The Bodies In Silent Hill

Have you seen Harry's daughter anywhere? Short, dark hair?

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DamienPales
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The Bodies In Silent Hill

Post by DamienPales »

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?
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Post by AuraTwilight »

So then, why are these bodies there? Who are they? And who did this to them?
They were probably never living people. This is Alessa's nightmare, afterall, and the other games feature corpses that were summoned out of nothingness.
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.
Alessa doesn't have absolute control over her world. She's at best like a lucid dreamer, but the world is still built off her subconscious mind. She's not a god.
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.
As said before, the corpses don't have to be real people, especially since Alessa isn't the vengeful bitch she's depicted as in the movie, and the real Silent Hill is a bustling resort town. So many missing people would have been alluded to in future games.
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.
You do realize that the Silent Hill we see is another dimension created by Alessa's mind, right? The townspeople didn't go anywhere. From a world perspective, Dahlia, Cheryl, Alessa, Harry, and Kauffman, at a bare minimum, vanished into thin air (Not getting into the Lisa/Townspeople/Cultist/Nurses and Doctors thing now).
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.
See above. Alessa is not doing this for revenge . She did not split into her good and evil sides, simply "one half"and "the other half." As said before, it's her nightmare. The corpses don't need to have any purpose except to horrify her.
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.
I didn't mention this earlier, but the destrudo and libido are not bad and good. The destrudo doesn't cover rage towards others; it's basically the death/suicide instinct. Alessa's motive is to kill herself. What happens to everyone else isn't much her business.
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.
Dahlia hadn't been taking care of Alessa, and Alessa does not want revenge.

You watched the movie too much. It and the game are not the same.
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Post by Larson »

^ What she said, but I'll give you a lot of credit for going through posting that theory.
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Post by It's bread »

DamienPales wrote:the Alessa in the wheelchair covered with bandages is all destrudo
Those aren't bandages. She's wearing the same type of robes as the corpses (and Pyramid Head and Valtiel).

Personally I think there's a lot of merit in the idea that the foggy version of Silent Hill is an alternate world, but there's one small hole in that theory: Early in the game, when Harry is searching for the Keys for Eclipse, there's an abandoned police car that seems to have skidded to a halt just short of one of the chasms where the streets are cut off (tyre marks are clearly visible behind the car). This seems to imply that the car's driver was aware that the road had collapsed, and braked accordingly. Were the policemen drawn into the foggy world in the same way Harry and Cybil were (and if so, why, and where are they now?), or is the foggy world actually the real world? (and if so, why aren't there more crashed or damaged cars?)

This contrasts sharply with the two houses that Harry passes through (not to mention the school and the hospital), which seem to have been deserted very recently, as if their inhabitants were just spirited away, or the entire buliding and everything in it is newly created. Surely there'd be a bit more of a mess if they'd been killed by monsters.

I wonder who was shooting hoops with a dog's head. :lol:
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 Rompers look very human to me. The way they crawl around on their hands and knees is definately more human than apelike. Take a human, put a dental gag in their mouth so all they can say is "huh", wrap their head and torso in a sack and put a collar, black underpants and a pair of black boots on them and you've pretty much got a Romper. Or something else entirely... :lol:
By far the worst is the Hamburger Lady.
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Post by Droo »

The ceremonial robes are worn by Order members in worship/homage to Valtiel. Alessa no doubt came to greatly fear those robes, since they represent the religion that has led to her great abuse. Thus, when the Otherworld manifests her internal fears (which we know all of the monsters in SH1 are based on), it also manifests these looming figures of Alessa's nightmares.

Alessa does not actively kill anyone in SH1, with the arguable exception of Cybil, and even if that is the case it's certainly borne out of necessity rather than anger/revenge.
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Post by DamienPales »

They were probably never living people. This is Alessa's nightmare, afterall, and the other games feature corpses that were summoned out of nothingness.
Hmm, I remember bodies in other games as well, but I don't remember them being summoned out of nothingness. They were just kind of lying around. Can you help me with an example?
Alessa doesn't have absolute control over her world. She's at best like a lucid dreamer, but the world is still built off her subconscious mind. She's not a god.
Well, I never said she had absolute control, I said that she had tenuous control. What I meant is basically what you just said: The world is built off her subconscious mind, so everything in Silent Hill is of her own making. Obviously, she has some power being the psychic/poltergeist that she is, but her power is not infinite or anything. She has limitations.
As said before, the corpses don't have to be real people, especially since Alessa isn't the vengeful bitch she's depicted as in the movie, and the real Silent Hill is a bustling resort town. So many missing people would have been alluded to in future games.
"Vengeful bitch" is not really how I see Alessa, more like "peeved-off teenager who's not going to take it anymore." If you remember Origins, Alessa is quite pissed off, and especially near the end of the game, full of hatred and pain, even before creating the Cheryl half. However, in case you think I'm implying Alessa is somehow evil, Alessa is no more in the wrong for offing members of The Order as Harry is for shooting demon children. It's primarily out of self-defense, but there is a small element of revenge involved. Alessa wants this, or else she wouldn't have started it. Also, Cheryl wouldn't be running around spray-painting "Marks of Samael/Metraton" everywhere if preservation of the Otherworld wasn't her goal. So, she's mostly trying to keep The Order from consummating their summoning of God, but that includes killing them as well.
You do realize that the Silent Hill we see is another dimension created by Alessa's mind, right? The townspeople didn't go anywhere. From a world perspective, Dahlia, Cheryl, Alessa, Harry, and Kauffman, at a bare minimum, vanished into thin air (Not getting into the Lisa/Townspeople/Cultist/Nurses and Doctors thing now).
Eh, I don't really buy the whole theory of Silent Hill still being a normal town in another dimension, at least not in the parameters of this game. I'm not going to explain why, since that's not really the topic of my post and I don't want the thread to go in that direction, but I understood while I was writing that a good amount of SH fans believe what you believe. I'm new here, so I'm sure you'll eventually get to hear why I think that foggy, abandoned Silent Hill is the real deal.

So I guess my theory presupposes that Silent Hill was in actuality taken over by Alessa's nightmare world. You can disagree with my presumption, I have no problem with that, but even if you're right and there is still a normal Silent Hill underneath it all, what happens to the townspeople is not really centrally important to my theory. That was a mild tangent I went off on because I felt I needed to address it in the context of what I was writing about.
See above. Alessa is not doing this for revenge . She did not split into her good and evil sides, simply "one half"and "the other half." As said before, it's her nightmare. The corpses don't need to have any purpose except to horrify her.
Hah, I knew I shouldn't have used those terms to describe the two halves. I tried to mitigate it by putting them in parentheses, but I knew I should've just gone back and changed them. My mistake.

The reason I had originally written "good" and "bad" is because Cheryl is innocent and has no knowledge of what is happening in Silent Hill (until she fuses with her true self during the car crash), and Alessa is aware of all that has happened and is working to stop The Order from finishing what they started. I didn't mean to imply that there's some kind of Good/Evil duality with Cheryl/Alessa.
I didn't mention this earlier, but the destrudo and libido are not bad and good. The destrudo doesn't cover rage towards others; it's basically the death/suicide instinct. Alessa's motive is to kill herself. What happens to everyone else isn't much her business.
Actually, and sorry if I'm sounding patronizing 'cause that's not my intention, destrudo does include destruction of everyone else, including oneself. Sigmund Freud said that the destrudo is the source of human aggression. He used it to justify the actions of soldiers during World War I.

Here's the Wikipedia entry to back me up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destrudo

Or if you have an aversion to Wikis as sources of information, just read "The Ego and the Id," which I recommend reading anyway.
Dahlia hadn't been taking care of Alessa, and Alessa does not want revenge.

You watched the movie too much. It and the game are not the same.
I actually never watched the movie, because it looked stupid. That, and the reviews for it were horrible, so I decided to just pretend it never happened.

I think I already addressed the whole revenge thing above, but unless I'm missing a cutscene in Origins that directly contradicts me (which is very possible, since I skimmed through that game in four hours), I do believe that Dahlia cared for Alessa.

Allow me to explain as briefly as I can. Based on Origins, we do know that Alessa bore no serious ill will toward her mother, even after the fire. In one cutscene toward the end of Origins, Alessa talks to her mother and it is seen that she doesn't hate her at all. Actually, and this is where I get theoretical, I suspect that Alessa doesn't even know Dahlia was responsible for the fire, so she has no reason to think Dahlia is nothing more than a loving mother.

In the intro to the first game, there's a scene where Alessa is rising out of bed and looking into the camera in a room that is clearly not the hospital basement, since there's a bright window to her left. However, her burns show that she is still recovering from her wounds. At first, I didn't know where she was, but then I realized that she must be in a bedroom at Dahlia's house. This was further justified by the fact that Harry first meets the bandaged Alessa at Dahlia's house in Nowhere. I believe that Dahlia transferred Alessa to her house once Lisa had decided to stop caring for Alessa and escape, since there was no longer any nurse to care for Alessa and it would be up to Dahlia now.

That is my reasoning for why Dahlia cared for Alessa. Not overwhelming evidence, I know, but enough to convince me to come to those conclusions.
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Post by DamienPales »

I'm going to try and address everyone's replies at first, but if this thread gets really big, I might skip over some posts. Sorry if I fail to address anyone's questions.
Those aren't bandages. She's wearing the same type of robes as the corpses (and Pyramid Head and Valtiel).
You may be right, since it's very hard to tell with PS1 graphics. It really doesn't matter that much, but that would be interesting if it were robes. Maybe some new theories can spring from that.
This contrasts sharply with the two houses that Harry passes through (not to mention the school and the hospital), which seem to have been deserted very recently, as if their inhabitants were just spirited away, or the entire buliding and everything in it is newly created. Surely there'd be a bit more of a mess if they'd been killed by monsters.
You do see quite a bit of bloodstains though. I remember in the backyard of the first house, there were bloodstains all over the grass and on the garage door beyond the wooden fence. Though, if strange creatures were invading my city, I would probably find somewhere secure to lock myself inside of, which means somewhere with no windows for the creatures to get inside. And now that I think about it, that could explain all those damned locked doors everywhere.
The Rompers look very human to me. The way they crawl around on their hands and knees is definately more human than apelike. Take a human, put a dental gag in their mouth so all they can say is "huh", wrap their head and torso in a sack and put a collar, black underpants and a pair of black boots on them and you've pretty much got a Romper. Or something else entirely...
They are humanoid, but they have that same pinkish skinlessness as the Groaners and Air Screamers. Probably a creature from Alessa's nightmares though, since their skin looks like what skin exposed to intense fire looks like.
The ceremonial robes are worn by Order members in worship/homage to Valtiel. Alessa no doubt came to greatly fear those robes, since they represent the religion that has led to her great abuse. Thus, when the Otherworld manifests her internal fears (which we know all of the monsters in SH1 are based on), it also manifests these looming figures of Alessa's nightmares.

Alessa does not actively kill anyone in SH1, with the arguable exception of Cybil, and even if that is the case it's certainly borne out of necessity rather than anger/revenge.
That is the alternative view of what the bodies are, which is just as legitimate a theory as mine is. Though, I felt like offering my point of view since I've always felt there was something more to them.

As for Cybil, I don't think Alessa had anything to do with Cybil. I think Dahlia was the one who put the parasite inside of Cybil, so that she wouldn't interfere with Harry's hidden purpose. Remember in the boat when Dahlia tells Harry and Cybil to split up? I think Dahlia then followed Cybil and jumped her when she was preoccupied, infected her with the parasite, and left. And then, of course, Harry was the one to "allegedly" kill her.
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Post by AuraTwilight »

Personally I think there's a lot of merit in the idea that the foggy version of Silent Hill is an alternate world, but there's one small hole in that theory: Early in the game, when Harry is searching for the Keys for Eclipse, there's an abandoned police car that seems to have skidded to a halt just short of one of the chasms where the streets are cut off (tyre marks are clearly visible behind the car). This seems to imply that the car's driver was aware that the road had collapsed, and braked accordingly. Were the policemen drawn into the foggy world in the same way Harry and Cybil were (and if so, why, and where are they now?), or is the foggy world actually the real world? (and if so, why aren't there more crashed or damaged cars?)
The cars were just manifested that way. Aside from the characters we see, pretty much no one else got pulled in.
Hmm, I remember bodies in other games as well, but I don't remember them being summoned out of nothingness. They were just kind of lying around. Can you help me with an example?
Well obviously we don't literally see some corpses appearing out of thin air, but the people Eddie killed were people making fun of him. I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd be ridiculing some random fatass when in a survival horror situation. Not exactly one of my priorities. Also given that Eddie is in Silent Hill because of his issues with bullying, and that we know Maria, a fake person, leaves behind corpses...
"Vengeful bitch" is not really how I see Alessa, more like "peeved-off teenager who's not going to take it anymore." If you remember Origins, Alessa is quite pissed off, and especially near the end of the game, full of hatred and pain, even before creating the Cheryl half. However, in case you think I'm implying Alessa is somehow evil, Alessa is no more in the wrong for offing members of The Order as Harry is for shooting demon children. It's primarily out of self-defense, but there is a small element of revenge involved. Alessa wants this, or else she wouldn't have started it. Also, Cheryl wouldn't be running around spray-painting "Marks of Samael/Metraton" everywhere if preservation of the Otherworld wasn't her goal. So, she's mostly trying to keep The Order from consummating their summoning of God, but that includes killing them as well.
The developers said that all Alessa wants is to finally die, and that's the only reason she's going around town putting down Seals. She wants to die and take the God with her so it won't hurt anyone; she's a nice person who's not going to kill people intentionally. Furthermore, a lot of people disregard Origins as having not happened, since it got several things wrong. Alessa didn't start this intentionally, either, really. The Marks aren't for the preservation of the Otherworld, it's to destroy it and "seal it away in the abyss." It's to make it all go away so she can finally, finally die.
Eh, I don't really buy the whole theory of Silent Hill still being a normal town in another dimension, at least not in the parameters of this game. I'm not going to explain why, since that's not really the topic of my post and I don't want the thread to go in that direction, but I understood while I was writing that a good amount of SH fans believe what you believe. I'm new here, so I'm sure you'll eventually get to hear why I think that foggy, abandoned Silent Hill is the real deal.
While I get it was a tangent, it was worth addressing. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just a nitpicky person. Anyway, the idea of Silent Hill being a normal town and multidimensional isn't a theory; it's a fact. I'd love to hear your case on why you think otherwise, but be prepared for it to be deconstructed.
Actually, and sorry if I'm sounding patronizing 'cause that's not my intention, destrudo does include destruction of everyone else, including oneself. Sigmund Freud said that the destrudo is the source of human aggression. He used it to justify the actions of soldiers during World War I.
Sigmund Freud was pretty inconsistent with his own theories. The original publishing described the Destrudo as self-aggression. But it's a moot point. Either way, Alessa isn't out to get at people or kill anyone.
I do believe that Dahlia cared for Alessa.
"I burned her alive for my world domination scheme because I cared about her."

And if we mean physically taking care of her burned body, that was Lisa.
Allow me to explain as briefly as I can. Based on Origins, we do know that Alessa bore no serious ill will toward her mother, even after the fire. In one cutscene toward the end of Origins, Alessa talks to her mother and it is seen that she doesn't hate her at all. Actually, and this is where I get theoretical, I suspect that Alessa doesn't even know Dahlia was responsible for the fire, so she has no reason to think Dahlia is nothing more than a loving mother.
The scene you're talking about was an audio flashback to before Alessa was burned.
In the intro to the first game, there's a scene where Alessa is rising out of bed and looking into the camera in a room that is clearly not the hospital basement, since there's a bright window to her left. However, her burns show that she is still recovering from her wounds. At first, I didn't know where she was, but then I realized that she must be in a bedroom at Dahlia's house. This was further justified by the fact that Harry first meets the bandaged Alessa at Dahlia's house in Nowhere. I believe that Dahlia transferred Alessa to her house once Lisa had decided to stop caring for Alessa and escape, since there was no longer any nurse to care for Alessa and it would be up to Dahlia now.
I don't remember a window. That light on her could've been anything.
As for Cybil, I don't think Alessa had anything to do with Cybil. I think Dahlia was the one who put the parasite inside of Cybil, so that she wouldn't interfere with Harry's hidden purpose. Remember in the boat when Dahlia tells Harry and Cybil to split up? I think Dahlia then followed Cybil and jumped her when she was preoccupied, infected her with the parasite, and left. And then, of course, Harry was the one to "allegedly" kill her.
No way in hell. Dahlia was having Cybil help her. Her involvement at that point, getting to a seal and stopping Alessa, was directly helpful to Dahlia. Not to mention Dahlia can't control monsters, much less somehow get her hands on it and just toss the little fucker onto Cybil. It was Alessa removing an unwanted dangerous element.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Post by DamienPales »

Well obviously we don't literally see some corpses appearing out of thin air, but the people Eddie killed were people making fun of him. I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd be ridiculing some random fatass when in a survival horror situation. Not exactly one of my priorities. Also given that Eddie is in Silent Hill because of his issues with bullying, and that we know Maria, a fake person, leaves behind corpses...
I never really thought of those as people in any sense. More like creatures that Eddie manifested from his fears and nightmares, like Alessa's creatures when she was influencing Silent Hill.
The developers said that all Alessa wants is to finally die, and that's the only reason she's going around town putting down Seals. She wants to die and take the God with her so it won't hurt anyone; she's a nice person who's not going to kill people intentionally. Furthermore, a lot of people disregard Origins as having not happened, since it got several things wrong. Alessa didn't start this intentionally, either, really. The Marks aren't for the preservation of the Otherworld, it's to destroy it and "seal it away in the abyss." It's to make it all go away so she can finally, finally die.
Is there a link to that developer's comments, 'cause that sounds like a good read regardless of whether it destroys my theory.

Why disregard Origins? I didn't see any contradictions between that and Silent Hill 1. Well, maybe some minor things, but I blame those more on changes in development teams at Konami than on the storyline itself.
While I get it was a tangent, it was worth addressing. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just a nitpicky person. Anyway, the idea of Silent Hill being a normal town and multidimensional isn't a theory; it's a fact. I'd love to hear your case on why you think otherwise, but be prepared for it to be deconstructed.
Never mind, I just remembered that Silent Hill 4 existed. There were photos on the wall that Henry took of a normal Silent Hill when he was visiting a couple years ago, so yeah...I just owned myself.
"I burned her alive for my world domination scheme because I cared about her."

And if we mean physically taking care of her burned body, that was Lisa.
I meant physically taking care of Alessa. I know that Lisa took care of Alessa at the hospital, but what about when Lisa decided to bolt and try to escape Silent Hill? Who took care of Alessa then?

It's only my theory, but Dahlia must've transferred Alessa to her house after Lisa refused to take part in the cover-up, sometime before Harry and Cheryl showed up. Like I said, the place where Alessa is sleeping in the intro movie to the game is definitely not the hospital basement.
I don't remember a window. That light on her could've been anything.
It's quite clearly a window. The light coming from it is too sunlight-ish to be anything artificial, and you can even see the individual panes of the window reflected on the wall. Watch the intro movie again.
No way in hell. Dahlia was having Cybil help her. Her involvement at that point, getting to a seal and stopping Alessa, was directly helpful to Dahlia. Not to mention Dahlia can't control monsters, much less somehow get her hands on it and just toss the little fucker onto Cybil. It was Alessa removing an unwanted dangerous element.
Hmm...I never really thought of that. I'm not sure why Dahlia would need Cybil's help though, what the hell use is she? Cybil didn't have the Flauros, so even if Cybil were to find Alessa, it's not like she would be able to do anything to her.

However, Cybil was found on a wheelchair on the merry-go-round, which is a very Alessa-ish thing to do. So maybe you're right...

As for the parasite thingies, I always thought of them more as creatures that The Order could just summon inside a person, like God inside of Alessa. I mean, you remove them the same way you remove God...with Aglaophotis. But I don't know, those things are weird.
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Post by The Adversary »

The parasites are manifestations of Alessa, and are responsible for killing the hospital's staff.
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Post by DamienPales »

The parasites are manifestations of Alessa, and are responsible for killing the hospital's staff.
Is that a fact though? You could just as easily argue that The Order can summon them. Also, the parasites don't kill the doctors and nurses, simply take control of them so that they attack anyone who tries to enter the hospital. Kaufmann was the director, so maybe he simply infected his whole staff with them to keep the hospital secure from intruders.

I know I have no real proof, but I have my own crazy theory about Silent Hill nurses in general, and the above fits into the overall theory.
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Post by The Adversary »

>You could just as easily argue that The Order can summon them.
You could say that. You'd be wrong, though, as there's no evidence to suggest anything remotely close to that.

Lost Memories: Silent Hill Chronicle indicates that the parasites are the manifestations. Not the nurses. Lisa also tells us, "I'm still alive while everyone else is dead." So, you know: The staff is dead.
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Post by DamienPales »

I don't really use non-game sources as evidence of anything when it comes to Silent Hill. Sorry. If it's not in any of the games itself, I'm not going to believe it, so quoting Lost Memories does nothing for me.

As for the nurses and doctors, they're dead as in "not human", but they're still walking around attacking you. I mean, you fight them yourself.
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Post by Mis Krist. »

>I don't really use non-game sources as evidence of anything when it comes to Silent Hill. Sorry. If it's not in any of the games itself, I'm not going to believe it, so quoting Lost Memories does nothing for me.

That's a bit silly, considering Lost Memories is directly from the Silent Hill makers themselves.
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Post by The Adversary »

Then you're not going to follow many of the discussions.

And I just told you Lisa explicitly states the staff is dead. Not "dead" as in "not human," "dead" as in "dead." Their bodies are being controlled by the parasites.
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Post by DamienPales »

As a literature student, trust me. Authors will try to retcon their own stories all the time whenever they feel dissatisfied with anything in their own universe, which is almost always. You will go crazy trying to interpret a work of literature if an author won't shut the hell up about it in public. That's why authors like J.K. Rowling drive me nuts...she ruins the continuity of her novels by continuing to add extra information that's not in the novels already.

Good authors leave their universes alone, because they know that all the information needed to understand it is already inside. George Lucas, for example, knows that all too well. He doesn't write about Star Wars outside his movies and other projects, and look at how big and expansive the Star Wars universe is.
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Post by The Adversary »

As a journalism and English student°, trust me: The stories haven't changed b/c of supplementary material.

°: See how irrelevant that qualifier is?
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Post by DamienPales »

Well well, no need to be so presumptuous and rude. I'm simply stating why I only stick to the source material.

EDIT: I looked through Lost Memories anyway, and it says no such thing. It just says that the nurses are parasitized by something. It doesn't even talk about the parasites themselves.
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Post by jthomp1286 »

DamienPales wrote:I'm simply stating why I only stick to the source material.
For all intents and purposes, Lost Memories is source material. There's a wealth of information and facts there that explains many aspects of the story.
DamienPales wrote:EDIT: I looked through Lost Memories anyway, and it says no such thing. It just says that the nurses are parasitized by something. It doesn't even talk about the parasites themselves.
Then they didn't appear out of thin air. They certainly wouldn't have been summoned by Order members. I highly doubt they were summoned by the Doc. Why would he be infecting the staff with these parasites and harvesting aglaophotis, which expels said parasites? That doesn't add up.
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Post by DamienPales »

For all intents and purposes, Lost Memories is source material. There's a wealth of information and facts there that explains many aspects of the story.
Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with Lost Memories. I've read it. It's just that some people depend on Lost Memories more than the actual games themselves, and sometimes even defer to Lost Memories when it contradicts the game. If you've read the hilarious arguments about whether the fire started in the basement or in the attic, then you'll see why I prefer to not use Lost Memories as a primary source of information. Lost Memories was written after Silent Hill 3, and there have been three more games released since then. The series has changed, and that affects how one interprets the overall universe.
Then they didn't appear out of thin air. They certainly wouldn't have been summoned by Order members. I highly doubt they were summoned by the Doc. Why would he be infecting the staff with these parasites and harvesting aglaophotis, which expels said parasites? That doesn't add up.
I thought that he was harvesting aglaophotis to kill God. He realized that Dahlia had used and betrayed him for her own ends, and he wasn't about to let her get away with any of it. Plus, he would have needed to kill God if he was going to get out of Silent Hill.

As for why he would infect his staff, I can think of a number of reasons. My personal favorite is that he wanted to keep Dahlia out of the hospital so that she wouldn't find his stash of Aglaophotis there. Of course, she did find it eventually and smashed it. But this isn't a theory I'm totally willing to take to the grave. I can see why the parasites might just be manifestations of Alessa's mind like all the other creatures. I just wonder why only the hospital staff (and eventually Cybil) are the only people infected by these parasites, and not other people as well.
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