- Silent Hill
- Silent Hill 2
- Silent Hill 3
- Silent Hill 4
- Silent Hill: Origins
- Silent Hill: Homecoming
- Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
- Silent Hill: Downpour
- Silent Hills
- Alternatively, none of the gods are real, or at least the only reality they have is what people have granted them. Silent Hill reacts to people's thoughts and minds and creates things. These things are usually horrible, probably because Silent Hill's bloody history has tainted a once neutral, or perhaps even benevolent, spiritual area. Normal people such as James Sunderland get freaky spirit journeys when they go to Silent Hill and literally face their own inner demons (a side effect of which is that they might leave the town with a sense of peace, perhaps a holdover from Silent Hill's more benevolent past), while individuals involved with the cult have to face the cult's inner demons, which take the form of powerful demons that reflect the collective belief of the members of the cult that has imprinted itself on Silent Hill's reality. Alessa was an interesting case where the cult tried to use the personal demons of a powerful psychic in conjunction with the cult's own powerful mythology to cross over their "God" from the ephemeral existence it had in Silent Hill's native, dream-like environment into true reality.
- This cult, though, has several deities and other "divine" beings, such as Lobsel Vith, and the Red God, Xuchilbara, and even Valtiel, the "attendant of God/the Goddess", in whose image the original Pyramid Head executioners were based on. Clearly, they have a main god or goddess, a difference that is important to note, as the "incomplete god" that Harry fought resembled the Baphomet, which was the image that Dahlia thought the god looked like, while Heather fights a goddess which greatly resembles Alessa, herself of course, because it is what Claudia thought the goddess, not the god, looked like. It is obvious that the town acts as a kind of psycic sponge, taking in many things and making each person's trip within very personal. There is also a layer composed of the collective psyche of some of the people that have been "read" by the town's more supernatural side.
- While no one might have touched the Lament Configuration, the creatures seem to carry certain qualities that are similar to the Cenobites from Hellraiser.
- Adding on to that, The "God" we see summoned by The Order is due to the Order's belief, it coalesces Silent Hill's power into a tangible form, which is the main problem for it, being that the form comes from, ultimately, very human beliefs, due to how Silent Hill's power works, the form is flawed, the only reason the Aglaophotis works is because the Order Believes it works, if they belived it didn't work their God would be birthed and completely invincible.
- Didn't they say that was true as a joke?
- (Looking wild eyed, stops checking the floor to see if it's really real) You poor, deluded man.
- I think Silent Hill is a wonderful little vacation town; it's got to be people like you who are responsible for the downturn in tourism. My family's been going there forever, and we've noticed that several of the couples haven't been back in recent years.
- (Laughs hysterically) Like I said, you poor, deluded fool...Wait, you're not really a person at all, are you!? YOU CAN TAKE MY FREEDOM FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!
- Well, there have been a few crazy people coming to the town. I mean, remember that private detective who wouldn't wear any pants and kept talking about monsters? That sort of thing is difficult to explain to the kids.
- God, and what about that weird blonde guy? Found him in my apartment shoving his hand through a hole in the wall. Then he starts asking me about his dead wife...jeez.
- Was he the same weirdo who kept sticking his hand down toilets? Yeah, I think I remember him.
- And didn't he used to jump down holes, and somehow appear unscathed afterwards?
- There are still some good things about this place, though— I met this really hot girl the other day at the amusement park. She liked the Robbie Rabbit plushie I won for her, but she seemed weirded out by the carousel.
- I dunno what the rest of you've been takin', but I could really, really use some more PTV. So if you'll excuse me, I need to tend to the White Claudia growing in my backyard.
- H-Hey, do you... do you think you could spare some, man? That, uh, doctor guy I usually buy my stuff from up and disappeared on me. Guess he heard about the cops coming into town to snoop around and decided to lie low...
- Wait, wait, are we talking about a different Silent Hill from the one that had the cathedral fire about thirty years ago? Because I'm pretty sure that's not a resort town. Police blocked it off a couple of years ago, even.
- Um, yeah... I gotta agree. My mom and dad were from there, but they were kids when they had to leave— That fire chased everyone out of town, right? Can't be the one everybody else is talking about.
- I dunno. I'd heard they'd started rebuilding it, but that's just the Rumor Mill at work. I think.
- You guys are nuts. Silent Hill wasn't a tourist town, it was a coal town. The authorities condemned it after the mines caught fire, and the ash makes it impossible to live there. Don't know how you knew about the cathedral fire and not that...
- Guys, guys, you're getting mixed up. There's two towns named Silent Hill, one's a quaint little resort in pleasant but foggy New England, the other one's a mining town in West Virginia. Just because they share a name, have some great tragedy in their history, both have a lake and have connections to eccentric religious orders doesn't mean they're the same place!
- I think Silent Hill is a pretty cool town. eh minds the scroos and doesn't afraid of anything.
Silent Hill, "Good": There is not a single mention of Cybil in the third game, not even in Harry's notes, which is understandable if he was attempting to forget the woman he was forced to kill, and considering how awkward her appearance is before Dahlia reunites Alessa it seems most likely that she didn't survive.
Silent Hill 2, "In Water": With the possible exception of "Maria", this is by far the easiest ending to achieve without being provided instructions, resulting from actions that are entirely reasonable in an adventure game, even this one (examining/using every item, conserving health items etc.). More importantly, however, the Eddie and Angela subplots make more sense in the context of this ending and it's highly appropriate for a game this bleak, even compared to the other entries.
Silent Hill 3, "Possession": In both endings, after killing God, Heather sees something in that pit, and if there's anything to learn from this series, it's that the probability of it being something benign is miniscule. Whether it was Valtiel wanting another sacrifice or Harry wanting revenge himself or another ridiculous idea for another folder is irrelevant, the point is that Douglas is yet another person who isn't leaving Silent Hill.
Silent Hill 4: The Room, "Eileen's Death": Henry spends the first half of the game watching people die due to his own ineffectiveness/apathy, and the second half protecting the one person he can save, only to have her die as well right before the metaphorical finish line. It fits Silent Hill's modus operandi perfectly.
- Only problem I can find is that a memo in Homecoming confirms Douglas's survival.
- Actually, some dialogue in SH4 does seem to indicate that the "In Water" ending happened in SH 2.
- From various things said and the above, it would seem that the "canon" endings for the games are "Good" (Cybil dies, but Harry escapes with Heather), "In Water" (James kills himself), and "Normal" (Heather and Douglas both survive). I'm not sure if there's enough references in 4 and 5 to support one ending or another — but the fact that Cybil is gone, James never came home, and Douglas is still alive in later games pretty much concretely spell out the endings for the first 3 games.
- Either In Water or Rebirth. We won't know until we see James Sunderland as an opponent in a Silent Hill game. And if the canon ending is In Water, then we won't know at all, not unless someone finds a rusting car with two decayed corpses in it at the bottom of the lake. Alternatively, James left, but didn't inform his father. The last bit's unlikely, unfortunately.
- James could just be estranged with his father (you can't feel that comfortable with a guy who kept an umbilical cord in his apartment, and it's easy to assume that James' instability affected more than his relationship with Mary) and left Silent Hill to start over somewhere else, leaving his old life behind. Considering he did murder Mary, it's not improbable, and gives another explanation in that he might not have wanted to get his father involved.
- Actually, his father says his son AND his DAUGHTER IN LAW has gone missing 3 YEARS AGO. Its kinda odd he never knew his daughter in law died, isn't it? He doesn't even seem to know she was ill. Remember another time that something happened 3 years ago? That's when James said his wife died. Nothing indicates the ending of Silent Hill 2 is In Water. Both 4 and 2 are happening at the same time. 1 and 3 are directly connected, as both deal with Alessa in one form or another. The 21 Sacraments connect 2 to 4, as both the protagonists are using it for their own twisted ends.
- 2 and 4 can't happen at the same time, as in-game notes for SH4 concerning the Sacraments indicate a gap of several years from Walter's first string of killings (which took place either before or almost at the same time as SH2) and the second batch (which occurs leading up to and during SH4). In Silent Hill 2, a newspaper article indicates that Walter killing the Locane children (victims in the first killing spree) happened just prior to that game's events, as he was arrested on the "18th of [this] month." Also, the only ritual James (arguably) conducted was the rebirth one to bring Mary back in one of the endings; there is no other evidence in the game that leads us to believe James knew about the 21 Sacraments or the cult sects or anything pertaining to them besides this rebirth ritual (which he only knows about through a new game plus bonus). Only Walter could do the 21 Sacraments because of how he was raised (the cult specifically trained him for this purpose) and because his own death was a required Sacrament (11/21's theme was Assumption). James had no such corrupt religious tutelage, thus he lacked the necessary abilities. If anything, SH3 and SH4 are the games with similar, if not almost overlapping, timelines considering the absolute decay of the cult (SH3 sees two of its prominent members murdered as well as revealing internal discord between members) and a memo in the orphanage in SH4 pertaining to the search for Alessa. Remember that Claudia hired Douglas in SH3 to find Heather, whom she called Alessa, and SH4's Sacrament victims included some of the last surviving high-ranked members of the cult.
- Silent Hill: Downpour blasts the theory out of the water. It's impossible to have an ending where only one character survives — Sewell lives on outside the town in Full Circle.
- James going missing and Mary's death aren't referring to the same three year period, since Mary died much more recently than James initially states. Also, nothing in Downpour indicates you can't escape Silent Hill alone.
- Silent Hill 1 is different in all kinds of ways, though, because Silent Hill hasn't seized control of its eponymous town yet. It's still confined to a sort of Astral Plane.
- That's why all the dead people start popping up as ghosts. They're really the First, trying for another sacrifice to fully open this Hellmouth.
- Silent Hill is Sunnydale post-collapse.
- This entity, whatever it is, may well be the "Dragon" mentioned in graffiti throughout the games (Look out for it, it turns up prominently in SH2 and 3). I wouldn't put it past Team Silent to make a clue to the true nature of Silent Hill a background detail.
- Furthermore, the town tries to exploit the cult into creating these "gods" as avatars for its power, so the town can extend its influence elsewhere. The Red Pyramids are as much as the town can do by itself, and they are unable to leave it.
- To elaborate on this theory, the town needs to "feed" in order to keep itself alive and to make itself stronger. That's why it attracts emotionally broken or vulnerable people to it, it needs their pain and suffering as well as their belief in it, which allows it to grow in influence.
- Based on the theory below: the endings where the characters leave are a lot less hopeful than they appear. We know from Silent Hill 4 and Homecoming that Silent Hill's influence has begun to infect other towns, creating "Otherworlds" in Sheperds Glen and Palevale. When the people leave, they carry Silent Hill's corruption with them, acting like disease carriers. Some people the town swallows whole, others are chosen as its dark messengers.
- Downpour confirms this, at least partially — the town strikes back if you don't play by its rules and try to run. Going from the theory, it uses Anne's thirst for revenge to partially corrupt her, turning her into an unknowing enforcer of its sense of "justice".
- Wouldn't this mean places like Henry's apartment and Shepard's Grove are it's offspring?
- Are cult offshoots how it reproduces? Or does any ol' group of cultists living outside the town work?
- It's possible title could be the Hill of Silence, Principle of Merciless Punishment.
- But why does the town go to so much effort to kill the protagonists, then? The implication is clearly that the town wants you to either die, or get a bad ending. I've yet to see a game where it's easier to get the bad endings as opposed to the good except for Origins, which didn't happen, and besides which the good ending in Origins must have happened, otherwise Travis Grady wouldn't be giving anyone a lift in Homecoming. Furthermore, all of the towns infected by Silent Hill are close to the original town. Clearly, Silent Hill's power is expanding geographically outwards over the years. After all, the town feeds on pain, suffering, and despair, does it not? In Silent Hill 2, which was essentially a run-of-the-mill Soul harvesting for the town, two out of three people gave into the town at least, and it's implied all three gave in eventually, and that's just one batch. Silent Hill is expanding in power not because the victorious protagonists are carrying its taint, but because their few and far between victories aren't enough to contain the town's power. The agents the town creates are people like Walter Sullivan or, possibly, James Sunderland, people who are thoroughly dominated by the town's nightmares and eventually cease fighting them and turn to worshiping them instead.
- 'Downpour' casts doubt on this — in both endings where Murphy spares Anne, the town lets them go, despite Anne still having a thirst for revenge in "Truth and Justice" that is easily sated. Also, despite the town having ample opportunities to kill Murphy, it only directly attacks the DJ, who was actually running from his problems and thus, providing an infinite food source for the town in his little station.
- Silent Hill is racist! Ever wondered why every protagonist and major character is white? The town's spirits have it in for them, everyone else doesn't even seen the monsters.
The region was still relatively powerless, however, until Dahlia succeeded in ascending Alessa to daemonhood (hence her immortality), the process itself and Alessa's new abilities allowing the two realities to merge and create the the nightmarish Dark World between them we all know and fear. Those that travel to this town are not intentionally called there, rather drawn towards the promises of Chaos, both wonderful and terrible. The power extending beyond the town in the third and fourth games and Homecoming are the result of especially devoted followers bringing it with them.
- In Silent Hill 1, the entire game was just a hallucination caused by the PTV. The baby at the end of the game isn't special at all, and Cheryl is either lost in the town, or she was one of the childlike monsters in the school.
- In Silent Hill 2, the note is just James losing his mind. Laura doesn't see any monsters because she's the only one without any trauma influencing her hallucinations.
- I can't remember much about Silent Hill 3, but I'm pretty sure there's a lot of white smoke around to explain the monsters when you aren't in Silent Hill itself.
- I can't explain Silent Hill 4 with this. Maybe it's all just a dream, though that is really a lazy explanation.
- Walter did some crazy stuff back in his Silent Hill days, but before he died and Henry got the apartment, he mainly tended to (and sampled) his sunlamp garden of White Claudia. SH4 was merely the result of Henry looking through an old photo album while experiencing the world's worst contact high from the apartment's walls and carpeting.
- And I haven't played any of the other games.
James's father said his son and daughter in law went missing three years ago, the same time James said his wife died. Obviously, this meant the games take place within the time frame of each other (I.E James went to the town, 3 years after her death)
But let's deal with a common theme between Restless Dreams and The Room. Both protagonists are trying to resurrect a loved one, James his wife and Walter his "Mother". Both have other people called to Silent Hill who aren't related to the cult at all. Finally, both have people the main characters who can perceive (James' father in 4 and the little girl in 2), who are immune to the town monsters themselves. But both have another connection as well, a Rebirth Ritual.
Let's assume for one moment, that writing on Mary's letter in 2 never existed in the first place. That Silent Hill didn't write the letter either. James was planning to use the 21 Sacraments, and his mind was split in two like Walter's was. One purely is the desire itself to reunite with his wife (Maria), the other is him trying to fulfill that desire (James himself). Throughout, the game he stumbles upon people who are affected by the magic in the town and that are there to help him reach a revelation and to reach one themselves. Both are deprived of really dealing with their own demons by James, and in one case explicitly killed by him. Walter himself killed victims that could be affected by the power of the town and Henry himself is deprived of (most) opportunities to overcome his apathy by Walter...like other victims perhaps?
Hell, James might have been wandering Silent Hill for three years! How the hell did a normal girl NOT called to the town get there anyway?
The entire game is James deciding whether or not to invoke the final part, or the part Walter did when he offed himself (or perhaps, since he gathers the items needed for it in Restless dreams, is about to invoke it) of the Rebirth Ritual. In all the canon endings (the ones from the first edition of the game), James decides against it, unlike Walter who must be stopped. James realizes whatever final step he must take in the town isn't worth it, thanks to Mary's interference, of course. She convinces James, in one form or another, that actually performing the rebirth ritual is a pretty fucking bad idea.
There are others ways to unite with her. Unfortunately, two of those ideas aren't as good either. It even serves as a deconstruction (though not one that could be as mean as it could be) of a player's actions in the games. In one ending, he uses the power of the town to bring out the desire for his wife to live, because he is intent on risking himself to saving a being he continues to realize the hollowness or falseness of, a desire that will fade since it only existed in the presence of Mary herself. If one holds no value on their life, I.E chooses to preserve health items and constantly examine any hints (I.E. check the inventory often... like the knife) for his wife, he is a man who cannot live without the 'real her' and decides to kill himself now that he knows he can never really be with her again. The final ending is James coming to the realization that though Mary was gone for good, and he would do anything to get her back, that she wanted him to be happy and move on with his own life (I.E. act like a normal person in that situation, and use the damn health packs). But that doesn't mean he can't "bring her back to life" in one small genuine way. By taking the little girl in the town as his own child, he decided to accomplish what his wife really wanted to in life. To start a family.
Hence why the fog of Silent Hill still exists in the end of good ending of Silent Hill 2. He is still in the process of a very PRIVATE rebirth ritual. One that like Walter's, won't actually bring his Mother to life, or in this case his wife. But one that will end with end with some happiness for James and one that truly shows he appreciates what his wife wanted. The fog will exist for his entire life (or the girl's), but once it clears for him he will have successfully "resurrected" his wife.
All unlike Walter, who because his Mother never existed will be deprived of even the happiness the bad ends of 2 provide. The best thing that can happen for him IS to be driven off by Henry. Yes, he dies and his soul is trapped in Silent Hill... but there was a reason Mary didn't cheer James on. To keep someone you care about truly alive, you have to move on with your life and live it to the fullest. Ironically, Henry gets this lesson just as much second-hand from viewing what happened to Walter, and learns to overcome his general apathy because of it.
- But the Silent Hill protagonists are still capable of admitting to and attempting to atone for their mistakes. Anyone who still has a shot at redemption is beneath the Demiplane of Dread's notice- a Darklord would never even consider the possibility that they had anything to atone for, because that would involve accepting that they were in the wrong.
- The same could be said for all the protagonists. For people who are trapped by something like delusions or guilt, the town gives them the chance to be free. For people more interested in revenge, like Heather, the town gives her the chance to get back at the order.
- "Downpour" more or less confirms this. In both endings where Murphy lets Anne live — thus proving that he isn't a heartless murderer — the town lets both of them go, with the knowledge of who actually disabled Frank for Anne to do with as she may. Even "Closed Circle" supports this — throughout the game, Murphy has shown he's a pretty nice guy despite the blood on his hands, and the town is giving him a second chance to accept the truth and make amends. Only in "Execution" does it decide he's a lost cause and just kill him already.
- They were originally going to include both of their stories, but the publisher advised them to stick with one. This one is based on Harry's search for Cheryl.
- Rose Da Silva — Harry didn't feel comfortable using a Self-Insert, so he created Rose as a stand-in. Her personality is based on his late wife, who may also be her namesake. This may work since we never learn Mrs. Mason's name.
- He changed Cheryl's name to Sharon to distance himself from the character.
- Officer Gucci and Mr. Da Silva — The publisher wanted a specific number of pages, so they were created for filler.
- He kept Cybil's name to honor her memory. Also, he had her die in a Heroic Sacrifice because he thought that she deserved a nobler death than the one she had.
- Dahlia and the Cult — James was in charge of this part of the story. All Harry mentioned is that Dahlia was Alessa's mother that gave her up to the church. He assumed that Dahlia loved her daughter and was forced into giving her up. Based on Alessa's powers and that the Cult was associated with the Church, he figured that they were trying to erase any dark influences in town. Harry wanted to rewrite this but the publisher wanted to keep it.
- The Janitor — The rape part was added due to James's memory of Angela. Since he failed to save her, he gave some of her backstory to Alessa. The Janitor was severely punished because James felt guilt over Angela's death.
- The Monsters — Most of the monsters were added by James. This explains the armless figure, the sexualized nurses, and Pyramid Head. Harry took some creative liberty with them, which is why Pyramid Head is different from his game version.
- Chrystabella — She was added because they needed a main antagonist. Harry wrote her with Dahlia in mind.
- The Ending — Rose and Sharon get home, but it's in the white dimension. This is to symbolize that while both Harry and James got away, they'll never truly escape the influences of Silent Hill.
In the case of changes I didn't mention (Lisa, Kauffman, etc.), they can be blamed on their meddling publisher. Harry and James have no choice but to obey because the need the money since they are both single fathers (Harry to baby Heather and James to Laura).
The sacrifice thing came up because of the burnings in the book. He made his parents out to be the bad guys because part of him blames them for everything. The other sacrifices were around Josh's age so they probably hung out with him. After Josh's death, Alex didn't see them as much and his insane mind twisted this to mean that they were dead.
This theory explains the presence of Pyramid Head and the random cult members.
- Because Silent Hill does not HAVE a specific geographic location. All of the various clues throughout every Silent Hill game point to it being somewhere in the Northeastern United States, BUT the clues always point somewhere completely different from prior clues. The reason is that Silent Hill is the physical manifestation of a collective psychosis created by the cult. Each of the members of the cult came from somewhere else, ultimately being drawn to a single place where the "town" of Silent Hill would be created. Each of these clues are just little memory fragments from cult members.
- Or perhaps Silent Hill doesn't have a specific geographic location because it doesn't WANT to be found by outsiders; it'll find you when it's ready for you.
- It also takes positive aspects of a person's psyche, personality and possibly even hobbies and makes them real, albeit in a twisted fashion. Take the Floatstinger boss; it looks like a moth or a butterfly, which may partially represent Alessa's fascination with insects, particularly butterflies as she collected them. If it can turn something someone fears/hates and turn them into a monster(such as all the dog monsters, since Alessa was afraid of dogs), it can probably take things a person likes/is fascinated by and twists them into grotesque parodies of what they originally were.
Through the view of modern psychology, we know that revenge in the real world is usually sought less as an attempt to right past wrongs, and more often as an attempt by someone to hold up or to express their own power when they feel that it has been challenged. Obviously an immediate lashing out could have been out of anger for everything that she had lost, but Alessa has been planning and carrying out her revenge for decades when she apparently had the ability to just restore herself to health and move on with her life. She did this through Sharon, to an extent, but only so that she could carry out her revenge without feeling guilty about it. When her two halves are intended to be re-united at the end of the film, she still expresses egotistical traits that would be inappropriate even for a young child in keeping her mother trapped in the Fog World. It seems likely that she has no desire for a normal life, and takes a perverse pride in being "the reaper".
By the point when the movie is set, the circumstances could then fall into the Black and Black Morality of a supernaturally powerful malignant narcissist fighting a child-sacrificing cult. Even if she was dangerous as a child that doesn't justify the cult's actions, of course, but how much of that actually happened and how much Alessa made up to keep Rose from falling into Too Bleak, Stopped Caring is hard to know.
Furthermore, the lack of aging, the stillness of the citizen's clothing and hairstyle from 30 years to present time, and how they're too eager to deliver judgement to the wicked could be interpreted as how the souls in the purgatory act in a desperate plea to be saved from an afterlife in Hell. Which cannot happen. Alessa have a claim on their souls and want them all driven down there for everything they've done to her. Not to mention that Paradise looks like no place for those who eagerly harm a child for witchcraft. All they do in order to survive, the sirens announcing the coming of darkness, their sheltering at a church and their prayers warding them from harm, and how easily they brush off the demise of one of them, in the end, can be seen as a display of how far can the souls of the wicked go, in order to dodge their fair comeuppance. Their judgement was set since the burning of Silent Hill, but they remain defiant to the end. And Alessa is more than happy to deliver them such end.
As for how James's story was different from the game to fit into the film verse, maybe his or Mary's parents lived in town (remember in the film not everyone was involved with the cult) and they held their wedding there, or since Toluca Lake is mentioned in the movie maybe there was still a tourist area of the town as well as the mining operation and they had their honeymoon there with little changes from the game.