Video Game / Silent Hill 3

One girl versus a mad, mad world.

"Monsters...? They looked like monsters to you?"

— Vincent

Whereas Silent Hill 2 featured a story divorced from Silent Hill, Silent Hill 3, released in 2003 — the third game in Konami's Silent Hill franchise — is an out-and-out sequel, picking up many years after the events of the first game.

During a trip to the mall, a seventeen-year-old girl named Heather gets approached by a shady private detective who wants to talk to her about her past. Heather shuns him as a stalker and slips away, only to stumble into a strange and hellish otherworld populated by grotesque monsters.

Heather struggles to return home and make sense of what is happening to her, but finds herself stalked by the mysterious otherworld, which corrodes her surroundings wherever she goes. She receives "help" from three people during her quest: Claudia Wolf, a strange woman who urges Heather to "remember who she really is"; Vincent, an enigmatic preacher; and Douglas, the aforementioned private detective.

SH1 based its otherworld on childhood and hospital trauma. SH2 based its otherworld on guilt and lust. The otherworld of SH3 preys on typical female (and to a lesser extent, teenage) fears such as unwanted pregnancy, rape, miscarriage, and insecurity, and the story and mood of this game (like the games before it) embrace a theme related to those fears — in this case, helplessness. The story also uses several forms of symbolism related to these themes and their associated fears to drive the story.

The story of SH3 also forms the basis of the story for the second Silent Hill film, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.

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Silent Hill 3 contains examples of the following tropes:

• Accidental Incantation: At one point, Heather reads aloud a Latin sentence in a storybook: Tu fui, ego eris! Suddenly the Glutton, the non-combative monster that has been blocking her way forward, cries out and disappears.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: The infamous red light at the end of the Borley Haunted Mansion. You are not allowed to pause the game, and if you run too fast into a wall, Heather has to take some time to recover. Oh, and you have to run from it twice!
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Claudia...though we really only feel bad because Heather does, and also because she turns out to be a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and an Iron Woobie all in one.
  • Though not the antagonist, Vincent also counts as one.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Vincent offers an in-universe example as seen in the quote at the top of the page. One ending more or less makes this real.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: By completing the game under certain conditions, you get passwords that you can input in the game to unlock new outfits for Heather.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Heather, by virtue of carrying the cult's unborn god. And Claudia willingly assumes the role once Heather uses the aglaophotis to reject the god and vomit it out.
• Artistic License – Biology: You don't grow babies in your stomach. Therefore it's a bit difficult to throw them up or incubate them by swallowing them. The scene in question has more in common with a chestburster than an actual baby, especially since the "baby" is just the physical manifestation of Heather's dark vision of the cult's god. Obviously this is Rule of Scary, since it doesn't stop the scene from being utterly horrifying.
• A Taste of Power: The game begins with a nightmare sequence where Heather starts with the Handgun, Pipe, and Submachine Gun in her inventory, alongside an assortment of healing items. The only means of self defense she has in the waking world afterward is a simple knife.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The ordinary Submachine Gun. It does excellent damage, but you can only aim up and down with it after you've started firing, and it burns up a magazine's worth of ammo at about the same rate as it does in real life (that is to say, fast). Also, the ammunition is even more rare than ampoules. Double Subverted with the Unlimited SMG earned from finishing the final boss with a melee blow; ammo is literally unlimited but the more you use it, the more you decrease your endgame ranking which is very bad if you're playing to earn a high score.
  • The Maul. This vicious-looking mace, much like the Great Knife of Silent Hill 2, is an extremely powerful melee weapon. Like James and Pyramid Head by the Great Knife, however, Heather is slowed by the maul; and it is equally slow to swing it or bring it down on an enemy, requiring precise timing to use effectively. However, it is far less cumbersome to carry than the Great Knife, encouraging more frequent use if you can get the hang of the timing.
• Book Ends: Not only does the nightmare at the beginning give you a preview of the last area (at least, the last area before you wind up in the church, which doubles as a "Nowhere" type of area similar to the first game's, with pieces of various other places showing up inexplicably within its architecture), it happens to also be the same place that Harry ultimately wound up in during the last part of Silent Hill 1. Additionally, Silent Hill 2 concluded at a hotel that was just around the corner from the Lakeside Amusement Park, so all three more or less ended in the same general area. Finally, all three ended with the main character getting to the other side of Toluca Lake by either walking around it or by boat, a journey which pretty much cuts them off from the rest of the town, and any help they may have.
• Boring, but Practical: The katana, when compared to the Beam Sabre. The Beam Sabre looks a lot flashier and is capable of dealing more damage, but is easily interrupted by enemy attacks. The katana is instantly ready for action, but the Beam Sabre takes a couple of precious seconds to turn on.
• Bottomless Magazines: Literally with the Infinite Submachine Gun, unlocked by killing the final boss with a melee strike.
• Bulletproof Vest: Heather can obtain one early in the game. It'll allow her to take less damage, but she can't move as fast.
• Call-Back:
  • The save points in Silent Hill are in the form of notepads Harry finds lying around the town and the narration says that he's leaving notes of his experiences in case anyone ends up in the same situation. Towards the end of the game you find some of these notes.
  • One transition to the Otherworld is punctuated by a direct quote from the first game:
    Harry: It's being invaded by the Otherworld. By a world of someone's nightmarish delusions come to life...
• Calling Your Attacks: The HEZZAH Beam/Sexy beeeeeam.
• Camp: Vincent has a bit of this (e.g. criticizing Claudia's "decorations"), though nothing over-the-top.
• Central Theme: As Silent Hill 1 followed the fears of schoolchildren, and Silent Hill 2 followed the fears of adults/married couples, this game tackles the fears of teenage/young adult women. Many of the enemies that Heather encounters violate her personal space or represent being uncomfortably close to something. Heather is verbally assaulted by many male stalkers throughout the game, and the environments all seem to be places where women feel pressure from predatory men (shopping malls, subways, office buildings, hospitals, etc). Penis/vagina related imagery is everywhere in the game, and the major plot focuses on Heather unknowingly gestating an infant form of the cult's God (albeit in her stomach and not womb). At the same time, the game also focuses on themes of love, growing up and familial belonging, explored through Heather and Douglas.
  • Parental figures and how they shape their children. Heather was able to grow up as a normal girl thanks to Harry's love for her, which is in sharp contrast to how Claudia was abused by her own father, Leonard, to the point Vincent shows discomfort. Douglas has his own story about how his son became a robber and he has immense guilt over how his son died.
• Chekhov's Gun: Heather's pendant. Doubly so for those who played the first game and remembered what the red poultice was for.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Vincent, to compliment his smugness.
• Confessional: Seen in the Church. The choice you make inside plays a significant part in determining which ending you get on a second playthrough.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Harry from the first game was a mostly stoic, but otherwise friendly and civil man who was looking for his daughter. He isn't nearly as psychologically complex as either Heather or James, but his Determinator nature and intense bravery mean he isn't a completely Vanilla Protagonist. James is a dour and soft-spoken man who keeps to himself. He has difficulty interacting with others both because of his own issues and because of the situation he finds himself in, and it's clear that he's facing a lot of Survivor's Guilt over the death of his wife. Heather, on the other hand, is the first and so far only female protagonist in the series. She's also much younger than Harry or James, being a teenager, and her attitude is much like that of a teenager- brash, mean, and not really having a filter. She also wears her heart on her sleeve, and is prone to emotional reactions to the supernatural events going on around her more than the other two protagonists.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Harry Mason, Heather's father, is killed specifically to anger Heather and nurture the Evil God inside her.
• Dead Weight: Insane Cancers. They're also Lightning Bruisers, so you better be careful.
• Deadpan Snarker: Heather. She starts out mocking Douglas when most would be intimidated by his "gruff detective act", but when things start going to hell, this aspect of her personality diminishes a bit, since she's (with good reason) scared out of her wits. As time goes on and she starts accepting the madness around her, she starts up again, in particular snarking directly to the face of God herself.
  • Douglas has some shades of this as well. One notable instance is when, after realizing the consequences of doing his job (particularly how finding Heather eventually led to Harry's death), he confronts Claudia. She simply states that her goal is to bring Paradise on Earth, a place with no pain, no sorrow, no tears. To which Douglas replies:
    Douglas: No this, no that, no nothing. A paradise — for castrated sheep, maybe. Sounds pretty boring.
• Demonic Head Shake: The head movements also occur with the Glutton "boss" in the Rec Center Otherworld, Valtiel, the Carousel horses as well as during the fight against Memory of Alessa.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Maul (A bludgeon with a long handle) has significant wind up time for its attacks, especially the power swing, and if poorly timed, you're left open for enemies to take swings at you, but if you time the attacks just right, it hits like a truck and can quickly put enemies down for the count. The difficulty is timing it just right for each enemy type.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: As noted in the introduction, there's a lot of symbolism in the game which is very overtly sexual, ranging from towering enemies with heads and faces resembling female genitalia, to Slurpers, whose attack animation is unsettlingly reminiscent of some form of molestation or rape. There's also lots of symbolism pertaining to the idea of how frightening it would be to have an obsessive stalker and how helpless one would feel in such a situation, and Heather seems to have a fear of this (as many women do) ranging from her distrust of Douglas, to the disturbing love letters from Stanley Coleman, the horridly violent poem that provides clues for how to open a number combination lock (which seems to have implications hinting at its author being the hospital's chief of staff who the player finds out was sexually harassing and/or assaulting nurses who were caught abusing patients) and Valtiel, who follows Heather throughout the game, always watching, and occasionally appears in positions which appear very voyeuristic. See Skirts and Ladders.
• Dying to Wake Up: The game starts In Medias Res, with Heather walking around Silent Hill's amusement park. In order to finish the sequence, the player has to kill Heather, either to a lower enemy or on the rolling coaster, prompting her to wake up in the restaurant of a shopping mall.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: You can't get either of the two alternate endings until you're in a New Game Plus, but once you are, you can get the bad ending by taking a lot of damage, killing a lot of monsters, and forgiving the lady in the confessional. You honestly have to be aiming for it, though, because the game is set up to prioritize avoidance over confrontation, especially on harder difficulty settings.
• Empty Room Until the Trap: In one infamous case: empty, locked room until something from the reflection in the mirror starts to kill you.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even Vincent objects to Claudia's method of bringing their god into the world after seeing how hellish her Otherworld is.
  • Leonard Wolfe tells Heather that he was planning to forgive Claudia for locking him up, but after hearing that she killed Harry Mason he quickly discards these plans. Of course, Leonard thought that Heather was a cult member and had no idea that it was Harry she killed.
• Evil Brit: Claudia, which is strange, since Silent Hill is in America and her own father has an American accent.
• Evil Twin: Heather is attacked by the Memory of Alessa on the merry-go-round, the same place where Harry fought a possessed Cybil in the first game; and the Memory of Alessa uses the same weapons that Heather has been using throughout the game. Yes, this includes the steel pipe and the submachine gun. Despite her bloody and rotten appearance, though, the "evil" part is downplayed since her reasons for trying to kill Heather are to prevent the God's birth and spare Heather and the world from the endless suffering that will come if the God is birthed.
• Fetus Terrible: The god in Heather's womb. After she spews it up, Claudia grabs it and swallows it herself. Yummy.
• Fission Mailed: Doubles as a Call-Back to the first game; the playable Nightmare Sequence at the beginning of the game. It ends when Heather is run over by a runaway roller coaster; or if Heather dies any other way, like from falling off or getting killed by the monsters. Of course, that sequence was All Just a Dream. However, the player should take note to do something about it later in the game when Heather reaches the amusement park for real; otherwise, the exact same thing occurs, with a more permanent outcome this time. Succeeding New Game Pluses, however, start right from the cutscene where Heather wakes up.
• Forgotten Childhood Friend: Claudia. Eventually remembered, though it's Alessa who remembers and is speaking through Heather, not Heather herself remembering. Heather never found out who she was until Alessa possessed her in that conversation and called her "sister."
• Four Is Death: Heather has to kill Dark Alessa four times in the same boss fight.
• Game-Over Man: On various places, Valtiel drags away Heather's body if you die.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Evidently, every time Heather dies, it's actually Valtiel who resurrects her.
• Gorn: The clue for the hospital's keypad puzzle on hard mode, describing in extremely graphic detail a person mutilating and eating another person's face. Which is supposed to be a metaphor for which buttons you press on the keypad. And it's also a love letter! In a nearby diary of Stanley's, he says the doctor is the one who created the number code, which implies that the poem was written by said doctor. It gets even creepier when you find out the same doctor took a nurse into a special treatment room when she was caught abusing a patient, and is very heavy implied to have seriously sexually abused her in there. You even find a nurse enemy in one of the rooms right next to the memo that tells you this. Thus, the poem is implied to have been the twisted doctor writing to the nurse he eventually abused.
  Memo written by a fellow nurse: "The Chief is a pervert! Christie would have been better off if she had been fired...."
• Gotta Kill Them All: Because this is a Survival Horror game, you might think that combat is best avoided. Not necessarily. There are separate Achievements for killing large numbers of enemies with firearms and melee weapons, and getting both of them in the same playthrough would require a determined effort. Unlocking the Heather Beam requires you to kill 333 enemies, but this can be accumulated over separate playthroughs.
• Groin Attack: Several monsters will attack Heather's crotch if they get close enough.
• Guide Dang It!: A big reason to be wary of choosing the Hard Puzzle mode.
  • The infamous William Shakespeare puzzle on hard mode, which not only requires you to have a comprehensive knowledge of Shakespeare, but also expects you to figure out that you need to do math in the middle of the puzzle to multiply and change certain numbers. Even if you know your Shakespeare it's a bigtime Moon Logic Puzzle.
    Cracked: What's that? You don't have an intimate, encyclopedic knowledge of King Lear? "Haha, what are you doing playing video games" the developers of Silent Hill ask, "when you could be discovering the wonder of literature?"
  • The puzzle of "Who Killed Cock Robin?" It requires the player to realize that the diaries of #7, Stanley Coleman, are another hint to the puzzle, when most people assume the poems on each body and the poem on the crematory door are the only clues. You also have to figure out that the poem tells you to switch the last two numbers of the solution to get the correct combination (by mentioning heaven, sky, hell, and earth in that order).
  • While there are a few hints as to what's really in Heather's pendant, there's not really any way to know when it's supposed to be used without consulting a guide. It helps if you played the first game, though, and remembered the aglaophotis which could save Cybil and exorcise the God out of Alessa.
  • In the hospital level, the security door's combination must be figured out from a very vague and sickly violent poem that requires the player to know they need to visualize the keypad as the face described in the poem. But it gets even worse when a nearby diary entry from another character specifically states that the code is more than four numbers and it's not; it's four numbers exactly. So even if the player can figure out the visualization trick, he's still going to be trying five digit codes instead of four. This is arguably the the most obscure puzzle in the game due to the fact that it lies to your face about how many numbers it is, with no hint to the contrary. You basically have to notice that one of the actions doesn't quite fit the others, and it's easy enough to miss: the four correct numbers have to do with cannibalistic actions; the odd action out is poking the eye.
• Harder Than Hard: The Extreme difficulty levels, of which there are a total of ten. Your reward for completing the last of the Extreme levels? A password for an extra costume. Granted, said costume features the most cosmetic changes to Heather's appearance (though the Magical Girl one comes close), turning Heather into a blue-tinted goth.
• Have a Nice Death:
  • Valtiel can be seen dragging Heather's body to parts unknown after deaths in certain places.
  • If Heather attacks Claudia or takes too long to investigate her pendant, Heather births the god.
• A Head at Each End: The Pendulum monster, which resembles two human upper bodies fused at the waist, heads facing in opposite directions, and amply adorned with Blades and Spikes of Villainy.
• Honest Axe: On a New Game Plus you can throw your steel pipe into the tentacle-infested water. Answer the nymph's questions honestly for the gold and silver pipes (and you also get the steel pipe back), though neither is particularly more useful that the steel pipe itself. Answer even one question dishonestly, and not only do you not get the gold and silver pipes, the steel pipe remains gone.
• Infernal Paradise: Claudia's driving purpose.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The Katana is available around half-way through the game, and it's found in a trophy room without any strings attached. It is a very well-rounded and versatile melee weapon.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Heather Beam and Sexy Beam powers, awarded by defeating 333 monsters on multiple playthroughs which takes some time. They are very effective ranged attacks, and essentially your rewards for playing through the game so many times.
• It Only Works Once: The Seal of Metatron. Granted, its attempted wielder has no idea how to use it, and it's "difficult to control" even for more learned wielders of it.
• Joke Ending: The UFO ending, where Heather returns home to her father (since Heather somehow returns home before he was killed, he is still alive in this version of the story), who is having tea with an alien, while James is standing in the background. Harry speaks in an electronically distorted voice and refers to Heather as Cheryl, none of which seems odd to her in the slightest. Heather tells Harry about her encounter with the cultists, and subsequent visits to the Otherworld and fighting the monsters, setting off his Papa Wolf instincts, leading to him bringing a bunch of UFOs to Silent Hill and blowing the town to Kingdom Come. Then the credits roll as a Japanese MC leads a karaoke performance of a song about the characters of the game, including some very off-kilter interpretations of them, before finally ending with the sound of Heather's sub-machine gun shooting the MC and singers.
• Just Giving Orders: Claudia shifts the blame for Harry's murder toward the Missionary monster. Heather doesn't really care.
  Claudia: He's the one who killed your father. I merely gave the order.
• Katanas Are Just Better: You find a katana in an office building, and it's the most effective standard melee weapon in the game. It's justified because of the improvised nature of Heather's other weapons (the knife and pipe aren't designed for combat, the maul is slow and heavy).
• Kill It with Fire: The God's main attack. You can also unlock a flamethrower on a subsequent playthrough.
• Konami Code: Entering it on the title screen before starting a [1] results in Douglas not wearing shirt or pants the whole game.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  "Is this the end? Time to roll the credits."
  • And...
    "Who would even think of doing something so disgusting?"^note Said while looking directly at the player.
• Living Memory: The Memory of Alessa boss fight.
• Magic Feather/MockGuffin: Vincent makes a big deal out of Heather getting the Seal of Metatron, thinking it's the key to killing "God." Turns out the seal does nothing, and Heather had the power to beat "God" all along. While never made clear in-game, it's possible that the seal is useless without the proper ritual, as seen in the original Silent Hill.
• Magical Girl: Parodied with Heather, who during a replay game can find a wand and, after invoking a Transformation Sequence, shoot Frickin' Laser Beams at the enemy. Kill enough enemies with it and you can unlock the game's UFO ending.
• Meat Moss: Toxic meat moss. There is a bloody room with a mirror that will start to drain your health once it covers your reflection in blood. What's worse, you can't leave the room until it starts happening!
• Mirror Boss: Heather faces off against Memory of Alessa in the amusement park, who is essentially an Evil Twin. Alessa uses your own weapons against you, which is especially painful when she pulls out your submachine gun.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: Nearly all the puzzles in the game on hard riddle mode. Even some of the stock puzzles that are present regardless of difficulty are this. See Guide Dang It! above.
• More Dakka: One of the unlockable weapons is a sub-machine gun with unlimited ammo. Very useful for taking down the particularly annoying monsters.
• Multiple Endings: A staple of the series:
  • The "Normal" Ending has Heather and Douglas survive. Also, this is the only ending you can get on your first run of the game.
  • The "Possessed" Ending: Heather kills Douglas while in a trance. Obtained by gaining at least 3000 points (from killing enemies, taking damage, or forgiving the confessing lady), but nothing in the game tells you how many points you currently have.
  • The "Revenge" Ending is the new name for the UFO Ending; Heather is seen talking to Harry (James is also there for some reason), and a bunch of UFOs blow up Silent Hill. Sadly, the only ending where Harry survives — which happens only because Heather gets home early. Obtained by killing 30 or monsters with the Heather Beam or Sexy Beam, before reaching Heather's home.
• Mystical Pregnancy: See Artistic License – Biology.
• Mythology Gag: If you have Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 save data on the same memory card, you can get a prompt to check a certain toilet. This results in a short cutscene where Heather turns directly to the camera and tells you off, which is a nod to James and the infamous disgusting toilet scene in Silent Hill 2. She also comments on how there's no mail, not even a letter from a dead wife, in her mailbox if you check it at her apartment. Also, she will comment on the sturdiness of the fence on Brookhaven's roof, referring to when James got shoved through it by Pyramid Head.
• Naked People Are Funny: Douglas + Konami Code.
• Nerf: The katana. Earned in the first game after saving one good ending and one bad ending's clear data, the katana originally had a lot of attack power, and Harry glided forward with every swing. In SH3, you will find it on the first playthrough midway through, but its attack power is now simply moderate/well-rounded, and the gliding forward is virtually nil.
• Newbie Immunity: The game starts with a Nightmare Sequence where Heather is trapped in an amusement park full of monsters. You can attempt to fight your way through this section, but if Heather dies at any point, she'll just wake up from the nightmare.
• Nostalgia Level: The amusement park, as well as various sections of the church (which doubles as a sort of "Nowhere" Eldritch Location) that make reappearances from the first game; the hospital from the second game.
• Not Even Human: Leonard, who appears as a giant aquatic monster. The fact that he's got a totally normal human voice just throws more fuel on the fire caused by Vincent's little "joke", if it was a joke.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Heather detests how Vincent is using her to stop Claudia's mad schemes, but realizes she is using him for more or less the same reason.
• Old Save Bonus: If you have a Silent Hill 2 save Heather will come across a disgusting toilet from the second game that seems to have something in it and flat out refuse to take it, before asking who would.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: The final boss battle features this in the soundtrack. As if the boss battle itself wasn't hard enough on its own, the soundtrack might cause a very annoying case of Sensory Overload.
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: In the Borley Mansion:
  "That's Danny."
• Pistol-Whipping: Memory of Alessa will attempt to smack Heather with her pistol and submachine gun if you get too close, which deals less damage than being shot at.
• Psychosexual Horror: Heather or Cheryl Mason is a girl in her late teens that gets caught up in the happenings of Silent Hill. The first boss of the game is called Splitworm: a very phallic-looking, purple, eyeless creature that splits open its head to reveal a fleshy interior and big teeth, and many other monsters feature phallic or pregnancy imagery. See Central Theme for what this all represents.
• Railroad Tracks of Doom: The subway train and the roller coaster.
• "Rashomon"-Style: One interpretation of Vincent's Wham Line below is that where Heather and Douglas see rust, blood, decay, monsters, and demons, Claudia sees perfection, beauty, and angels. Vincent flat-out says that different people would see the Order's God as a Devil. Of note is that Vincent admits to Claudia that he sees the supernatural things the way Heather does, likely because he isn't actually a true believer in the Order; he's a con artist who runs the treasury.
• Real-Person Cameo: Norman Reedus appears on a cover of a book. He was eventually set to star in Silent Hills before that project was cancelled.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
  • Heather pulls herself together and doesn't roar or rampage, but the player certainly feels this way after Heather finds Harry's corpse. At the end of the game, though, she does give a few cathartic kicks to the face of the dead God.
  • Harry (and James) carry out one on the entire town in the UFO ending.
• Sadistic Choice:
  • A woman of the cult confesses to Heather and begs for forgiveness. Remaining silent makes you feel like you did something wrong, but forgiving the woman gives you a tremendous number of Dark Points (and is what most people do in order to gain the Bad ending). It's pointedly worded to be uncomfortable, and the true nature of the sadistic choice element isn't really obvious on a first playthrough; you're not choosing whether or not to forgive the confessor and soothe her fear and guilt — you're choosing whether to accept the responsibility of forgiving her or not, which Heather, as Saint Alessa, has the divine right to do.
  • The birthday call has a bit of this as well. See Suspicious Video-Game Generosity below.
• Scary Stitches: Slurpers have stitches and laces on their bodies and clothes.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • That door with the red light above on the subway tracks has the lock broken, and when you check it, it spawns 3 monsters behind you while the train approaches to kill you. The monsters also count as well — if you spend too much time dealing with the dogs on the tracks, enjoy your meeting with the oncoming train. Unfortunately, jumping onto the tracks is the only way to advance the plot.
  • There is absolutely nothing stopping you from walking off the back of the train once it starts moving. Complete with cutscene! And for added fun, once you move forward to the next car, you can't turn back to the car you just left unless you want to watch said cutscene!
• Sequel Hook: One that didn't make it into the game proper. After defeating God and breaking down over her father's death, Heather stands up and begins to walk away but shortly after looks back with a concerned expression on her face. This was supposed to be because she hears a baby crying, implying that God has been reborn into another host. The cry was ultimately removed from the final game, however Word of God states that Heather does still hear it, just in her head, which is why she briefly turns back. This will likely never be explored further however, making it also a case of Aborted Arc.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: You explore the freakiest and longest stage in the game, the hospital, on a quest to get the Seal of Metatron. When you try to use it on Claudia, she laughs at you because the seal is a useless trinket. All the nurses you killed were for nothing. Not to mention that this means the hopes of Vincent and Leonard to usurp control of the cult from Claudia and/or stop the birth of God are baseless and doomed from the start.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: "Shut your stinking mouth, BITCH!"
• Silliness Switch: If Heather is wearing the Princess Heart outfit◊ while firing the Sexy Beam and Douglas is walking around in his underwear, then this switch is definitely ON.
• Sinister Subway: It's pitch-black down there! It's also a direct reference to Jacob's Ladder.
• Skirts and Ladders: Played for horror/Squick. When the hospital is changing to the Otherworld, Heather must climb a ladder, and Valtiel is behind it, endlessly turning a valve. He is also positioned in a way that would allow him to see straight up Heather's skirt. Given the plethora of other disturbing sexual symbolism, this was most likely intentional.
• Smug Snake: Vincent, oh so very much. He delights in manipulating Heather and Douglas, making cruel jokes at their expense and rambling on madly for his own amusement. And it still manages to be a Player Punch when Claudia stabs him in the back, that charming bastard.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: The first game where enemies make a different sound than the "hurt" cry when killed.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • The opening features various cutscenes of the game's terrifying monsters and disturbing imagery with the rather upbeat song You're Not Here by Mary Elizabeth Mcglynn playing over it.
  • The carousel in the alternate amusement park is as gruesome as everything else in the Otherworld, and deadly to boot. The music that plays while it's active, however, is an actual carousel theme with no dark undertones whatsoever.
• Stalker with a Crush: Stanley, who turns Heather off to dolls afterward. Then again, you can just ignore his notes and keep Heather's innocence...
• Sprint Meter: Press L1 or R1 in the options screen to access the Extra Options menu. On an Extra game playthough, you can unlock the life bar option, which displays your health, stamina, as well as a knockdown recovery bar.
• Stealth Sequel: The game hides its connections to the first game until The Reveal that Heather is actually Heather Mason, Harry Mason's daughter.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: The climactic showdown between Heather and Claudia near the end. Yielding to the urge to do so,^*  though as one of Roahm Mythril's Gag Reels shows, it has to be successful, or hesitating too long, results in a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Twisted into something truly sinister. At one point, you get a rather bizarre phone call about receiving a birthday gift. "Would you like to give pain or receive it? You can have whichever you hate the most". Turns out this translates to "you get more bullets if you're low on health, or more health packs if you're low on bullets". Subverted in that you can easily miss it before fighting the boss that comes shortly after.
• Tarot Motifs: One puzzle requires the use of five tarot cards — the Fool, the Hanged Man, the Moon, the High Priestess, and the Eye of Night (the last of which doesn't exist).
• Too Awesome to Use: Your end game score will be reduced if you use any of the Extra weapons in a New Game Plus (Beam Sabre, Gold and Silver Pipes, Flamethrower, Unlimited Machine Gun). Only a problem if you're trying for a perfect score. Once you finally do get that perfect score, though, the Beam Sabre and Flamethrower are both upgraded, giving them longer ranges and more damage.
• Took a Level in Badass: Let's just say Cheryl Mason is all grown up and is ready to take some names.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: See Shut Up, Hannibal!.
• Troubled Child: The K. Gordon letter describes Alessa as behaving like this when she was in elementary school, most likely due to abuse.
• The Unfought:
  • Valtiel never directly interacts with Heather (unless she dies, anyway). He just watches. And turns that valve at the Otherworld hospital. And dangles a nurse atop an inferno in Nowhere. Subverted in that he's not actually an enemy, but a protector and aid to Heather and/or the cult's god.
  • The Glutton is this...accidental Latin spellcasting aside.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Claudia believes this about her plans "to try to hasten the day of Her arrival"...though she admits she'll probably burn for it.
• Vague Hit Points:
  • The pause menu has a different coloured filter depending on how much health there is.
  • Character animations change based on remaining health.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Played with for the confessional scene. When Heather finds herself in the Order's confessional booth, an unseen member comes in a sobbing wreck, confessing to having murdered someone as revenge for her own daughter's death, now begging to repent for her sins. You have the option to either stay silent or forgive her, and it isn't clear on a first playthrough whether or not this choice is important, so it's up to you to decide on if you want to help the poor woman out. Starting from your second playthrough, making the decision to forgive her will actually get you much closer to the "bad" ending — since Heather is bearing the order's god inside of her, you're assuming the position and divine responsibility of said god. However, your first playthrough will automatically lock you into the "good" ending no matter what you do, so for that run alone, you absolutely can choose to forgive the woman without guilt.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Claudia. Of course, just how "well" her intentions are depends on who you ask. She says that she doesn't expect to be a part of Paradise, since she spilled too much blood to be worthy of it. Further supported when you read her diary, lamenting all of the evil and suffering in the world, and her desire to help end it. She readily admits that what she did was horrible, but she did it for the greater good.
• Wham Line: You spend the first two games guiltlessly slaughtering hundreds of monsters and suddenly Vincent (who may or may not be joking, as he claims) drops this little gem on you:
  "Monsters...? They looked like monsters to you?"
  • Earlier in the game when you first meet Vincent, Heather questions what's going on, prompting Vincent to say this:
  "You're don't remember? Ah, so Harry didn't tell you anything".
• Wham Shot: And just to hammer it home, when Heather finally returns to her home, she finds her father's corpse on a chair. Harry's corpse.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: In addition to the titular town itself (which vaguely seems to be located in New England), the first half of the game takes place in a large, unnamed city at least a few hours drive from Silent Hill.
• With My Dying Breath, I Summon You: In the final confrontation against Claudia Wolf, Claudia takes the fetus that Heather rejected... And eats it herself, killing her in the process, but summoning the demon god for the final battle.
• You Are Number 6: The fate of Stanley. Worse is that he very faintly moans out "Heather..." if you go near him.
  "He's... Underground now... His new name is number seven."
• You Killed My Father: Heather to Claudia. Then again later with Claudia to Heather in a moment of deep irony.

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"Is this the end? Time to roll the credits."