Janitors in the RCU
Janitors and maintenance workers are practically a staple of Remedy’s games at this point. In Max Payne 2, one of the main enemy factions are dressed as a janitorial cleaning crew. Max receives an important code (667, Neighbor of the Beast) from a janitor named Ed who sings “Late Goodbye”, the same song that plays at the end of the game.
In early versions of Quantum Break, Jack Joyce was going to be a janitor employed at Monarch Solutions. In the final game, Jack can interact with a janitor who’s been frozen in time during the last act of the story. In Control, Jesse Faden had previously worked as a custodian and is hired as the “janitors assistant” at the FBC by an eccentric Finnish gentleman…
"Funny thing is, I've been a janitor. I'm more at home in that role than as the director. Only Ahti here seems to see that."
Of course, the most prominent and well-known janitor in the RCU is Ahti. Appearing in both Control and Alan Wake 2, he always pops up in the strangest places to render assistance to our protagonist and deliver Finnish idioms. It’s common knowledge at this point that Ahti is meant to be analogous to the Finnish sea god Ahti (rendered Ahto in the Kalevala), similar to the Old Gods of Asgard with Tor and Odin. But what if I told you that our dear friend Ahti also has quite a large connection to the ever-mysterious Warlin Door? What if I told you that Ahti is a Shifter?
What is a Shifter?
For the uninitiated, the concept of a Shifter comes from Quantum Break*. They are beings who existed in a state of quantum superposition, existing in the past, present and future all at the same time. Shifters who have mastered their condition, like Martin Hatch, can shift between different timelines at will and are functionally immortal.
Warlin Door is essentially Martin Hatch in everything but name due to legal reasons. Lance Reddick was meant to play him before his untimely passing; the role being recast with David Harewood. They even share the same backstory, further cementing Door as a Shifter.
Why is this significant? It gives us necessary context to understand a common symbolism associated with Shifters, thresholds and doors. Hatch and Door are similar in meaning. In Alan Wake 2, Door compares his abilities to a door itself:
"The family of Doors have the power to shift between these realities."
"A door that stands between two rooms is in both. A door that can lead anywhere, is everywhere."
In Quantum Break, one of Paul Serene's dreams about becoming a Shifter involve door imagery:
"I recall a haunting image of seven red doors. Each door had a wrought iron handle that was dripping liquid metal onto the ground, creating a pool in the middle of the room. I looked down into the aqueous metallic glow at my feet to see my own glimmering reflection, revealing that I had aged half a lifetime. Startled, I looked back up to discover that only one door remained."
I've included this information to illustrate an important aspect of Shifters, their connection to door related symbolism and the way their ability to shift between realities functions like a door. Keeping all of that in mind, let's explore how our tango loving janitor fits into this.
(*Quantum Break is not legally part of the Remedy Connected Universe due to Microsoft owning the IP. Remedy have tried to acquire it back to no avail. It's been heavily implied, as much as they legally can, that Quantum Break is merely an alternate reality in the greater RCU multiverse. The concept of Shifters has been alluded to several times in both Control and Alan Wake 2, making it still relevant to the RCU, legality be damned.)
Ahti the Secret Shifter
Ahti is an enigma. A senile Finnish sea god who seems practically omnipresent. To illustrate why he is likely a Shifter in some sense, let's start with a bit of etymology (Remedy sure love their double meanings and wordplay). The term "janitor" comes from the Latin word Ianitor, which means doorkeeper. In antiquity, a janitor was someone who stood watch at the door.
Another term for a janitor, a custodian, is likewise associated with guarding a location. The term Ianitor draws its roots from the word Ianus, rendered as Janus in English. Janus was the Roman god associated with watching over doors, beginnings and endings. He was said to have two faces, one looking back and one looking forward, representing his connection to liminality and time itself. Which sounds exactly like a Shifter, especially Warlin Door. You can draw a direct line from the god Janus to the occupation of janitors.
Now let's look at the function Ahti serves in these games. How exactly does he help the protagonists? Almost every instance of Ahti assisting Jesse or Alan involves him opening a door to grant them passage. When Jesse first enters the Oldest House, the elevator is initially nowhere in sight. Three posters of Trench, Ahti and Darling line the wall. It's only after Jesse encounters Ahti and he directs her to go upstairs for the "interview" that the elevator appears in the lobby area. It manifests exactly where Ahti's poster was previously.
The next time Jesse encounters Ahti, she finds a door with a poster of him on it, and when she opens the door, he is in the exact same pose as the poster, once more tying him to door imagery. He gives Jesse a keycard to access the maintenance areas. During the mission "Finnish Tango", Ahti guides Jesse to the Foundation to help her traverse the Ashtray Maze. Along the way, Jesse must go through the Oceanview Motel, where she acquires a special set of janitor keys and exits the motel through the janitor's closet, which contains Ahti's mop cart. According to the FBC, no one has ever exited the motel through any door besides the Black Pyramid door, once again highlighting Ahti's unique power and ties to the idea of him acting as a doorkeeper. Once Jesse receives the cassette player from Ahti to get through the maze, she appropriately states:
"The janitor always has the keys."
In Alan Wake 2, Alan first meets Ahti after his interview with Mr. Door. He is once again behind a door with a poster of himself on it, striking the same pose as the poster. He provides Alan with the keys to open the door to the Angel Lamp. When encountered by Saga at the Valhalla Nursing Home, Ahti's room is right next to the Spiral Door that leads to Alan's Writers Room, the same door found in the Oceanview Motel. If Saga attempts to open this door, Ahti will seemingly teleport behind Saga to warn her that opening it is forbidden. Once again, we see Ahti acting as a doorkeeper.
At the very end of the game, Alan meets Ahti one last time at this same door. This time he does open the door, facilitating the defeat of the Dark Presence. In a manuscript from the Final Draft, we are also told that Ahti is responsible for helping Saga escape the Dark Place:
"The surface of a lake was a black mirror. The upside-down reflection identical, yet darker. A window into a darker world than ours. A doorway."
"A shadow fell on Cauldron Lake. Something of impossible scale loomed over it, blocking the sky. Ahti, the janitor, leaned close. Took a hold of the rim of the crater. Lifted up his janitor's bucket. The water sloshed. Swirled inside like a vortex. Gently humming a tango, he poured the water on the attic floor."
The manuscript directly refers to the water Ahti used to help Saga escape into the Writers Room as a doorway. We see in both games that Ahti is heavily associated with doors and door related imagery, and that most of his roles in helping the protagonists involve him acting as a doorkeeper (just as the original meaning of "janitor" implies). Ahti possesses the ability to teleport through space and different realities, just as Martin Hatch/Warlin Door have been shown to do. The comparisons between Door and Ahti make it clear that Ahti is likely a similar type of being to a Shifter and acts as a sort of liminal deity/guide for the various heroes of the Remedy Connected Universe.
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