What official sources are you basing this on?

Now, give me a good reason to believe Pyramid Head is all in James' head. Not a fan theory, I mean something supported by the games which makes it obvious.

That's not true.
They're retconning, that's all.

I don't know, maybe that's what he is now, post-retcon, but before that, Valtiel was just supposed to be the model for the executioners' outift (which was the model for Pyramid Head).
(also, it's "Valtiel")

There's no "Samael"/"Sammael" or whatever. The Cult's god was never given a name. The whole "Samael" thing was just part of Dahlia's lies.

oh God.

We should make using the word "retcon" a bannable offense.

Anyway, the concept of "retconning" doesn't really make sense for a series like silent hill. The notion of "continuity" within a game or between games doesn't really have much weight in the series. Every game liberally reinterprets what the prior games laid out, which is part of what makes the series so fun for me.

Bitching about a lack of continuity regarding Silent Hill seems to miss the point, in a way.

I'd like to agree, y'know... I really liked their approach in "Silent Hill 2", how they simply kept the town and went for a totally different story...
But ever since "Silent Hill 3", Konami keeps going back to "the Cult" and its god, despite being apparently unable to keep the whole thing coherent.

I'd like to agree, y'know... I really liked their approach in "Silent Hill 2", how they simply kept the town and went for a totally different story...
But ever since "Silent Hill 3", Konami keeps going back to "the Cult" and its god, despite being apparently unable to keep the whole thing coherent.

Well, when was the last time a cult was coherent?

They worship a god (which was named Samael, I'm not going to get into fan theories)

And I'm talking about the plot, here.

The same thing applies to stuff like Walter Sullivan... I mean, there wasn't a lot of stuff about him in "Silent Hill 2", really. A newspaper article. A few sentences. And yet they didn't manage to stay true to that in "Silent Hill 4 The Room". Guys, seriously... If you can't even do that, just forget about it and come up with an entirely new serial killer instead. We won't bite you, and that may actually make for a better plot.

The plot of the Silent Hill games never really matters.

Wasn't the inclusion of both Walter and Joseph just part of the silent hill fanboyism evident in the room? Part of the meta-plot, or whatever you want to call it.

I really don't mind tongue-in-cheek references to previous games, but Walter was central to the plot...

Isn't it just a piece of intertext to connect the series in a very loose way. Weren't 2 and 4 both originally conceived as seperate works?

You just did. The god being named "Samael" is nothing but a fan theory. And it's wrong, too.

She refers to a big evil god as Samael

Nope, she just talks about "the Mark of Samael" and "a demon" using it. And that's when she's lying to Harry to manipulate him.

She just talks about resurrecting her god. And that's later in the game, when she's done lying.

Again, the cult's god was never given a name. Never.
"Samael" being its name is just a fan theory and a misinterpretation of the script.

NONE OF THIS SHIT MATTERS I MEAN COME ON

The cult's god has lot to do with the plot of three games out of four, and we were talking about its name.

And why would that be boring, exactly? Was "Silent Hill 2" boring?

Yeah, and it shows. Badly. In good part because of the very fact they tried to connect the games like that.
Just have both games be titled "Silent Hill" and have something to do with a weird town called "Silent Hill"... That's connection enough...

I think there are nerds in this thread.

Uh, the games' "plots" are for the most part irrelevant.

Yeah, well, I disagree. And judging from the Japanese official guides and sites, it looks like the poor souls at Konami disagree as well, despite the terrible writing of their recent offerings...
(also, you haven't answered my question)

Where is it?

Yeah, I know, 'cause that would be my point.
And I don't see how you can argue that something concerning the past of Walter Sullivan can be deemed "unimportant" in "Silent Hill 4 The Room".

3) I don't think dessgeega would be tempted by a snake

GO EAT SNAKES amirite God?

In the month preceding the U.S release of Silent Hill 3, I’d managed to inadvertently do two things to help me get ready for it.

The first was I stumbled across my old DVD copy of Jacob’s Ladder, which I had long assumed lost in my families’ move to a new house about four years ago. The significance of the movie to Silent Hill is obvious to anyone whose seen and played the two, but for those who haven’t done one or the other, it’s best said that Silent Hill is frequently referred to as Jacob’s Ladder: The game.

The other, and perhaps most importantly in understanding the nature of Silent Hill 3’s story, was I started to listen to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ album: Murder Ballads.

Nick Cave is frequently referred to, and somewhat affectionately, as a poorman’s cross of Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen.

With a heroin addiction.

His album Murder Ballads is quite true to the title; it’s a collection of songs about Murder. Some traditional, most original, plus a Bob Dylan cover thrown in for good mix. Aside from the Bob Dylan track it’s quite easy to categorize the songs into two types: there are those that lament murder, and those that revel in it.

“The Kindness of Strangers” laments the death of Merry Bellows. It’s a tragic song complete with a spoken (sung) moral. Told from the perspective of some unnamed party, as though he is just someone who read the story about a murder in a local newspaper.

So Mothers keep your girls at home
Don’t let them journey out alone
Tell them this world is full of danger
And to Shun the company of strangers
O poor Mary Bellows

Where as “The Curse Of Millhaven”, told from the perspective of the young female teenage killer Loretta, is a song in love with itself. Opening with the joyful shouts/screams of the band members that segues into a brief oompa-lumpa type sound. Goddamn if the song doesn’t love singing about killing people.

Since I was no bigger than a weavil they’ve been saying
I was evil
That if “bad” was a boot then I’d fit it
That I’m a wicked young lady, but I’ve been trying
hard lately
O fuck it! I’m a monster! I admit it!

So getting to the point. Silent Hill is a cover, an imitation of horror. A Dean Koontz story told by David Lynch.

Silent Hill 2 laments horror.

Silent Hill 3 fucking loves horror.



One of the main keys to a good horror story, or a good ghost story, is tragedy. Sorrow. Unfathomable grief. From the base of suffering comes the terror. To bring it back it Jacob’s Ladder, what makes the film so memorable is not the fact that it’s one of the few genuinely creepy films that holds up over time (due partly, no doubt, to Adrienne Lynne’s decision to do all the effects “In Camera” as opposed to some post-production technique) is not so much unsettling imagery, but the genuinely affecting story of a man going through purgatory, attempting to reconcile with his regrets in order to reach salvation. Never mind that the means for his salvation lies in Mcaughly Culkin.

Or take the less theologically heady The Shining (the movie adaptation that is), it’s not the isolated hotel, the disturbing images within the haunted hotel, that makes it memorable. It’s a father driven to the point that he would attempt to kill his family with an axe while doing a Johnny Carson impersonation that makes it linger. I have no doubts that should I ever drive my father to that point, it wouldn’t be so different a situation. Though I’m sure that I could sway him back with the warm glowity-glow of television.

But the main point is that any supernatural, or extremely horrific, plot point should be used to make us understand the fundamental every day tragedy that is the focal point of the great horror stories.

The other way to go as an alternative is retaining the mystery. If you can explain everything away at the end, then to some degree you’ve fucked up. In a story that details something unknown (and isn’t sci-fi) you can’t make it completely known. Because it cheapens that feeling of “what the hell is going on?” when at the end, you can explain it all away. It’s not scary when you know what happened, that feeling of unease when presented with infinite possibilities, even those beyond literal description, is forever gone.

It’s like David Lynch said when discussing Twin Peaks, “A great mystery doesn’t offer a solution” because it’s not ever knowing the answer that keeps it alive and fascinating. Once you tell what it’s all about, then quite honestly, who gives a fuck?

Now a horror story doesn’t have to be both. In fact, it’s probably better to stick to one. The mystery, or the tragedy. It can mix elements of both… but if the heart of it is a tragedy, then you need some solid explanations, and if the heart is the unknown, the you must never explain it fully.
It’s the mystery that makes the original Silent Hill work so well. As I said, the underlying story of the original Silent Hill is pure B movie material. Quiet mid-American town hides something sinister… drugs are involved… evil cult tries to resurrect it’s god and so forth. What makes it so endlessly fascinating is that connecting all the dots is left up to the player. He/She has to analyze everything, not just narrative information, but the environment he plays in. The enemies he faces. The ending he receives (out of a total of four, plus a joke ending) to come to any sort of conclusion. I’d even venture to say that part of the reason the story is so highly regarded is that there exists something of a definitive plot guide, written by President Evil (A.K.A Dan Birlew, who has gone on to become a Guide writer for BradyGames. Incidentally, he apologizes for the Final Fantasy IX guide, and would like you to know it wasn’t his fault.).

Though I have no doubt it’s about 99.9% dead on in it’s interpretation, there still remains the fact that it’s one fan’s interpretation, though well informed and knowledgeable as it is. See, when he wrote the official Brady Games guide to Silent Hill 2 and had the opportunity to ask several questions concerning the SH1 story to the Konami staff, he was answered with either “There is no relation between the situation of the first game and the new game Silent Hill 2." Or "The focus is the game at hand, which is not similar to the previous product." Though sometimes he was granted an "That is an accurate description."

There is this wonderful feeling to the original Silent Hill that even though every aspect to it is deliberate on the part of the creators; even they do not know the full extent of what they created. That it sort of grew on it’s own. That even they can not explain everything the player experiences. And it’s because of that, that the first Silent Hill still makes me uncomfortable to this day.

Silent Hill 2 is the tragedy focused entry to the series. Though there is no attempt to explain why Silent Hill is the way it is in the story, it isn’t so much in the interest of mystery (though there are tidbits thrown in here and there to flesh out the history of the town to those interested) but because it’s irrelevant. It’s not about the town, it’s about why the main character James comes to the town. It’s about why the three other supporting characters came to the town. In short, it’s about guilt. If Jacob’s Ladder was the aesthetic influence of Silent Hill, then it is the narrative influence on Silent Hill 2. It is a journey through purgatory in which how the player actually plays the game decides his outcome. Though frustrating for attempts to reach alternate endings, it is such an interesting idea for determining endings that I can overlook the slightly flawed, and almost subjective manner, in which endings are determined (for “In the Water” you have to not heal often after receiving damage, examine the knife that Angela gave you after contemplating suicide with it and so on…). If you’re suicidal, then you ain’t gonna receive forgiveness. You’ll receive punishment. Look for your dead wife in earnest, by healing yourself and looking at her picture, and you might make it out of Silent Hill with hope for the future… and so on.

A friend of mine from school had never played the original Silent Hill. He started with part 2. He said he was terrified by it, but was disappointed by the end because it didn’t explain why “everything was so fucked up in that town”. At that point I had to explain the idea of subjective storytelling and the fact that facts don’t matter so much in this kind of story, as do perceptions of the characters. When he wasn’t quite sure how to interpret that, I just brought up Fight Club as an example. Love it or hate it, Fight Club may be the most educational film in terms of narrative technique this generation. I’ll come back to David Fincher a little latter incidentally.

This is what makes Silent Hill 2 such an interesting “survival horror” game. Even on the hardest difficulty level, the game is a lot easier than say, the easy setting on the Resident Evil remake. Sure, you can attribute that partially to the fact that you can move forward and backwards while using your weapon. But it really comes down to the fact that the “monsters” aren’t the threat, aren’t the true evil, but rather the character you control is.

This could be an interesting discussion as to forcing a player to control someone whom they may be morally be opposed to, but I’m not here to really discuss Silent Hill 2. Praise or Bury, I’m here to talk about Silent Hill 3.

Silent Hill 3 tries to combine the mystery and tragedy of the first two games, and because of this doesn’t end up with a particularly interesting story. It is a story that is told as well as it can be, and if you had to make a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1 (yeah, fuck you, I’m spoiling it for you) then you probably couldn’t come up with much better, it reveals as much about the original as it has to without telling every little detail or getting bogged down in too much “ahhhh! So that’s what happened!” moments (though in an odd way, the one scene that does it is possibly the best narrative moment in the game. But due mostly to aesthetic reasons, which I’ll get in to in a bit).



To borrow the words of the Silent Hill 3’s scenario writer (and writer of SH2… and maybe 1? I’m too lazy to look at the manual) Hiroyuki Owaku concerning SH3 “The feeling of fear prevailing in Silent Hill 3 differs from that Silent Hill 2. In Silent Hill 2 we tried to create a sense of fear sustained by silence. That silence lying within each individual which is progressively transformed into anxiety. It was a kind of fear that built up little by little. Gradually it escalated into horror. For Silent Hill 3, a different approach was used. We wanted to create a more violent, direct feeling of fear.”

For better or worse, this effect had been masterfully achieved. Where as in Silent Hill 2 you couldn’t help but feel “this isn’t worth finding some dead bitch, I’m not going any further” In Silent Hill 3 you tend to feel like “I have to keep moving to get the fuck out of here!”. The game has such an immediate visceral effect that was not present in the previous two, that even before you know the situation your character is in, you fear. You don’t fear the fact that your character may die so much as you’ll witness something you really don’t want to. Well sort of…

I have to admit that even though my first playthrough was set to the easy action level, I just had to pause the game in the opening sequence. The sound design is so aggressive (done by series veteran sound designer and music composer Akira Yamaoka) that I had to take my headphones off. The particular enemy that unnerved me so much makes this kind of sound that was…

Well, remember in Dumb and Dumber, when Jim Carrey does the self-described “most annoying sound in the world”? How it was both annoying and funny? This sound was both annoying and terrifying, which essentially means it was anxiety-inducing. I mean real anxiety. Increased pulse rate and heart palpitations. It is strongly recommended that those highly susceptible to stress not play the game with headphones on.

Of course, adding to the stress in the more combat and overall action oriented gameplay. Enemies are more aggressive than in the previous two games. And remember those random drops into nothingness formed by the metal grates in the original Silent Hill? Well now you can actually fall into them. Add to that several instant death sequences and you get the feeling that for the first time in the series, the fear of having your character actually die has been factored in the scare… uhhh, factor.

Which may be one of the problems with the game. The fact is in the first two games, the death of the character had a narrative importance. In the first game, Allesa was trying to prevent Harry from unwillingly completing Dahlia’s plan. In the second, it was James’ just reward. In this one, well it seems the point is to just add gaming stress on top of the intended horror stress. In the first two it served as something of an appropriate end… where as in this one, even the villain doesn’t want you to die. And neither does Heather. The possibility of death is meant to make sense only in terms of being a game. They do an admirable job of covering this by having the “monster” Valietel drag Heather off when she dies in certain areas of the game… as though her death was part of some master plan, but when completing the game you realize that it really doesn’t make much sense. But didn’t I talk about having a mystery with indefinable answers as one of the main joys of great horror? Well, I guess I forgot to mention that it doesn’t work when you see/feel the creators making excuses.

This could also stem from the choice of who the main character is. Don’t get me wrong, I think Heather, as written, is one of the more personable and believable characters you’ll see in a videogame horror franchise. But here’s the difference, Harry and James were both ordinary people. They weren’t exactly randomly caught up in the circumstances that led them to Silent Hill, but it wasn’t a given that they were the kind of people that would naturally end up in their respective horror situations.

Conceptually, the character of Heather must inevitably face Silent Hill and the manifest Hell it entails. Whereas the previous two games had a feeling of “Gee, doesn’t it suck for these two guys to be here. Sure, they made choices that brought them here, but damn!”. For heather it’s more of a case of “Man! She has no fucking clue what she is, and why she’s fighting these creepy things! Isn’t it fun fucking with her?”.

Lament and revelry. You can’t help but get the feeling that the creators are downright gleeful of the situations they put Heather in. NOTE: Heather the character, not the player who controls her. Obviously they loved terrifying the player in the first two games, but this time they actually seem to enjoy manipulating the character herself.

So if you’re going to be gleeful at manipulating a character whose supposed to be an “innocent”, how do you get away with it without seeming like a group of misogynist assholes?

Simple, you make the style retro-hip. Tragically retro-hip!
Silent Hill 3 is an odd, but strangely successful, merging of two kinds of chic; heroin and retro 70’s.




Heather could have come out of those Gap Ads some years ago...

the first issue of the gamer's quarter

Without a good plot, I'd just be left with a virtual ghost house. A well-designed one, maybe, but still...

Except the plot for Silent Hill is trite and stupid, while the plot for Silent Hill 2 is good, but nothing more.