Silent Hill

[Willowhugger]

Who loves this game and what do you love about it or its sequels?

[Stygian Inquirer]

I too love this game. I have played 1 and 2 and enjoyed them both.

I like the survival horror style with the creepy emotionally high-strung plot (a guy gets a letter from his dead wife telling him to come to a town to meet her is so creepy) and it keeps the atmosphere well.

I also like how the main characters are not heroes in the traditional survival horror sense of the professionally trained military commando with a plethora of guns who gets trapped by zombies and has to blow his way out. I like how the system is realistic to that sense (the guy in SH1 did not aim guns very accurately but he would not have known how to fire a gun like a commando). It is your average shlub against the legions of the night! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[Olly]

I haven't actually played any of the Silent Hill games. Don't suppose you good people could tell me the storyline, could you?

[Willowhugger]

The current timeline I use is...

* The Old Gods had reign over the universe
* The Old Gods were forgotten as mankind turned to the new gods (sometime around the rise of Zorastrianism)
* The Old Gods are left forgotten in their holy places
* The Holy Places induce horrible atrocities in those who unknowingly move there

Example: Silent Hill is abandoned after its first settling attempt then refounded in the 19th century before the Civil War.

* Heretical sects of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and other religions gravitate towards these holy sites as the truly faithful and persecuted occasionally touch minds with these things and start adapting their beliefs to the dreams of the "Old Magic" and "Old rituals"

Example: Silent Hill is founded on a cursed spot of Native Americans where a group of persecuted Catholics that worship Mary come and find the spirit of Samael (The local Jews name for their god) calls to them through the site as the form of a woman they mistake for her and gradually corrupts them to their worship.

* The religions pass down their faith in secret as they choose to place it upon children who are always the most disadvantaged and poor to societal rights. They use magic like heart attacks and the ability to see the future to secure their place in society.

Example: Silent Hill is the Order of Samael. The run the "Hope Orphanage" from the start and pass it onto their children. Their rites include ritual abuse of children and human sacrifice.

The Cult disguises its activities often in the form of other manner. During the Civil War, they have triangle hooded holy robed priests commit their mass orgies of blood with skewering poles under the guise of killing Union soldiers in a prison camp.

* The Old Gods start working to ressurect themselves in human form to bring about the end of the world. They do this by inducing individuals to perform the necessary rituals.

Example: Walter the Sacraments of 21. The attempt to birth Samael in Alessa's body but a failure.

* Human beings are ascended through these rituals to semi divine states but the plans seem to largely either fail or were never meant to destroy the world in the first place

Example: Walter is made into a demigod over a shifting dream dimension, ditto Alessa and all of Silent Hill

Silent Hill having its populous sucked into Hell is an example of what I think was REALLY the goal of Samael who couldn't conquer the world in his human born form anyway.

* Human souls of evil disposition are lured to these now much stronger ritual sites where they are swallowed by the towns and holy spots and their evil energy GROWS.

Note: Not all cultists are loyal to the concept of the Old Gods either. Many maintain their loyalty purely for community, money, power over others or the other reasons people do in this world other than sincere faith.

***

In a nutshell

Silent Hill 1: A failed attempt to summon Samael is repeated by the Order that has them split the soul of Samael into two beings. The treacherous cultists Dahlia Gillipsie and Doctor Kaufman hidiously burn the god's first host (a seven year old named Alessa) in hopes of using the comatose's gods power for their own. Kaufman runs a drug trade also in addition to his cult activities and to care for the first child recruits a nurse named Lisa. Lisa steals away the second child and abandons her as she needs to return for her fix after failing to resist long. The Doctor of course kills her and the cult seems to break up.

Henry Mason, a ex-cop, adopts the second girl and returns to Silent Hill 7 years later purely out of coincidence when the adult Alessa (the first girl) gets into the middle of the road and is run over (having apartently awoken at some time during all this), uniting her ironically with the second soul. Aware of herself as Samael now and PISSED...she turns everyone in Silent Hill but presumably the two remaining cultists (Dahlia and Kaufman who are protected) into monsters.

Dalia uses her magic to bring Henry's soul into Silent Hill while she prepares the seal of the Metatron to use against her wayward daughter/God. Henry is her pawn as she hopes that he'll help her defeat alessa as he looks for his daughter. Samael DOES feel for Henry and creates a new Lisa/enslaves the old one's soul to lead him safely out and uses the monsters if he doesn't take a hint while she starts bringing Hell to Earth.

Henry slips in and out of Hell until he finally catches up with Kaufman who is determined to use some special magical potion to remove Samael from Alessa as he essentially says he gets the message its not wise to fuck with the Old Ones. Dahlia still wants to control it.

A poor police office named Cybil is wrapped up in all of this as eventually Henry frees her of the demon as he tracks down Alessa and unwittingly traps his daughter for Gillipsie....until Kaufman frees the weakened Samael and Henry Mason destroys physical form.

Alessa, somehow still containing Samael's power, then transforms herself back into an infant as she sends Lisa to drag Kaufman to Hell after torching Dahlia.

Henry departs with his new girlfriend and daughter...unwittingly carrying the seed to return Samael to the world.

[Willowhugger]

Silent Hill 2

Samael has killed all of the people of Silent Hill and turned them into monsters before sucking them into the Hell dimension about the place. However, with his physical body dead and Henry mason caring for his 'mother' in a loving fashion that denies him the hatred he needs to manifest...he's stuck like a cork in a bottle.

Samael can still manifest his power through the seals of Samael that Dahlia put around the town though and uses it to draw forth people from the surrounding area who have visited or are from Silent Hill before. People who are damned and evil due to some secret despair in their hearts.

James Sunderland is a man who murdered his wife both as a mercy-killing and because he was sick and tired of her nonstop stream of hatred at him while she died of a disfiguring disease. Angela Osrasco and Eddie were others, Angela murdering her rapist of a father but becoming suicidal with guilt over it even if she was reasonably in the grounds of self-defense and Eddie who wanted to kill people but was afraid to because of personal fear.

Oddly, the "hero" is the most guilty of them all.

Samael manifests his wife's doppleganger through a demon he creates from James wish of what his wife SHOULD have been. Maria seems to have had an independent existence for some time before his arrival though as she had the chance to become a stripper. Samael wishes to tempt James into becoming the leader of his cult by essentially showing what kind of power he has to offer.

Oddly, as he consumes Angela and Eddie (whom James kills in a shoot out that's the only REAL death in Silent Hill). A little girl named Laura is wandering Silent Hill, quite seemingly having somehow been drawn from the hospital she was a resident with James' wife.

(the possibility it is the Metatron that had magic seals of his own is my guess)

James finally confesses his crime to Laura and is allowed to meet with his wife and get her forgiveness...she wanted to adopt Laura. Choosing to do so, Samael realizes James is free from his guilt and lets him go. Laura was untormentable anyway since she HAD no mental demons.

Maria is killed in a confrontation when she manifests her true demonic form.

[Willowhugger]

Silent Hill 3

Henry Mason and Cybil who either dumped his ass (sensible enough) or died (doesn't say) spends the better part of some years trying to get the hell away from the Order. Apparently, the whole Silent Hill mess has caused a lot of the 'fair weather cultists' to return to full time active duty.

Their daughter Heather (actually Alessa) grows up to be a normal teenaged girl even if she's vaguely aware her father is on the run from somehow (including dad having had to kill someone).

Then one day while returning home she finds dad horribly murdered, a woman Claudia, and a cultist there. Claudia runs away from her goddess even as she knows that she'll eventually meet up with her again in Silent Hill. For whatever reason, Heather also kills the cultist in revenge (probably Claudia wanted her hatred and rage over her father's death to feed Samael inside her).

Thus begins Heather's adventure to return to her roots in Silent Hill. There she finds Clauida is the childhood best friend of Alessa. She also finds Vincent, who is another "Cult baby" lured back by the promise of power, free sex with the devil worshipping witches, and the like. Vincent believes that Claudia is a religious fanatic and like Kaufman is less enthsed about the whole "destroy the planet" deal.

After some encounters with Claudia's father, she eventually tracks down Claudia after Samael has begun to manifest in her. Her hatred and loathing have fed the demon well yet with the power of magic again, she vomits up the fetus that Claudia switfly eats to become the new mother.

Heather proceeds then to kill both. Vincent already stabbed to death by Claudia for his treachery.

[Willowhugger]

Silent Hill 4

Henry Townsend is a photographer and a isolationist in New York City who enjoys his solitude in his apartment (not unusual in said city). The man has nerves of steel in part because like Holden from Catcher in the Rye, he's got really nothing to live for.

Unfortunately, Henry has the worst fucking apartment in the universe despite being fairly large for New York. Specifically, its the former apartment of the mother of one of the Cult Babies of the Order who has decided to make it the epicenter of a ritual to bypass the whole "birth of Sammael" business and just directly bring him into the universe.

(Though Walter, the ritualist, believes he's ironically bringing his mother to him)

Henry finds himself chained into his apartment (literally) and for five days is forced to live in even more isolation. Then holes start appearing in the apartment as he develops the ability to leave but is hounded by ghosts and insane monsters.

Walter you see was an abandoned child who was adopted by the Order and systematically abused for years until Dahlia Gillipsie (remember her) taught him to perform the 21 sacraments (ritual murders) to summon the Mother of God who is God.

(Presumably she thought that should the whole 'Alessa' thing not work out that she would get a new pawn she could somehow control. Dahlia, as we know, is a woman who completely lacks common sense when dealing with 'Things man was not meant to know')

Walter kills HIMSELF as the 11th murder and oddly becomes a fairly invincible demigod with control over a dream dimension that he uses to commit 8 other murders.

Gillean the cute tagalong is number 20 and Henry is supposed to be 21. Walter makes sure that Henry (who is connected to Silent Hill also by the fact that his landlord is James Sunderland's father and he's also visited as a photographer) knows Walter's sorrid past of abuse and hatred while also harrassing him with monsters.

Why? Its part of the ritual that Walter has to make Henry "wise"

Henry suceeds with the hole of the 19th victims' ghost in binding away the evil spirits and killing Henry (or destroying his soul) when all of his demigod like power is focused on bringing Samael to the Earth.

he and gillean head off into the sunset

[frandelgearslip]

I love the silent hill games. Never played the first one but 2 and 3 are both excellent games. The 4th one has major gameplay problems (even though its story is better than the 3rd one I eventually quit the 4th one out of disgust with the gameplay, especially having to keep that dumb *****, gillian alive through level after level. She has some of the worst AI I have ever seen).

Note the games are open to interpretation so don't take everything anybody says about the game as gospel truth everybody has their own ideas about whats what (I would strongly argue against some of willowhuggers interpretations and I will down below).

Each game has multiple endings and some of those listed are not the official one. For example in SH1 Cybil is killed my harry not saved, thats the official one (check every faq at gamefaqs if one doubts this). This is further born out in the fact that Cybil is not mentioned once in the third game.

Some further points:
1. Sammeal was not trying to help harry in the first game the "mother" was

2. Most people (including me) would argue that sammeal and his cult have nothing to do with the second game. Instead whats tormenting James and his fellows is sammeals opposite number. Consider that whats going on is that murderers (james, angela, eddie) are all being punished for their crimes and the innocent (Laura) is not even harmed. Sammeal does not care about justice sammeal also would not hesitate to harm laura. James killed his wife, angela her father, eddie a dog (and he shot a man, but didn't kill, though he later kills several citizens of silent hill during the course of the game). Sammeals opposite number really is not all that much better than sammeal but what can one expect with old ones.

3. James' wife Mary did not show a stream of hatred towards him and there is NO evidence that her disease was disfiguring (in all likliehood she had some kind of cancer). Mary tried to drive him away once or twice to save him from suffering with her, but its pretty clear that james saw through that. He killed her as part mercy killing and part simply to move on with his life, which the game spells out several times. I mean for crying out loud listen to her full letter in several of the endings, its clear there was no real hatred.

4. Maria is a demon created mere hours before James arrives in Silent Hill. The greatest hits version of the game makes this perfectly clear. There once was or is a stripper in silent hill named Maria but all the supernatural forces did was take the name for their demon.

5. Henry lives in ASHFIELD not NEW YORK. Ashfield is a town near to silent hill. I have no idea where new york came from unless one is going by the subways.

6. Heather never kills a cultist. She kills a monster that murdered her father, and who may actually be a cultist disguised by the supernatural forces though thats open to debate

[Kelliack]

Example: Silent Hill is the Order of Samael. The run the "Hope Orphanage" from the start and pass it onto their children. Their rites include ritual abuse of children and human sacrifice.

Just a little aside, Samael is the actual name of the Angel which fell and became Satan. The name Lucifer was mixed up with one of the old religions and wrongly became associated with Satan.

So the Order of Samael is a group of practicing Satanists.

[frandelgearslip]

Just a little aside, Samael is the actual name of the Angel which fell and became Satan. The name Lucifer was mixed up with one of the old religions and wrongly became associated with Satan.

So the Order of Samael is a group of practicing Satanists.

No there not satanists, the gods name isn't even really samael, thats just what they call it and I think that name might have been given by christians to the god of the original religion in the area when they arrived. Either way there not satanists. Thats like calling the original worshippers of Baal satanists, when it was christians that labeled Baal a demon.

I repeat there not satanists, old ones is a pretty good approximation of there religion. I think its clear to anybody who has played the games that samael and lucifer or not the same thing.

[Kelliack]

I repeat there not satanists, old ones is a pretty good approximation of there religion. I think its clear to anybody who has played the games that samael and lucifer or not the same thing.

I have to disagree with you there. Granted I haven't played the 3rd and 4th games,and haven't read your synopsis of them since I don't want to ruin it for myself. However, from a traditional relgious view Lucifer should be associated with the Old Gods,and the the name of Angel which fell and began Satan was first called Samael.

Also I notice Samael is bound by the Seal of Metatron. According to the
Dictionary of Angels, including the fallen angels, Metatron is some form of Uber-Angel, General of the Armies of God, during the great rebellion, which threw down Samael and the Boys. He is apparently the big boy of the Order of Powers (I believe). He is actively descibed in The Book of Enoch.

So from a standard religious viewpoint, The Order of Samael are Satanists. By the way, Lucifer and Samael are listed in the Dictionary of Angels, including the fallen angels. Look it up, it's a good read.

[frandelgearslip]

[quote="Kelliack"]
I have to disagree with you there. Granted I haven't played the 3rd and 4th games,and haven't read your synopsis of them since I don't want to ruin it for myself. [quote]

I have not given any synopsis of the games neither here nor at gamefaqs, all I wrote about were some points in willowhuggers synopsis that I considered wrong.

[quote="Kelliack"]
Also I notice Samael is bound by the Seal of Metatron. According to the
Dictionary of Angels, including the fallen angels, Metatron is some form of Uber-Angel, General of the Armies of God, during the great rebellion, which threw down Samael and the Boys. He is apparently the big boy of the Order of Powers (I believe). He is actively descibed in The Book of Enoch. [quote]

I didn't not need to read the dictionary of angels, since I have seen the movie dogma.

This is from gamefaqs (see plot analysis Duncan Bruce):

"The town of Silent Hill was originally used by its native founders for
spiritual and holy ceremonies, namely for the spiritual power present in the area's surroundings. We cannot determine whether such worship was evil or good, as little is known about their practices but more importantly the purpose of them. They worshipped various Gods present in the land, many of which are unnamed and are simply placed under this category in the game's dialogue. It could be said that they worshipped Sammael, yet this cannot be proven for certain. As mentioned in an article in SH3, every religion, even that of Silent Hill's has come under some change. As immigrants flooded the town of Silent Hill, they brought along with them their own Christian beliefs which influenced the development of the town's religion. Old worshipped God's names were replaced with that of fallen angels from Christian scriptures. Thus the identity and original nature of 'Sammael' as shown in the SH games cannot be commented on, it is ambiguous in origin. The name Sammael does refer to an adversary of God, a serpent, an evil demon yet as these choice names were
bestowed not by their believers but by their opponents as propaganda, we are none the wiser."

In other words there is no evidence whatsoever that Satan and Sammael are the same entity, in fact playing the games makes me tend to believe they are not. There just names. There are people out there that have the same first and last name as me, that does not mean that I am the same person as they are.