Silent Hill

[Raiden1803]

this has been buggin me ever since iv been playing the game, i have NEVER played the first Silent hill so im confused, How Did Mary Die?! The most of the way through the game James Said that mary died of a Sickeness.

SPOILER: Highlight text to view.

But now By the time You Reach The lake View hotel In Silent hill 2. He tells laura He kills her, Im officialy really friggin confused. How Did She really die in the first one?

[Syed Fawad]

Silent Hill 1's stroy was totally different from that of SH2

Try to use spoiler tags...............

[Raqia]

Try playing the game again. In the beginning, James is staring into a mirror, in a sense trying to look into himself for the truth. Eddie also says to James, "This town called you too." I'd say it was pretty clear what happened. He probably had amnesia from the trauma of the event, and minced the words of the doctor from that one flashback, thinking she had died 3 years ago when the doctor had said at some point she might have 3 years to go on living etc...

[ready2rumbelX]

Raiden1803, if you want, if you're still confused I can explain in very precise detail, the story and everything else....again, if you want.

ready2rumbelX

[DB7]

I am the only one of my friends to hate Silent Hill and its sequal, I just don't find its scary in the least and while their was nothing to be frightened of in Resident Evils at least there was a little more action, my girlfriend however thinks both 1+2 are great which is strange as in everything else she seems quite normal.

[Raiden1803]

Originally posted by Fawad

Try to use spoiler tags...............

:fingers: :fingers: :fingers:

well anyway, i just wanted to know how she really died in the first one, cuz I am confused at this point, i have a hard time finding the first Silent hill..

[Syed Fawad]

That is something you'll learn after the game ends

(and reading explanations at Gamefaqs )

[netghost2.0]

Originally posted by DB7
I am the only one of my friends to hate Silent Hill and its sequal, I just don't find its scary in the least and while their was nothing to be frightened of in Resident Evils at least there was a little more action, my girlfriend however thinks both 1+2 are great which is strange as in everything else she seems quite normal.

I can see why people can hate Silent Hill (although I love the series to death), it can get monotonous at points and it doesn't provide the instant gratification of "BOO! dog jumps at you through broken window" kind of scares. The Silent Hill series also does not utilize a straight forward mode of story telling and relies on the gamer to make several inferences concerning the storyline. It utilizes psychological horror which may or may not connect with the gamer.

However, once you uncover the underlying themes, symbolism, and insanely twisted story of Silent Hill, you'll never look at Resident Evil (great fun but so many B-movie cliches) or Fatal Frame (insanely scary but conventional ghost story) the same way again. I suggest you read President Evil's plot guide at http://www.gamefaqs.com to get a better sense of the storyline. Say what you want about Silent Hill, but I have yet to see a game that reaches the same heights of artistic achievement as SH1 and SH2.

WARNING!!! Some Spoilers ahead

Raiden1803
well anyway, i just wanted to know how she really died in the first one, cuz I am confused at this point, i have a hard time finding the first Silent hill..

Raiden1803,

I think you're slightly confused. The storyline of the first Silent Hill has little to do with the plot of SH2. Silent Hill 1 dealt with a man named Harry Mason who planned to travel to the town of Silent Hill with his adopted daughter Cheryl. Along the way to the town, Harry swerved out of the way to avoid collision with a "mysterious girl" who was in the middle of the road. When Harry awoke from the collision, his daughter Cheryl was missing and throughout the rest of the game, Harry's primary objective was to find his lost daughter in Silent Hill. You can think of the two Silent Hills as mutually exclusive storylines which are connected tenably by Samael; the so-called "evil god" or "dark angel" of Silent Hill 1.

Anyhow, back to explaining Silent Hill 2's storyline. Mary never died in the manner James initially believed in. She was suffering from a debilitating disease which made her "unpleasant" to be around with. James attempted to take care of her but deep down, he resented her disfigurement and her poor treatment of him (most likely caused by the disease). In the end, he suffocated her with a pillow (as you probably saw in the videotape at the Lakeside hotel) and justified the act by falsely believing that Mary really wanted James to end her pain. However, deep down, James felt intense remorse and guilt for his murderous action. He temporarily went "insane" and believed that his wife had actually passed away of "natural causes" three years ago although judging from his conversation with Laura, it had only been a couple of weeks or days since her death.

Mary's letter to him was not real. He made up the letter in his mind and was drawn to Silent Hill since he remembered that it was the last place where he and Mary were truly happy. The fictitious nature of Mary's letter is confirmed later in the game when you attempt to read Mary's letter in the Lakeside hotel: it's BLANK! Anyhow, Silent Hill is not a normal town; it was the setting for the Cult of Samael (for the first game) and was built on top of an ancient Indian burial ground (explained when you play Silent Hill 2 a second time after finishing it once). Evil forces are at work here. It is a place where one's inner demons and crimes come to light. Angela - being raped by her father and subsequently killing him - and Eddy - an antisocial sociopath who kills anyone who makes fun of him - also have to face their past crimes just like James. The demons all three characters see are shaped by their past crimes; Silent Hill creates them to punish them for their actions and make them realize the horrors of their actions. James sees a fascimile of his wife, Maria, killed over and over again by Pyramid Head to reinforce the idea that he indeed killed Mary. Notice how all the regular enemies resembled hugely distorted but "feminine" figures. Again, he kills these "female" monsters in self-defence but the town is forcing him to kill the symbolic image of his wife over and over again.

Sorry for being long-winded but there is so much depth and complexity to the Silent Hill 2 storyline (not as much in SH1 but SH1 still has an excellent plot).

[Kazuya Mishima]

You explained the story really good. now i understand a lot. Can you explain me the silent hill one? It was explained before but it was said in a very complex way...

[DB7]

The thing is if I wanted themes, symbolism and a twisted story I would pick up and read a book, I suppose I do play computer/ Console games for the instant thrill, It mybe because my life is so busy I often can't get more than an hour at a time to play the games.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Thats exactly why my girlfriend doesn't like the rpgs: she have to spend 50/80 hours in a single game...

[caipirinha]

i also think that all the enemies being feminines have some relation with james sexuality and him cheating on maria.
in that scene where pyramid head is errr kinda having sex with those dolls and it looks like an orgy, as said before he represents james and in the 3 years his wife was sick he may done something like that and may feel the guilty of it too.
so he has all these feminine things hunting him and he has to kill them all, both reviving him his murder and kinda purging him of his cheating. but the worst of all is mary, and in the cell scene you see he wants, and he was going to get...

[Raiden1803]

Consdiering i just finished the game, which had a VERY sucky ending by the way, it was good. it just sucked the way they did it. but from what i hear their are supposed to be multipule endings.. atleast with restless dreams. and about James/the monsters.

SPOILER: Highlight text to view.

it wasnt him that had the connection with the monsters, i believe it was maria. Considering Maria Died oh, 3 TIMES. which i still dont understand how, must be because she was a monster herself at the end. but i think it was either Maria, Or Angela. Hell or both. The way You last saw Angela at the end kinda gave me a clue about it. But maria still confuses me. but atleast i did figgure out how she died, he really did kill her. in a sense, The ending still bit ass. i hated it. :sad:

[Syed Fawad]

Which ending are ya referring TO???????

[netghost2.0]

Originally posted by DB7
The thing is if I wanted themes, symbolism and a twisted story I would pick up and read a book, I suppose I do play computer/ Console games for the instant thrill, It mybe because my life is so busy I often can't get more than an hour at a time to play the games.

Different people, different tastes... to each his or her own... :wink:

Seriously though, I like a good story regardless of its medium. Some people view games as merely just "games" for entertainment and instant gratification but IMO, games can also be great artistic pieces of work or interactive novels with good ol' fashioned storytelling. Like I said before, it depends on what you look for in a game and what you yourself find entertaining.

Originally posted by Kazuya Mishima
You explained the story really good. now i understand a lot. Can you explain me the silent hill one? It was explained before but it was said in a very complex way...

Ah damn. The Silent Hill 1 plot is a lot more convoluted and open to interpretation than SH2's storyline.

However, I'll try to give a summary although it will be much more long-winded. However if you want a much clearer or better explanation, go to President Evil's plot guide (http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/f..._hill_plot.txt) about SH1 which goes into great detail about only one possible theory of the events that occurred in SH1 although he makes a convincing argument for his theory. Also, Orca782 and CVXFreak also give an excellent plot analysis of SH1 (http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/f...ill_plot_a.txt).

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Basically, Silent Hill is a town controlled by a cult who worships the dark Hebrew angel Samael. The cult is under the leadership of Dahlia and Dr. Kaufmann who provide the population of the town with an addicting drug called "White Claudia" which allows them to exert control and influence over Silent Hill. This cult wanted to revive Samael so they basically "installed" the soul of Samael into Dahlia's unborn child while Dahlia was pregnant. Dahlia's daughter, Alessa, now supposedly contained the soul of Samael and she was destined to give birth to this new god. However, things didn't turn out the way Dahlia expected. Alessa's "powers" were not nearly as impressive as the cult had initially expected. Thus, Dahlia decided to draw out Samael's powers by trapping her daughter Alessa in a house and setting it on fire. Alessa survived since she contained the power of Samael, however, she was horribly burned and became more withdrawn from the world.

Dahlia, trying to figure out what went wrong, finally realized that Alessa only contained part of the soul of Samael and that a second part was needed to complete the rebirth of this dark god. Thus, Dahlia gave birth to a second child, Cheryl, who contained the second half of the spirit/soul of Samael. However, before Dahlia could complete the rebirth ceremony, one of Dr. Kaufmann's nurses, Lisa, felt guilty about her role in the horrible treatment of Alessa (painful experiments were conducted on Alessa in order to extract Samael from her). Lisa stole the baby Cheryl and left her on the roadside outside of Silent Hill. Shortly later, Harry Mason and his wife found this baby and adopted Cheryl as their own daughter.

People are often confused to where Cheryl went after Harry's car crash. In the beginning cinema, when Harry's car collided with Alessa (that girl in the middle of the road), Cheryl is nowhere to be found even at the end of the game. Basically, Cheryl is Alessa; they are two halves of the same soul. Cheryl and Alessa were brought back together as one complete person when Harry collided with Alessa in his car. This fact is confirmed later in the game when Harry demands to know from Dahlia where Cheryl is. Dahlia replies that "she is sitting right in front of you" pointing to the bandaged figure of Alessa sitting in a wheelchair.

In addition, before the events in the current SH storyline began, I think Alessa escaped from the clutches of Dahlia and avoided her by creating an "alternate reality" where Dahlia could never find her. When Harry arrived in Silent Hill, Dahlia found a way to get to Alessa since Alessa was now reunited with Cheryl and retained Cheryl's fond memories of Harry as her adopted father. Dahlia gave Harry a device called the Flouros which was supposed to temporarily neutralize the power of Samael.

There are two realities now: 1.) the regular "real world" Silent Hill with the dense fog covering the town where Dahlia exerts power over; and 2.) the dark "nightmare" world which Alessa created in order to avoid Dahlia.

Alessa tried to scare away Harry by creating monsters when Harry entered the "nightmare" world. However, part of Alessa (Cheryl's soul) did not want Harry to die and probably wanted to see him again. When Harry finally met Alessa in person, the Flouros automatically activated and temporarily incapacitated Alessa's powers so that Dahlia could capture her again. If you finished Silent Hill properly, you probably would have retrieved a "mysterious liquid" in Dr. Kaufmann's office and saved Kaufmann's ass in the diner. This mysterious liquid was created by Dr. Kaufmann in order to extract the soul of Samael from Alessa. In addition, Kaufmann wanted some sort of leverage against Dahlia in case the situation turned against him. At the end of the game, Kaufmann threw a bottle of the stuff on Alessa's "rejuvinated form" which extracted Samael from her body. The newly reborn Samael toasted Dahlia in her place (so long b*tch!), however, in the end, Harry managed to put a can of whoop-ass on this demon. Alessa now appeared to Harry as an "angelic form" and gave him a baby before she faded away. This baby is supposed to be the new form of Cheryl/Alessa; supposedly untainted by Samael.

THE END... damn, that was fun to write. Go to the plot guides for further clarification.

[Raiden1803]

Originally posted by Fawad
Which ending are ya referring TO???????

SPOILER: Highlight text to view.

This is how the one i got went. the first two bosses where 2 pyramid heads. They kill maria, yet again. Then after you cause enough damange to the two pyramid head's they stab themesleves with their own spear. Aftre that you go up to some roof top. james keeps saying "he finaly understands" Then once you reach that roof top, you find maria Dressed up like mary, yet alive and well. once again. HOW THE F...CRAP is she able to do that?!!!! :dots: :dots: well anyway. She turns into some monster, Considering none of the mosnters actualy have a name that i know of, ill just call her "freaky maria" after you kill her it goes into the scene where it explains how the real mary died, by the sickness she had, but aparantly james gave her some kindof pills to kill her because she wanted to die, after that scene is done. it goes back to james at silent hill. James says "i understand what i have to do now" you hear the sound of him geting into a car, then him speeding off. then plunging into a river, or whatever killing himself. His last words i believe where "mary.. now we can finaly be together" Then it shows the botom of some lake, then the WHOLE letter that mary wrote to james. it has the begining of the one that they show, but it goes more into detail. at the end mary is telling james to live (WHICH SUCKS cuz he doesnt) i dont remeber every detail of the letter, sorry. Then after that you get the credits. which still suck because James dies/kills himself. what a dumb@ss, guse he was hopellessly inlove with mary and wanted to be with her.

whew.... well anyway, i got Restless dreams wich has the extra story line where you get to controll Maria, im still working on it (after i finish enter the matrix) BTW Fawd, what did you actualy want..? a discription of what i did to get that ending?? just go to game faqs and follow the guide by CVXFREAK/ORCA782 and that would give you a discription of how i got that ending. Now im gonna try out those other endings in his faq.. while simultaniously working on the Maria Senario "born from a wish" maybe that would shed some light on how she keeps coming back from the dead..


thats the one i used to get the ending i got, i did everything minus the blue Gem thing. WTF is that anyway?? but yeah, hope that helps you.... and now...:rofl:

[Raiden1803]

sorry for the double post, but you know what? the only thing i dont like about this FAQ at Game faqs is that they dont describe what you have to do to get these endings! its a friggin mess. all it is, is their describing what the Ending IS. the one i want the see is the Rebirth Ending. that sounds really cool! beter then the water ending.. the one i just described.. but any help with this is nice, how to get these endings.. please??

[netghost2.0]

@Raiden1803

Some spoilers ahead...

Did you even watch the videotape at the Lakeside hotel or read my post about the SH2 plot? Mary died by suffocation because James smothered her. After viewing the videotape is when James realized he killed Mary since it showed the act of him killing her. I have no clue where you got the idea that he gave her pills or something. :confused: Also, I think the "in water" ending is perhaps the most plausible ending among the endings since James could not forgive himself for killing Mary.

Read the criteria for endings again at gamefaqs. The endings aren't determined by one or two clearcut choices during the game... your endings are determined by your actions throughout the whole game.

For example, follow Maria around, talk to her a lot, take care of her from being attacked from monsters, you got the "Maria" ending. Have low health throughout most of the game, read the suicide diary, take a look at knife a few times, listen to the radio in the Lakeshore hotel after it turns "nightmare", you got the "In water" ending. The tricky part is when the criteria of other endings converge are also similar to the criteria of the desirable ending which you want.

Again, if you had read the FAQ carefully, you would have known that the Rebirth ending is not available until the second time around playing the game. :wink: Certain gems are located throughout the game after finishing it once. Once all of these gems are collected, the Rebirth ending will kick in when you finish the game no matter how you "played the game".

About Maria, I don't see why there should be confusion. If you read my post or the plot FAQs carefully, you know that "something is not right about the town" (like Angela said at the beginning of the game) and contains an "evil" force within it. It's not that much of a stretch to think the same town that creates monsters out of nowhere can also create a live human being/monster thingee (a.k.a. Maria). In short, Maria isn't real; she was created by whatever is driving Silent Hill (most likely Samael or the restless spirits of the Indian burial ground; my bet is on Samael). Again, since Maria is not real in the traditional sense, it wouldn't be that hard for the town to recreate her over and over again to increase James' torment. She's just like those other distorted monsters attacking James. The only thing that seem to be real are Pyramid Heads who were former executioners (see the Painting at the Historical Museum) during the Witch Trials and even that is debatable.

The Maria scenario titled "Born from a Wish" should give you a clue to what Maria's true nature is. She was created by James' ideal wish of what Mary should have been: sexy, seductive, healthy, charming, funny, etc. Yet, at the same time, the town sadistically inserts elements of his sick wife into Maria's character: coughing fits, fits of rage against James, etc. to remind him that Maria isn't real and was created by his desire for a "better Mary".

[Raiden1803]

This is what i rember Doing To Get that ending..

SPOILER: Highlight text to view.

well i never did find that blue gem thingy, I got the knife from Angela, Examend it (once) by the time i got to maria. i accedentaly let her get hit acouple times (stupided whore got in my way. I cant rember excatly what i did from then on... As for lake side hotel.. what suicide diaryl? where is that? From when i got into the hotel. I got the map, then found laura, thats where all the drama begins with james killing mary. After that i eventualy reached Room 312. Mary wasnt their after that i found these sets of headphones in the library, listend to them. and went again with the james/mary thing. then to the two pyramid heads, then to maria. to sum it all up again.

as for the pill thing, thats the only thing i could come up with. i did watch the video tape, but didnt understand it. it showed mary acouple times. but i dont recall it ever showing james smothering her with the pillow :confused: ill watch it again when i reach that point, that was my frist time through the game so i didnt fully understand everything... So now i must play it again to try and make sense of stuff.. but what suicide diary? never found it.