Silent Hill Heaven

I have to say that I agree with everyone that everyone has already said but I would like to add my two cents to this thread as well, with my own personal viewpoint on it.

My immediate thought when faced with that line was this. Someone touched on this earlier with the 'blood relative' thing. The main deity of the cult, the God, is the Holy Mother, or sometimes just the Mother. A bloodline starts from her - Alessa, Cheryl and Heather. As a result, Alessa, Cheryl and Heather are the flesh of the bloodline.

The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh - the fear of the Mother creates fear for her children. I think it describes the nightmarish world of Silent Hill and the cult very well indeed.

The fear of being hurt leads to fearing of other people

It might be just a catchy phrase to get people interested.

Lifetolifeless wrote:Once again, if there's anything important about the phrase, any basis for understanding, it's the contrast between its two prepositions. Sure, the fear of pain leads to fear of those things or agents capable of causing it. Of course, but there's nothing profound about that statement: it's almost redundant, and it doesn't represent a relationship parallel to the one outlined by the phrase in question. The actual phrase says fear for the flesh, not of. To fear for something means that you're concerned about its well-being. Something posing an imminent threat of pain or injury doesn't exactly cause one to suddenly become concerned for its well-being.

People seem to be ignoring what Lifetolifeless is saying.

I have no real thoughts on what "The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh" actually means. But any interpretation must surely base itself around the prepositions. I feel the sentence as a whole is largely irrelevant, it's more down to working out what the hell KCET are implying by their use of the words "Blood" and "Flesh".

I agree with Lifetolifeless. The words "fear for" CANNOT mean anything but "a concern for the well-being of".
And then there's the intriguing use of the words "tends to".

The fear of blood usually creates fear for the flesh.
The fear of blood more often than not leads to fear for the flesh.
The fear of blood can lead to fear for the flesh.

All of the above imply that the one thing leading to the other ISN'T definite. So, whatever "blood" is, a fear of it can bring on a concern for the well-being of "flesh". But not always.

Like I said, I have no interpretation of my own - I just wanted to throw a little observation into the mix.

However, I do feel I want to debunk the only interpretation that keeps popping up (the Death/Life theory). Saying that Blood = Death and Flesh = Life doesn't make any sense to me. Why would a fear of death create a fear of (or limit a persons zest for) life/living? Surely, fearing death would invigorate ones appetite for life/living? That particular interpretation's so narrow-margined in the sense that it's entirely a matter of perspective, isn't it?

I don't think they're saying that a fear OF life/living develops. It's that the fear FOR life/living does. One becomes protective of their life and health, guarding oneself out of fear.

I know it was mentioned before, but what's the translation of this in the original Japanese game? I think we should look into that and then draw any conclusions.

Ian wrote:I know it was mentioned before, but what's the translation of this in the original Japanese game? I think we should look into that and then draw any conclusions.

The Japanese game has the english line at the start as well. As far as I know.

Isn't it something along the lines of "A fear of death causes fear of living"?

THE FEAR FOR BLOOD TENDS TO CREATE THE FEAR FOR FLESH.

My interpretation is this: Blood represents death; the spilling of. Flesh represents life; live skin. So my concluding interpretation is that it's saying that if someone fears death so much that they will create a fear to really <i> live </i>.

Personally I think some people are reading to much into this. It seems a pretty straight forward phrase to me. If one is afraid of blood then they will start to fear the cause of blood flow a.k.a. harming the flesh. To put it another way, fearing blood tends to create a fear of getting hurt.

As for blood= death... well I can't understand that one at all. If anything, it's lack of blood= death.

Personally, I think it's just a bad translation from the Japanese.

"The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh", i think means that the fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh

deez wrote:"The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh", i think means that the fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh

EXACTLY!.........wait.....

we are shown alessas picture when we see the sentence. it means alessa is afraid of being hurt, the very heart of sh1's story.

There is nothing real deep going on here... if you are afraid of blood, you fear for your own flesh, lest you bleed yourself. ie, They are afraid of injuring themselves.

Look at people who freak out and faint at the sight of other peoples blood, just imagine if they began bleeding themselves...

voila! "The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh"

i think fanny

I always just thought it was a way to set the mood.

I always thought it was pretty lame an shallow. An overrated saying.

Though I like Adversary's thinking.

lame an shallow. An overrated saying.

I dont understand, how is it overrated and shallow?

The first thought that always popped into my head was that "fear of blood" referred to fear of family.

Beyond all of the cult stuff, the game can be taken as a journey through the mind of an abused child. Alessa obviously fears Dahlia; while we are shown in the game that Alessa once wanted a normal relationship with her mother, through the course of her torment she began to fear for herself and acted out against her.

LastGunslinger wrote:The first thought that always popped into my head was that "fear of blood" referred to fear of family.

Wow, that's an interesting new thought. I'm not so sure about it, but really, kudos.