The Bodies In Silent Hill
Posted: 26 Mar 2009
As Harry Mason wanders around Silent Hill, he becomes aware of a litany of bodies strewn all over the place along with other disturbing displays. At first, it’s easy to dismiss them as pointless horror trappings meant to put the protagonist on edge, but the interesting similarities they share with each other seems important when taken into special consideration. Of course, there are bodies in other Silent Hill games as well, but none are in such terrifyingly ritualistic poses. There are two poses that are most prevalent, both of which have religious symbolism attached to them.
The first pose is the one that Harry first encounters after running into the dark alleyway, and is seen very sparsely in other areas if you look hard enough, and that is the pose of crucifixion. Crucifixion was a type of execution where a criminal would be nailed to an object in a cross-like shape, and believe it or not, it’s still practiced today in certain countries. Crucifixion itself is peppered with symbolism, standing for a slow, painful death in which they’d be forced to agonizingly contemplate their transgressions. The crucifixions were also very public, so that others could see what that person had done, and to hint to the general populace that they should think twice before doing what the accused had done. The word “excruciating†actually comes from the word “crucifixion†as a description of how the suffering of it must feel.
The second pose that Harry encounters much more numerously is mostly found indoors. It’s a somber, standing pose with the head bowed down and the arms together. Not so much a death pose, this second positioning is recognized as the most traditional representation of a state of prayer. The dress that these corpses are wearing also seems indicative of the kind of garments that religious followers would adopt, especially those who are in voluntary isolation from the rest of the world…which would make Silent Hill a perfect place for them, huh?
So then, why are these bodies there? Who are they? And who did this to them?
To address those questions in reverse order, I’ll begin with the last one, arguably the most obvious and easiest for me to answer: Who put the bodies in the town? Alessa Gillespie, since the town is under her tenuous control during the events of Silent Hill 1, is responsible for everything in it, bodies included. There would be nothing in the town that she didn’t want. Of course, if anyone has any other theories, I’d be interested in hearing them, but I’m convinced that she killed them (either personally or by use of her proxy creatures).
The second question is not as easy to answer, but I think parts of it are also obvious: Who are the bodies? They can really only be two different sets of people: inhabitants of the town or members of The Order. Hell, they could be a mixture of both. However, I highly doubt that Alessa would go to the trouble of killing every individual member of Silent Hill’s population, especially since Alessa goes out of her way to ensure that a few select people do survive. There are certainly not enough bodies in the game to account for every single person who lived in the town, which had to be at least in the range of 10,000 – 20,000, population wise. Silent Hill is about as big as my town, and the population where I live is over 100,000, so I’m being rather conservative in my estimates. That leaves the bodies being members of The Order, which is what I believe they are. The Order must have been a sizable religion, since most of the townspeople knew they were around, and since they seemed to have quite a bit of money. Their ranks were probably in the hundreds, scattered around the town in various communities.
So then, why are some members of The Order in one pose, and others in another? First, I’ll address the crucifixions. As previously stated, crucifixion stands for a painful death meant to be very public in order to set an example. It is likely that the crucified bodies were members of The Order who were in positions of leadership or power, being ultimately responsible for the actions of their religion. There aren’t a lot of crucified bodies…as a matter of fact, I can only think of three off the top of my head (the one in the dark alleyway, the one behind the spinning fan in the school, and the one in the bathroom stall with the shotgun), though I’m certain there are a few more here and there. Bodies notwithstanding, there are even images of crucifixions in certain buildings, like the pictures of a crucifixion in some of the classrooms in Midwich and the actual crucifix in Balkan Church where Dahlia is waiting for Harry. The other bodies in the prayer pose must be the other members of The Order, subordinates or followers, since they are quite prevalent throughout. Why Alessa put them in that specific position is a cloudier issue, but I believe that she wanted to mock their faith by having them bow down and worship her in a sense. To make my point clearer, prayer is a sign of submission, so in a psychological framework, she is exerting her dominance over a religious institution which has used and abused her throughout her life.
On a side note, this doesn’t address what happened to the non-religious folk of Silent Hill. Obviously, Silent Hill used to be populated some time before Harry wound up crashing his Jeep inside, or else he would have no reason to be going there. Abandoned ghost towns don’t make for very interesting kid-friendly vacations. So did the townsfolk just disappear or something? I don’t think they did, my theory is that they just fell victim to the various creatures that roam around. Alessa cut the town off from its surroundings quite literally by destroying all of the major roads out and severing electronic communications, so the people didn’t stand a chance. Unfortunate victims of dark circumstances, much like Harry himself. There are bodies that don’t fit into either of the above two categories (like the one that falls out of the Midwich locker room with the key, and the unseen cadavers underneath blankets on stretchers all over the hospital), so these must be examples of some of the townsfolk. It makes sense. The former example was a citizen who tried to hide from the monsters in a locker and eventually died from previous wounds. And the bodies in the hospital were the torrents of injured who checked into the only hospital in the area, overwhelming the staff who could only stuff them in stretchers and move on to the next patient. Speaking of, the nurses and doctors in the hospital who attack Harry don’t seem like the other monsters in the game, since they look surprisingly human. This leads me to believe that these are the actual nurses and doctors who used to work in the hospital, taken over by that same parasite-thingy that Cybil gets infected with later on. The other monsters are obviously not real, mere manifestations of Alessa’s mind.
The last question is: Why are the bodies there? It’s somewhat important to understand three psychological principles in order to explain why Alessa would go on a killing spree. The first is destrudo, which is death and is the innate force in all of us which seeks to destroy and undo everything that surrounds us. It is usually kept under control by the libido, which is life and seeks to create and enhance everything which surrounds us. When Alessa split herself into two different people, she basically created a “good Alessa†(which is Cheryl) and a “bad Alessa†(which is the burned and bandaged Alessa still recovering from her wounds in Dahlia’s house, whom we never see in the game until the end when Harry is taken to the house). Since goodness is generally associated with the libido, and badness is usually associated with the destrudo, the Alessa in the wheelchair covered with bandages is all destrudo, destroying everything which she perceives as a threat, meaning the various members of The Order.
Another psychological principle to understand is repetition compulsion. It is the inclination of people who’ve experienced a traumatic event to repeat that event over and over again. This doesn’t mean that you actually have to reenact the event in a physical sense, but simply reliving it in dreams and memories. Since Silent Hill is basically borne of Alessa’s mind and nightmares, Silent Hill is in a constant state of flux due to Alessa’s repetition compulsion. When she was burned in the fire, she could hear the sirens of the fire department, everything got dark due to the smoke, the fires decayed everything around her until it was nothing but metal and ashes, etc. Is that not what happens every time Silent Hill enters the Otherside? Harry hears the sirens in the distance, everything becomes very dark, his surroundings decay into a dilapidated state, etc. It is Alessa reliving the event of her childhood again, forcing everyone in the town to relive it with her.
The last principle is projection, of which plenty of examples are given throughout the entire Silent Hill series. Projection is the transference of one’s emotions and thoughts onto someone or something else. The town of Silent Hill itself is a projection of Alessa’s nightmares, her fears and thoughts being transferred onto the town she lives in. The creatures of Silent Hill during the first game are projections of the things that scare or intrigue her, as you can tell if you look closely at the stuff in her room.
Now then, upon reliving the traumatizing event of her burning in the fire, it is conceivable that Alessa fills with the rage of destrudo, uninhibited by the libido which Cheryl represents. She projects all of that unbridled emotion onto the members of The Order who wronged her, forcing them to undergo the pain and suffering she went through. This is made most evident by the body in the basement of the school before Harry fights the Split-Head. It’s a body in prayer pose, set on fire in the same way that Alessa was set on fire by Dahlia. However, she allows certain members of The Order to live for various reasons. For example, she allows Kaufmann to live because she knows of his disillusionment with The Order and also because Alessa is privy to the fact that he’s harvesting aglaophotis, which she’ll need if she expects to expel God from inside of her. As for why she allows Dahlia to live, that’s really the million-dollar question. Personally, I believe that Alessa still loves her mother and can’t bring herself to kill her. After all, Dahlia has been taking care of her since the fire, even though Dahlia is secretly plotting against her the whole time. Dahlia prophesized that the day when Alessa would take revenge on Silent Hill was near, so she made sure to lay out all of her chess pieces ahead of time, unbeknownst to Alessa…but that’s a theory for another essay.
All in all, this is ultimately how The Order lost a huge percentage of their members, through the projected rage of Alessa. It also explains why there are so few members of The Order left in subsequent games. The events of Silent Hill 1 can fit into the history of The Order as “the great purge,†similar to other tragedies that had befallen them in the past. The only difference is that this was a massacre that they are unlikely to recover from.
How do you like this theory? Is it satisfactory, or did I leave some major plot points out of consideration?
The first pose is the one that Harry first encounters after running into the dark alleyway, and is seen very sparsely in other areas if you look hard enough, and that is the pose of crucifixion. Crucifixion was a type of execution where a criminal would be nailed to an object in a cross-like shape, and believe it or not, it’s still practiced today in certain countries. Crucifixion itself is peppered with symbolism, standing for a slow, painful death in which they’d be forced to agonizingly contemplate their transgressions. The crucifixions were also very public, so that others could see what that person had done, and to hint to the general populace that they should think twice before doing what the accused had done. The word “excruciating†actually comes from the word “crucifixion†as a description of how the suffering of it must feel.
The second pose that Harry encounters much more numerously is mostly found indoors. It’s a somber, standing pose with the head bowed down and the arms together. Not so much a death pose, this second positioning is recognized as the most traditional representation of a state of prayer. The dress that these corpses are wearing also seems indicative of the kind of garments that religious followers would adopt, especially those who are in voluntary isolation from the rest of the world…which would make Silent Hill a perfect place for them, huh?
So then, why are these bodies there? Who are they? And who did this to them?
To address those questions in reverse order, I’ll begin with the last one, arguably the most obvious and easiest for me to answer: Who put the bodies in the town? Alessa Gillespie, since the town is under her tenuous control during the events of Silent Hill 1, is responsible for everything in it, bodies included. There would be nothing in the town that she didn’t want. Of course, if anyone has any other theories, I’d be interested in hearing them, but I’m convinced that she killed them (either personally or by use of her proxy creatures).
The second question is not as easy to answer, but I think parts of it are also obvious: Who are the bodies? They can really only be two different sets of people: inhabitants of the town or members of The Order. Hell, they could be a mixture of both. However, I highly doubt that Alessa would go to the trouble of killing every individual member of Silent Hill’s population, especially since Alessa goes out of her way to ensure that a few select people do survive. There are certainly not enough bodies in the game to account for every single person who lived in the town, which had to be at least in the range of 10,000 – 20,000, population wise. Silent Hill is about as big as my town, and the population where I live is over 100,000, so I’m being rather conservative in my estimates. That leaves the bodies being members of The Order, which is what I believe they are. The Order must have been a sizable religion, since most of the townspeople knew they were around, and since they seemed to have quite a bit of money. Their ranks were probably in the hundreds, scattered around the town in various communities.
So then, why are some members of The Order in one pose, and others in another? First, I’ll address the crucifixions. As previously stated, crucifixion stands for a painful death meant to be very public in order to set an example. It is likely that the crucified bodies were members of The Order who were in positions of leadership or power, being ultimately responsible for the actions of their religion. There aren’t a lot of crucified bodies…as a matter of fact, I can only think of three off the top of my head (the one in the dark alleyway, the one behind the spinning fan in the school, and the one in the bathroom stall with the shotgun), though I’m certain there are a few more here and there. Bodies notwithstanding, there are even images of crucifixions in certain buildings, like the pictures of a crucifixion in some of the classrooms in Midwich and the actual crucifix in Balkan Church where Dahlia is waiting for Harry. The other bodies in the prayer pose must be the other members of The Order, subordinates or followers, since they are quite prevalent throughout. Why Alessa put them in that specific position is a cloudier issue, but I believe that she wanted to mock their faith by having them bow down and worship her in a sense. To make my point clearer, prayer is a sign of submission, so in a psychological framework, she is exerting her dominance over a religious institution which has used and abused her throughout her life.
On a side note, this doesn’t address what happened to the non-religious folk of Silent Hill. Obviously, Silent Hill used to be populated some time before Harry wound up crashing his Jeep inside, or else he would have no reason to be going there. Abandoned ghost towns don’t make for very interesting kid-friendly vacations. So did the townsfolk just disappear or something? I don’t think they did, my theory is that they just fell victim to the various creatures that roam around. Alessa cut the town off from its surroundings quite literally by destroying all of the major roads out and severing electronic communications, so the people didn’t stand a chance. Unfortunate victims of dark circumstances, much like Harry himself. There are bodies that don’t fit into either of the above two categories (like the one that falls out of the Midwich locker room with the key, and the unseen cadavers underneath blankets on stretchers all over the hospital), so these must be examples of some of the townsfolk. It makes sense. The former example was a citizen who tried to hide from the monsters in a locker and eventually died from previous wounds. And the bodies in the hospital were the torrents of injured who checked into the only hospital in the area, overwhelming the staff who could only stuff them in stretchers and move on to the next patient. Speaking of, the nurses and doctors in the hospital who attack Harry don’t seem like the other monsters in the game, since they look surprisingly human. This leads me to believe that these are the actual nurses and doctors who used to work in the hospital, taken over by that same parasite-thingy that Cybil gets infected with later on. The other monsters are obviously not real, mere manifestations of Alessa’s mind.
The last question is: Why are the bodies there? It’s somewhat important to understand three psychological principles in order to explain why Alessa would go on a killing spree. The first is destrudo, which is death and is the innate force in all of us which seeks to destroy and undo everything that surrounds us. It is usually kept under control by the libido, which is life and seeks to create and enhance everything which surrounds us. When Alessa split herself into two different people, she basically created a “good Alessa†(which is Cheryl) and a “bad Alessa†(which is the burned and bandaged Alessa still recovering from her wounds in Dahlia’s house, whom we never see in the game until the end when Harry is taken to the house). Since goodness is generally associated with the libido, and badness is usually associated with the destrudo, the Alessa in the wheelchair covered with bandages is all destrudo, destroying everything which she perceives as a threat, meaning the various members of The Order.
Another psychological principle to understand is repetition compulsion. It is the inclination of people who’ve experienced a traumatic event to repeat that event over and over again. This doesn’t mean that you actually have to reenact the event in a physical sense, but simply reliving it in dreams and memories. Since Silent Hill is basically borne of Alessa’s mind and nightmares, Silent Hill is in a constant state of flux due to Alessa’s repetition compulsion. When she was burned in the fire, she could hear the sirens of the fire department, everything got dark due to the smoke, the fires decayed everything around her until it was nothing but metal and ashes, etc. Is that not what happens every time Silent Hill enters the Otherside? Harry hears the sirens in the distance, everything becomes very dark, his surroundings decay into a dilapidated state, etc. It is Alessa reliving the event of her childhood again, forcing everyone in the town to relive it with her.
The last principle is projection, of which plenty of examples are given throughout the entire Silent Hill series. Projection is the transference of one’s emotions and thoughts onto someone or something else. The town of Silent Hill itself is a projection of Alessa’s nightmares, her fears and thoughts being transferred onto the town she lives in. The creatures of Silent Hill during the first game are projections of the things that scare or intrigue her, as you can tell if you look closely at the stuff in her room.
Now then, upon reliving the traumatizing event of her burning in the fire, it is conceivable that Alessa fills with the rage of destrudo, uninhibited by the libido which Cheryl represents. She projects all of that unbridled emotion onto the members of The Order who wronged her, forcing them to undergo the pain and suffering she went through. This is made most evident by the body in the basement of the school before Harry fights the Split-Head. It’s a body in prayer pose, set on fire in the same way that Alessa was set on fire by Dahlia. However, she allows certain members of The Order to live for various reasons. For example, she allows Kaufmann to live because she knows of his disillusionment with The Order and also because Alessa is privy to the fact that he’s harvesting aglaophotis, which she’ll need if she expects to expel God from inside of her. As for why she allows Dahlia to live, that’s really the million-dollar question. Personally, I believe that Alessa still loves her mother and can’t bring herself to kill her. After all, Dahlia has been taking care of her since the fire, even though Dahlia is secretly plotting against her the whole time. Dahlia prophesized that the day when Alessa would take revenge on Silent Hill was near, so she made sure to lay out all of her chess pieces ahead of time, unbeknownst to Alessa…but that’s a theory for another essay.
All in all, this is ultimately how The Order lost a huge percentage of their members, through the projected rage of Alessa. It also explains why there are so few members of The Order left in subsequent games. The events of Silent Hill 1 can fit into the history of The Order as “the great purge,†similar to other tragedies that had befallen them in the past. The only difference is that this was a massacre that they are unlikely to recover from.
How do you like this theory? Is it satisfactory, or did I leave some major plot points out of consideration?