BeatTheGG
The true last hope.
Okay this topic is made in direct response to @LEON.S.KENNEDY
While I am a fan of Resident Evil, I am also a die hard fan of the core Silent Hill games. Brace yourselves because it's going to be a long one...
I want to make somethings about Silent Hill clear-
Silent Hill's focus is on the supernatural not the paranormal. The only title that can really fit that description is Downpour. However the original titles? Not so much. At most you could say there is a spiritual energy looming over the town related to the Natives and the gods they worshiped way back when they inhabited said lands.
However at no point during the core games are there ghostly happenings in the typical sense.
In Silent Hill, these "happenings" of strange occurrences are not always directly tied to the protagonist. In fact that has only really happened once and that was with James Sunderland from SH2. As for the residences of Silent Hill, there aren't really many by the time SH 1 kicks off. Silent Hill is a small resort town located in Maine that has been over run by cultist. The boating incident had driven tourist away and hurt its economy. Stories about the cultist running around are usually kept secret however and after the events of SH 1 and during SH2, reconstruction begins in an attempt to have things flourishing again.
Now back to the "tied to the protagonist" bit in a bit as I feel this next one is important-
(As seen in SH1)
She's the epicenter the these otherworld occurrences. I don't really see what zombies and monsters have to do with anything but... okay? What needs to be said here is that Silent Hill Origins plot falls completely flat for a number of reasons. Of course this was the first western attempt at a Silent Hill and sadly it failed at fitting itself into canon comfortably. There are a plethora of inconsistencies and plot holes that really hurt it. Here's a synopsis for SH1:
Here's what we learn about Alessa in SH1. Alessa is the seven year old daughter of one of the cults biggest influences, Dahlia Gillespie. Alessa never had a happy childhood and was a social outcast from most of the children in her school. However what she did have were heightened sense that made her borderline psychic. What the cultist were on a mission to do was bring about the birth of their god by influencing the spiritual energy that already exists in Silent Hill along with their own use of black magic so to speak. However manipulating the towns energy proved too difficult. This is where things get twisted. Seeing that her daughter had powers of her own, Dahlia came up with an idea that would proved successful. They'll use Alessa as an incubator by impregnating her with a demons seed, and slowly allow it feed off of her suffering til maturity. They preformed the ritual in the Gillespie home in their basement. However what they didn't count on was Alessa's powers to go haywire caused by her stress level. This caused the boiler in their basement to explode! As well as destroy their home and set an entire neighborhood ablaze. Alessa nearly died and Dahlia's plan nearly failed. However being the quick thinker, Dahlia had a plan B. Meanwhile Alessa is hospitalized suffering third degree burns all over her body. One of the nurses that was taking care of her was Lisa Garland, a young 23 year old woman with a soft heart. She did the best she could to make things comfortable for Alessa while she was there and Alessa appreciated her for that, however what Lisa saw shook her world... then things got bad. As for Dahlia's plan B, the truth of the matter is Alessa would in fact be dead. Lisa laments that Alessa's pulse was faint, everytime she removed the bandages blood and pus would come oozing out. The truth was Dahlia and here followers were using black magic to sustain Alessa long enough for her to birth their god, then they wouldn't need her anymore. However Alessa was cunning and was one step ahead of them. Using her psychic powers she was able to split her soul in half during the fire and transferred it to the edge of the town and out of Dahlia's line of sight. The purpose of this was that now Alessa was half a shell of a human being and that subsequently split made their god only half of an entity as well so feeding off of Alessa's powers would be impossible. This angered Dahlia who had to come up with yet another plan to nourish their god until they can find the other half. They decided to place Alessa in a never ending nightmare while she lay comatose. This torture would keep their god alive and well for the time being, however this sadly continued for 7 years. As for the other half? Well Alessa put it in the form of a baby and left it on the outskirts. Harry Mason (an inspired novelist) and wife happened to be heading to Silent Hill for a vacation when they spotted the infant by the side of the road. They pick her up and head back home to alert the authorities. For the next 7 years, Harry would raise this child as his own daughter and after the passing of his wife decides to finally take that vacation they were to take 7 years ago only this time, bring his daughter. This was Harry's biggest mistake. You see his daughter was an aspect of Alessa. One half layed in a coma while the other was safely away from the town. However now that Harry had crossed the bordering line, things were about to change. The spell that left Alessa in a nightmare didn't affect the other half until now however. Because she was conscious and walking around the nightmare wasn't dormant to just her mind. This finally triggered the towns energy and Alessa's nightmare spread across the entire town shifting reality into her deepest, darkest, dreams. At this point it was a race. Dahlia finally had her chance to reunite the two halves and finish what she started. Alessa had her own plans. First seal the town off from the rest of the world using the seal of metatron keeping the cultist away from the rest of the world. Next commit suicide to end both her suffering and to keep their plans from ever coming true. No happy beginnings no happy endings :sad: Harry crashes his car. When he comes to, he notices his daughter is missing. Upon exiting the car and entering the fog, Harry had just gotten himself tangled up in a struggle that was way over his head. Despite the weirdness Harry fights his way through the hordes of monsters in a desperate attempt to find his daughter. Dahlia finds Harry first and sees he's quite competent in fighting off the monsters and decides that she'll manipulate Harry and use him as a trump card to beat Alessa.
And so it goes...
Origins is meant to take place during the 7 years before SH1 and tells us things differently.
I still get chocked up at this scene even today. :sad:
The beauty of the Silent Hill games is the subtle use of symbolism to tell their stories. I'll get to the Henry part but first I want to tackle the otherworld thing. The term "otherworld" is an umbrella term completely fabricated by Harry Mason (not umbrella as in resident evil of course) If you notice, no one else calls it that. You could easily replace the word "otherworld" with the term "nightmare transition". Harry explains exactly what's going on here in a few short sentences.
The nightmares in each of the four games are all different and as a result never recycle monsters. In the first game the nightmare belongs to Alessa
and is directly tied to her fears and phobias. In the second game Alessa is dead and the effects of that game still linger. Though the power is nowhere near as strong as it was in the first game, the town now has the ability to call out to people with darkness in their hearts and who have past ties to it. The nightmare in the second game starts off as just James'.
Each figure including Maria (a sexier version of his wife) and The red pyramid thing, each represent his repressed transgressions and guilt. It is when he comes to terms that the pyramid head kills itself since it is no longer needed. In the third game we follow Heather Mason, daughter of Harry Mason and another aspect of Alessa that got to live her own life after Alessa and Dahlia's passing. However over the 17 years the cult had been picking themselves up and with a new face, move their plans. Heather being a reincarnation, thus means the god within her is also reincarnated. This time around Claudia Wolf
in exchange for her eternal damnation once paradise is found, uses her faith to awaken the dorment seed within Heather. As a result the nightmare sequences are directly tied to her and Alessa's past experiences. And finally in the fourth title, we have Walter Sullivan.
Walter is a homeless religious fanatic and was raised in the orphanage that the cultist used as a camp to raise children to follow their teachings. Walter was born in South Ashfield apartments where the protagonist Henry stays. He made his life following Dahlia's teachings via the act of murder. The deal was to separate their body and soul which represent a certain item that is required to bring about a demon that represents Walters mother. Instead of impregnation of a person he used South Ashfield as a surrogate. All the strange reality shifting come from his darkest dreams which is why he's able to pull people from their conscious mind while they sleep into his own, where he continues his hunt and live despite being dead in real life.
The truth is Henry doesn't enter any actual holes. Pay close to the dialogue in SH4 as it's one of the most misleading. Henry wakes up after every travel because he physically hasn't gone anywhere. People can't hear him in his apartment because the reality shifting nightmare still applies here. When Cynthia is sleeping in the subway, her mind enters Walters dream and her murders her there. Her body dies and her soul gets to stay forever in his nightmare. The symbolism is quite effective. The apartment is the womb and the hole Henry crawls out of represents birth as it plays a huge role with Walters backstory.
Hope I cleared some things up. Sorry it's so long. Feel free to ask or challenge anything you don't agree on. I'm a Silent Hill fanatic and I love discussing it.
While I am a fan of Resident Evil, I am also a die hard fan of the core Silent Hill games. Brace yourselves because it's going to be a long one...
I want to make somethings about Silent Hill clear-
On the contrary my friend. Evil spirits are not haunting the town. What ever gave you that idea?
Silent Hill's focus is on the supernatural not the paranormal. The only title that can really fit that description is Downpour. However the original titles? Not so much. At most you could say there is a spiritual energy looming over the town related to the Natives and the gods they worshiped way back when they inhabited said lands.
However at no point during the core games are there ghostly happenings in the typical sense.
Okay this is a misconception I see all too often. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that the strange happenings are all linked to the protagonists of these games. I want to make something abundantly clear. I'm going to only be focusing on the core games here and talk about the spin offs afterwards because the core games SH1, 2, 3 and 4 The Room, were made by the same staff.
In Silent Hill, these "happenings" of strange occurrences are not always directly tied to the protagonist. In fact that has only really happened once and that was with James Sunderland from SH2. As for the residences of Silent Hill, there aren't really many by the time SH 1 kicks off. Silent Hill is a small resort town located in Maine that has been over run by cultist. The boating incident had driven tourist away and hurt its economy. Stories about the cultist running around are usually kept secret however and after the events of SH 1 and during SH2, reconstruction begins in an attempt to have things flourishing again.
Now back to the "tied to the protagonist" bit in a bit as I feel this next one is important-
That little girl is Alessa Gillespie.
(As seen in SH1)
She's the epicenter the these otherworld occurrences. I don't really see what zombies and monsters have to do with anything but... okay? What needs to be said here is that Silent Hill Origins plot falls completely flat for a number of reasons. Of course this was the first western attempt at a Silent Hill and sadly it failed at fitting itself into canon comfortably. There are a plethora of inconsistencies and plot holes that really hurt it. Here's a synopsis for SH1:
Here's what we learn about Alessa in SH1. Alessa is the seven year old daughter of one of the cults biggest influences, Dahlia Gillespie. Alessa never had a happy childhood and was a social outcast from most of the children in her school. However what she did have were heightened sense that made her borderline psychic. What the cultist were on a mission to do was bring about the birth of their god by influencing the spiritual energy that already exists in Silent Hill along with their own use of black magic so to speak. However manipulating the towns energy proved too difficult. This is where things get twisted. Seeing that her daughter had powers of her own, Dahlia came up with an idea that would proved successful. They'll use Alessa as an incubator by impregnating her with a demons seed, and slowly allow it feed off of her suffering til maturity. They preformed the ritual in the Gillespie home in their basement. However what they didn't count on was Alessa's powers to go haywire caused by her stress level. This caused the boiler in their basement to explode! As well as destroy their home and set an entire neighborhood ablaze. Alessa nearly died and Dahlia's plan nearly failed. However being the quick thinker, Dahlia had a plan B. Meanwhile Alessa is hospitalized suffering third degree burns all over her body. One of the nurses that was taking care of her was Lisa Garland, a young 23 year old woman with a soft heart. She did the best she could to make things comfortable for Alessa while she was there and Alessa appreciated her for that, however what Lisa saw shook her world... then things got bad. As for Dahlia's plan B, the truth of the matter is Alessa would in fact be dead. Lisa laments that Alessa's pulse was faint, everytime she removed the bandages blood and pus would come oozing out. The truth was Dahlia and here followers were using black magic to sustain Alessa long enough for her to birth their god, then they wouldn't need her anymore. However Alessa was cunning and was one step ahead of them. Using her psychic powers she was able to split her soul in half during the fire and transferred it to the edge of the town and out of Dahlia's line of sight. The purpose of this was that now Alessa was half a shell of a human being and that subsequently split made their god only half of an entity as well so feeding off of Alessa's powers would be impossible. This angered Dahlia who had to come up with yet another plan to nourish their god until they can find the other half. They decided to place Alessa in a never ending nightmare while she lay comatose. This torture would keep their god alive and well for the time being, however this sadly continued for 7 years. As for the other half? Well Alessa put it in the form of a baby and left it on the outskirts. Harry Mason (an inspired novelist) and wife happened to be heading to Silent Hill for a vacation when they spotted the infant by the side of the road. They pick her up and head back home to alert the authorities. For the next 7 years, Harry would raise this child as his own daughter and after the passing of his wife decides to finally take that vacation they were to take 7 years ago only this time, bring his daughter. This was Harry's biggest mistake. You see his daughter was an aspect of Alessa. One half layed in a coma while the other was safely away from the town. However now that Harry had crossed the bordering line, things were about to change. The spell that left Alessa in a nightmare didn't affect the other half until now however. Because she was conscious and walking around the nightmare wasn't dormant to just her mind. This finally triggered the towns energy and Alessa's nightmare spread across the entire town shifting reality into her deepest, darkest, dreams. At this point it was a race. Dahlia finally had her chance to reunite the two halves and finish what she started. Alessa had her own plans. First seal the town off from the rest of the world using the seal of metatron keeping the cultist away from the rest of the world. Next commit suicide to end both her suffering and to keep their plans from ever coming true. No happy beginnings no happy endings :sad: Harry crashes his car. When he comes to, he notices his daughter is missing. Upon exiting the car and entering the fog, Harry had just gotten himself tangled up in a struggle that was way over his head. Despite the weirdness Harry fights his way through the hordes of monsters in a desperate attempt to find his daughter. Dahlia finds Harry first and sees he's quite competent in fighting off the monsters and decides that she'll manipulate Harry and use him as a trump card to beat Alessa.
And so it goes...
Origins is meant to take place during the 7 years before SH1 and tells us things differently.
- It tells us that Dahlia burns down her house with Alessa inside an attempt to further the ritual. This is false as that would work contrary to what Dahlia wanted. It also doesn't make any sense as external stimulus was never a factor. Heck she was going to die if not for being kept on magical life support.
- It tells us that the otherworld was around during the 7 years before SH1 and even Travis' mother sees glimpses of it when she stares into a mirror. This is also not possible as the otherworld didn't exist until Alessa's aspect i.e Harry's daughter, Cheryl, had returned to the town.
- It tells us that the monsters are somehow related to Travis. This again isn't possible and doesn't make sense.
- It tells us Alessa is in fact evil, can turn transfer people to the nightmare at will and spreads the nightmare maliciously. This is not only false but also not possible. The nightmare and reality shifting of the town was in fact an accident on Alessa's part. She can't drag people into it as it was a part of the spell she is placed under in the first place, not a direct result of her powers. In other words she doesn't have control over it.
- It tells us Alessa has another projection running around to help Travis. This isn't possible as the splitting can only happen once she split her soul asunder and she doesn't do that until the end of the game. This image of Alessa is just a walking plothole.
- It tells us that Lisa Garland is a 16 year old nurse at the time she was helping Alessa in the hospital. This is hilariously untrue and I know exactly how they got that impression. During Harry's travels in SH1, during the nightmare transitions, he meets Lisa at the hospital who for some reason seems to be the only person there. She appears normal and is stated to be 23 years old. She never leaves and she doesn't know what's going on. There's a very good reason for this. Lisa Garland has been dead for 7 years. For you see the only way she could deal with the stress over the Alessa situation was drugs. Lisa was a drug addict. Dr. Kaufmann in exchange for her cooperation feeds her the "white claudia" drug (which is what his team sold to the tourists during a drug ring). However the longer she stayed the more dependent on it she became. Lisa at age 23, overdosed and died when Alessa was still 7 years old. Present day Alessa is now 14 and the Lisa Harry meets is nothing more than a memory of her that exists only in Alessa's nightmare. When things start getting really bad she becomes... well...
I still get chocked up at this scene even today. :sad:
- Origins tells us that Kaufmann also gave Lisa the drug in exchange for sex. This is hilariously untrue. It was an even trade of hospital work for drugs. Without it Lisa would have left a long time ago and told the authorities what was going on. Sex never came up.
- It tells us that there was a second ritual after the fire that takes place behind the antique shop (that Harry and Cybil later find) and this is where the soul split happened. This is in fact false. There was only one attempt and it failed due to the boiler explosion. Alessa took advantage of the fire to split her soul.
- Origins also shows us the Flauros is a physical demon that can just come out and attack people for whatever reason. This isn't how it worked in SH1. Flauros (like many other things) are based on real world occultism and religious subtext. The Flauros is used to break ones power like when Dahlia uses it.
Umm... you did play Silent Hill 2 right? If so you should know that Mary never sent James a letter from beyond the grave. In fact there was no letter. It was the towns way of messing with James' head and to get him to come. Mary is long dead and James needs to face what he had done.
Alright here we go. This is where things get complicated and also this is where I pick back up from the "tied to the protagonist" bit from earlier.
The beauty of the Silent Hill games is the subtle use of symbolism to tell their stories. I'll get to the Henry part but first I want to tackle the otherworld thing. The term "otherworld" is an umbrella term completely fabricated by Harry Mason (not umbrella as in resident evil of course) If you notice, no one else calls it that. You could easily replace the word "otherworld" with the term "nightmare transition". Harry explains exactly what's going on here in a few short sentences.
The nightmares in each of the four games are all different and as a result never recycle monsters. In the first game the nightmare belongs to Alessa
and is directly tied to her fears and phobias. In the second game Alessa is dead and the effects of that game still linger. Though the power is nowhere near as strong as it was in the first game, the town now has the ability to call out to people with darkness in their hearts and who have past ties to it. The nightmare in the second game starts off as just James'.
Each figure including Maria (a sexier version of his wife) and The red pyramid thing, each represent his repressed transgressions and guilt. It is when he comes to terms that the pyramid head kills itself since it is no longer needed. In the third game we follow Heather Mason, daughter of Harry Mason and another aspect of Alessa that got to live her own life after Alessa and Dahlia's passing. However over the 17 years the cult had been picking themselves up and with a new face, move their plans. Heather being a reincarnation, thus means the god within her is also reincarnated. This time around Claudia Wolf
in exchange for her eternal damnation once paradise is found, uses her faith to awaken the dorment seed within Heather. As a result the nightmare sequences are directly tied to her and Alessa's past experiences. And finally in the fourth title, we have Walter Sullivan.
Walter is a homeless religious fanatic and was raised in the orphanage that the cultist used as a camp to raise children to follow their teachings. Walter was born in South Ashfield apartments where the protagonist Henry stays. He made his life following Dahlia's teachings via the act of murder. The deal was to separate their body and soul which represent a certain item that is required to bring about a demon that represents Walters mother. Instead of impregnation of a person he used South Ashfield as a surrogate. All the strange reality shifting come from his darkest dreams which is why he's able to pull people from their conscious mind while they sleep into his own, where he continues his hunt and live despite being dead in real life.
The truth is Henry doesn't enter any actual holes. Pay close to the dialogue in SH4 as it's one of the most misleading. Henry wakes up after every travel because he physically hasn't gone anywhere. People can't hear him in his apartment because the reality shifting nightmare still applies here. When Cynthia is sleeping in the subway, her mind enters Walters dream and her murders her there. Her body dies and her soul gets to stay forever in his nightmare. The symbolism is quite effective. The apartment is the womb and the hole Henry crawls out of represents birth as it plays a huge role with Walters backstory.
Hope I cleared some things up. Sorry it's so long. Feel free to ask or challenge anything you don't agree on. I'm a Silent Hill fanatic and I love discussing it.
