Silent Hill Heaven

A new article has been added to Letter From Silent Heaven titled “The Life and Games of Jeremy Blaustein.” Along with many other video game titles under his belt, Jeremy Blaustein was the man responsible for translating/localizing Silent Hill 2-4 for us English-speaking folks.

John Szczepaniak, author of this article and freelance journalist, was gracious enough to contact Letter From Silent Heaven with the proposition of coming up with a few questions to ask Jeremy which were included in his discussion about Silent Hill 2. I’d like to give my personal thanks to John for his kindness and the site-plug he included in his article.

What questions might those have been?

1.) Angela’s story has been full of debate since the game’s release. The biggest feud has to be about her past. While we all know she was physically abused (as notes and newspapers say so) many believe she was also sexually abused. This is believed due to her appearance, clothing, mannerisms and underlying hints in her dialogue. However, others believe she was never sexually abused because there is no concrete documents, notes or dialogue actually confirming this. What are your views on this? When translating the script did you see any underlying sexual abuse tones? Did the development team consult you about this in greater detail about Angela’s past in order to help you localize her lines?

2.) Did you have any involvement with creating/translating the infamous apartment whisper? If so, what does the whispering man say? If not, what is your interpretation of it?

In addition, Letter From Silent Heaven’s version of this article has Blaustein’s raw, unedited answers of the questions above. Two huge questions in the Silent Hill fandom world have now been answered by the man who not only translated three of the series' titles, but was also part of the of the early concept stages of Silent Hill 2; when the development team were still in the “ideas” stage of the game they brought Blaustein in to help with the creative process.

So, do you want to know what the answers are to those questions? Then click here and enjoy the read.

A big thanks once more to the author John Szczepaniak!

Thank you so much. This looks like an interesting read

dude, awesome. just read it.

I really wish this wasn't released on April's Fool... like "Mouse" said, this will always cast a doubt in my head...

Er.

It wasn't. Read the article date. Read the article date at GameSetWatch.

Ah, okay, at first I was wondering who this "Mouse" fella was.

Awesum! Interesting reading!

Really interesting to get another look behind the scenes! Awesome article!

sorata wrote:I really wish this wasn't released on April's Fool... like "Mouse" said, this will always cast a doubt in my head...

Okay, totally srs. now: I was only joking with Ratiocinator over his unfortunate lack of awareness regarding the biggest prank day of the year. I was not seriously implying that there should be any real doubt as to the veracity of this article. It's legitimate.

Angela info aside (Ratiocinator, was this that "thing" you were alluding to?), what I find fascinating is that Blaustein is basically saying that the series has been aimed largely toward Western audiences starting with the second game.

That means a lot and, in a sense, made the passing of the franchise to Western studios an inevitable decision.

Kenji: Yep, this was that "thing."

I was moreso surprised at Jeremy's overall involvement with the game. We know he did the localization but to know he was specifically brought in by the team to help create the game's/character's stories and some of the themes was a surprising discovery.

what other things did he clear up for us?
Any new details on mary or where/when she was killed? or when she stayed at brookhaven/jeromes?

It was that and the apartment whisper. When I was first asked to come up with a few questions to ask Blaustein I only thought he was involved with SH2's localization and nothing more. With that in mind, my two questions were heavily revolved around dialogue for him.

Very interesting response about Angela. I'm really glad that was cleared up. I couldn't help laughing when he basically said that it was obvious ("clearly depicted" were his words, I think).

I hope we can find more news like this. ya know clear some stuff up.