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Stumbled onto this Gamefaqs forum topic about Masahiro Ito "confirming" that the Good ending of Silent Hill is canon, and that Cybil is supposed to die. Many fans apparently see this as absolute validation of their dogmatic opinions on the topic, and that to argue otherwise is moronic. I don't understand why there is so much vitriol thrown towards people who support the Good+ ending and Cybil's survival. Why does the fanbase want Cybil dead so much?

There are three key arguments that I hear in defense of the "Good is the only canonical ending" position:

Book of Lost Memories - regarding the aglaophotis pendant
Why do fans want Cybil dead?
  1. Harry wouldn't have known what the Red Liquid does until after he sees Kaufman use it on Alessa, and so he couldn't have used it on Cybil earlier.
  2. If Harry used the Red Liquid to save Cybil, then he couldn't have had any left over to solidify into the pendant for Heather.
  3. Cybil does not appear in any subsequent Silent Hill. She is not referenced in SH3, and in Silent Hill Homecoming, Deputy Wheeler refers to a female police officer who went to Silent Hill and never returned. Clearly, this means that Cybil is dead.

To many fans, these three arguments are bullet proof! At this point, they've practically become gospel (along with Pyramid Head's well-known rape antics).

But how well do these arguments really stack up to scrutiny? Let's play Devil's Advocate...

Masahiro Ito "confirms" that Cybil is dead

I'm going to start with Masahiro Ito's comments on the issue:

On Mashiro Ito's Twitter feed, he "confirms" that Cybil is dead.

Masahiro Ito confirms Cybil's death on Twitter: 'Yes, I remember Cybil is dead'

First and foremost, the question asked is loaded. The questioner is outright stating the expected answer as part of the question. That kind of bias will affect how the questionee answers the question.

This game is fifteen years old now, and memory can play a lot of tricks on people. Maybe when he played the game, he got the Good ending, so that is the one that he remembers. He may also be misremembering the game, as memory is very prone to suggestion and bias. It could be that he's heard "Cybil dies" so often, that he "remembers" that it must be true. If this quote was from 1999 or 2000, I'd take it a bit more seriously, since his memory wouldn't be subject to 15 years of confirmation bias

That being said, does it really matter what Masahiro Ito has to say on the subject? With all due respect, Ito isn't a writer. He's an artist and designer. He's a valuable member of the creative team, and his artistic and aesthetic contributions to the series are invaluable, but his opinions and recollections are not necessarily authoritative on the subject of plot or narrative. When Ito complained about how the HD Collection looked, his opinion was relevant, because they were criticisms of art and presentation, which is his expertise. Hiroyuki Owaku, on the other hand, was a writer of the game (as well as a programmer). His word is much more authoritative when it comes to questions of story and narrative. And what did he say?

"Cybil's fate [...] is left to players' imaginations"
   - Hiroyuki Owaku (writer and programmer, Silent Hill (1999) - Silent Hill 4 (2004))

So while I value Ito's opinions and interpretations of the games that he helped create, if his opinion regarding plot or narrative differs from that of one of the game's writers or directors, then I'm probably going to err on the side of the writer or director. So I take Ito's words with a grain of salt.

But regardless of what you might think of Ito's credibility (or the relevance of his opinion on the topic), the arguments for and against Cybil's death will stand and fall on their own merit. So let's take a look at the three most common fan-arguments that I listed above...

Counter argument #1: How would Harry know to use the Red Liquid?

Silent Hill - inventory showing Red Liquid
Nobody told me what to do with this stuff, so I can't possibly use it...

Harry is a smart guy; he's not stupid. He's also a writer, which means that he's probably a pretty creative thinker (unless he writes non-fiction). So to just assume that he wouldn't have the abstract problem-solving capacity to try the Red Liquid (an item which has, so far, just been taking up space in his pockets) is doing him a tremendous disservice. Remember, this is the same intellect that pieced together what the Otherworld is, who realized that Lisa wasn't normal, who solved the Zodiac puzzle, and who had the forethought to solidify some aglaophotis into a capsule and gift it to his new daughter!

But assuming that Harry can't just make a leap of intuition, does he have the pieces of the puzzle necessary to even think to try it?

The importance of the Kaufman side quest

Let's disregard the Bad+ and Bad endings (since those aren't in consideration, anyway), so we're left only considering Good and Good+. Both endings require that the player complete the Kaufman side quest. This side quest requires Harry to find Kaufman's secret, hidden stash of "red liquid" hidden in a motorcycle in the resort area. Upon finding it, Harry is confronted by Kaufman, who aggressively demands that Harry give him the liquid. This liquid is important! Harry knows that. He doesn't know what it does, but at this point, he can start to figure it out (and so can the player).

Kaufman is the hospital director, and it's in his office that we first find the Red Liquid spilled on the floor. The hospital is also where Harry encounters the possessed doctors and nurses. Aside from Lisa, Kaufman is the only human character that Harry meets in the hospital, and Kaufman is the only one who Harry knows had access to or knowledge of the Red Liquid. This spatial and temporal proximity should be enough for Harry to suspect that the liquid may be related to the possessions - either as an antidote, or possibly the cause.

Silent Hill - broken vial of Red Liquid Silent Hill - fighting puppet nurses Silent Hill - Kaufman snatching Red Liquid
[LEFT]: Spilled Red Liquid in Kaufman's office.
[MIDDLE]: fighting possesed nurses or doctors in the hospital.
[RIGHT]: Kaufman: "Give me that! [...] It's none of your business!"

Kaufman is the only person who didn't turn into a puppet doctor or puppet nurse. That is not counting Lisa, since she's a special case. It's also assuming that those creatures were real people to begin with, and not just manifestations (which I feel is also debatable). Harry finds the smashed bottle of Red Liquid in Kaufman's office, and concludes that somebody was "looking for something". He probably also catches on to the fact that Kaufman always seems to be in a hurry to get on with his business, whatever that happens to be, and Kaufman is always found in proximity to the Red Liquid.

It's also worth pointing out that regardless of how long it actually took you to play through the game, these events are happening within a span of a few hours. So being in the hospital, finding the Red Liquid spilled on the floor of Kaufman's office, encountering the possessed doctors and nurses, hearing Lisa say she doesn't want to end up "like them", seeing Lisa's transformation, and finding the Red Liquid in Kaufman's motorcycle has all happened in a short period of time for Harry, and are all closely-associated events in his short-term memory at the time that he encounters the possessed Cybil.

CORRECTION: October 4, 2017
As pointed out by commenter odacaesar, Lisa's transformation occurs after the confrontation with Cybil on the carousel, and so therefore cannot be a factor in a first-time player's (or Harry's) decision to use the Agloaphotis. I had been mistakenly thinking that Lisa's transformation occurred shortly after arriving in South Park, prior to reaching the amusement park. Thanks odacaesar for correcting me!

This is more than enough information to allow Harry to make the leap of intuition that this liquid can somehow have possession-warding potential. It might also have possession-causing potential, but since Cybil is already possessed, using it is no loss.

Silent Hill - Harry confesses that Cheryl was adopted
The player only learns that Cheryl is adopted if you save Cybil (either in Good+ or Bad+ endings).

From a more meta-standpoint: the player does not receive any gameplay reward for this side quest beside the ending. you don't get an item or a weapon or anything beyond the usual ammo and healing items that you get from exploring (and which you may also expend as a result of the extra exploration). The only thing this side quest does (from a gameplay perspective) is to provide additional story and provide a better ending! The whole point of this side quest is to teach Harry (and the player) about the importance of the Red Liquid. That is the only reason that it is in the game, and it is required in order to get either the Good or Good+ (which are our only candidates for canon). So Harry must perform this otherwise strictly informational side quest in order to achieve either of the "canon" ending candidates, which means he must discover that the Red Liquid is significant just prior to fighting Cybil - regardless of whether he has it in his inventory. On top of that, saving Cybil is required in order to get important backstory: specifically, after saving Cybil, Harry confesses to Cybil that Cheryl is adopted, and he suggests that Cheryl might have some connection to the events of the town (suggesting that he is starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together).

The player's desire to save Cybil

I remember when I first played the game, I wanted to save Cybil.

I tried non-lethal ways of attacking her in the hopes I could incapacitate her instead of kill her. I didn't use guns, and instead used melee weapons. I tried the Flauros and even the video tape (which I hadn't used in my first playthrough) to try to save her, before stumbling onto the Red Liquid. I would have tried everything in my inventory to save her because I instinctively wanted to try to save her.

I've also watched four different friends play through the entire game, and in every case, each friend's first instinct was to try to find a non-lethal way of dealing with Cybil, just as I had done. One of them went straight to the Red Liquid, specifically stating that "it seemed really important to that doctor-guy, so I thought I'd try it!"

Silent Hill - shooting Cybil
Please Cybil, don't make me shoot you. There must be another way!
Didn't you feel that way when you played?

So using the Red Liquid is not a completely esoteric puzzle that is unsolvable on your first playthrough. In fact, I don't personally know anybody who didn't get the Good+ ending on their first playthrough. Of course, this is years after the game released, so people have online guides now and may have approached the game differently than players did in 1999.

In addition, Cybil is slow and kinda lazy. She gives Harry (and the player) plenty of time and opportunity to think of an alternative solution to the conflict. She shambles around the carousel in no hurry to catch up to Harry if you run away, and she'll just sit around on a horse and wait for you. You can also walk right up to her without too much threat. In fact, her gun is her most lethal weapon, so the game actually encourages you to get up close and personal. Harry can take a lot more pistol whips than he can take gun shots. So this also gives the player easy access to using the Red Liquid. Cybil isn't like the Split Lizard; she won't swallow you whole if you get too close.

Just because the game didn't include an explicit document or cutscene that says "You can use the Red Liquid to ward off possession", doesn't mean that Harry (and the player) can't have figured it out on his own after encountering the possessed Cybil, and knowing what he knows from his encounters with Kaufman.

Counter argument #2: Where did Harry get the crystalized aglaophotis for Heather's pendant?

I'm not going to spend much time on this, since I shouldn't have to. Put simply: there were years between the end of the first game and the birthday in which Harry gave Heather the gift of the pendant. We don't know much about what happened during that time, except that Harry and Heather were in hiding and had to relocate several times.

Book of Lost Memories - regarding the aglaophotis pendant
The Book of Lost Memories implies that Harry found another source of aglaophotis.

Harry had to have done some research between the events of the first and third game in order to learn how to solidify the Red Liquid, regardless of whether he walks out of Silent Hill with the Red Liquid or not. He knows that the new baby Heather has the same potential for psychic power and channeling the power of the god, and so would probably make efforts to protect her. Even if h didn't have any left, he would go looking for more of that demon-warding, possession-dispelling red liquid in order to protect his daughter. Wouldn't you if you were in his situation?

Lucky for him, aglaophotis isn't some esoteric compound that was made up for this game, and which only the cult of Silent Hill knows about. It's an actual demon-warding herb in real-world occultism! It wouldn't be hard for him to research this.

It's also likely that the manufacturing of aglaophotis is related to the White Claudia drug-smuggling ring. With the help of a surviving Cybil, Harry might even have been more likely to discover this relationship and learn how to create some of his own. Although, this is pure speculation, and it is more likely that the two would have went their separate ways since Harry had to go into hiding.

Counter argument #3: Homecoming's Deputy Wheeler is not a credible source of information

Silent Hill Homecoming title

I want to get this out there right away: I don't care what Homecoming says. It's a bad game, and it doesn't respect the established canon, themes, or style of the original Team Silent games anyway. I'd prefer not to consider it a legitimate part of the franchise (any more than I want The Phantom Menace or Star Trek V to remain part of those franchises' canons - except for STV's camping scenes). But my dislike for the game doesn't matter, because Homecoming does exist (like it or not), so I have to at least address it. Fortunately, I don't even have to summarily or arbitrarily dismiss Homecoming, because Homecoming does a pretty good job of dismissing itself.

Deputy Wheeler doesn't say that Cybil died! He only said that "a [female] cop from Brahms" disappeared there. We assume he's talking about Cybil, and I'll go along with that assumption, but all he says is that she disappeared. This is the same thing that Superintendent Sunderland says about his son James in Silent Hill 4. Is James dead too because another character says he "disappeared" in Silent Hill? But I don't hear any fans insisting that "in water" is the only canon ending for Silent Hill 2. In fact, we [the fans] almost unanimously accept the ambiguity of SH2's endings. Hypocritical, much?

Silent Hill Homecoming - Wheeler talks about Cybil
Wheeler's comments do not directly contradict the Good+ ending.
He specifically says "No one knows [what happened to her]".

And even if Wheeler did specifically say "Another cop, Cybil Bennett, died in Silent Hill years ago", I still wouldn't take him seriously. He's only reciting second-hand information which could be in error. Perhaps someone on the Brahms police force is just saying that she disappeared in order to protect her. Maybe she's in hiding from retribution from the cult (just like Harry and Heather had to). Perhaps she is taking part in an undercover operation, and saying she disappeared is just a cover story.

And this is all assuming that Deputy Wheeler even exists to begin with! Homecoming has four default endings. In at least half of those endings, Alex imagined, dreamed, or hallucinated the events of the game. In a third ending, he becomes one of the monsters, so it's ambiguous whether he's hallucinating, or if it's real. Since there is no sequel that canonizes one of Homecoming's endings (or a subset), and since the endings of the game retcon the game itself, and it does not present a consistent narrative (Downpour has the same problem), I do not feel that anything in the game can be taken at face value, and nothing that any character says can be seen as truly credible (since there's at least a 50/50 chance that the character is just a figment of Alex's imagination).

Is there room for compromise?

In any case, even the creators of the original game don't seem to agree on this particular topic. If the creators didn't want the Good+ ending to be considered valid, then they could have just made the Empty Bottle and Red Liquid be "New Game +" items, and the Good+ ending be an unlockable ending - just like the U.F.O. ending in SH1 or the "rebirth" ending in Silent Hill 2. But no, they included it as a default ending. Even the director of the first game, Keiichiro Toyama, changed his mind regarding this and claims Good+ is true (in hindsight):

"I remember that I said "Good" was the true ending, because Good+ is a game’s game. Probably, Owaku rememberd that and he wrote SH3 story as a sequel to "Good".But, now, I change my mind and consider the "Good+" is a true ending."
   - Keiichiro Toyama (director, Silent Hill (1999))

On top of that, the official Japanese novelization of the game follows the Good+ ending, and the Book of Memories states that Harry must have found another source of aglaophotis, which implies that he used the Red Liquid in the bottle on Cybil (or never picked it up to begin with).

Any individual's opinion regarding which ending is the real ending will probably depend greatly on which ending they achieved in their first playthrough. If you didn't figure out (without outside help) how to save Cybil, or even think to pick up the Red Liquid in the hospital to begin with, then it makes perfect sense that you might not believe Cybil survived. But if you did figure it out in your first playthrough (especially without help from an outside source), then it makes sense that you'd think that other players could have figured it out too.

I just don't understand how the fanbase can be so adamant that "Cybil is absolutely dead, and anyone who disagrees is a moron." Maybe this isn't a majority, but just a very vocal minority? Heck, I'm not even saying that "Good+ is absolutely correct." All I'm saying is that both are worthy of consideration, and that both are just as valid from gameplay and story perspectives.

If you disagree, then fine. It's a matter of perspective (or imagination). But just because we disagree doesn't mean that one of us is a moron or not a "true fan".

Comments (16) -

04/25/2014 10:32:18 #

I totally agree with you in everything you say in this article and all the others about Silent Hill. Dude, it's too hard to find another person who really knows and understands Silent Hill (and I mean the original, true SH, I mean up to SH4). I can't agree more with you, even more than with the guys of Twin Perfect.

Above all you explain, Homecoming can't be taken seriously simply because the makes didn't know much about SH as it seems, nor they understood enough about the series.

A bad managing by Konami, leading to a total disbanding of Team Silent, and then bad developing for a complex material has ruined what SH meant to be...

I know too well that making a good SH videogame is too difficult, but what Konami and the infamous Tomm Hulett did with one of the best franchises ever can't be forgiven. They dealt so much damage to the best horror series ever, and those comics and those movies (the first was decent even it was too far from perfect as a SH movie, but the second one...) and all.

Just as you comment in another article, I'd love more good SH games, but if they can't manage to achieve the minimum, required quality, then let the franchise rest in peace already.

Again, too much damage it has suffered by now...

Best regards and I hope this gets better from now on (too many years of decadence and lost hope, but...), and you make more awesome SH articles!

04/26/2014 22:52:55 #

I was wondering... Maybe another reason why many think Good is the canonical ending is because at the intro cutscene of Silent Hill, Harry sees Cybil and some minutes later he sees Cybil's motorcycle at the side of the road, with some blood, but no corpse or sign about Cybil.

I always wondered... What could that mean? However, that doesn't prove anything, there's even no body, so we can just assume that Cybil didn't die in the accident, either.

In SH1, is like only those who lose conscience around Silent Hill can see the spiritual power of the town (amplified with the power of Alessa...), thing that doesn't apply on SH2 and SH3, or maybe it does since the characters in SH2 have an altered state of the mind, and SH3, well, Heather is Alessa (and has weird premonitory dreams prior to Claudia's appearance), and Douglas is so sad about his son's death that he isn't afraid of death, besides being involved with the cult through Claudia.

I always wondered as well how is decided how can enter Silent Hill when the spiritual power is being manifested, I mean, for example, what makes Cybil able to be with Harry if she apparently has no mental problems and she's not related with the cult or anything? It's just because she loses conscience in the bike accident?

I hope you can dispel some of my curiosity about these matters. SH 1-3 are my favorite videogames ever, especially from horror (much more than RE 1-3, which I also love).

04/27/2014 07:20:28 #

Hi Sergi, thanks for the feedback!

With regard to your first post:
I don't think it's fair to blame Konami for disbanding Team Silent. From what I understand, some of the high-level designers left the team after SH3 to work on their own projects anyway. Many of them considered "Silent Hill" to be complete, as SH3 wrapped up the overarching narrative and concluded the story. Even SH4 was not originally conceived as a "Silent Hill" game, but Konami changed its name and story in order to appeal to Silent Hill's popularity and sell more copies.

With regard to your second post:
My understanding has always been that the opening cinematic of SH1 is depicting the events leading up to the start of the game, but it's kind of confusing about it. So under this assumption, Harry sees Cybill's bike prior to the start of the game, on his way into town. I don't recall seeing any blood near the crashed bike, so there's no reason to assume that Cybill was seriously hurt or killed. Why does Cybill crash? We don't know. The game doesn't give any hints, nor does Cybill bother to explain. Maybe she saw ghost Alessa too? Maybe it was some kind of psychic phenomenon from Cheryl / Alessa (perhaps the same force that created all the holes in the streets made Cybill crash)? In fact, we don't even know that the bike is crashed. She might have just gotten off the bike in a hurry. Maybe she felt ill and dropped the bike so she could throw up just out of sight of the road. We don't know. It's just another mystery...

It's possible that Cybill does have some connection to the cult. She's a police officer, and the cult is involved in drug smuggling and other illegal operations. So she may be investigating them or cult agents in Brahms. Or it could just be that her proximity to Cheryl and Harry as they approached the town somehow caused her to become involved too. Yet another mystery...

JoyWise
JoyWise
10/28/2014 12:16:35 #

Even if Cybil is canonically dead, that doesn't mean the Good+ ending is false. She could have died at any point afterward (even of old age!), or faked her own death, or is still technically alive but dead to the rest of the world (trapped in the nightmare?). None of the evidence for her death indicates when it happened, only that it did.

10/29/2014 04:42:47 #

@JoyWise:

True, but the evidence that is cited is generally evidence by omission (i.e. the fact that she is not referenced in SH3). Wheeler's comment in Homecoming is the only in-game evidence that specifically says that Cybil is dead or missing.

BeatTheGG
BeatTheGG
06/28/2015 16:49:53 #

I know that I'm responding to this pretty late but... YES! FINALLY SOMEONE I CAN AGREE WITH ON CYBIL'S FATE! I honest believe she's alive somewhere (sadly she'll never Harry again though but who knows when they parted ways) I just laugh when people use anything post SH4 to explain anything that the original team silent did. Great work btw!

odacaesar
odacaesar
09/23/2017 00:01:52 #

I really agree with the points you drove home—especially with a first-time player being moved to try the Aglaophotis on Cybil out of a genuine desire to try a possible antidote to save her.  I have some thoughts to add to this; but first, I want to add a brief correction here:

You said that Lisa's transformation was in harry's short-term memory by the time he fights possessed Cybil.  This cannot be, since Harry fights Cybil on the carousel of Lakeside Amusement Park (a physical place), and Lisa transforms while Harry is in the metaphysical Nowhere—which is the last locale before the final boss fight.

Now, for what I wish to add:

While I trust Itō-sensei's knowledge of the lore of 1–3, seeing as the whole of Team Silent seems to have generally collaborated on it, Cybil being dead and the Good+ ending being possible canon are not mutually exclusive.  (Also, note that he only seemed to answer the second part of the original question, given the first part does not merit a yes-or-no answer.  Itō-sensei is nothing if not deliberate and careful in his answers to lore questions, if you look around his Twitter page.…But back to Cybil.)

There are signs of odd behavior throughout the game that point to Cybil having possibly been dead all along.  She volunteers a random civilian her gun in the very second scene of the game.  She doesn't take much persuasion to let the same random civilian go first through a mysterious dark hole.  In either Plus (+) ending, she tells Dahlia "Freeze!" and does not wait for her to disobey before she shoots at her.

Why would she break obvious police protocol?  A mixture of selective memory and personality simulation, perhaps.

We see how Lisa Garland's manifestation could only remember so much about her life as an actual human, and some of those memories might not actually be Lisa's (e.g.: not being allowed to go into the hospital basement).  The rest of Lisa's manifestation's personality was formed from Alessa's biases towards the only soul who showed her kindness during her "long seven years"; and from the town's somewhat screwy senses of physics and biology.

So, if Cybil is dead all along, then what are the implications of using the Aglaophotis on her?  Or of getting the Good+ ending?  I think those will always be left ambiguous and speculation-friendly.  I, of course, have my own preferred headcanon of what Good+ means with a long-dead and manifested Cybil—but I won't prattle on about just what I'd like to think.  Smile

Harry
Harry
09/02/2018 15:59:36 #

Dr. Kaufmann: All I had to do was plant it somewhere for you to find. You all, well, it kept you busy. Hah! You're easy! And there's *more* where *this* came from!

Dahlia Gillespie: Stop it!

Bill Withers
Bill Withers
06/19/2021 23:25:22 #

I recently downloaded the game because it was recommended by Radical Reggie. What a chore to get through. And my mind is blown they never patched the Carousel mission. Pretty ignorant they assumed you would find the unknown liquid. At the very least they should have put a box of ammo and health somewhere in the amusement park. Beyond pissed. 50 tries so far. I have about 5% health and 4 bullets. The best I have done so far is to get Cybil to run out of ammo, shot her 4 times and whacked her once with the hammer using the wheel chair as a buffer. They really dropped the ball designing a mission assuming you have health and ammo. I am about to throw in the towel. Not worth it imo. Epic Fail

Bob
Bob
09/24/2021 15:38:54 #

The game doesn't need patching, Bill. Try not wasting resources on unnecessary battles, and rotate your damn saves.

Also, Silent Hill doesn't have "missions." It's not a CoD game, Bill.

Bruno
Bruno
04/06/2022 13:32:58 #

Thanks for the post! Cybil's alive!

Hunk
Hunk
03/05/2024 14:21:44 #

Can you tell me where did you get the Owaku sentence that "Cybil's fate is left to players imagination?"

Hunk
Hunk
03/06/2024 03:28:51 #

Nevermind, I just found out that the citation is quoted from the Book of Lost Memories, thanks for the article Mega Bears!

sh_enjoyer
sh_enjoyer
09/12/2024 05:16:37 #


If Harry used the Red Liquid to save Cybil, then he couldn't have had any left over to solidify into the pendant for Heather.

Not relevant, as we never hear how or where Harry got his crystallized aglaophotis, and we know there's a source of it out there, so there's no reason to assume he just happened to carry a plastic bottle with it the whole time and used that to make it. Could just as easily get more elsewhere; he's had years of Heather growing up to do it.

Cybil does not appear in any subsequent Silent Hill. She is not referenced in SH3, and in Silent Hill Homecoming, Deputy Wheeler refers to a female police officer who went to Silent Hill and never returned. Clearly, this means that Cybil is dead.

This is a decent point; it's not a good indicator she's alive, given previous SH visitors are mentioned in sequels. However, Homecoming trying to canonize this with a remark that doesn't mention her by name strikes me as weak-willed and vague. Though it'd be equally weird for her to simply turn up years later, alive, when the only endings that would allow for this showed her clearly escaping with Harry, as you'd you'd be left wondering who the heck Wheeler was talking about.

Homecoming tried to put a plot together, but lost it when it tried too hard to rehash some of the themes of memory loss and guilt SH2 did, but in a character who wasn't actually guilty (the town is punishing a teenage kid for an accident? really?). Homecoming's plot isn't terribly well regarded as a result, so I'd be more concerned about evidence for Cybil's survival/guilt in other games.

More important than Homecoming is the diary in SH3 that Harry leaves for Heather. He doesn't mention Cybil there at all. It's a pretty significant omission, and you'd think he and Cybil might've formed some kind of friendship if she survived alongside him? But if she lived, she doesn't get mentioned there. More plausibly, having to kill Cybil was traumatic enough that he didn't mention her there.

Harry wouldn't have known what the Red Liquid does until after he sees Kaufman use it on Alessa, and so he couldn't have used it on Cybil earlier.

This is the main point of contention. Harry is not psychic, and has no way of knowing what this red liquid is. Knowing it's used for exorcisms is only made known to the player in the endings where Kaufmann shows up at the end. Worse, the picture and text you see when examining the red liquid doesn't even make it clear there's any meaningful quantity left you can collect. It looks like the floor is stained, rather than there being a meaningful quantity left to scoop up and collect.

It also doesn't any make sense that Dahlia Gillespie left that amount sitting there if it could still be used. She admits to Kaufmann she thought she got rid of the aglaophotis in his office by breaking the bottle, but if she knew what it was surely she wouldn't have left enough to still scoop up and use, right?

Add to this that it's hard to imagine Harry decided it was important enough to scoop up into a random plastic bottle and then decided to throw it at Cybil to see what happened, and then doesn't make any comment about the liquid and how it somehow expelled the parasite. If we'd gotten any mention of aglaophotis earlier it'd have been less of an issue, but the endings where Cybil dies are probably the easiest to obtain and the standard Good, not Good+ ending, is the most plausible. Good+ isn't wildly unthinkable either (and it gets you the rather important dialogue between Harry and Cybil where he discusses how he and his wife found Cheryl), it just requires some really implausible behavior from Harry to get there. Good+ is the most satisfying, but it's not necessarily the one that's the most believable.

Scarlet king
Scarlet king
10/19/2024 15:45:24 #

U brought Lotta great points but I'm gonna adress Smth u might not expect:
I want u to read this sentence very carefully :
"it would seem that after the 1st game, Harry *once again* procured some of the red liquid for the sake of his daughter"
This sentence alone gives 3 very important informations that  pretty much confirms which sh1 ending is Canon
1) it says he had to procure the red liquid ONCE AGAIN, which confirms that the red liquid that Harry mason gave to Heather is not the same red liquid he found in the hospital in sh1, which completely debunks the argument that " good+  ending contradicts sh3 story cuz if he used the red liquid on cybil he wouldn't have enough to give to Sheryl"
2)since it says he had to procure it ONCE AGAIN after the events of sh1, this confirms that Harry mason did indeed procure the red liquid in hospital in silent hill 1, if he's gotta get it for a 2nd time, then he obviously must have got it a 1st time,if Harry never procured the red liquid in the hospital, and he procured for his 1st time after sh1, the sentence wouldn't have used the words "once again".
3)the Last and probably the most important information that this sentence give is that Harry mason DID INDEED USE the red liquid that he obtain in the hospital considering he no longer had it and had to procure it once again.
Litterally the only ending That matches with this crystal clear sentence is the Good+ ending, there's 2 scenarios of the good ending, since it's achievable with or without procuring the red liquid in hospital, If it's the good ending without obtaining the red liquid in sh1 hospital and haviin to procure it for 1st time after the 1st game then it contradicts the sentence cuz the sentence confirms that Harry did procure it in the hospital, and had to find it after the 1st game for the 2nd time that's why they used "once again", If it's the good ending with Harry procuring the liquid in hospital then it also contradicts the sentence asw, cuz the sentence clearly states that the red liquid that Harry gave to Heather was not the same he found in sh 1 hospital and he had to procure for a 2nd time, so if Harry kept his red liquid that he found in the hospital and didn't use it on cybil, then Harry would just give Heather the same liquid he found in the hospital and wouldn't need to procure it once again after the 1st game, either 2 scenarios, the Good ending contradicts the sentence, the good+ ending is the only that matches it, Sh1 author thinks that Owaku continued with good ending but based on this info and Owaku never confirming that cybil died, there's no doubt for me that the good+ is Canon, the argument of"how Harry used it on cybil and he didn't do the Dr kaufmann side quest "was always dumb, cuz this scenario is not even in the good+ ending, it's in the bad+ ending which we know it's not Canon, it has nothing to do with Good+ ending, Dr kaufmann is literally a requirement for the good+ ending lmao, u can't debunk a scenario by an error from another scenario, I can literally use the same logic and suggest that the good ending is not Canon cuz it's achievable without the need to obtain the red liquid cuz the sentence confirmed that he did get it in the hospital, but I won't cuz the error of this scenario of the good ending doesn't apply to the other scenario of the good ending where harry procures the liquid from hospital, but I don't think there's a doubt for me that the good + is Canon

Scarlet king
Scarlet king
10/20/2024 13:31:06 #

I wanna add another thing, now we have toyama stating that the good+ is Canon and Owaku stating it's for the player interpretation, with all due respect to Owaku, the simple fact is owaku did not write silent hill 1 story, the Author of sh1 and the only one credited is Keiichiro Toyama, Owaku was a programmer for sh1 that's it, in sh2 case, there's no Canon ending and it's up for the player interpretation cuz owaku meant it that way since he never spoke about which sh2 ending is true to our knowledge and left it to the player interpretation, we do have statements from other devs like ito and James VA that they Conisder the water ending as canon and they are welcome to that opinion, but the simple fact is that their opinions have no weight as far as determining which ending is Canon cuz they didn't write the scenario, in sh2 case, the author and its statements have value, but with sh1 case, it seems Lotta people just ignore what the writer of sh1 himself says which just rubs me the wrong way, and unlike sh2, we actually have a direct statement from sh1 author himself stating which ending he intends to end the story he wrote with, so it's no longer up for debate or interpretation, but considering that sh fans have this toxic behavior of debating on what some stuff symbolize or means with the designer of sh masahrio Ito can't say I'm surprised or I'll convince anyone, another reason why I find the debate hard to take seriously is cuz Lotta people Brings up the sh play novel when arguing that cybil died but I'm like, which source more credible, the sh play novel which is not even written by toyama or sh1 author himself keiichiro toyama stating that the good+ ending is the ending he wants to end his story with, idk about yall but it's not gonna be the hardest choice for me.

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Mavis Wanczyk
12/07/2024 07:33:56 #

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Welcome to Mega Bears Fan's blog, and thanks for visiting! This blog is mostly dedicated to game reviews, strategies, and analysis of my favorite games. I also talk about my other interests, like football, science and technology, movies, and so on. Feel free to read more about the blog.

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