[SPOILER] Cheryl is actually...?

[kumiko]

I agree from what I have read so far from you guys that this is AU. But either way this game just keeps sounding better and better the more people play it and come up with theories

[neonblack]

It takes some serious mental gymnastics to make SM canon within the established continuity, and it really doesn't make any sense unless you're highly selective of what you take away from the other games. And to be honest, these theories that people are formulating about the previous games after playing SM have been around forever, and have been discredited. SM doesn't really change things. Interpretations are interpretations though, so I suppose you should have a little fun.

[DrainDeimos]

After I played SHSM I looked at it's potential connection to the rest of the series like this:

PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:

Silent Hill is a therapy session with Dr K. There is nothing supernatural or religious about it.

SH1- Cheryl visits Dr K

SH2- James visits Dr K

SH3- Cheryl visits Dr K

SH4- Walter visits Dr K

SHO- Cheryl visits Dr K

SHH- Alex visits Dr K

SHSM- Cheryl visits Dr K

I say "potential" because it is only optionally canon.

[PrescitedEntity]

It takes some serious mental gymnastics to make SM canon within the established continuity, and it really doesn't make any sense unless you're highly selective of what you take away from the other games. And to be honest, these theories that people are formulating about the previous games after playing SM have been around forever, and have been discredited. SM doesn't really change things. Interpretations are interpretations though, so I suppose you should have a little fun.

Having fun is all I'm doing, neonblack, I assure you. Though I kinda disagree that you have to be highly selective - it's a multi-pronged alteration sort of business. For example, the only reason we took the ending of SH1 to be the Good Ending is because we assumed that SH3's beginning was definite and real. All you have to do to match that bit to SHSM is to slap SH3 with the tag of unreliable narrator, and suddenly, SH1 may well have the Bad Ending as the "true" ending. Since SHSM relies on the idea of a (VERY) unreliable narrator, this can extend all over the place.

That said, I would be pretty irked if it was true, because it would be dancing on the graves of an expansive, complex, and intricate mythos. There's no reason to discard so much backstory just for this, aside from speculation-y fun.

Plus, while I like that this game goes the SH2 route, personally...

Actual shifts in reality due to people's psyche and mysterious forces > enhancement of delusions. Any day. The latter is very much a cop out, dead end sort of deal that would make any further games extending down its mythos predictable.

[DrainDeimos]

I don't think that they should stick to this idea and throw away the existing canon in which Silent Hill is real supernatural place that does call people to face themselves

but

I think it would be cool if future Silent Hill sequels incorporated the "Dr K's Office" ending as an unlockable like the "UFO" ending or "Dog" ending.

[neonblack]

I'm only playing devil's advocate. The main issue I see with linking SM to the previous titles is everything that interweaves them, such as the cult and the history and events of the town itself. You could link 1-3-SM quite well actually, a nice touch by Climax, but then there are the issues of the characters existing outside of Cheryl's narrative; Dahlia visiting the wish house, Walter having Valtiel inserted into his subconscious, Douglas writing an exposé, the factions of the cult and their members, etc. If events like these were ignored it would definitely be probable, but the development has been very clever about ensuring Silent Hill's timeline and continuity with little relative events like these. Silent Hill, post-Alessa, as a general rule, is hardly more than a psychological landscape anyway.

[simeonalo]

I feel that the power of the town is still at work in Shattered Memories.

PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:

We have Harry, an idealized version of Cheryl's father who died in a car crash when she was young. Then we have TWO Dahlias: there's the younger Dahlia and an older Dahlia. The older Dahlia is, in fact, the REAL Dahlia, while the younger one is another manifestation, like Harry, of what Cheryl perceives her mother to be.

As for Lisa, Michelle and Cybil, they're just people, I think, normal people that help reinforce the plot as subtext.

Thank you, emFox. Makes PERFECT sense.

[Restoration01]

I know I'll sound like a idiot but...
What's AU?

[cascade88]

I know I'll sound like a idiot but...
What's AU?

An acroynm that stands for 'Alternate Universe'.

[Restoration01]

An acroynm that stands for 'Alternate Universe'.

Oh, okay, Thanks
Ah man, reading what you people have described makes me want to play the game even more.

[PrescitedEntity]

I'm only playing devil's advocate. The main issue I see with linking SM to the previous titles is everything that interweaves them, such as the cult and the history and events of the town itself. You could link 1-3-SM quite well actually, a nice touch by Climax, but then there are the issues of the characters existing outside of Cheryl's narrative; Dahlia visiting the wish house, Walter having Valtiel inserted into his subconscious, Douglas writing an exposé, the factions of the cult and their members, etc. If events like these were ignored it would definitely be probable, but the development has been very clever about ensuring Silent Hill's timeline and continuity with little relative events like these. Silent Hill, post-Alessa, as a general rule, is hardly more than a psychological landscape anyway.

Yeah, the SH1-3 link through SHSM is a pretty clever one, and it's the main reason I'm not miffed at the ending being "It Was All A Dream".

The reason "It Was All A Dream" is often a cop-out, though? Because it lets you generate messy trees of theory. Something like how Walter's Ten Hearts killings did happen, and his "red devil" business was his SH. James happens upon a news article about it, and Henry somehow found out via news as well, in his case, spinning it off into his personal fanfiction that became SH4. Douglas's exposé WAS real (and something both Cheryl and Henry read), and there IS a cult in SH - it's just that it no longer factors into the characters' stories except as backdrop when they think of it.

However, this sort of thing is too much of a stretch and handwave for me to accept, so IMO, the best way to view SHSM is in a discontinuity/alternate continuity that only involves SH1, 3, and possibly 0, with SH1 possibly being Harry's delusion instead of Cheryl's.

[simeonalo]

Just looked at a poster, it said Cheryl's middle name was Heather. In this Silent Hill AU, that would mean Harry named Cheryl "Cheryl Heather Mason". SH1, 3, Origins, and all the rest didn't happen. They were all just therapy sessions in the office.

[Silent One]

This game "could" be connect to the original story, but you'd have to make some pretty large leaps to connect the previous story to this one.

No I believe this is simply a different version of the original story in it's own way. The "AU" if you will. They aren't connected, though it borrows ideas that could have been used in the original.

[KROD]

You could kind of connect it after 3. I mean hell......after going through all that what girl wouldnt need therapy.....

[PrescitedEntity]

Like I've already mentioned, the Heather we saw coming out of SH3 didn't seem like she'd be looking for therapy. I mean, if she revealed anything of what she'd seen, she'd be confined to the nuthouse. Plus, she seemed to have no doubts in how real her experience was.

I still don't think this Cheryl is Heather. It's just too much of a stretch.

[Nyarlathotep]

Obviously we need to adapt to the Zelda method.

Split timeline theories.

[Aavri]

Obviously we need to adapt to the Zelda method.

Split timeline theories.

There is already that. I can't find the interview but an old one from SH3 said that every ending is canon and SH3 is going off one of those endings. This game could very will go off another one of SH1's ending(the bad one).

[PrescitedEntity]

Ohhhh god the mess of trying to figure out which game goes in which timeline.

I hope if they do it that way that they keep the previous games in one timeline, and offshoot from SH1->SHSM->future games. Maybe some callbacks from the other games, but anything more, and this has the potential to become a nightmare, seeing as how these games are more connected (via subtle nudges that are harder to explain away) than most Zelda games.

[Aavri]

Ohhhh god the mess of trying to figure out which game goes in which timeline.

I hope if they do it that way that they keep the previous games in one timeline, and offshoot from SH1->SHSM->future games. Maybe some callbacks from the other games, but anything more, and this has the potential to become a nightmare, seeing as how these games are more connected (via subtle nudges that are harder to explain away) than most Zelda games.

We still could place Every game on one timeline untill there is a diffinitive offshot. The timeline would still look the same other then for

1) All normal events before Harry's car crash
2a) The good Ending and all the games but SHSM take place after this
2b) The Bad Ending and only SHSM is here.

[Yuki]

Er, I'm fairly sure we've been told by Climax that it's an alternate storyline, and is unrelated to the old games in the series aside from being a re-imagining.


That being said, the biggest flaw I see in trying to connect this is the lack of any mention of the Cult or Alessa.