I was going through the comments on my posts a while back, and I came across a doozy of a comment by user Maiden T. I'm not going to replicate the entire post here, but you can review the comment at the link provided. In summary, the commenter asserts that Silent Hill, as a series, was never about occultism, and that all the games were "repressed-memory morality tales". The first Silent Hill and "to an extent the third one" are the exceptions (according to Maiden T).
Totally unrelated image of a demon god...
My mind just about exploded when I read this comment, and I started typing up a response, only to realize that I had written a whole blog's worth of counter argument. So, I decided to just turn it into a new blog. I'll continue my series of analysis and interpretation articles about Silent Hill with a write-up about how the series is most definitely about occultism.
What is Silent Hill about?
I've already tackled two topics that I consider to be common myths about Silent Hill. The first was about the over-sexualization of Pyramid Head, and the second was about the realness of the Otherworld. Now I'll address one of the most fundamental misunderstandings about the series: what is it about?
The repressed-inner-demon myth
Probably the most core and fundamental myth about the Silent Hill series is the continued propagation of the idea that the series (as a whole) is about characters dealing with repressed inner demons - typically a repressed memory of guilt over a perceived sin which they have committed. This idea is rooted in the popularity of Silent Hill 2. It is so pervasive, that the designers and producers of newer installments of the series embrace it, while dismissing the other critical elements of the other games' stories:
"[My favorite SH game is] Silent Hill 2. I didn’t really care for all the heavy occult based storyline in SH1 and 3. I felt SH2 had the best stand alone storyline, and provided the best atmosphere of all the SH games by far.
[...]
I find all the in’s and out’s of ‘The Order’ to be overly intricate and rather uninteresting, but that’s just my opinion."
- Devin Shatsky (producer, Shattered Memories, Downpour), in an interview with Hell's Descent (Nov 5, 2010).
The reason that Silent Hill 2's design was so successful (and unique within the series) is because SH2's excellent atmosphere was based around feelings of melancholy and depression rather than fear and threat.
Exploring a character's personal guilt and depression works great when the entire game is designed around that central, unifying theme! It doesn't work quite so well when ...
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Tags:Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4: the Room, Silent Hill Origins, Silent Hill Homecoming, Silent Hill Downpour, Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Team Silent, Konami, cult, occult, fan fiction, horror, Harry Mason, Alessa, Dahlia Gillespie, Cheryl Mason, Heather Mason, James Sunderland, Red Pyramid Thing, Pyramid Head, Claudia Wolf, Vincent Smith, Henry Townshend, Walter Sullivan, Travis Grady, Alex Shepherd, Shepherd's Glen, Murphy Pendleton, ritual, Flauros, demon, god, Mary Shepherd-Sunderland
Much ado has already been made about the re-recorded dialogue that is to be used in the Silent Hill HD Collection. Critics like myself have already been accused of being “haters” and "unwilling to accept change". Fortunately (or is it unfortunately?), Konami has given "haters" like me plenty of reason to hate the Silent Hill HD Collection.
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I have extra copies of the original games. If you want to play them (and you know me personally), you can borrow them!
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Tags:Silent Hill, Silent Hill HD Collection, review, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Konami, Hijinx, PS3, PS2, Team Silent, KCET, James Sunderland, Heather Mason, Douglas Cartland, Claudia Wolf, Laura, survival, horror, survival horror, XBox 360, Eddie Dombrowski