THE SERIES
Half-Life: Alyx: Living Gnome Saga (also known as Half-Life: Alyx: Gnome Edition and Half-Life: Alyx but the Gnome is Too Aware) is an improv comedy/surreal horror web series by Radio TV Solutions, first streamed live on Twitch then edited down and uploaded to YouTube, similarly to their previous work Half-Life VR but the AI is Self Aware. It follows Wayne/Gordon(?) (wayneradiotv) through a gnome run of Half-Life: Alyx, the gnome run being an optional challenge in which a player picks up a garden gnome at the beginning of the game and carries it all the way to the end.
The twist is that the gnome is given a voice to make the run a bit more interesting, so it becomes both companion and annoyance to Wayne as he makes his way through the game. The kayfabe within the series is that a strange mod is the source of the gnome's voice, but behind the scenes, the gnome's voice is provided by an Uberduck text-to-speech voice, fed lines by other members of Radio TV Solutions and relayed to Wayne through a Discord bot - a very elegant system, in my own opinion.
But, see, ordinary people might watch the series, finish it, think to themselves, "That was cool and weird," and move on. Not me. The release of the finale caught me at the perfect time to make it stick to my brain, and it's made a home there. Now that I have a Neocities, I can talk all about it to no one in particular.
This page isn't intended to be a deep dive into the facts of the Living Gnome Saga Lore; it's intended to display what I like about the series and how it made me feel.
I'll be talking openly about things that could potentially spoil both the Living Gnome Saga as well as HLVR:AI, so consider this your spoiler warning. In addition, both the Living Gnome Saga itself and my analysis of it deal with mild themes of unreality, so consider this your content warning as well.
PART ONE: THE HLVR:AI CONNECTION
The Living Gnome Saga has been stated to be a spin-off of HLVR:AI that isn't not connected to it, so as a fan of both, I am taking this little factoid and running far away with it.
I won't get too in depth about HLVR:AI (I can always make another page all about it), but there are parts of the Living Gnome Saga that can be enriched by linking the two series, not to mention huge implications for the story.
For example, the gnome succeeds in doing something only attempted in HLVR:AI, which is trading realities with someone in order to leave his game. In HLVR:AI, it's Dr. Coomer who tries it, having become overcome with existential horror after realizing his world is fake. This on its own is an interesting fact, but I'd like to take it a little further.
There's a kind of equation, you could call it, that came to me after I made this connection. There are three things the gnome and Dr. Coomer have in common at the time of attempted escape: self-awareness, knowledge that their world is fake, and a desire to get out and enter the real world.
For Dr. Coomer, we know the order in which he obtains these things: he's self-aware from the beginning, learns his world is fake, and then wants to escape. When his escape attempt fails, he concedes and goes back to being Gordon's ally, still struggling with the terrible truth.
The gnome goes a different, more subtle path. The way it looks to me, the gnome always knew what his world was, but didn't have the self-awareness to see anything wrong with it at first. There's a noticable difference between how he talks in Act One versus Act Four, for example. In Act One, you could be fooled into thinking the gnome really was playing random voice lines, if only at first, but in Act Four he's much more lively and observational.
So here is my hypothesis: the gnome starts out as a very simple AI, but as the game progresses and he has more conversations with people, he learns, and as he learns, he becomes more and more self-aware. There's no obvious point in which we see the gnome start wanting to escape the game, but I think I have a pretty good guess as to where it could be.
See, the gnome knows about HLVR:AI. He talks about liking Benrey, and complains about it a bit. It's obviously the team having a bit of fun, but in the context of the Living Gnome Saga, it's very interesting to me. Again, a pretty significant part of the story in HLVR:AI is a self-aware entity within a video game wanting to escape, so if the gnome knows that and is self-aware by this point, this is probably the moment where he realizes (quietly) that he doesn't want to stay in Half-Life: Alyx. Of course, this is only a theory.
Another detail from HLVR:AI that seems to play a part in the Living Gnome Saga is the idea that these strange builds of Half-Life games are incredibly immersive. There were a couple of streams before HLVR:AI that could reasonably be called a prototype to the real deal, showing off a "VR build" of Half-Life 2 (en realidad, it was a recreation of the game in Garry's Mod). In these streams, Wayne talks about how that (ficticious) version of the game was made to be as immersive as possible. I'm aware that these streams might not be indicative of anything, but I think it's interesting how this concept of hyper immersive VR games has been there since the very start.
In HLVR:AI itself, the line between the game and reality blur, especially in Act Three when Gordon gets his hand chopped off by a military ambush. Wayne does a stellar job acting through it, but we don't get to learn whether or not this was acting both in kayfabe and out, or if we're supposed to interpret it as the game causing Wayne to feel everything Gordon would have felt.
The final commentary node in the Living Gnome Saga suggests some dodgy, supernatural actions behind the scenes by this story's version of Valve. This particular bit of the lore intrigues me greatly, and seems to pave the way for the more surreal parts of both HLVR:AI and the Living Gnome Saga.
PART TWO: GAME WORLD OR REAL WORLD
Something that piqued my curiousity is how in Act Four of the Living Gnome Saga, when the gnome first gets his gun and shoots Wayne with it, he reacts with real pain (well, "real". Again, he's an excellent actor), not the annoyance he'd react with when he'd take damage before. This is one of the only times this happens, and it reminded me of the military ambush in HLVR:AI.
There would have been another strange instance like this in the form of a gag that sadly malfunctioned. Earlier in the livestream, Wayne would have "eaten" a cigarette at the gnome's request, and later on, would suddenly feel unwell and cough it up. It ended up not happening due to a keybind not working, but the very concept of it makes the gears in my head turn. It's important to note that this was not on the cutting room floor; this was supposed to happen, but didn't due to technical difficulties.
It's this repeated scenario of something happening within the game that causes the player to feel it in reality. Like something out of a creepypasta.
This culminates in something that happens as the gnome traps Wayne within the game. After the hijacked Vault sequence, Wayne takes off the headset and disconnects from the game. If the gnome obeyed the laws of reality, he wouldn't be able to do anything to him by that point, but you know better by now, don't you? When Wayne walks out of his VR room, he walks right back into the virtual world and meets the gnome again.
I must cast aside the professional demeanor here:
THIS PART MAKES ME GO CRAZY!!! HOLY HELL!!! what do i even say? i absolutely ADORE stuff like this. this sort of... not surreal horror, per se, but surreal DREAD. and i love stories that do this kind of crazy reality-bending stuff. stepping into a real door and coming out of a fake one is THE. GOOD. SHIT.
and this is just a me thing, but i also really like the song Goodnight, My Beautiful by Russ Morgan, and i was ECSTATIC to realize that was the song that was playing. i was also ecstatic to discover there was a version with LYRICS!! i listen to it all the time now. i also really like how the HORNS KICK IN RIGHT AT THE END OF THE HALL!! they're so loud and a bit overwhelming and it is PERFECT FOR THE SCENE! and the spooky shadow?? i'm not even sure what the deal is with that but i adore it too. the whole hallway scene is Adored By Chavez. put that on a certificate.
Ahem.
This particular moment solidifies the idea in my mind that these weird versions of Half-Life games are capable of blurring the line between the game world and the real world, or even creating an overlap, which is just such a cool concept to me. It makes me very excited for whatever Radio TV Solutions has is store next for their funny Half-Life series.
PART THREE: Alone.
Speaking of the gnome escaping the game, that fascinates me too. Most of the Living Gnome Saga is silly and played for comedy, which makes it all the more noticable when things get serious, which brings me to the Wayne gnome.
The gnome doesn't just escape Half-Life: Alyx. He takes Wayne's place in reality, and in return, Wayne takes his place in Half-Life as an inanimate gnome (in Half-Life 2 instead of Half-Life: Alyx, weirdly enough). Unlike him, the Wayne gnome doesn't do anything. It doesn't talk, it can't explode, and it doesn't even have any meters. What I want to focus on here is how the gnome reacts to this.
Small tangent, something that's worth mentioning is that throughout the entire series, the gnome talks about various activities he'd like to do and places he'd like to go that you cannot do in Half-Life: Alyx. He talks about going to too many restaurants to count, he talks about playing other video games, and he even mentions going bowling early in Act One (as a joke, most likely, but let me cook). I must reiterate, these things he wants to do cannot be done in Half-Life: Alyx. The only way he could do any of these things is by escaping the game.
So it seems very significant to me that even when he does escape, he doesn't do these things. The gnome really tries to get the Wayne gnome to talk to him or do anything at all, and he eventually declares that he'll just play Half-Life 2 alone.
Alone.
He fixates on this word specifically.
The way I see it, even though he's closer to realizing his dreams than ever before, he finds himself right back where he was at the start. He's still on his own, with his only ally/enemy/friend in a different reality than him. Even if he is technically free now, what freedom awaits him? He may be able to enjoy what the outside has to offer - the trees, the sunlight, the knowledge that he is real - but his friend was such a constant presence in his artificial life. Can he truly enjoy the life he's earned while knowing that he stole it from his only true friend?
It's hardly any wonder, when you consider all this, that he chooses to give it all up and return to the uncertain doom that awaits him back home, where his game has ended. Existing in this reality was the thing he wanted the most, this wonderful dream, but it wasn't worth damning his only friend for.
I know that the gnome was not created with the intention to be the incredibly tragic character I am interpreting him to be, but that's the power of improv and a love of telling stories, babey! It's because so much was left up to interpretation that I adore this series as much as I do. I have nothing but respect for Radio TV Solutions for creating it.
PART FOUR: GNOME MIRROR
If I wasn't who-knows-how-many words deep into a braindump of my thoughts on this series, I might hesitate to say that going back and rewatching it, I found myself relating to the gnome in a strange way.
This might feel like a sharp turn into left field, but just allow it to go there. A big part of my reasoning for making this Neocities in the first place is that I want to get back to doing what I love, because for some time before this, I was not doing a damn thing. Day after day, I'd only do what was compulsory and then go home. An overwhelming majority of my time in high school went by this way with almost nothing to show for it.
The feeling of time barely changing you, to be getting older but not really growing up is just... strange. I must have been thinking about this with the gnome on the brain, because I ended up connecting my experience with what the gnome might have felt when the game was turned off and left alone for a year. When I made this connection, I surprised myself. It was a weird and specific thing to relate to, and a bit of a reach at that.
But I had more reaches to make. Throughout the series, the gnome talks about wanting to go to various restaurants, and that struck a weirder, more specific chord with me. Allow me to ramble to you.
In my mind, food is like a metaphor for life. Like food, life can be a rich, enjoyable experience some days - like a particularly good meal - and achingly bland other days - like something you've eaten too many times in succession. This is something unique to my personal experience, but I found myself linking it to the gnome specifically wanting to go to restaurants.
Going to a restaurant can be a wonderful experience, whether you're going with company or by your lonesome, and it's a prime example of leaving your home to enjoy what's out there. The desire to leave home and enjoy what's out there is what defines the gnome, at least in my interpretation. Of course if he wanted to eat anywhere, it'd be at a restaurant!
This one is a little different, but the gnome wanting to escape into the real world made me think too. In a story like this, and like the creepypastas before it, you'd think that the paranormal entity haunting your video game would have some sort of nefarious plan for when it'd break out, but the gnome doesn't really have one. He hijacks Wayne's livestream to play Half-Life 2, but he doesn't make any effort to steal Wayne's identity - just his place in this reality.
I was thinking about this one day when I was struck by the realization: the gnome didn't have a big plan, he just wanted to be real.
I've already talked about that, but I found myself relating to this silly gnome again. It's not the exact same, but the distance between being stuck haunting a video game and being a lonely high schooler is surprisingly easy to bridge with imagination. The feeling of life - real life, not the slog you're stuck in - being just out of your reach and longing for it more than anything...
Well, some say that art reveals more about the viewer than the artist, and what is Half-Life: Alyx: Living Gnome Saga if not a strange, surreal, wonderful work of art?
The Living Gnome Saga wasn't intended to be thought-provoking. It's made by people who make things for the sake of telling fun stories and making each other laugh, and I think that's part of the reason why I connected with it so much. It's plain old honest fun, and I just happened to be the person who could connect with it on a personal level.
PART FIVE: MY TAKEAWAY
I started making this because I wanted to make a page about something I like, but somewhere along the line I tripped and fell face first into a realization about art and connection and perspective, all because of a gnome that likes cigarettes.
I really like the Living Gnome Saga. Every so often I watch the whole thing start to finish, and I think about how cool it is that it became what it is now. It didn't start out trying to be outstanding, it just started out trying to be fun, and it was.
One of the things I see nowadays that tends to bog down modern media is this desire to make it appeal to everybody. Trying to do this and stay true to yourself is not feasible, which is another reason I respect this series so much.
This series, which takes itself seriously only some of the time, made me self-reflect like no other piece of media has, and there's something really funny about that. It's more than funny, though - it's singularly unique. The series is unapologetically itself, in all its silly, horrifying, heartbreaking glory, and that is the key aspect that makes me love it so much.
Half-Life: Alyx: Living Gnome Saga doesn't hold back to appeal to as many people as possible. It just starts strong, doesn't stop, and it found its audience. That is its thesis.
postscript
i think that's about all from me! i'm aware this whole thing might be a big ol' nothingburger, but it's my big ol' nothingburger, and you weren't gonna find it anywhere else. i had a good time writing it and talking about one of my favorite youtube shows.