and tells Jesse to find the prime candidate program to learn the truth about the bureau. Jesse falsely agrees to Dylan's demand, intending to find the slide projector since it brought the Hiss to the building.
During her search, Jesse is assisted by Ahti, who gives her a casset player that allows her to reach the dimensional research division through the ashtray maze. Reaching the division, she learns that that Trench and Dr. Darling used the slide projector to go on expeditions, and discovered an entity named "Hedron". Feeling Polaris' connection growing stronger, Jesse finds its location and destroys a large HRA protecting the area. Entering, she discovers that Polaris is tied to Hedron, with the paranormal entity acting as a resonance for Polaris. Upon seeing Hedron, the Hiss ambush the area and destroy the machine, allowing the entity to invade a vulnerable Jesse. While being invaded by the Hiss, Jesse awakens in a reality where she works for the Bureau, but is able to escape by becoming the resonance for Polaris. She also learns that Trench brought the Hiss to their world, having become corrupted from his expeditions in the slide projector's slide-scape.
Knowing that Dylan has escaped confinement and has the slide projector in the nostalgia department, Jesse travels there and sees that he is trying to corrupt the Board. She stops Dylan by freeing him from the Hiss and closing the projector, thus preventing the entity from entering their reality. Following the incident, Jesse accepts her position as the bureau's new director and continues to fight the Hiss, as remnants remain in the building.
===The Foundation===
Following the Hiss' invasion, Jesse is contacted by the Board via the hotline, and they task her to deal with a situation beyond the maintenance sector. Reaching the Foundation by Ahti's help, Jesse encounters the Hiss down there, and receives messages from Marshall from the hotline. From the messages, Jesse learns that Helen traveled to the Foundation to stop the threat, but didn't inform Jesse so the latter could deal with the invasion in the Oldest House. Reaching the center, she finds the Nail, which acts as a conduit between the Astral Plane and the bureau. The Board then contact Jesse again, informing her that she needs to repair the Nail by finding four nodes, and allow her to choose an ability to deal with the crystalized formations in the area.
While attending to the broken nodes, Jesse is greeted by the Former, the same entity she came across when entering two altered items in the Oldest House. The Former explains that it was once a member of the Board, but was exiled after being blamed for something, and wants to help her in her journey. Despite being warned by the Board to not trust the Former, Jesse accepts the second ability to deal with the crystal formations, and learns about the bureau's studies in the Foundation. Finding documents, Jesse learns that the former
FBC director Broderick Northmoor discovered the service weapon around the Nail, the Board approved him leader and had him make changes to the bureau. She also meets with Pope, whom states that Jesse called her down to the Nail despite not having done so.
Despite repairing the four nodes, she finds that it hasn't solve the problem and meets with Pope, learning that the tremors are still occurring. Seeing that they are happening below the Nail, Faden travels there and encounters a Hiss-controlled Marshall. Battling her former ally with the Former's help, Jesse defeats Helen before cleansing the Nail of the Hiss's corruption. Receiving Marshall's last message, she learns that she attempted to destroy the Nail, but was prevented when a astral spike (implied to have been sent by the Board) destroyed her HRA, causing the Hiss to possess her. Jesse becomes skeptical of the Board's intentions, deciding that she will change the bureau's direction, but will allow the Board to believe they have control.
===AWE===
The writer Alan Wake makes contact with Jesse, summoning her to reach the Investigations sector to stop a threat. Reaching the area, she discovers that it was sealed off years ago to prevent a containment breach, and sees a bizarre encounter between Wake and Thomas Zane. During her investigation, Jesse encounters a strange creature known as "The Third Thing", whom is empowered by darkness, but can be weakened by light. She learns from documents and Wake's messages that the creature is Emil Hartman, whom was interrogated by the bureau following the events in Bright Falls. After the FBC obtained his research and took ownership of his longue, Hartman decided to jump into Cauldron Lake, causing him to be possessed by the Dark Presence. He was then contained by the bureau in the investigations sector, but escaped after sensing the presence of Alan's wife, Alice.
Frederick Langston, head of the Panopticon and maintaining altered items, contacts Faden, asking her to stop Hartman before he can escape. While cornering the Third Thing by restoring lights across the sector, Jesse learns that during the Hiss' invasion, it merged with Hartman, twisting his body into a monstrous being. Reaching the Bright Falls AWE, a reconstruction of the mining town, Jesse kills Hartman, thus clearing the sector and allowing it to be retaken by the bureau. Afterward, Langston informs Jesse that the bureau is receiving a report of an altered world event in Bright Falls, but states that it's taking place in the future. Jesse then thinks that the message was called in before the Hiss invasion, but the situation is left unanswered.
===Alan Wake II===
Jesse briefly appears to both Alan and the Filmmaker in the latter's hotel room 665, with her face appearing on a tv screen before cutting to Dr. Darling and the Night Springs title card.
===Night Springs===
In the downloadable expansion Night Springs, each episodes takes place in alternate realities that echoes the events the playable characters experience. In "North Star", a version of Jesse known as "The Sibling" is searching for her brother but encounters employees of the Dark Triangle Coffee organization transformed into monsters (similar to "Fade Outs"). At the end of the expansion, the Sibling discovers that her brother and the employees are under the influence of an alien force.
==Quotes==
==Gallery==
Jesse-F-screenshot.jpg
Faden-AW2.jpg|Faden's brief appearance in Alan Wake II.
==Trivia==
*She is Remedy’s first game protagonist to be female.
*The Hebrew name "Jesse" means "gift", which references Jesse's psychic powers, and "Faden" means thread in both German and Jewish.
*She is somewhat similar to Jodie Holmes from Beyond Two Souls:
**Both have a psychic connection with an entity (Polaris and Aiden).
**Both are members of an agency.
**Both have battled paranormal entities.
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