The Bodies In Silent Hill

Have you seen Harry's daughter anywhere? Short, dark hair?

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jthomp1286
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Post by jthomp1286 »

I agree with you in some aspects about Lost Memories. However, using it in reference to the first 3 games is usually a safe bet.
My personal favorite is that he wanted to keep Dahlia out of the hospital so that she wouldn't find his stash of Aglaophotis there. Of course, she did find it eventually and smashed it.
He planted it there for Dahlia to find. He even admits this in game. Also, aglaophotis' sole purpose is not to "kill" God, as it does no such thing.
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Post by DamienPales »

He planted it there for Dahlia to find. He even admits this in game. Also, aglaophotis' sole purpose is not to "kill" God, as it does no such thing.
Ah, I concede my first point.

I should have said that Kaufmann thought that the aglaophotis would kill God. After all, he seems surprised when God is expelled from Alessa in a powerful state, which makes me believe that that wasn't the result he was expecting.
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Post by Mis Krist. »

>That's why authors like J.K. Rowling drive me nuts...she ruins the continuity of her novels by continuing to add extra information that's not in the novels already.

lol no. She's expanding on something that doesn't fit into the main story of the novels, or even side plots of the novels--it's extra information that enriches, not weighs it down.

Personally I think you do yourself a disservice by dismissing Lost Memories, though for the reason jthomp said: using it to apply to the first three games is the best way to do it... considering that it was written with those three games in mind. I fail to see how anyone could try to expand it to include The Room, Origins or Homecoming.
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Post by Video Gamer »

I keep seeing you guys insisting that the hospital staff all died due to the parasites.
Why don't we hear about this in the other games, then? That's at least 20+ people. Plus, I think the patients might've noticed when Dr. Kaufmann as well as quite a few nurses and a doctor or three disappear...
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Post by DamienPales »

Personally I think you do yourself a disservice by dismissing Lost Memories, though for the reason jthomp said: using it to apply to the first three games is the best way to do it... considering that it was written with those three games in mind. I fail to see how anyone could try to expand it to include The Room, Origins or Homecoming.
Well, I agree with most of it already, so I don't really "dismiss it" in a sense. There are just some parts of Lost Memories where I think the game creators are being coy and theoretical, and not speaking with an air of factuality, especially the whole part where they analyze the Tarot Cards.

Doesn't Lost Memories contradict the whole "Silent Hill is still a normal town in another dimension" theory though? I believe it says in the introduction that Silent Hill is a town shrouded in fog where people's fears are made manifest.
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Post by jthomp1286 »

>Silent Hill is a town shrouded in fog where people's fears are made manifest.

The source of the fog, I believe is primarily Toluca Lake. At least, in the real Silent Hill. The real Silent Hill doesn't exist in "another dimension." If you believe in the concept of the 3 planes of existence. Besides, telling the player that up front would just confuse them and there'd be no reason to play and find that out for yourself. In that respect, they are speaking factually.
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Post by The Adversary »

There has been supplementary material published for the Silent Hill series since 1999. In fact, each of the first 4 games had their own guides—Lost Memories: Silent Hill Chronicle is just the most popular one b/c of the translation Web sites.

>Why don't we hear about this in the other games, then?
Why do we have to read about their deaths? The occurrence happened decades before any of the other games, and as such doesn't affect any of the other games' stories.
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Post by FatalFrame »

This is more going off the Dahlia thing. Are we sure that either she or maybe even Kauffann did the parasite thing? When you see the cutscene it looks like she's clobbered with something. In other words, it looks like someone sneaks up behind her and conks her on her head, not that something just manifested there. Also, she may have been put in the wheelchair for transportation. Even when you're fighting her she's not moving that steadily. Just a thought.
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Post by DamienPales »

This is more going off the Dahlia thing. Are we sure that either she or maybe even Kauffann did the parasite thing? When you see the cutscene it looks like she's clobbered with something. In other words, it looks like someone sneaks up behind her and conks her on her head, not that something just manifested there. Also, she may have been put in the wheelchair for transportation. Even when you're fighting her she's not moving that steadily. Just a thought.
Based on this whole discussion, I'm pretty 50/50 on whether it was Dahlia or Alessa who offed Cybil.

If it was Dahlia, and I'm still leaning in that direction, she just knocked Cybil out and summoned the parasite inside of her while she was unconscious. And I don't think she used the wheelchair for transportation, it was just at the merry-go-round and Dahlia left her there.

If it was Alessa, then it was Alessa. I'd like it more if Alessa was the one who did it, but I don't see why Alessa would wait until that particular point in the game to get rid of Cybil. She could've just knocked Cybil out at any time, couldn't she? Especially when Cybil saw her before she crossed the street toward the lake before she meets up with Harry at the antique shop.
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Post by FatalFrame »

I would think she'd have been able to take Cybil out of the picture whenever she wanted. Just the way it happens points to a real, physical being doing it. The wheelchair could have been anything. I don't think either theory could be negated here.
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Post by Video Gamer »

MMY wrote: Why do we have to read about their deaths? The occurrence happened decades before any of the other games, and as such doesn't affect any of the other games' stories.
The general response to the "People = Monsters" theory is "We never hear about several deaths in later games." I figured this would apply to this situation, as well.
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Post by Mr. CCA »

MMY wrote:There has been supplementary material published for the Silent Hill series since 1999. In fact, each of the first 4 games had their own guides—Lost Memories: Silent Hill Chronicle is just the most popular one b/c of the translation Web sites.

>Why don't we hear about this in the other games, then?
Why do we have to read about their deaths? The occurrence happened decades before any of the other games, and as such doesn't affect any of the other games' stories.
The problem I see with this argument is that it's a little unrealistic. A whole town worth of residents disapears several times and everyone keeps mum? One would think these occurences would be in national news.
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Post by Mis Krist. »

^ Uh, a whole town of residents DIDN'T disappear several times.
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Post by Mr. CCA »

Krist. wrote:^ Uh, a whole town of residents DIDN'T disappear several times.
My bad, but even one time would probably make national news.
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Post by Mis Krist. »

It didn't even happen one time, though...? People disappeared, not the entire town.
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Post by woofy »

Mr. CCA wrote:
Krist. wrote:^ Uh, a whole town of residents DIDN'T disappear several times.
My bad, but even one time would probably make national news.
Exactly. It didn't make the news. People did disappear, but not everyone.
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Post by alone in the town »

MMY wrote:Then you're not going to follow many of the discussions.

And I just told you Lisa explicitly states the staff is dead. Not "dead" as in "not human," "dead" as in "dead." Their bodies are being controlled by the parasites.
I've always actually wondered about this myself. I know of course what Lisa's understanding is, but can we assume it's accurate? After all, she was entirely unaware of her own nature for most of the game. To me, it's been questionable as to whether or not the doctors and nurses seen possessed actually were once 'real' people. Alessa doesn't seem to cause harm to people unless she considers it necessary or deserving, and while I'm sure some of those doctors and nurses were complicit in her imprisonment, it's hard to imagine that all of them were.

Of course, there could have been plenty of doctors and nurses that were entirely unaffected and none the wiser to the disappearance of their colleagues, but there's so many of them that are.
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Post by DamienPales »

The problem I see with this argument is that it's a little unrealistic. A whole town worth of residents disapears several times and everyone keeps mum? One would think these occurences would be in national news.
To be fair, there is a decade of time between the first game and the second game. For all we know, maybe it did make the national news and the entire town has been completely sealed off because of how dangerous it is. After all, when James drove to Silent Hill, he found that the highway had been sealed off and had to continue onward on foot. I just don't think that Konami would focus on that aspect regardless, since that would really detract from the atmosphere of the series and turn it into some Resident Evil "OMG TEH TOWN LETS CALL IN THE SWAT TEAMS!!!" clone.

However, Lisa does say this during one of her conversations:

"Before this place was turned into a resort, the townspeople here were on the quiet side. Everybody followed some kind of queer religion. Weird occult stuff. Black Magic, that kind of thing. As the young people moved away, the people figured they'd been summoned by the Gods. Evidently, things like that used to happen around here all the time. Before the resort, there wasn't really anything else out here. Everyone was so flipped out. Gotta blame it on something. Then a lot of new people came in and everybody clammed up about it."

So she seems to hint that there were mass disappearances all the time, and that the townspeople merely claimed it was due to some aspect of their religion. If you factor that in with the broader history of Silent Hill, perhaps the town has a tendency of doing this due to its "mystical nature." I don't think it was ever populated to a noticeable extent until recently before the first game, since rumors of the town's sinister nature kept most people away from it.

If Silent Hill is still populated, though, then why do certain characters seem not to care when they enter the misty Silent Hill? Heather and Douglas check into the abandoned motel as if that's what they were expecting to find. I think that Silent Hill has a reputation of being a fairly abandoned town (of which there are a surprising amount in the United States) which people avoid or have no reason to go to, and Lisa said that most people in it belonged to The Order. So who would really care if a religious cult went missing?

And because I love to complicate things even further, I'll bring up the whole factor of how Silent Hill is different to everyone who enters it. We know that Laura saw a normal town because she had no reason to see anything else, so maybe most people do indeed "see" a normal town with normal people in it. That doesn't necessarily reflect the true nature of Silent Hill, though. It is a town that shows you what is in your mind, so we may never truly know what Silent Hill is actually supposed to look like, assuming it's actually supposed to look like anything.
Of course, there could have been plenty of doctors and nurses that were entirely unaffected and none the wiser to the disappearance of their colleagues, but there's so many of them that are.
Well, you only see the Puppet Nurses in the Otherworld. This curiously separates them from other Silent Hill monsters, who seem to have no problem appearing in Misty Silent Hill. The only other beings who seem to only exist in the Otherworld are Lisa and Alessa. So my belief is that they are not your normal, manifested monsters.

The only thing I can think of is that Alessa is using these nurses as some kind of army or bodyguards. After all, they appear in some form or another in all of the Silent Hill games, so maybe Alessa gave them a special place in her world. It's a weak theory, but it's all I've got.
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Post by jthomp1286 »

So she seems to hint that there were mass disappearances all the time, and that the townspeople merely claimed it was due to some aspect of their religion.
That's possible, but I think she meant they literally moved away. If they disappeared, I think she would have said so. When people disappear in a small town the people of the town don't assume they moved away.
If Silent Hill is still populated, though, then why do certain characters seem not to care when they enter the misty Silent Hill?
Most of the time its because they don't realize they're not in the real world anymore.
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Post by alone in the town »

DamienPales wrote:
The problem I see with this argument is that it's a little unrealistic. A whole town worth of residents disapears several times and everyone keeps mum? One would think these occurences would be in national news.
To be fair, there is a decade of time between the first game and the second game. For all we know, maybe it did make the national news and the entire town has been completely sealed off because of how dangerous it is. After all, when James drove to Silent Hill, he found that the highway had been sealed off and had to continue onward on foot. I just don't think that Konami would focus on that aspect regardless, since that would really detract from the atmosphere of the series and turn it into some Resident Evil "OMG TEH TOWN LETS CALL IN THE SWAT TEAMS!!!" clone.
If the town was abandoned, that would kind of disqualify it as a prime vacation spot. I can't imagine James and Mary checking in an abandoned hotel and hanging out pretending it wasn't.
So she seems to hint that there were mass disappearances all the time, and that the townspeople merely claimed it was due to some aspect of their religion. If you factor that in with the broader history of Silent Hill, perhaps the town has a tendency of doing this due to its "mystical nature." I don't think it was ever populated to a noticeable extent until recently before the first game, since rumors of the town's sinister nature kept most people away from it.
Stating that the 'young people moved away' doesn't sound like a euphemism for mass disappearance to me. It sounds like a small, isolated community where religion and tradition grate on the younger generation and they simply skip town to lead more contemporary lives. Much like has happened to Amish communities in the last few decades.
If Silent Hill is still populated, though, then why do certain characters seem not to care when they enter the misty Silent Hill? Heather and Douglas check into the abandoned motel as if that's what they were expecting to find. I think that Silent Hill has a reputation of being a fairly abandoned town (of which there are a surprising amount in the United States) which people avoid or have no reason to go to, and Lisa said that most people in it belonged to The Order. So who would really care if a religious cult went missing?
I think it is hinted somewhere in the later games that the town has declined as a tourism locale, but so far there really isn't anything beyond circumstance to suggest that the real town looks anything like the common abandoned fogbank that most of the characters see in the games.
And because I love to complicate things even further, I'll bring up the whole factor of how Silent Hill is different to everyone who enters it. We know that Laura saw a normal town because she had no reason to see anything else, so maybe most people do indeed "see" a normal town with normal people in it. That doesn't necessarily reflect the true nature of Silent Hill, though. It is a town that shows you what is in your mind, so we may never truly know what Silent Hill is actually supposed to look like, assuming it's actually supposed to look like anything.
Laura never mentions seeing other people while in Silent Hill, none that James doesn't meet himself anyway. She simply doesn't see the monsters, and likely not the physical obstacles, that James encounters.
Well, you only see the Puppet Nurses in the Otherworld. This curiously separates them from other Silent Hill monsters, who seem to have no problem appearing in Misty Silent Hill. The only other beings who seem to only exist in the Otherworld are Lisa and Alessa. So my belief is that they are not your normal, manifested monsters.

The only thing I can think of is that Alessa is using these nurses as some kind of army or bodyguards. After all, they appear in some form or another in all of the Silent Hill games, so maybe Alessa gave them a special place in her world. It's a weak theory, but it's all I've got.
It could perhaps be, though Alessa does appear outside of the dark Otherworld. Several times.
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