I think it would have been great if...

Murphy's been a bad boy ...

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born2kill
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by born2kill »

I thought that too. And it wouldve been an amazing & original twist. i've never thought about the emotions a parent would feel if their child hurt/killed someone.
-conflicted feelings of love and hate for the child
-feelings of failure as a parent and moral role model
-self blame for not stopping it
-feelings of powerlessness that you could stop it
-and perhaps complete denial that the child is guilty. That would have accounted for the whole boogeyman persona; its murphys subconscious hiding the truth.

It would have fit perfectly in the series & been a new dynamic.instead of the same carbon copy we get

As far as Murphys age goes, it could explained in a few ways. But I would prefer for it not to be explained & remain ambiguous. And we could come up with our own theories.
AuraTwilight wrote:Yea, but that would change the whole premise of the game so much that it wouldn't even of been Downpour. "You play a convict" was literally the first detail we learned about the game.
and Alex being a soldier was the premise of Homecoming. Silent Hill isnt suppose be taken at face value.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by AuraTwilight »

and Alex being a soldier was the premise of Homecoming. Silent Hill isnt suppose be taken at face value.
Almost everyone regards that as a BAD MOVE, though, considering it was both a hokey twist and a waste of a perfectly good premise. Silent Hill has never disregarded it's own premise until Homecoming; even SH2 just twisted the context and circumstances of the premise, instead of turning it into a complete fabrication.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by born2kill »

AuraTwilight wrote:
and Alex being a soldier was the premise of Homecoming. Silent Hill isnt suppose be taken at face value.
Almost everyone regards that as a BAD MOVE, though, considering it was both a hokey twist and a waste of a perfectly good premise. Silent Hill has never disregarded it's own premise until Homecoming; even SH2 just twisted the context and circumstances of the premise, instead of turning it into a complete fabrication.
The premises of silent hill games are just the carrot dangling in front of the character to get them to the town. They are not meant to be the blueprint for whats actually going on. Youre suppose to not know whats actually going on. Youre suppose to have limited & questionable information like the naive main character. The whole story could be a dream, it could be a lie, it could be memory.
Thats been the case from the beginning of the series when you didnt know if harry survived the opening car crash. and then he wakes up and is murdered by a gang of knife wielding midgets. and then wakes up and asks what the hell is going on?

And i've never heard anyone complain that alex wasnt really a soldier. If anything people complained when they thought he was a soldier & had improved combat skills from previous games. I was personally relieved that he wasnt b/c his "combat skills" were terrible. His best move was that goofy roll-dodge that i dont think a solider has ever done in the history of ever.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by AuraTwilight »

The premises of silent hill games are just the carrot dangling in front of the character to get them to the town. They are not meant to be the blueprint for whats actually going on. Youre suppose to not know whats actually going on. Youre suppose to have limited & questionable information like the naive main character. The whole story could be a dream, it could be a lie, it could be memory.
No, you're talking about the character's motive, not the premise. Those are two different things. The motive for James is "I want to find Mary," and THIS is what the game fucks with and deconstructs. The premise is "James' wife is dead and he feels like he can't live without her." This is elaborated on and it takes a dark turn, but it in of itself is never taken apart or negated by the events of the game. Homecoming is fairly unique in this regard.
Thats been the case from the beginning of the series when you didnt know if harry survived the opening car crash. and then he wakes up and is murdered by a gang of knife wielding midgets. and then wakes up and asks what the hell is going on?
Which is, again, completely different from wasting the entire plot of a character arc.
And i've never heard anyone complain that alex wasnt really a soldier.
Well, you probably haven't scrolled through the forum that much; it's a pretty common complaint; his soldierhood, real or imagined, ended up being entirely meaningless, arbitrary, and a waste of time in the narrative, so it was only there for a shitty twist. It was a waste of a character arc that lots of people would have loved to have seen explored, rather than the product we ended up getting.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Rev
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by Rev »

AuraTwilight wrote:
and Alex being a soldier was the premise of Homecoming. Silent Hill isnt suppose be taken at face value.
Almost everyone regards that as a BAD MOVE, though, considering it was both a hokey twist and a waste of a perfectly good premise. Silent Hill has never disregarded it's own premise until Homecoming; even SH2 just twisted the context and circumstances of the premise, instead of turning it into a complete fabrication.
Not to mention when you play SH2 after you realizing the twist, it actually makes sense. Mary's true fate had been dropped with several hints throughout the entire game.

Homecoming... didn't have that, save for maybe the intro where we see the "Josh Dies Montage". And even then there was no indication on the "twist ending" with the exception of some memos about one of the patients. It essentially came out of nowhere and the more I watch the game cutscenes and Alex's interactions with the other characters, the less it makes sense. There are no breadcrumbs about what Alex really is, it's just dropped on us like an anvil towards the end.

If you're going to have a twist ending, at least throw us a bone before shoehorning one in for shock value. It's not clever; it's just lazy and a phenomenal disappointment.

On that note, I'm glad Downpour didn't technically have a twist (with the exception of the Execution ending, which I don't even consider canon so it doesn't count).
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by Axel_98 »

Rev wrote:
AuraTwilight wrote:
and Alex being a soldier was the premise of Homecoming. Silent Hill isnt suppose be taken at face value.
Almost everyone regards that as a BAD MOVE, though, considering it was both a hokey twist and a waste of a perfectly good premise. Silent Hill has never disregarded it's own premise until Homecoming; even SH2 just twisted the context and circumstances of the premise, instead of turning it into a complete fabrication.
Not to mention when you play SH2 after you realizing the twist, it actually makes sense. Mary's true fate had been dropped with several hints throughout the entire game.

Homecoming... didn't have that, save for maybe the intro where we see the "Josh Dies Montage". And even then there was no indication on the "twist ending" with the exception of some memos about one of the patients. It essentially came out of nowhere and the more I watch the game cutscenes and Alex's interactions with the other characters, the less it makes sense. There are no breadcrumbs about what Alex really is, it's just dropped on us like an anvil towards the end.

If you're going to have a twist ending, at least throw us a bone before shoehorning one in for shock value. It's not clever; it's just lazy and a phenomenal disappointment.

On that note, I'm glad Downpour didn't technically have a twist (with the exception of the Execution ending, which I don't even consider canon so it doesn't count).
There were a couple dropped hints that Alex was crazy before the big "twist" like the audio you hear in the house at one point upon coming in from the back yard etc.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by eddieatemypizza »

i think sewell would have been better if he'd been the main character playing as him instead of murphy and finding out throughout the game all the f'ed up crap he was doing..he really belongs to silent hill.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by SilentRobert23 »

eddieatemypizza wrote:i think sewell would have been better if he'd been the main character playing as him instead of murphy and finding out throughout the game all the f'ed up crap he was doing..he really belongs to silent hill.
Sewell has no guilt, at least not as far as we know. In contrast, Murphy starts Downpour by waking up, shocked and upset, at him having killed some pathetic fat man.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

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SilentRobert23 wrote:
eddieatemypizza wrote:i think sewell would have been better if he'd been the main character playing as him instead of murphy and finding out throughout the game all the f'ed up crap he was doing..he really belongs to silent hill.
Sewell has no guilt, at least not as far as we know. In contrast, Murphy starts Downpour by waking up, shocked and upset, at him having killed some pathetic fat man.
^ I think playing the game as Sewell would have been a terrible idea for this reason exactly. Murphy is a more sympathetic and relatable character in this regard, thus he makes a better protagonist. (In my opinion.)
And who can say who really "belongs" in Silent Hill? Did Harry, Heather, or Henry really "belong" there? Were they bad people who did messed up crap that they needed to be punished for?

If nothing else, Cunningham would have made a more appropriate playable character than freaking Sewell.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by Glenn »

Playing as a pedophile is sure going to alienate a lot of people. I would have liked some Anne DLC though.

But then again, that is sort of the problem Silent Hill as a series is in. Fans are tired of playing as protagonists who accidently killed, or are somewhat innocent. Playing as a real villain has its perks, but then people would complain that it was too extreme...
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by Rev »

I personally just don't like the idea as playing a villain. It'd be like playing Dr. Kaufman in SH1, or Vincent in SH3, et cetera. I like being able to like and relate to the protagonist. That way I feel more compelled to know their story and want them to survive as I'm playing them, not the other way around.

Also most characters who don't give a toss about morals and right and wrong and stuff like that tend to go to Silent Hill and, well. Die. So honestly I don't think Sewell would last very long in the town before he'd get snuffed.

Honestly I'm more intrigued by how Anne's confrontation with him in Truth & Justice went...
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by Oddish »

Silent Hill protagonists, at least in the stand-alone games, are generally... morally complex. But playing as someone who is truly evil (especially Cunningham, urghhh) might be a bit much for most.

There is a game (I won't reveal the title) where one of the characters you play as is revealed to be the main villain (and a truly sick one at that), but you don't realize the truth until very late in the game.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

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Oddish wrote:But playing as someone who is truly evil (especially Cunningham, urghhh) might be a bit much for most.
um wut

Cunningham = "truly evil" wut?
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by Oddish »

Mistake on my part. I meant the fat slug who kidnapped Murphy's kid.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by thy_butcher »

Tomm Hulett said that Downpour was originally going to be a coop game with Anne being the second player.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

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Oddish wrote:Mistake on my part. I meant the fat slug who kidnapped Murphy's kid.
Oh! Napier, you mean?

Haha, good, because I was gonna say...
thy_butcher wrote:Tomm Hulett said that Downpour was originally going to be a coop game with Anne being the second player.
When/Where did he say that? I mostly ask because I've seen a ton of pre-production stuff for Downpour and never once saw him or anyone ever claim it was initially intended to be co-op with Anne (and even if it was true, oh god - that'd be a horrible idea. Co-op is dumb in Resident Evil, it would be even dumber in Silent Hill).
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

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wonder's boy wrote:That's the thing with twists I don't think a lot of people get. Twists are great, but to make them founded and respectable is something almost like magic at work. Sure, anyone can throw in a twist, even a believable one...but you can't just trick people. It's about showing your audience clues, giving them a chance to take legitimate stabs at it with evidence before them. It's not just a mindfuck moment out of the blue. I've always seen twists as good goals for a story, but also opportunities to challenge and hold an audience responsible for what the bring to the experience with their own thoughts, their own theories. This is what gives the twist substance and purpose. That's what I found Downpour did well with its twists, especially in an otherwordly, "Silent Hill" way.
See, you're absolutely right about twists and breadcrumbs to follow, but I think there were sufficient things in Downpour that could have been clues foreshadowing the twist I theorized about. It's what got me to suspect that the twist was coming.
Silent Fantasy wrote:The game was too open for me, and due to this getting lost was always a hinderance to my enjoyment when in town. As for the results screen, why be dissapointed at that? If you really want to see how you did, look at your statistics. It's the same thing, but you can view it at any time.
It's not so much the stats that we want to see, it's the unlockable weapons and items that the screen would present you with, making you giddy to go and play it again right away.
born2kill wrote:I thought that too. And it wouldve been an amazing & original twist. i've never thought about the emotions a parent would feel if their child hurt/killed someone.
-conflicted feelings of love and hate for the child
-feelings of failure as a parent and moral role model
-self blame for not stopping it
-feelings of powerlessness that you could stop it
-and perhaps complete denial that the child is guilty. That would have accounted for the whole boogeyman persona; its murphys subconscious hiding the truth.
Exactly!

------------------
AuraTwilight wrote:Frankly, I think this would've been a terrible twist, because if Murphy was that out of touch with reality, he wouldn't of been put in PRISON, he'd of been put in an ASYLUM.
And as part of his insanity, he could have believed he was in a prison the whole time. Asylums share a lot of similarities with prisons anyway.

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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by eddieatemypizza »

Rev wrote:
SilentRobert23 wrote:
eddieatemypizza wrote:i think sewell would have been better if he'd been the main character playing as him instead of murphy and finding out throughout the game all the f'ed up crap he was doing..he really belongs to silent hill.
Sewell has no guilt, at least not as far as we know. In contrast, Murphy starts Downpour by waking up, shocked and upset, at him having killed some pathetic fat man.
^ I think playing the game as Sewell would have been a terrible idea for this reason exactly. Murphy is a more sympathetic and relatable character in this regard, thus he makes a better protagonist. (In my opinion.)
And who can say who really "belongs" in Silent Hill? Did Harry, Heather, or Henry really "belong" there? Were they bad people who did messed up crap that they needed to be punished for?

If nothing else, Cunningham would have made a more appropriate playable character than freaking Sewell.

your forgetting murphy has no guilt and no business even being in silent hill.

1. He didn't kill Napier
2. He didn't kill Coolidge

He has nothing to feel guilty about so why the town is aiming at him is beyond me.

---------------

also I think it would have been great if the game developers actually tested the game out before releasing it and fixed all the lag and glitching problems which we all know they are capable of doing..this would have been really great.

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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by AuraTwilight »

eddieatemypizza wrote: 1. He didn't kill Napier
2. He didn't kill Coolidge

He has nothing to feel guilty about so why the town is aiming at him is beyond me.
UH, Murphy COMPLETELY killed Napier. It was the first playable part of the game.

But Silent Hill wasn't after him because he killed anyone. It was after him because he was handling his grief incredibly poorly and was making a mockery of his son's memory.
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Re: I think it would have been great if...

Post by thy_butcher »

Harry Mason had no "guilt" so why was he in Silent Hill?
Things aren't so cut-and-dry regarding Silent Hill; or at least they shouldn't be.

I'm a big fan of Anne. I say look to her, & a lot of things tie together nicely.

P.S. About the ending -
PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:
Murphy totally killed Coleridge & his own son. It happened. (in one of MULTIPLE possible endings).
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