Extra Content Yay/Nay/What?

[Jonipoon]

To be fair I've always considered the story of SH3 to be the weakest among the Team Silent titles, since much of it is a repetition of SH1's story. However, I don't think it killed any of the mystery from the first game.

Before SH3, I guess the three biggest unanswered questions fans might have after playing SH1 were the following:

- Which ending is the real ending?
- Did Harry actually make it out of Silent Hill?
- What happens to the baby?

For sure, all of those were answered and you could argue that it would be nice to have kept some of the mysteries intact. On the other hand, SH3 introduced new mysteries that continued the legacy of SH1, like what happens to the newborn? Does Heather still have physic powers? Will Heather's children inherit her powers?

[The Adversary]

I have a feeling Heather is going to stay as far the fuck away from babies as she can for the rest of her life.

[Jonipoon]

She's a single mom according to the UFO ending from Silent Hill 3. And we all know those endings are the real endings...

[The Adversary]

In that case, thinking about it, that means Heather birthed God after all. Because the aliens appear at the Mason's apartment, long before Heather uses the aglaophotis, and we know she was already pregnant with God, so. . . .

[Burning Man]

and we know she was already pregnant with God, so. . . .

I thought Heather got impregnated with the god only after she reached Silent Hill. The entrance to Lakeside Amusement Park is where she clutches onto her abdomen when falling to the floor.

Speaking of Laura, I never understood the fascination of having her as the next protagonist. She's supposed to be a normal girl; innocent that she wasn't impacted by the town's power. It's not clear to me what kind of narrative would fit her in a Silent Hill tale - "The Sisters were really cult members, planning to use Laura as the next sacrifice!"

I'll do wonders as the scenario writer. You can trust me.

[The Adversary]

>I thought Heather got impregnated with the god only after she reached Silent Hill.<
My presumption was always that that's when Heather felt her first "kick," so to speak. She's killed so many monsters by that time—and lost her father—that she was filled with enough hatred that it really started to make itself known. Alessa had been "pregnant" since the ritual 7 years prior to SILENT HILL—"He has been nurtured by that nightmare." So we don't know when Heather was actually impregnated, but I would, thinking that, suggest that it would have been longer than just a few hours since meeting Claudia.

God just festers until it's ready.

[jdnation]

I'm pretty sure people didn't like the idea of Heather being a grown-up Alessa either since that "killed" the mystery of SH1's ending.

Heather was a logical follow-up in terms of continuing the cult's story, in which case, they'd be looking for her. Of course, when starting the game, you wouldn't know it was her. SH3 does bring some closure in terms of a 'trilogy' with Heather now done with the past.

A similar thing could be done for Laura, though the mystery I'm referring to directly tied to is more about how innocent's view the town when walking through it, so getting that perspective explained by an older Laura would kill that aura. We as the players only know the foggy and dark Silent Hill world, never the functional town itself, so I'd prefer it stays that way. At best kept to a minimal, referential in the same way James and Mary talk about visiting there, but a Laura story may in that sense just be rethreading some old ground that SH2 already covered.

Laura's actual fate post-SH2 being explained or alluded to in reference or something is fine. And I don't know about dragging her back to the town itself as an adult to explore it with more adult baggage. A side-character that we perhaps communicate with outside could work.

[Jonipoon]

>We as the players only know the foggy and dark Silent Hill world, never the functional town itself, so I'd prefer it stays that way.

But Laura wasn't in the functional town, she was still very much in the same "reality" as James, Eddie, Angela, etc. She just didn't see any monsters or weird abominations. If Laura was still in real world she wouldn't be able to meet James or the others, she'd be walking down a sunny and populated Nathan avenue.

[jdnation]

But Laura wasn't in the functional town, she was still very much in the same "reality" as James, Eddie, Angela, etc. She just didn't see any monsters or weird abominations. If Laura was still in real world she wouldn't be able to meet James or the others, she'd be walking down a sunny and populated Nathan avenue.

Yeah, that's a good point. But are we technically certain? In reality, the town is populated by both the townsfolk and main cast. Laura doesn't let on that the town is abandoned. She could be seeing everyone but the monsters, while everyone else in town can't see them. It could be that the town accomodates Laura's wish as a runaway not to be found, much like it responds to James' desire for punishment, which explains how she nonchalantly gets around, even in the hospital. We know that the other characters interact with other characters outside of the player's character, like the guys Eddie shoots and whoever made the pizza. They are the protagonists of their own game, with their own cast, so to speak. There would not even be that many people. Small towns tend to be more sparsely populated, though I imagine any place with a hospital and an adult lounge means a much busier place.

It is also possible that Laura doesn't see everybody in the town, but likely just enough not to feel alone, and to interact with people when she needs to. According to peripheral texts like the Book of Lost Memories and novelization, Laura hitched a ride with Eddie into town. So in a sense, Laura does inhabit the fog world but to a different degree.

Another explanation for why Laura doesn't seem as perturbed by the absence of others, may be that she also traverses the town in a dream state, like James, and is braver for it, and that's also why an empty town and buildings don't worry her.

Having Laura as a character necessarily means providing some answer as to her memory of events, or lazily resorting to select amnesia.

One seemingly interesting thing according to the wiki, is that the Homecoming devs seemingly considered making the character, Elle, a grown up Laura, but scrapped the idea. This was for the best, as I don't think recurring characters do the world of SH any favors , and risk creating discrepancies. Best they be kept only in reference if necessary. Heather was an exception in lieu of the fact she was reborn and became someone new entirely.

[Jonipoon]

No matter what she sees or experiences, Laura most certaintly isn't in the real world during the events of the game. If she were, that would essentially mean that there are no multiple realities in Silent Hill and everything takes place in the same, real world. This is known as Twin Perfect's theory, and I'm pretty sure it's been debunked since it creates more problems than it solves. But yeah, based on your text it sounds like you're more into the commonly accepted belief that there are separate layers of realities in Silent Hill.

Having Laura as a grown-up select character doesn't necessarily require deeper explanations or the need to resort to "cheap amnesia". I think exploring the themes around survivor's guilt and Laura facing new issues as an adult would keep certain mysteries alive while simultaneously showing new sides of her story and personality. Of course, then people might say "Why even use Laura then, you could just create a new character instead" and my answer to that is: Why not.

[The Adversary]

>It is also possible that Laura doesn't see everybody in the town, but likely just enough not to feel alone<
This is essentially the whole point of Laura's Otherworld: abandonment. Her parents left her, Mary left her, everyone seems to have left her, and now she's alone. So, yeah, she doesn't see anyone besides James and Eddie—Eddie because they met outside of town, and James because they're linked via Mary. Laura doesn't see Maria, otherwise she probably would have stopped and asked why the woman who looks just like her sick friend is chasing her.

[jdnation]

I do lean more to the idea that how SH works is more perception driven, but it could likely be both. SH4 proves that new physical spaces can be shaped, and every game has a Nowhere, wherever that is... Maybe even a dimensionwithin other's minds itself, or a demon's? So it certainly can't all be in the real world. But are those strictly the Otherworld, or the fog world, which might blend the two, where does one begin and end? We have no concreate idea, which I believe is intentional and better for it.

The fact remains that Eddie does interact with people we never see, plausibly so are the other cast members. We cannot say with certainty that Laura didn't. We only know whatever James saw. What are the rules for who gets to pop in or out? So even in the fog world one sees other people that the other does not, or perceives differently as James seeing a creature that Angela calls her father. So even in a different dimension, perception is a key thing, and could likely bekon or create phantasms and ghosts of other people. Are those real? We know that some are created, like Maria, but others are real and die in the real world, like Walter's victims. And the obvious fact that James, Eddie, Angela and Laura are real people interacting with each other while accessing places the other can't with certain key items that "unlock" them.

Revisiting Laura will nessitate revisiting what she remembers experiencing, after all the story would demand direct ties to the town itself at some point. It is not impossible to write that story, but it risks breaking things. As we'd have to compare the obvious break between the experiences of child and grown-up Laura and these neccesitate reflecting on the town itself. Laura would logically want to understand it herself because of those memories. And would they risk having a "Mary" born from a wish. And where would James be if he made it out? Laura would bring these things up and we'd get confirmation on whether she left with James or not, even if he disappeared afterwards.

>It is also possible that Laura doesn't see everybody in the town, but likely just enough not to feel alone<
This is essentially the whole point of Laura's Otherworld: abandonment. Her parents left her, Mary left her, everyone seems to have left her, and now she's alone. So, yeah, she doesn't see anyone besides James and EddieEddie because they met outside of town, and James because they're linked via Mary. Laura doesn't see Maria, otherwise she probably would have stopped and asked why the woman who looks just like her sick friend is chasing her.

Exactly. Much like James never meets the people Eddie sees, and no-one else sees the Red Pyramid. But someone made that pizza. Angela probably isn't only meeting James either. Laura too can encounter other people.

[The Adversary]

Well, James doesn't meet the people Eddie sees because Eddie has already killed them.

And I don't see the fascination with the pizza having been made. It's not like Eddie strolled into Pete's Bowl-O-Rama and ordered a pizza at the counter. It was probably already there and he opted to eat it. Things manifest for James, they would presumably manifest for Eddie and Angela, as well. Hell, I even suspect Angela's knife was manifested explicitly for her, the town being a dick and essentially telling her The only way out of this is to kill yourself.

There's also no evidence to suggest Angela saw anyone besides James. At this point in time, during the events of SILENT HILL 2, the only people in that otherworld are who we see in the game: James, Angela, Eddie, Laura, and Maria. The newspaper detailing Thomas Orosco's death suggests that all of them were drawn to Silent Hill essentially at the same time, which indicates James presumably killed Mary and that Eddie ran away yesterday.

We have nothing to indicate that Laura sees anyone besides James and Eddie. James because, like I said, they are inextricably linked by Mary; and Eddie because he gave her a ride into town. There's no point in Laura even meeting other people—it would completely debase the idea of her otherworld.

Edit: I freaking missed forum life so much.

[Burning Man]

And I don't see the fascination with the pizza having been made. It's not like Eddie strolled into Pete's Bowl-O-Rama and ordered a pizza at the counter. It was probably already there and he opted to eat it. Things manifest for James, they would presumably manifest for Eddie and Angela, as well.

I think the pizza is pretty significant. Pete's Bowl-O-Rama is the only place where three different characters occupy and interact in the same space. This is a rare situation. The three characters each have different levels of darkness in their hearts, but it's implied that they all see exactly the same pizza.

In Silent Hill 2, it's established that manifestations of delusions generally look different to whomever happens to be looking at them. If the pizza were a manifestation born from Eddie's unsatiated hunger, neither Laura nor James would have seen it - unless they, too, were very hungry at that point.

So, it's not immediately clear if the pizza is a manifestation, or simply a copy of the real thing when Pete's Bowl-O-Rama was replicated, or if Andy himself delivered the pizza.

Side note: If the pizza were a manifestation, each character might see different toppings. The Dog Ending suggests it's Pepperoni.

[The Adversary]

>The three characters each have different levels of darkness in their heart<
"Of all the characters, [Laura] is the only one who does not hold any darkness in her heart."

But now we're arguing that the pizza was made by another person who occupies this Otherworld? Let's just keep adding imaginary characters to the story in spite of there being no evidence, why not. The pizza is just there and Dahlia is a robot.

>In Silent Hill 2, it's established that manifestations of delusions generally look different to whomever happens to be looking at them.<
The only real example of this potentially being true is Abstract Daddy, and we don't know exactly what Angela sees. We can think she saw her father, but we don't know.

Also, this is a pizza. And, by the way, it's a supreme—not pepperoni—for James, Eddie, and Mira. So, probably supreme for everyone.

[Burning Man]

Let's just keep adding imaginary characters to the story in spite of there being no evidence, why not. The pizza is just there and Dahlia is a robot.

Well, let's just think about this.

I wouldn't say there's absolutely no evidence of other people. Like, you remember that Nihilist director... Monneret, was it?

Because we're playing as James, we never question who left the wrench on the porch. It's certainly out-of-place, though. You don't see many wrenches just lying there on a porch.

But I think most people would say that the director left the wrench there for James. If other characters were in the vicinity, they might see a wrench, too.

It is certainly possible that James is imagining everything about the director, and it's all in his head. But the problem is that then someone could say James is imagining Eddie and Laura, too.

Now going back to the pizza - okay, a supreme pizza -, we have three characters with different levels of darkness (and, yes, "no darkness" counts as a level, too), who see the same pizza. It wouldn't be a stretch to think someone like the director would have delivered a pizza for Eddie and Laura. I mean, people keep wondering if characters in Silent Hill ever go hungry.

[jdnation]

Well, we do keep finding useful health drinks!

But we tend to brush that off as a necessary game mechanic break, much like we brush off serious injuries and deaths in gameplay as abstractions that are not a part and apart from the story.

But Eddie's pizza doesn't fall under that. It is narrative.

Sure he could just have found it, like James finds light bulbs in a can, but the game doesn't present the pizza as strange to either Eddie or Laura. Obviously Eddie didn't make it.

James does see Eddie's victims, but how did they get there? Are they real? Are they like Maria?

The point is that Eddie is interacting with something resembling people. And Angela also sees someone else in a monster.

And if the point of Laura's story is being away from other people, then why are James and Eddie in her otherworld? We know Laura at least wants to find Mary. Why didn't the Otherworld manifest a Mary for her, like it does Maria for James, bullies for Eddie, and Angela's father? What is Laura's story purpose other than as a supporting member to James'? Was the point for her to be adopted by Mary's husband?

I don't have any definitive answers. But if we are going to write a continuation to Laura's story, then we have no choice but to revisit and make some conclusions about Laura's time and activities during SH2. Specifically about things that James never saw. If all it was is her being a minx to James and searching for a letter and doing nothing else, and interacting with no one outside of James and Eddie, and facing no significant adversity... Then Laura has no story. What little is there is wrapped up by learning the truth about Mary. Then her fate is unknown.

Silent Hill works better with protagonists going through its supernatural course for the first time. This is also technically true for Heather's experience. A revisitor would narritatively necessitate a comparison between past and present. To make the past interesting, new things will have to be added to the past for thematic relevance to the present.

[The Adversary]

> Like, you remember that Nihilist director... Monneret, was it?<
You’re getting rusty.

Laurence Monneret is the current director of Brookhaven Hospital, as of SILENT HILL 2. Not the former. Ernest Baldwin is likely the former director, the one who knows James by name, and, as I posited who knows how long ago, the one responsible for the letter and the wrench.

And, as such, we know from later entries in the series that ghosts are able to manipulate and exist within the realm of this Otherworld.

Also, you’re really going to say “no darkness in their heart” means “darkness in their heart”? Get outta here.

Laura doesn’t see other people because her Otherworld is abandonment. Like I said, she is inextricably tied to James because of Mary, and she sees Eddie because they met outside of Silent Hill. She doesn’t see anything else—she doesn’t even have a scratch on her.

[Jonipoon]

>I mean, people keep wondering if characters in Silent Hill ever go hungry.

Depends. Jasper complains about feeling incredibly thirsty in Walter's world, whereas Henry complains about not being hungry at all (even after being stuck in his apartment for several days). Although Walter's world operates under different conditions than the Otherworld in Silent Hill, we can assume that it's rather normal for people to not feel hunger or thirst in these strange realities, unless there's a specific reason for it. There's also Heather comment about not wanting to eat or drink anything from an alternate reality. Perhaps most people just lose their appetite in Silent Hill? I mean I wouldn't eat a barbecued dog either.

[jdnation]

She doesn’t see anything else

I'm not saying you're wrong. Just that this is an assumption concerning things we never see. Do we really know that to be the case?

Just labelling it a case of 'abandonment' is also simplifying a complex matter. That Laura throws a tantrum against her orphanage to the point of being a runaway doesn't directly mean she wants no people in her life. She may selfishly need grown-up people such as Eddie and James when it's convenient. She is looking for a mother figure she bonded with years ago. There may be other encounters she had in life. As in James' case, she can be in denial about her loneliness, and those worries about abandonment is what the town is producing as a punishment in the form of fewer people being around, but we know that number isn't zero, and inevitably leading to the loss of the one person she is looking for.

She neither needs James nor Eddie once she's in Silent Hill. As far as we know Eddie doesn't do much of anything else for her. And she only acts as a foil for James, who doesn't do anything for her either other than to finally tell her that Mary is dead, thus permanently ruining her goal of ever finding her, putting aside the Leave Ending. She is usually several steps ahead of James in her search for Mary, with James only catching up. So her purpose is more like being a white rabbit for James to follow because she possesses knowledge of Mary that James wants. So if anything the town is more likely using her to reach out to James without her realizing it.