Do you know how gyromancy works? The person is supposed to spin in place (or walk in a circle) until they feel dizzy, trip and fall on a letter, and repeat the process, I crack up imagining dahlia spinning like a moron for hours
This. I don't really think the developers really put that much thought on the nature of the events, they just did what felt creepier. For example, the reason why there's almost no people in Silent Hill is first and foremost because it's creepier that way. If there were a bunch of survivors fighting for their lives, the atmosphere would be much closer to RE.
People like Twin Perfect who think Team Silent had a whole lore thought-up have overthought the setting way more than TS themselves.
I also heavily suspect that SH2 was in fact meant to take place in a separate continuity from the first game, that's why the lore regarding the town and how the Otherworld works is so different. But then SH4 acknowledged it and loregays now have to male all sorts of mental gymnastics to make it the rest.
>I also heavily suspect that SH2 was in fact meant to take place in a separate continuity from the first game
eh, I think they were probably just playing it a little lose in universe rules. What exactly in sh2 would necessitate a separate timeline?
>What exactly in sh2 would necessitate a separate timeline?
Mostly how differently the Otherworld and its relation to the town is depicted.
In SH1, Silent Hill is depicted as a normal town, that harbours a pagan cult controlling it from the shadows. The Otherworld was born as a result of Alessa's powers going haywire after being impregnated by God, and it's depicted as a nightmare dimension where the people connected to Alessa were dragged to. An old interpretation I remember is that the shift to the dark world is Alessa entering REM sleep, which makes her nightmares worse.
In SH2, the town itself (possibly the lake) is said to be the source of all the weirdness. Now Sient Hill is a town where mysterious stuff has always happened, and it was considered sacred by the natives. The Otherworld in this game is depicted more as a personal state of mind (as explained by the hospital's memo). James, Eddie, Angela, and Laura are all wandering Silent Hill, but although they can see each other they don't realise they see the town differently. None of this comes back in the next 2 games, which come back to depicting the Otherworld as a nightmare that traps you in regardless of your state of mind, and the cult's rituals as its source. SH3 did play around with the idea of subjective perception a bit.
I'm not saying they definitely intended the games to be separate continuities, but looking at the first two games in a vacuum, it comes off that way. There were some attempts to reconcile them; if I recall, Book of Lost Memories claims that the events of SH2 are only possible due to SH1, Frank is James' father, and of course Walter Sullivan was the main villain in 4 after being mentioned in a newspaper in 2 (although his circumstances required a rather painful retcon).
tbh I'd say you're guilty of the same autism you were complaining about earlier, it's not that discordant for the cult and alessa to have been grappling with with some sort of power inherent to the area, presumably their notion of a god came from somewhere.
>I'd say you're guilty of the same autism you were complaining about earlier,
Yeah, I guess you're right. I just really wanted to get this out of my chest because discussion on SH is rare these days.
#
SH1 and SH2 depictions of the Otherworld are not mutually exclusive - the cult is harboring the city's dark energy and using Alessa as a vessel to manifest it. What SH2 appears to expand upon is that this is not unique to Alessa or the cult - rather the greater the belief and the means to reach the materialization of this dark utopia, the stronger it ressonates with the city's dark energy (SH3 runs further with this idea and associates it with religion). It's why Harry and Cybil are caught in SH1 events but James and co. are pretty secluded in their own nightmares without it messing the perception of innocents. At least that's how I interpret it.
Same with the people who think there's some deep meaning behind everything in it. There's an old interview with the director of SH1 where they ask him about the occult stuff and he says just borrowed a couple names and symbols because they sounded spooky and made the rest up.
So much this. Almost all convoluted story telling with "deep meaning and symbology" can be boiled down to this: it sounded cool when story boarding.
Death of the artist and such. The art is there to be viewed, or played in this case, by you. The intent when creating it is of no importance.
However I do still agree that lore autists can go frick themselves, they take the fun out of it.
>The art is there to be viewed, or played in this case, by you. The intent when creating it is of no importance.
While I sometimes see the merit of this, I have a problem with how this can be used a magic argument to justify the artistic value of a literal piece of dogshit on the sidewalk. And I have no problem with people enjoying the piece of dogshit, so long as they're happy, but justifying it like this comes with a baggage, in the way that it also opens the door to the discussion of it being overtaken by all sorts of pompous, pretentious 4 hour long YouTube essays on how Mario jumping and breaking a fricking brick with his head somehow constitutes a deep critique about parental roles from a post-constructivist perspective.
>It's all valid! This is my personal interpretation of it, as valid as any other!
I get it, but it still makes me want to punch you in the mouth for being an insufferable self-centered c**t who feels that in order to enjoy something, there must be some complexity to it and when it isn't there, it's your appointed duty to just make it the frick up. It's mental masturbation done in public.
>this can be used a magic argument to justify the artistic value of a literal piece of dogshit
This is definitely true, but it's a two sided sword. When you take an artist word for it it's just asking for pretentious hacks to act like their shit movie is worth a damn. Reminds me of that time M. Night Shyamalan defended his Last Airbender adaptation.
So as always in the world of art you are just left with hacks and posers, I personally can't say which one is worse lol. >pretentious 4 hour long YouTube essays on how Mario jumping and breaking a fricking brick with his head somehow constitutes a deep critique about parental roles from a post-constructivist perspective
Thanks for the kek
That's not what Death of the Author means. Barthes was explicitly postmodern and created the concept of Death of the Author as a post-structuralist argument to effectively say "most writers are not as smart as you think they are, don't assume that everything they're saying actually contributes to their intent". It's not that authors don't have intent at all or that the intent should be discounted. While discussing a story by Honoré de Balzac through a very close reading, Barthes simply noted how in the act of writing a complex work, Balzac's voice as author diffuses into multiple planes, so that one cannot know from reading closely if the narrative voice, character voice, and plot voice truly expresses the author's perspective; one cannot necessarily extract insight into Balzac's own thoughts, viewpoints, and beliefs from the work through such a reading, especially considering that Balzac had been dead for over a century. For Barthes, the act of writing allows the author to lose some of his conscious self and that for a work to be enjoyed, a reader has to project some of his own thoughts and views.
Posted early by mistake. Was going to say that it's saying "what you took from your reading probably isn't true and it's certainly not intentionally on the author's behalf, but that doesn't change its impact on you as a reader. Authors are human after all and it's rather elitist to think they wrote everything with a perfect vision in mind." I'm sure even Goethe had times when he was just yammering on without actually making a point, just as I'm sure that Barthes himself must've said at least once "wait, that's not what I meant" even though he coined the concept that runs counter to that.
Posted early by mistake. Was going to say that it's saying "what you took from your reading probably isn't true and it's certainly not intentionally on the author's behalf, but that doesn't change its impact on you as a reader. Authors are human after all and it's rather elitist to think they wrote everything with a perfect vision in mind." I'm sure even Goethe had times when he was just yammering on without actually making a point, just as I'm sure that Barthes himself must've said at least once "wait, that's not what I meant" even though he coined the concept that runs counter to that.
That's exactly what was going on when they made Silent Hill. >To tell you the truth, and this might not be such an interesting answer, but all of Silent Hill was made up. Some of the names have some sort of cult backgrounds or the sort, but what the team was most inspired by were the cult movies from the 70's and the 80's and maybe the Science Fiction movies from the 50's, more than the modern horror novels, actually. There are some cult icons that appear in the game, but those were just some added points to build a frightening feeling.
Yeah, the original Japanese Silent Hill games weren't keen on explaining things.
In 1 Harry gets teleported around, the world shifts in front of him, and there's constantly areas with impossible geography, and the only explanation he gets it "This little girl who is also half your daughter caused it, now watch the goat head bird god come out of her".
Silent Hill 2 also doesn't say much, but it does give some explanations in the Rebirth ending, but those explanations are just about the cult's rituals, so really it's also nothing. It's on the player to infer that the town is the way it is because of the magic nuke that went off in the first game.
3 is the one game that offers actual explanations. It explains what the frick happened in SH1 at least, but again, you don't get a whole lot out of it.
Leaves the player with a lot to think about, doesn't answer anything that doesn't need answering. Like, you can infer what Pyramid Head is supposed to be and why the monsters in SH1 are what they are, but it doesn't explain how they're around, it's all up to the player to figure out.
Then the later games come along and frick it all up. Origins is at least non-sensical because they completely changed the story but couldn't afford to change the cutscene, which results in all returning characters acting completely out of character, and Shattered Memories is non-canon, but Homecoming is one unending and unnecessary loredump about the cult. We only got to meet one or two real cult members per game last time, but now we get to know their whole system and obscure rituals that don't fricking matter. It's what made me realize I prefer the Japanese approach of character based storytelling to all this plotgay shit, it's gay as hell and brings down the experience.
And Book of Memories, sweet Jesus, that game retcons itself into every prior game with just a few lines of text.
Wikigays need to crack open some real fricking books and read those.
As someone who dedicated WAY too much time to Silent Hill lore back in the day, let me tell you all: this shit is from page 1 of the japanese developer manual. It's much like Dark Souls lore.
1. Japanese developer puts ambiguous, mysterious references and lore hints all over the fricking place. The reason: It Sounds Cool. Nothing beyond that.
2. Western alt-weebs go fricking nuts over it, because autism demands completeness, doing all sorts of overanalyzing, mental gymnastics, and 2-hour YouTube essays over mundane shit the original devs didn't even think about twice.
3. Japanese developer does an interview and confirms that they didn't think it through, just put it there because it sounded cool, "it's up to the player's imagination" AKA "it doesn't mean shit", or all of those.
4. Western alt-weebs find more reasons to continue on their autism-driven quest.
Seriously, don't waste your time. I'll admit that games like SH2 have much more symbolism and meaning than most other videogames, but there really isn't THAT much to it and most of it doesn't have a level of depth or lore complexity beyond what most japanese light novels have to offer, and they're called light novels for reason.
You can always tell that people like you guys don't actually read the books you try to claim you do otherwise you'd know that 95% of all books are pretty trash in terms of good storytelling.
>95% of all books are pretty trash in terms of good storytelling
The implication being that you have personally read all books in existence, including the obvious shit ones, and thus you know what percentage is bad? The implication being that the Silent Hill™ saga has better storytelling than "books" in general?
I don't even know where to begin with this moronic post.
>all these assumptions
Damn your asshurt is real lmao. The point is that going >uhh video games shouldn't have stories you care about cause la books!
Is a moronic point. God you're stupid. Must really suck having your IQ
2 years ago
Anonymous
>>uhh video games shouldn't have stories you care about cause la books!
Who the frick even said this? Can you point to a reply that even remotely implies this? Who's asshurt here but you?
>ughhh what do you mean that nurses having big breasts because James is horny is not the deepest symbolism in human history????
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yes
See
Wikigays need to crack open some real fricking books and read those.
and
You need to read books more often, gay.
Literally saying people to need to stop wasting their time trying to figure out the stories.
2 years ago
Anonymous
The first post is telling (You) to read more books, which is correct, since you lack fricking reading comprehension, and the reason is that the second post you quoted is *disagreeing* with the poster saying to stop trying to figure out the stories
no but don't you see, Walter was circumcised. He was circumcised and his penis was cut off and he had his foreskin off and mutilated and Walter was traumatized because he was circumcised don't you see what I mean?
So is Silent Hill a normal, monster-free town to those who aren't being "called to it" by the spirits/cult activity there? Or is it truly just a weird derelict place where some kind of disaster happened. SH1 seems to imply the latter, while SH2 seems to imply the former. It's been a long time since I've played these games so please forgive me if the answer is neither.
There's nothing in the games that indicates that Silent Hill is abandoned in any way, or that any significant event happened there that the public is aware of. Harry, James, and Heather all go to Silent Hill expecting to find a normal town.
The most negative thing anyone has had to say about the town is Douglas commenting that "it used to be such a nice little town, but now..." suggesting that the cult's popularity is affecting the town in some way. Nevertheless, when Heather and Douglas reach Silent Hill, they evidently check in a motel with no problem, and even though Heather is instantly taken to the Fog World, Douglas apparently walks around a normal town on his way to Leonard's house.
Holy shit, the sound design is so great, just hearing the footsteps and the radio made me feel uneasy
I was literally conditioned by this game, like a dog
No. You see the town change in real time, it's still the same town but it's being twisted by the psychic energy that Alyssa and the cult were harnessing.
The corpses you see mutilated and decorating the walls all over the place in the otherworld are the missing people. Maybe some of them got turned into parasite hosts like the hospital staff and Cybil, who knows.
Doesn't add up. That's still only a dozen or so corpses in a town that should have at least a thousand citizens. And why would the corpses only appear in the dark world? You'd think they'd be littering the streets. Cybil and Kaufmann plainly say that "everyone is gone", like they vanished into thin air. There's also those two corpses at the school's office that are clearly just the painting turned real.
Most importantly, no ever mentions large massacre occuring in Silent Hill or anything of the sort.
The corpses you see mutilated and decorating the walls all over the place in the otherworld are the missing people. Maybe some of them got turned into parasite hosts like the hospital staff and Cybil, who knows.
It's way more interesting if everything is really happening instead of some alternate dimension cope, so that's what I go with. I don't really care what sequels and other shit made by completely different people have to say about it.
I think the idea of being trapped in a nightmarish world is a lot scarier than a town being haunted. Because if the otherworld isn't separated from the rest of the world, that opens up the possibilty of outside intervention. Kaufmann's mention of a "military rescue team" sounds kinda ridiculous, but if it's the real town, it becomes possible and therefore robs it of its scariness. One could theoritically drop a nuke on Silent Hill and put and end to it.
Being trapped inside an actual nightmare with no physical way out and no hope of help is much more disturbing. And the idea that horrific things happen in this town but the rest of the world will never know about it tickles my fancy more.
Who cares, its a videogamey way to explore deeply flawed characters which makes for a compelling way players can learn to know characters and experience character development.
>Noooo it needs to make sense!
Its a mechanic to help make something work that is difficult to translate to the videogame format, its not supposed to explain itself but work on you as a person, the fears and feelings of the characters is the narrative and explains everything.
The school is still the scariest place in the entire series. The atmosphere is so effective that walking down the dark corridors makes me feel like some huge monster is gonna come at me, even though I know very well no such thing exists. The gallows in SH2 has a similar feel.
And that fricking piano+panthera roar in the courtyard creeps me out to no end.
Alessa's nightmares and memories, that she has been stewing in for years with a demon inside her, are released onto the town and they take the town over. The only people in the town are those she has memories of while being in her coma: her mom, the doctor in league with her mom, the nice nurse who cares for her, and all the other doctors and nurses who are being "mind-controlled" with "parasites" (the drugs).
Harry bringing Cheryl to the town is what wakes up Alessa and frees the nightmare which spirals out of control due to the growing influence of the demon, which is why she tries to seal the evil in the town itself to thwart her mom's desires. Cybil, presumably, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I forget what she says in the beginning but I think she was just passing through when Harry showed up and the town became a nightmare.
It's never explained where everyone went besides the doctors and nurses who seem to be real humans being controlled by nightmare parasites. I always assumed they were removed from existence while the demon had influence, and they came back into existence after it ended. I also assume the roads restored themselves and everything else did as well as if nothing happened.
SH1: alternate reality with living nightmares projected outward onto the town from a demon god
SH2: alternate realities with living nightmares but personalized for people with strong negative emotions or experiences
SH3: same as SH1 but happening wherever Heather and Claudia are
SH4 and onward: noncanon
(Spoilers obviously for SH1-4)
The otherworld is explained as the state where the distinction between reality and illusion breaks down. This is what the alley scene at the beginning represents. There is no teleportation from the world of ordinary life to some alternate dimension, rather reality and Alessa's nightmare are slowly merging into one.
The religion of the Order is false, there is no deity inhabiting the town. Everything inside the otherworld reflects the psychological state of whoever the host is. This is why the Order's God appears in Silent Hill 1 and 3 but not in 2 and 4, James and Sullivan are not religious, and in each game the otherworld is different because the experiences of all these people are different.
The Otherworld is not in any sense exclusive to the town of Silent Hill (see SH4). There is a connection, since the suffering embedded in the town's history has left a psychic stain of sorts in the town, making the phenomenon easier to manifest. But in principle it can occur anywhere, as long as there is someone lost in the inner world of his or her imagination, being so deep in their illusions that they can't tell the real world apart anymore. The reason why sometimes this causes the outside world to shift to accommodate their inner thoughts has never been explained in the series.
Not that guy but I'm not really sure that Sullivan gave a frick about the religion so I don't know if you could really call him religious. The way I took it was that he was just doing the ritual in an effort to bring his 'mom' to life and it happened to have the side effect of also bringing one of the order's gods to life. I don't think he particularly cared about that bit though.
Regardless of his personal goal, he wouldn't have done it had he not had a blind faith in the cult's teachings. He was brainwashed from a young age to be the perfect summoner for the 21 Sacraments, he was a religious nut through and through. I think this is the reason why there's two Walters, the adult Walter wants "wake up his mother" for kid Walter, not himself.
I also don't buy that the God is not real, that's the result of trying to fit the square peg of the SH2 otherworld into the round hole of the other games. Do people forget that Dahlia specifically said that she cast a spell to summon Cheryl? She also had a magical artifact in the Flauros, and she created a magical barrier straight out of a fantasy story. And Walter performed a ritual to turn into a invencible ghost outsude of the town. None of that was the town's power, it was real black magic.
Nah, I think SH 1 makes it pretty firmly clear that the order didn't / weren't summoning gods but was summoning a demon instead. The final boss is very clearly Baphomet. It's just that Walter's ritual was all about bringing something not real to life, not summoning a god really, so that's what it was doing.
>I also don't buy that the God is not real, that's the result of trying to fit the square peg of the SH2 otherworld into the round hole of the other games.
Not really, the theory is confirmed by official printed material https://www.silenthillmemories.net/lost_memories/guide/112_en.htm
As someone who dedicated WAY too much time to Silent Hill lore back in the day, let me tell you all: this shit is from page 1 of the japanese developer manual. It's much like Dark Souls lore.
1. Japanese developer puts ambiguous, mysterious references and lore hints all over the fricking place. The reason: It Sounds Cool. Nothing beyond that.
2. Western alt-weebs go fricking nuts over it, because autism demands completeness, doing all sorts of overanalyzing, mental gymnastics, and 2-hour YouTube essays over mundane shit the original devs didn't even think about twice.
3. Japanese developer does an interview and confirms that they didn't think it through, just put it there because it sounded cool, "it's up to the player's imagination" AKA "it doesn't mean shit", or all of those.
4. Western alt-weebs find more reasons to continue on their autism-driven quest.
Seriously, don't waste your time. I'll admit that games like SH2 have much more symbolism and meaning than most other videogames, but there really isn't THAT much to it and most of it doesn't have a level of depth or lore complexity beyond what most japanese light novels have to offer, and they're called light novels for reason.
>but there really isn't THAT much to it and most of it doesn't have a level of depth or lore complexity beyond what most japanese light novels have to offe
https://silenthill.fandom.com/wiki/Silent_Hill_(novel)
Silent Hill has a novel and a VN though. The frick are you talking about?
Resident Evil did actually make a good attempt at having a deep and intricate plotline when it was being written by Flagship. Nearly everything from 2 onwards was setup, all the spin-offs were made to expand on the setting, even had several radio dramas.
Ironically, the two original novels from that time were completely irrelevant to this. They were from writing contests and just got officially published a few years after submission.
>Too bad the writer died and all that setup was thrown into the trash, then the series became an embarrasing mess. It's tragic, actually.
Is that why went from all that set up to UMBRELLA IS FINISHED?
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yup, one of the many ideas for RE4 was Leon and Wesker infiltrating an Umbrella airship at the same time to stop the Uroboros virus.
When the writer died, they scrapped all that and threw Umbrella into the trash. They took an early idea about a lab in a Spanish castle (the same idea which had turned into Devil May Cry)and pulled Las Plagas out of their asses to remove all connections to Umbrella. The plot about Uroboros and the final confrontation with Wesker were pushed to the next game, which was sadly just a shitty copy of RE4.
I do think there is authorial intent in the themes that the supernatural stuff is a vehicle for but in terms of the mechanical function and inner workings Silent Hill and the dimensions themselves that stuff is all just plot magic and trying to explain any of it is missing the point that all of that stuff is a vehicle for.
Its all about circumcision and how team silent was trying to reveal to the world the dark and twisted world of our american medical system run by satanics and government
Of course SH2 is in a separate continuity from SH1. It's pretty clear they were using the setting very loosely in order to play with the formula and experiment, instead of going for the straight sequel (SH3 forced them back on track and it's the lesser of the three). You gays keep overanalyzing simplicity and seeing details where there's noise.
God I miss this era of videogames bros, they play it too safe these days.
Did you morons even pay attention to what was going on in the game? Its overtly stated at one point that Alessa's nightmares took over the city, your essentially in her mind where the normal town of silent hill is now a horrific world of pain and darkness which is how she perceived it during her miserable life. Sh 2 was probably going to be a separate game but then they decided to slap silent hill over it and that's where some of the contradictory things about silent hill begin.
>Reducing silent hill simply to one psychic child,
The game doesn't do this though. There's still the cult that has powers and claims of the region being strange for a long time. I'm not sure why people focus so much on one aspect of the story in 1 and say that's all there is.
>and that's where some of the contradictory things about silent hill begin.
It's not really that big of a problem. Alessa's effect on the town was exceptional and resulted nearly in the birth of a god. James, Angela, and Eddie's pull was weaker and confused.
So when Harry is in the nightmare world does anybody who comes into Silent Hill also experience it? A car driving in is like 'Hey kids, are we ready for our vacation in Silent Hi- why did it get so dark?'
That's exactly what causes so much confusion and disagreement over the nature of the Otherworld. We never see how the town looks like from the outside when spooky stuff goes down. It could be business as usual for anyone not involved.
>currently playing through 2 for the first time >see that the box in the apartments has five slots for coins >find the first three coins easily >spent a fricking hour looking for the last two, checking and rechecking every door and trying to use the knife you get from that one b***h on everything in sight in case that opens up something new >finally give in and google it >there's only three coins
In Silent Hill 3, you can listen to a tape where Vincent and some random female worshipper of the cult talk about Harry coming to town and taking away Alessa/God. There's no mention of everyone else dying or anything like that, so either everyone connected to the cult besides Dahlia was hiding in wait for God's arrival or they were taken out of existence during SH1's plot only to figure out what happened through Harry's notes he left around town.
SH2 is the weird one. Either everyone disappeared again without any demonic stuff happening or everyone (including Laura) were inside their own personal Otherworld that sometimes intersected. Laura saw no monsters, but she didn't see any other humans either besides the main cast.
I prefer no explanations but I always enjoyed the idea of the alternate dimension. Not even dimension really, just a pocket realm to tormet little shits like James Sunderland
I could not for the life of me make it through the first game. You’re just supposed to find microscopic key items in a giant town with no distinguishable features? Should i just watch a walkthrough and play the second title? I hate feeling like a causal but never felt this frustrated with Resident Evil
sh1 has a few confusing sections but nothing really that bad, the only major bullshit is a bad ending trap midway through the game that's really easy for a noob to trigger. If you're stuck at the beginning there's a map in the house on levin st you probably missed.
I got stuck trying to get to the school my daughter ostensibly wandered off to. Have the map. I looked up the item i missed (some item on the floor or key in a car and just raged at how people were expected to scour to that degree
eh I'll give you the gate to the doghead being kind of easy to confuse as regular background, but the cliff and the open trunk should be pretty obvious if you have the map
How is the game with popstarter? My only other option is playing it on PSP but I would rather experience it on a CRT (normally I would just burn a CD but my disc drive doesnt work)
Neither the parallel dimension theory or the reality corruption theory can satisfactorily explain why Cybil and Douglas end up in the Otherworld when they're normal folks just like everyone in town who has disappered. Cybil had no connection to Alessa, and Claudia didn't need Douglas anymore once Heather reached Silent Hill.
>Douglas
don't see why you have problem with him? He was doing Claudia's bidding and then decided to help heather out of guilt. Seems like more than enough involvement for him to be dragged into it with the others.
IT WAS FORETOLD BY GYROMANCY
AGLALOPHOTIS! I THOUGHT I HAD GOT RID OF IT!
Do you know how gyromancy works? The person is supposed to spin in place (or walk in a circle) until they feel dizzy, trip and fall on a letter, and repeat the process, I crack up imagining dahlia spinning like a moron for hours
Yes bro you think they got pterodactyls flying around in the real world?
The reason OG Silent Hill games are great is that they DON'T explain that shit, since mystery is a necessary element of horror.
These games BTFO wikigays
This. I don't really think the developers really put that much thought on the nature of the events, they just did what felt creepier. For example, the reason why there's almost no people in Silent Hill is first and foremost because it's creepier that way. If there were a bunch of survivors fighting for their lives, the atmosphere would be much closer to RE.
People like Twin Perfect who think Team Silent had a whole lore thought-up have overthought the setting way more than TS themselves.
I also heavily suspect that SH2 was in fact meant to take place in a separate continuity from the first game, that's why the lore regarding the town and how the Otherworld works is so different. But then SH4 acknowledged it and loregays now have to male all sorts of mental gymnastics to make it the rest.
>I also heavily suspect that SH2 was in fact meant to take place in a separate continuity from the first game
eh, I think they were probably just playing it a little lose in universe rules. What exactly in sh2 would necessitate a separate timeline?
>What exactly in sh2 would necessitate a separate timeline?
Mostly how differently the Otherworld and its relation to the town is depicted.
In SH1, Silent Hill is depicted as a normal town, that harbours a pagan cult controlling it from the shadows. The Otherworld was born as a result of Alessa's powers going haywire after being impregnated by God, and it's depicted as a nightmare dimension where the people connected to Alessa were dragged to. An old interpretation I remember is that the shift to the dark world is Alessa entering REM sleep, which makes her nightmares worse.
In SH2, the town itself (possibly the lake) is said to be the source of all the weirdness. Now Sient Hill is a town where mysterious stuff has always happened, and it was considered sacred by the natives. The Otherworld in this game is depicted more as a personal state of mind (as explained by the hospital's memo). James, Eddie, Angela, and Laura are all wandering Silent Hill, but although they can see each other they don't realise they see the town differently. None of this comes back in the next 2 games, which come back to depicting the Otherworld as a nightmare that traps you in regardless of your state of mind, and the cult's rituals as its source. SH3 did play around with the idea of subjective perception a bit.
I'm not saying they definitely intended the games to be separate continuities, but looking at the first two games in a vacuum, it comes off that way. There were some attempts to reconcile them; if I recall, Book of Lost Memories claims that the events of SH2 are only possible due to SH1, Frank is James' father, and of course Walter Sullivan was the main villain in 4 after being mentioned in a newspaper in 2 (although his circumstances required a rather painful retcon).
tbh I'd say you're guilty of the same autism you were complaining about earlier, it's not that discordant for the cult and alessa to have been grappling with with some sort of power inherent to the area, presumably their notion of a god came from somewhere.
>I'd say you're guilty of the same autism you were complaining about earlier,
Yeah, I guess you're right. I just really wanted to get this out of my chest because discussion on SH is rare these days.
#
SH1 and SH2 depictions of the Otherworld are not mutually exclusive - the cult is harboring the city's dark energy and using Alessa as a vessel to manifest it. What SH2 appears to expand upon is that this is not unique to Alessa or the cult - rather the greater the belief and the means to reach the materialization of this dark utopia, the stronger it ressonates with the city's dark energy (SH3 runs further with this idea and associates it with religion). It's why Harry and Cybil are caught in SH1 events but James and co. are pretty secluded in their own nightmares without it messing the perception of innocents. At least that's how I interpret it.
>separate continuity
Nah, north Silent Hill is in Canada and south is in US, so they work differently
Same with the people who think there's some deep meaning behind everything in it. There's an old interview with the director of SH1 where they ask him about the occult stuff and he says just borrowed a couple names and symbols because they sounded spooky and made the rest up.
Death of the artist and such. The art is there to be viewed, or played in this case, by you. The intent when creating it is of no importance.
However I do still agree that lore autists can go frick themselves, they take the fun out of it.
>The art is there to be viewed, or played in this case, by you. The intent when creating it is of no importance.
While I sometimes see the merit of this, I have a problem with how this can be used a magic argument to justify the artistic value of a literal piece of dogshit on the sidewalk. And I have no problem with people enjoying the piece of dogshit, so long as they're happy, but justifying it like this comes with a baggage, in the way that it also opens the door to the discussion of it being overtaken by all sorts of pompous, pretentious 4 hour long YouTube essays on how Mario jumping and breaking a fricking brick with his head somehow constitutes a deep critique about parental roles from a post-constructivist perspective.
>It's all valid! This is my personal interpretation of it, as valid as any other!
I get it, but it still makes me want to punch you in the mouth for being an insufferable self-centered c**t who feels that in order to enjoy something, there must be some complexity to it and when it isn't there, it's your appointed duty to just make it the frick up. It's mental masturbation done in public.
>this can be used a magic argument to justify the artistic value of a literal piece of dogshit
This is definitely true, but it's a two sided sword. When you take an artist word for it it's just asking for pretentious hacks to act like their shit movie is worth a damn. Reminds me of that time M. Night Shyamalan defended his Last Airbender adaptation.
So as always in the world of art you are just left with hacks and posers, I personally can't say which one is worse lol.
>pretentious 4 hour long YouTube essays on how Mario jumping and breaking a fricking brick with his head somehow constitutes a deep critique about parental roles from a post-constructivist perspective
Thanks for the kek
That's not what Death of the Author means. Barthes was explicitly postmodern and created the concept of Death of the Author as a post-structuralist argument to effectively say "most writers are not as smart as you think they are, don't assume that everything they're saying actually contributes to their intent". It's not that authors don't have intent at all or that the intent should be discounted. While discussing a story by Honoré de Balzac through a very close reading, Barthes simply noted how in the act of writing a complex work, Balzac's voice as author diffuses into multiple planes, so that one cannot know from reading closely if the narrative voice, character voice, and plot voice truly expresses the author's perspective; one cannot necessarily extract insight into Balzac's own thoughts, viewpoints, and beliefs from the work through such a reading, especially considering that Balzac had been dead for over a century. For Barthes, the act of writing allows the author to lose some of his conscious self and that for a work to be enjoyed, a reader has to project some of his own thoughts and views.
Posted early by mistake. Was going to say that it's saying "what you took from your reading probably isn't true and it's certainly not intentionally on the author's behalf, but that doesn't change its impact on you as a reader. Authors are human after all and it's rather elitist to think they wrote everything with a perfect vision in mind." I'm sure even Goethe had times when he was just yammering on without actually making a point, just as I'm sure that Barthes himself must've said at least once "wait, that's not what I meant" even though he coined the concept that runs counter to that.
Quality discussion. Thank you.
So much this. Almost all convoluted story telling with "deep meaning and symbology" can be boiled down to this: it sounded cool when story boarding.
Nah, you're just too fricking dumb for subtext.
That's exactly what was going on when they made Silent Hill.
>To tell you the truth, and this might not be such an interesting answer, but all of Silent Hill was made up. Some of the names have some sort of cult backgrounds or the sort, but what the team was most inspired by were the cult movies from the 70's and the 80's and maybe the Science Fiction movies from the 50's, more than the modern horror novels, actually. There are some cult icons that appear in the game, but those were just some added points to build a frightening feeling.
>chad harry and bimbo cybil
The virgin 7 hour youtube analysis vs. the Chad "we made it all up" director
Yeah, the original Japanese Silent Hill games weren't keen on explaining things.
In 1 Harry gets teleported around, the world shifts in front of him, and there's constantly areas with impossible geography, and the only explanation he gets it "This little girl who is also half your daughter caused it, now watch the goat head bird god come out of her".
Silent Hill 2 also doesn't say much, but it does give some explanations in the Rebirth ending, but those explanations are just about the cult's rituals, so really it's also nothing. It's on the player to infer that the town is the way it is because of the magic nuke that went off in the first game.
3 is the one game that offers actual explanations. It explains what the frick happened in SH1 at least, but again, you don't get a whole lot out of it.
Leaves the player with a lot to think about, doesn't answer anything that doesn't need answering. Like, you can infer what Pyramid Head is supposed to be and why the monsters in SH1 are what they are, but it doesn't explain how they're around, it's all up to the player to figure out.
Then the later games come along and frick it all up. Origins is at least non-sensical because they completely changed the story but couldn't afford to change the cutscene, which results in all returning characters acting completely out of character, and Shattered Memories is non-canon, but Homecoming is one unending and unnecessary loredump about the cult. We only got to meet one or two real cult members per game last time, but now we get to know their whole system and obscure rituals that don't fricking matter. It's what made me realize I prefer the Japanese approach of character based storytelling to all this plotgay shit, it's gay as hell and brings down the experience.
And Book of Memories, sweet Jesus, that game retcons itself into every prior game with just a few lines of text.
Not everything has to be explained.
Speaking of Pyramid Head. Would have been sweet to see a SH1 version of him with the lower resolution poly's.
There's a book called SH book of lost memories that actually explains all the shit going on.
It genuinely shocks me how many people are so media illiterate/moronic to not understand this.
Wikigays need to crack open some real fricking books and read those.
spittin facts
You need to read books more often, gay.
So do you.
You can always tell that people like you guys don't actually read the books you try to claim you do otherwise you'd know that 95% of all books are pretty trash in terms of good storytelling.
>95% of all books are pretty trash in terms of good storytelling
The implication being that you have personally read all books in existence, including the obvious shit ones, and thus you know what percentage is bad? The implication being that the Silent Hill™ saga has better storytelling than "books" in general?
I don't even know where to begin with this moronic post.
>all these assumptions
Damn your asshurt is real lmao. The point is that going
>uhh video games shouldn't have stories you care about cause la books!
Is a moronic point. God you're stupid. Must really suck having your IQ
>>uhh video games shouldn't have stories you care about cause la books!
Who the frick even said this? Can you point to a reply that even remotely implies this? Who's asshurt here but you?
>ughhh what do you mean that nurses having big breasts because James is horny is not the deepest symbolism in human history????
Yes
See
and
Literally saying people to need to stop wasting their time trying to figure out the stories.
The first post is telling (You) to read more books, which is correct, since you lack fricking reading comprehension, and the reason is that the second post you quoted is *disagreeing* with the poster saying to stop trying to figure out the stories
Wat. there are literally documents in the game that tell you what's happening
Very vaguely.
no but don't you see, Walter was circumcised. He was circumcised and his penis was cut off and he had his foreskin off and mutilated and Walter was traumatized because he was circumcised don't you see what I mean?
drugs
it's actually tidly wrapped bell bottom jeans, in case the protag loses his
>tfw Marie Kondo roams Silent Hill, ready to fold her victims
this.
can't stop taking these pills.
Who had it worse? Simon or David?
So is Silent Hill a normal, monster-free town to those who aren't being "called to it" by the spirits/cult activity there? Or is it truly just a weird derelict place where some kind of disaster happened. SH1 seems to imply the latter, while SH2 seems to imply the former. It's been a long time since I've played these games so please forgive me if the answer is neither.
There's nothing in the games that indicates that Silent Hill is abandoned in any way, or that any significant event happened there that the public is aware of. Harry, James, and Heather all go to Silent Hill expecting to find a normal town.
The most negative thing anyone has had to say about the town is Douglas commenting that "it used to be such a nice little town, but now..." suggesting that the cult's popularity is affecting the town in some way. Nevertheless, when Heather and Douglas reach Silent Hill, they evidently check in a motel with no problem, and even though Heather is instantly taken to the Fog World, Douglas apparently walks around a normal town on his way to Leonard's house.
Also, I'm sure Cybil mentions that Silent Hill was a regular town with drug problems.
IT is just an allegory for his illness
What are you talking about?
SH1 in first person. This could have been great if it was an unlockable mode back then.
Holy shit, the sound design is so great, just hearing the footsteps and the radio made me feel uneasy
I was literally conditioned by this game, like a dog
Your feeble mind couldn't POSSIBLY comprehend IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's a pocket dimension parallel to the city, the only place Alessa knows.
No. You see the town change in real time, it's still the same town but it's being twisted by the psychic energy that Alyssa and the cult were harnessing.
Where are all the citizens then? Why is the town empty apart from a handful of people?
gee man I dunno, might have something to do with all the monsters everywhere that attack people
Doesn't add up. That's still only a dozen or so corpses in a town that should have at least a thousand citizens. And why would the corpses only appear in the dark world? You'd think they'd be littering the streets. Cybil and Kaufmann plainly say that "everyone is gone", like they vanished into thin air. There's also those two corpses at the school's office that are clearly just the painting turned real.
Most importantly, no ever mentions large massacre occuring in Silent Hill or anything of the sort.
The corpses you see mutilated and decorating the walls all over the place in the otherworld are the missing people. Maybe some of them got turned into parasite hosts like the hospital staff and Cybil, who knows.
Yes, it’s Allessa’s nightmare that you get sucked into. Every other game is a non-canon cash grab because she died and the nightmare ended.
Shit video but the song is really catchy.
A purgatory, to be precise
It's way more interesting if everything is really happening instead of some alternate dimension cope, so that's what I go with. I don't really care what sequels and other shit made by completely different people have to say about it.
I think the idea of being trapped in a nightmarish world is a lot scarier than a town being haunted. Because if the otherworld isn't separated from the rest of the world, that opens up the possibilty of outside intervention. Kaufmann's mention of a "military rescue team" sounds kinda ridiculous, but if it's the real town, it becomes possible and therefore robs it of its scariness. One could theoritically drop a nuke on Silent Hill and put and end to it.
Being trapped inside an actual nightmare with no physical way out and no hope of help is much more disturbing. And the idea that horrific things happen in this town but the rest of the world will never know about it tickles my fancy more.
And I don't see why it being another dimension means that it's "not really happening". Everything there is physical and can kill you.
Who cares, its a videogamey way to explore deeply flawed characters which makes for a compelling way players can learn to know characters and experience character development.
>Noooo it needs to make sense!
Its a mechanic to help make something work that is difficult to translate to the videogame format, its not supposed to explain itself but work on you as a person, the fears and feelings of the characters is the narrative and explains everything.
The school is still the scariest place in the entire series. The atmosphere is so effective that walking down the dark corridors makes me feel like some huge monster is gonna come at me, even though I know very well no such thing exists. The gallows in SH2 has a similar feel.
And that fricking piano+panthera roar in the courtyard creeps me out to no end.
It was bad trip from PTV
The game explains it in this cutscenes.
Alessa's nightmares and memories, that she has been stewing in for years with a demon inside her, are released onto the town and they take the town over. The only people in the town are those she has memories of while being in her coma: her mom, the doctor in league with her mom, the nice nurse who cares for her, and all the other doctors and nurses who are being "mind-controlled" with "parasites" (the drugs).
Harry bringing Cheryl to the town is what wakes up Alessa and frees the nightmare which spirals out of control due to the growing influence of the demon, which is why she tries to seal the evil in the town itself to thwart her mom's desires. Cybil, presumably, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I forget what she says in the beginning but I think she was just passing through when Harry showed up and the town became a nightmare.
It's never explained where everyone went besides the doctors and nurses who seem to be real humans being controlled by nightmare parasites. I always assumed they were removed from existence while the demon had influence, and they came back into existence after it ended. I also assume the roads restored themselves and everything else did as well as if nothing happened.
best post itt comin thru, thx anon
SH1: alternate reality with living nightmares projected outward onto the town from a demon god
SH2: alternate realities with living nightmares but personalized for people with strong negative emotions or experiences
SH3: same as SH1 but happening wherever Heather and Claudia are
SH4 and onward: noncanon
what the frick happened to duckstation UI? decided to update and now it's some stupid android wannabe, how do i change this back without downgrading?
(Spoilers obviously for SH1-4)
The otherworld is explained as the state where the distinction between reality and illusion breaks down. This is what the alley scene at the beginning represents. There is no teleportation from the world of ordinary life to some alternate dimension, rather reality and Alessa's nightmare are slowly merging into one.
The religion of the Order is false, there is no deity inhabiting the town. Everything inside the otherworld reflects the psychological state of whoever the host is. This is why the Order's God appears in Silent Hill 1 and 3 but not in 2 and 4, James and Sullivan are not religious, and in each game the otherworld is different because the experiences of all these people are different.
The Otherworld is not in any sense exclusive to the town of Silent Hill (see SH4). There is a connection, since the suffering embedded in the town's history has left a psychic stain of sorts in the town, making the phenomenon easier to manifest. But in principle it can occur anywhere, as long as there is someone lost in the inner world of his or her imagination, being so deep in their illusions that they can't tell the real world apart anymore. The reason why sometimes this causes the outside world to shift to accommodate their inner thoughts has never been explained in the series.
>Sullivan is not religious
homie, you hear yourself talking?
Not that guy but I'm not really sure that Sullivan gave a frick about the religion so I don't know if you could really call him religious. The way I took it was that he was just doing the ritual in an effort to bring his 'mom' to life and it happened to have the side effect of also bringing one of the order's gods to life. I don't think he particularly cared about that bit though.
Regardless of his personal goal, he wouldn't have done it had he not had a blind faith in the cult's teachings. He was brainwashed from a young age to be the perfect summoner for the 21 Sacraments, he was a religious nut through and through. I think this is the reason why there's two Walters, the adult Walter wants "wake up his mother" for kid Walter, not himself.
I also don't buy that the God is not real, that's the result of trying to fit the square peg of the SH2 otherworld into the round hole of the other games. Do people forget that Dahlia specifically said that she cast a spell to summon Cheryl? She also had a magical artifact in the Flauros, and she created a magical barrier straight out of a fantasy story. And Walter performed a ritual to turn into a invencible ghost outsude of the town. None of that was the town's power, it was real black magic.
Nah, I think SH 1 makes it pretty firmly clear that the order didn't / weren't summoning gods but was summoning a demon instead. The final boss is very clearly Baphomet. It's just that Walter's ritual was all about bringing something not real to life, not summoning a god really, so that's what it was doing.
Gods and demons are the same thing. What's a god to some can be a demon to others and viceversa.
Nice example of the kind of 2deep4u drivel SH gays are known for.
>one of the most basic and simple facts of anthropology is "2deep4u drivel"
This is what American education does to the brain.
>I also don't buy that the God is not real, that's the result of trying to fit the square peg of the SH2 otherworld into the round hole of the other games.
Not really, the theory is confirmed by official printed material https://www.silenthillmemories.net/lost_memories/guide/112_en.htm
As someone who dedicated WAY too much time to Silent Hill lore back in the day, let me tell you all: this shit is from page 1 of the japanese developer manual. It's much like Dark Souls lore.
1. Japanese developer puts ambiguous, mysterious references and lore hints all over the fricking place. The reason: It Sounds Cool. Nothing beyond that.
2. Western alt-weebs go fricking nuts over it, because autism demands completeness, doing all sorts of overanalyzing, mental gymnastics, and 2-hour YouTube essays over mundane shit the original devs didn't even think about twice.
3. Japanese developer does an interview and confirms that they didn't think it through, just put it there because it sounded cool, "it's up to the player's imagination" AKA "it doesn't mean shit", or all of those.
4. Western alt-weebs find more reasons to continue on their autism-driven quest.
Seriously, don't waste your time. I'll admit that games like SH2 have much more symbolism and meaning than most other videogames, but there really isn't THAT much to it and most of it doesn't have a level of depth or lore complexity beyond what most japanese light novels have to offer, and they're called light novels for reason.
>but there really isn't THAT much to it and most of it doesn't have a level of depth or lore complexity beyond what most japanese light novels have to offe
https://silenthill.fandom.com/wiki/Silent_Hill_(novel)
Silent Hill has a novel and a VN though. The frick are you talking about?
My dude, fricking Resident Evil has several novels. Do you think that somehow makes it automatically deep?
Also, I said it's about as deep as a light novel. And you reply "it has a novel though". What's your point?
Resident Evil did actually make a good attempt at having a deep and intricate plotline when it was being written by Flagship. Nearly everything from 2 onwards was setup, all the spin-offs were made to expand on the setting, even had several radio dramas.
Ironically, the two original novels from that time were completely irrelevant to this. They were from writing contests and just got officially published a few years after submission.
Too bad the writer died and all that setup was thrown into the trash, then the series became an embarrasing mess. It's tragic, actually.
The series was already an embarrassing mess thanks to all the hackneyed garbage Flagship introduced.
>Too bad the writer died and all that setup was thrown into the trash, then the series became an embarrasing mess. It's tragic, actually.
Is that why went from all that set up to UMBRELLA IS FINISHED?
Yup, one of the many ideas for RE4 was Leon and Wesker infiltrating an Umbrella airship at the same time to stop the Uroboros virus.
When the writer died, they scrapped all that and threw Umbrella into the trash. They took an early idea about a lab in a Spanish castle (the same idea which had turned into Devil May Cry)and pulled Las Plagas out of their asses to remove all connections to Umbrella. The plot about Uroboros and the final confrontation with Wesker were pushed to the next game, which was sadly just a shitty copy of RE4.
How do Japanese fans take this stuff? Is there much of a culture of lore-autism over there?
Pretty sure there isn't. Moeshit and mechas fighting is all they need.
They take it much more at face value and enjoy the end product for what it is.
I do think there is authorial intent in the themes that the supernatural stuff is a vehicle for but in terms of the mechanical function and inner workings Silent Hill and the dimensions themselves that stuff is all just plot magic and trying to explain any of it is missing the point that all of that stuff is a vehicle for.
Its all about circumcision and how team silent was trying to reveal to the world the dark and twisted world of our american medical system run by satanics and government
do this
maybe this one's a better angle
The shadows confuse the editor a bit
my fricking sides
thank you, anon
Of course SH2 is in a separate continuity from SH1. It's pretty clear they were using the setting very loosely in order to play with the formula and experiment, instead of going for the straight sequel (SH3 forced them back on track and it's the lesser of the three). You gays keep overanalyzing simplicity and seeing details where there's noise.
God I miss this era of videogames bros, they play it too safe these days.
It was time travel to the future and space.
>books books
Y'all need to watch more films.
Did you morons even pay attention to what was going on in the game? Its overtly stated at one point that Alessa's nightmares took over the city, your essentially in her mind where the normal town of silent hill is now a horrific world of pain and darkness which is how she perceived it during her miserable life. Sh 2 was probably going to be a separate game but then they decided to slap silent hill over it and that's where some of the contradictory things about silent hill begin.
honestly, I think it's a good retcon if it is one. Reducing silent hill simply to one psychic child, it's like a fricking xmen origin story.
>Reducing silent hill simply to one psychic child,
The game doesn't do this though. There's still the cult that has powers and claims of the region being strange for a long time. I'm not sure why people focus so much on one aspect of the story in 1 and say that's all there is.
>claims of the region being strange for a long time
That was introduced in SH2
It's still part of the lore of the series and the town. It's even one of the good games so it's fine to include it.
silent hill 2 got a decent story but its a ripoff of some european movie and thats pretty much it,the game is dogshit
>but its a ripoff of some european movie
Oh wow you actually believed that meme.
If the sh devs understood lost highway enough to rip it off that's a good reflection of their taste, managed better than ebert.
>and that's where some of the contradictory things about silent hill begin.
It's not really that big of a problem. Alessa's effect on the town was exceptional and resulted nearly in the birth of a god. James, Angela, and Eddie's pull was weaker and confused.
So when Harry is in the nightmare world does anybody who comes into Silent Hill also experience it? A car driving in is like 'Hey kids, are we ready for our vacation in Silent Hi- why did it get so dark?'
That's exactly what causes so much confusion and disagreement over the nature of the Otherworld. We never see how the town looks like from the outside when spooky stuff goes down. It could be business as usual for anyone not involved.
>currently playing through 2 for the first time
>see that the box in the apartments has five slots for coins
>find the first three coins easily
>spent a fricking hour looking for the last two, checking and rechecking every door and trying to use the knife you get from that one b***h on everything in sight in case that opens up something new
>finally give in and google it
>there's only three coins
>im a brainlet.
I like silent hill
>you now remember that letter where Harry seriously considered murdering heather as a child
In Silent Hill 3, you can listen to a tape where Vincent and some random female worshipper of the cult talk about Harry coming to town and taking away Alessa/God. There's no mention of everyone else dying or anything like that, so either everyone connected to the cult besides Dahlia was hiding in wait for God's arrival or they were taken out of existence during SH1's plot only to figure out what happened through Harry's notes he left around town.
SH2 is the weird one. Either everyone disappeared again without any demonic stuff happening or everyone (including Laura) were inside their own personal Otherworld that sometimes intersected. Laura saw no monsters, but she didn't see any other humans either besides the main cast.
I prefer no explanations but I always enjoyed the idea of the alternate dimension. Not even dimension really, just a pocket realm to tormet little shits like James Sunderland
I could not for the life of me make it through the first game. You’re just supposed to find microscopic key items in a giant town with no distinguishable features? Should i just watch a walkthrough and play the second title? I hate feeling like a causal but never felt this frustrated with Resident Evil
sh1 has a few confusing sections but nothing really that bad, the only major bullshit is a bad ending trap midway through the game that's really easy for a noob to trigger. If you're stuck at the beginning there's a map in the house on levin st you probably missed.
I got stuck trying to get to the school my daughter ostensibly wandered off to. Have the map. I looked up the item i missed (some item on the floor or key in a car and just raged at how people were expected to scour to that degree
eh I'll give you the gate to the doghead being kind of easy to confuse as regular background, but the cliff and the open trunk should be pretty obvious if you have the map
How is the game with popstarter? My only other option is playing it on PSP but I would rather experience it on a CRT (normally I would just burn a CD but my disc drive doesnt work)
Neither the parallel dimension theory or the reality corruption theory can satisfactorily explain why Cybil and Douglas end up in the Otherworld when they're normal folks just like everyone in town who has disappered. Cybil had no connection to Alessa, and Claudia didn't need Douglas anymore once Heather reached Silent Hill.
>Douglas
don't see why you have problem with him? He was doing Claudia's bidding and then decided to help heather out of guilt. Seems like more than enough involvement for him to be dragged into it with the others.
It's a hell world that is changing the real world into it because of Alessa's powers. In 1 anyway.