Silent Hill Discussion

[Eccles]

mmmm.

Getting the videos still...this sites download speed sucks ass.

[Straziante]

Hmm It seems more people are interested in SH1 and SH3. I guess there's no love for SH2, which is my favorite of the 3.

[Night10194]

I'd be very interested in it, if I had a PS2 to play it.

[Night10194]

Oh, and on the questions on the plot...Silent Hill 1: What the hell is it about?

Well...I have my own crazed theory, which may only exist because of what I myself am writing...

But I don't think a single damned whit of it was real. The conflict with Alyessa and all, yes, that's probably there (If only due to the existance of SH3)...but what happens to Harry isn't. I know that sounds odd, but...Harry is a 32 year old man who's never fired a gun before in his life, never had to fight for his life before. Yet he presses on into this nightmarish hell, fighting for his life and sanity the whole way, to save his beloved daughter. Hurrah for him, I say, but I don't buy that he could possibly succeed. The odds are too far gone against him. However...if you accept the theory that this fight is going on outside of normal reality, that it's taking place in some crazed nightmare of a dream, than his success becomes infinitely more feasible.

Yes, there are chinks in this idea. One of the main ones is actually the existance of Cybil. But that's easily explained: Remember the empty bike in the beginning? There WAS a blood-stain next to it. Cybil took a wrong turn and had a nasty fall. That's all. But Harry remembered seeing her, and thought it plausible that she'd be in the town, too. However, as he saw in the beginning of his nightmare, he's going to need weapons etc to survive. Lo! Here comes Cybil in the cafe, handing him a pistol and telling him how to use it! Convienant, no? After all, wasn't that HER gun? But, now armed, Harry is free to make his attempt to rescue his daughter from the nightmare he's suffering.

I know, crazy theory. I'll play a bit more and see if I can come up with something more solid. Must earn my English Nerd status somehow, and lord knows there's enough in this plot to do it with.

[Eccles]

Harry is a 32 year old man who's never fired a gun before in his life, never had to fight for his life before. Yet he presses on into this nightmarish hell, fighting for his life and sanity the whole way, to save his beloved daughter.

Which is why I came up with the theory that the first time you play silent hill isnt the first time Harry goes through silent hill.

I also suggested this because of the eerie calm that harry has throughout (and all the other characters in General...only Thesally Lerner did a good job of making lisa sound actually scared)

I mean, think about it...giant bird thing kicks all the windows of your building in then attacks you and youre forced to gun it down and all you do is stand there and go "...this isnt a dream!"

There is an old theory..."Hell is repetition" (made popular in the movie 'Lost highway'. If you enjoy being messed with psychologically, this is the one for you).

So following the hell-purgatory-heaven idea (silent hill 1 is about punishment, silent hill 2 is about forgiveness, silent hill 3 is about pleasure) its natural to assume that Harry is in Hell (in fact, several places in the school say so. "Notice:Hell is coming" "Notice: YOURE IN HELL") and that he's doomed to repeat the same thing over and over, with no real memory of it.

You could also theorise that this is what the deal with Next Fear is. Harry thinks he's out of hell...but no, he wakes up and he's right back in the middle of it.

On an entirely unrelated note...what in the holy hell is the final boss of SH2 about?

I figured it might be representative of a couple of things...the pyramid heads torture rack, a hospital bed and a coffin...but that still doesnt really explain why its flying upside down, hurling vortexs of bats everywhere...its just crazy)

[The Tragic Prince]

I'd be very interested in it, if I had a PS2 to play it.

That shouldn't be a problem if you have a good PC. Finding it is going to be your problem. I found my copy used in EB Games for $15(I wasn't really looking for it, though), but that was the only time I've seen it.

[StarZander]

On an entirely unrelated note...what in the holy hell is the final boss of SH2 about?

I figured it might be representative of a couple of things...the pyramid heads torture rack, a hospital bed and a coffin...but that still doesnt really explain why its flying upside down, hurling vortexs of bats everywhere...its just crazy)

Well, I've only faced it once... But... I don't think that i's attacks are supposed to have a purpose. Maybe that's just his worst thought's about what could happen to... uh... spoiler. Won't say who. But you know.

[Eccles]

I'll stick with the coffin idea...

[Night10194]

There's PC Silent Hill! Hurrah! Tis madness and joy and more macabre madness and horror! I shall try to find it as soon as I can. I'm really looking forward to 2 and 3.

Oh, and on the note of the idea that it isn't the first time Harry has been in Silent Hill...didn't he go there with his daughter for vacations and things before? Perhaps...perhaps he doesn't REALLY remember, but he already has seen similar hell and horror the previous times he visited? And in the back of his subconscious, he knows he's seen it all before?

And I don't buy the idea of the Next Fear games having anything to do with Harry's experiences, honestly. I understand the logic, but it just rubs me the wrong way to think the poor fellow has no way out. Ever.

And as to the White Claudia angle, it just cannot be discounted...especially considering Lisa's experiences with it and the descriptions of things like the faucets dripping pus and blood. However...the fact that he encounters Kauffman and Lisa (Whom he didn't know) bespeaks that he isn't just hopped up on White Claudia. After all, where else would they come from?

But the one thing that I can't get over...he died in that dark alleyway. How the hell did he suddenly wake up in the cafe, fine? Hmmm...

[NightWish]

Silent Hill hmm? Well, I'm too scared to play those kinds of games (Except Resident Evil 2 and Eternal Darkness.. that was almost like an action/shooter game. still freaky at times though)

I can't say that I like the gameplay elements in Silent Hill though.. like most survival horror games, the gameplay itself usually isn't the selling point..

But the series IS spooky though.. lots of witches and summoning demons and such.

[Doulifée]

On an entirely unrelated note...what in the holy hell is the final boss of SH2 about?

I figured it might be representative of a couple of things...the pyramid heads torture rack, a hospital bed and a coffin...but that still doesnt really explain why its flying upside down, hurling vortexs of bats everywhere...its just crazy)

This scene is symbolic of his wife Mary, and the lifeless dead body (Mary, as

her husband seemed to view her) that lay in bed when she was ill. A butterfly

is a creature of beauty and freedom, much like how James viewed his wife, yet

the illness has destroyed these qualities (at least superficially, but

gradually with time depression destroys a person's inner beauty. Not the soul,

the essence of the person though). Thus, the butterfly depicts the death of a

beautiful creature. One as well, which shouldn't remain caged but should be

free to fly as it wished (the empty cages).

------------I found this on a plot faqs somewhere .

[Eccles]

There's PC Silent Hill! Hurrah! Tis madness and joy and more macabre madness and horror! I shall try to find it as soon as I can. I'm really looking forward to 2 and 3.

SH3 is pretty disappointing...but the UFO ending to that game is the best cut-scene in recorded history.

"That does it...Im going to silent hill...and IM GONNA BUST SOME HEADS!"

"Now, lets all sing the silent hill song! #Silent hiiiiill, no utaaaaa, minna de utaouuuuuu!#"

(I have GOT to find the sheet music to that and play it with claire...its too ballbreakingly hilarious to pass up)

Oh, and on the note of the idea that it isn't the first time Harry has been in Silent Hill...didn't he go there with his daughter for vacations and things before? Perhaps...perhaps he doesn't REALLY remember, but he already has seen similar hell and horror the previous times he visited? And in the back of his subconscious, he knows he's seen it all before?

Now...when you think about it, that makes much more sense.

And as to the White Claudia angle, it just cannot be discounted...especially considering Lisa's experiences with it and the descriptions of things like the faucets dripping pus and blood. However...the fact that he encounters Kauffman and Lisa (Whom he didn't know) bespeaks that he isn't just hopped up on White Claudia. After all, where else would they come from?

Alessa.

You've got the wrong end of the stick, here...everything in silent hill is Alessas doing.

The floors all over alternative silent hill are metal grating...just like in alessas room. Everything is burned...just like Alessas home.

Even the people who appear in silent hill are related to alessa in some way.

Dhalia and Kauffman are responsible for her being burned. You see them in the next to last cut-scene when you witness Dhalia, Kauffman and three doctors standing round Alessas bed.

Those three doctors...there's two theories as to what happened to them.

1) Theyre the three doctors you fight when you go round Alchemilla (there are only three doctors, but a myriad of nurses)

2) Theyre the corpses hanging on the walls (in the teaser, the school toilet and the boat hallway). There's another theory as to these little guys, but Ill come to that after.

I get the feeling that Lisa was dead to begin with. She only appears in the alternative silent hill (as i said, everything Alessa knows is in the alternative silent hill) and she doesnt leave the hospital. She never says why, but I get the feeling that its because Alessa doesnt know about Lisa other than in the one room of the hospital...think about it. Throughout the game, Lisa NEVER leaves the consulting room because thats how Alessa knew her...the kind nurse who looked after her in that room. The only time Lisa DOES leave the room is when she turns up in nowhere...and you can see how fragile Alessas creation is because you kill her, just by pushing her away (She doesnt bleed to death for no reason...watch the scene again. Harry pushes lisa away and bashes her head against the wall. This causes massive bleeding from a gaping head wound. Lisa doesnt become a Zombie nurse, she doesnt have the brain leech that all the others do, she just becomes doused in blood)

This also explains why Lisa kills Kauffman and not Harry in the ending sequence.

Even though Harry killed Lisa, she's still being controlled by Alessa...who wants everyone who tried to hurt her to end up dead.

Thats why she burns Dhalia to death (kind of an eye-for-an-eye dealie), Thats why she has Lisa kill Kauffman, Thats why she has Harry kill himself (in the bad endings, Harry makes no effort to escape and just sits there, dying in the fire-rain). (to a lesser extent, it could explain why she made the children in the school into bug-demons...she was jealous of them, so she made it so you can kill them...a theory my friend suggested is that in the alternative silent hill, everything is the same as normal, its just you cant see it. Like the fire-stairs in SH2)

The other theory I came up with is concerned with the corpse in the school.

Think about it...throughout the game, youre given clues as to what to do. The paper telling you to go to the school, the paper telling you to check the doghouse, the location of the three Keys (a nice little wizard of Oz reference, there).

And when you get into the school, these notes arent written in pen, theyre written in blood...same deal with the bloody keys on the piano.

You find a whole pile of empty health drink containers in the passageway to the alternative school, then, when you find the corpse in the toilet, you get one last clue (LEONARD RHYMES, THE MONSTER LURKS) then the clues stop dead.

I think that that corpse was one of the doctors who was in charge of monitoring alessa in the hospital who decided he'd had enough of it, took his gun and went on the run...like harry.

Except Alessa got him and murdered him.

Then stuck drips in him as an idea as to how futile they are to a burned corpse (Look at it in 1st person view. The body in the toilet has two IV-Drips attached to its waist)

I could say the same about the other two corpses that hang like that, but there are ZERO clues to point to why they are there...simply as gross-out tactics I suppose.

As for the SH1 glitches...if you find the apparition near to the merry-go-round and splash it with the red-liquid then you get a fucked up cut-scene (it counts as you having saved Cybil and doesnt alter your game...in some cases, it can actually benefit you...resetting your game timer to 0 (which is how I managed to complete the game in 2 hours) and also resets your save-total (which is how I managed to complete the game with 1 save )

The other glitch...if you attack Cybil with the Katana as your chief weapon (IE-you use the Katana more than any other weapon you have) and kill her (with or without the sword...as I said, so long as you had it equipped for most of that fight) then you will wake up in nowhere without a head.

(This only works if you have the alpha version of the game...where you slide forward whenever you swing the sword...they took this out of the beta version)

phew...

Any questions?

[Stan Tuna]

Alright.... I've never played 1 or 3, but 2 got me pretty confused in a couple of places.

Anyways, how the hell does Laura fit in? I mean, Eddie and Suicide Girl are their cause they killed people, James is there cause he killed his wife... Maria, I'm assuming, is supposed to be helping James atone (Sorry if it's obvious to you people, but remember I've never played the first) and Laura is just... there to annoy you. And know about Mary. Is she really significant, or does she just have a cool theme song?

[Eccles]

...dang. And after I make that big ol' nerdy post there, you go stump me

But as I understand, yes Laura is just there to annoy you...and to torment the people in the game.

Look at how she drives Eddie mad...and how she irritates James. She makes Maria and James fight...I think she's just there to turn the characters against one another since there is power in numbers.

[Night10194]

The cynic in me says that Harry's calm is just a bad voice actor. I like my other theory better, though.

Alessa...yes, that's a theory, but...I just don't buy it, personally. Were it Alessa in charge, Harry would be a dead man by now. Alessa has no attachment to Harry, Cheryl does. Cheryl doesn't want her father dead, she just wants him to not find her and lead those evil cult folks to her...

[Eccles]

The cynic in me says that Harry's calm is just a bad voice actor. I like my other theory better, though.

Yeah...the voice acting was pretty attrocious.

Like I said before, only Lisa actually sounded scared. Everyone else was like "...meh, all hell has been let loose. Whens lunch?"

Were it Alessa in charge, Harry would be a dead man by now. Alessa has no attachment to Harry, Cheryl does. Cheryl doesn't want her father dead, she just wants him to not find her and lead those evil cult folks to her...

Uhm...Alessa and Cheryl are the same person.

The cult burned Alessa as a child to drive out her soul (its believed that if a body is put through enough pain then the soul will just up and leave, leaving behind a vegetable of a human), Alessas soul left her body but manifested itself into Chery (because she knew that harry and his wife would take care of her, and also that Harry visits silent hill a lot, so she can claim the soul back in the future)

Cheryl ceases to exist pretty much as soon as you see the first corpse chained to the fence in the teaser level.

She vanishes and her soul goes back into her original body...Alessa.

Thats why you find so much help in the game.

Alessa doesnt want Harry to go through the alternative silent hill but she has no choice, since she's blanket bombing the town (so to speak) so that she gets EVERYONE involved in the cult.

Thats why she supplies him with bullets, guns and health drinks etc.

You are told a couple of times in the game that Cheryl and Alessa are the same person. Its hinted at in the school when you see scrawled on one of the walls "m E a R e Y o U r": "Me are you are" Say that over and over

You are also told by Dhalia that Cheryl and alessa are the same person

As for all that about the soul leaving the body, I pieced that together with what I know from superstitions and folklore and such. Silent hill did a pretty good job of sticking to folklore, except when they said Flauros was a medallion designed to guide the way...Flauros is a bizarre god who has the head of a cat, body of a human...I cant remember what he was supposed to be the God OF though...

[Warmech]

Well, also about Laura, besides her being hella annoying, was that Mary wanted to adopt her. I guess that is the only connection there. Eddie and Angela were in SH for their past crimes, and Laura was there because of her future could-have-been involvement with James and Mary.

[Johnny Carwash]

...but that still doesnt really explain why its flying upside down, hurling vortexs of bats everywhere...its just crazy)

Not bats,butterflies.

The same as in the apartment building.

[Johnny Carwash]

My theory about the white claudia is that the plant was used to commune with the gods.

The hallucinations induced by it may allow the "gods" of silent hill to influence your mind.

[Firedrake]

You guys hear? Silent Hill 4: The Room is rumoured to be in production. Apparently, it's based around Silent Hill 2 (my favourite in the series so far, I've just recently got Silent Hill, which I have yet to complete).

James Sunderland is back (Which I hope means that Pyramid Head is too...) and rumour has it that the stroy revolves around the hotel room where James' finds the tape in Silent Hill 2.

The source of the rumour are PSM2 and PlayStation 2 Official Magazine UK.

[Eccles]

...but that still doesnt really explain why its flying upside down, hurling vortexs of bats everywhere...its just crazy)

Not bats,butterflies.

The same as in the apartment building.

Moths.

Since they gather around lights.

You guys hear? Silent Hill 4: The Room is rumoured to be in production. Apparently, it's based around Silent Hill 2 (my favourite in the series so far, I've just recently got Silent Hill, which I have yet to complete).

James Sunderland is back (Which I hope means that Pyramid Head is too...) and rumour has it that the stroy revolves around the hotel room where James' finds the tape in Silent Hill 2.

The source of the rumour are PSM2 and PlayStation 2 Official Magazine UK.

...I hate James so much.

He's such a whiney bitch...

[Shoeless joe]

Yes, with regards to the pipe....dont use it.

Youre better off using your handgun/shotgun until you get a decent melee weapon IE-The Katana (in the beta version of silent hill so you dont fly about the room whenever you swing it) or the Sledgehammer (in alchemilla's basement).

I advise against using the secret melee weapons (Chainsaw and Jackhammer) because they have zero range and for what they do you may as well look evilly as your opponent)

I guess you never took time to use the chainsaw or jackhammer. For using the 'saw, you don't swing it but rather use should hold R2 and charge the enemy, and step back when they attempt an attack. As for the jackhammer, it's used to keep foes at an arm's length to attack or else you're fucked. Also, it knocked the enemy back alittle so use don't have to keep running back!

As for the reoccuring theory that Harry is trapped in Silent Hill, well, it can't make sense. After all with 2 sequels out there, it's impossible for it to occur, since he would of ran into James or Heather. Also, In SH2 the marks of Samael have already been put in place (you can tell since there's monsters still there) and SH3 takes place 17 years after SH1 and involves characters directly related to SH1. I won't say who to advoid spoilers.

[Israfel]

I'm a huge fan of the Silent Hill games- replayed them several time, read all the plot guides, had loooong debates about the plot etc etc.

But let me say this- SH 1 and 3 have really interesting, complex plots- but SH2 is where it's at.

Silent Hill 2 has the most mature and complex plot in a videogame. Period. I'm not one of those videogames=art kinda guys, but SH2 has a plot which transcends videogames and is one of the very few examples of art in the game community.

And I don't mean the plot is "good" in the sense that it's interesting or fun to watch- but rather that it's truly art; it offers sincere and relevant statements about life that are presented in a masterful and subtle way.

[M@]

Ladies and gentlemen, Silent Hill 4.

James? Methinks not. From what I hear, 4 revolves around the above dude, whose apartment (Not in SH) links to the nightmare world. Each time he enters, he dies after a while. Then wakes up back in The Room -- Groundhog day style.

[Firedrake]

Ladies and gentlemen, Silent Hill 4.

James? Methinks not. From what I hear, 4 revolves around the above dude, whose apartment (Not in SH) links to the nightmare world. Each time he enters, he dies after a while. Then wakes up back in The Room -- Groundhog day style.

Ah, well. I was close.

Just rumours I read in a mag, glad to see they were true to some degree. I hope Pyramid Head is back, though....