Boris Stoke
Creeper
Some of the best things in life don't exist.
Posts: 34
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Post by Boris Stoke on Oct 25, 2010 14:14:19 GMT
Well it's not that it wipes the other games out. It's like it's both canon and NOT canon. It's more an alternate take.
As for it not making sense with SH1 because Cheryl had never been there before.... the whole game would have been in Harry's head as he died because all his crazy synapses in his brain fired off. Shattered Memories is a take on the series as if none of it ever happened because it's all psychological hallucinations.
It's a sequel, but from a different perspective. It does indeed exist on its own, never fitting with the other sequels. Think of it as another timeline.
If you considered Shattered Memories as "real" then the only thing that would have happened in the first game is Harry taking his daughter to Silent Hill. Because of her parent's divorce it's considered a vacation to her since it's probably some joint custody thing going on.
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Post by mr. worncoat on Nov 29, 2010 23:53:29 GMT
SH:SM seems to be about as canon as you can get. In SH:O you see see Alessa's sacrifice being interrupted, her mind seperated from her comatose body, Alessa then working against the Cult to stop there actions, and, ultimately, her stealing of her own body and transforming it into its own being, a new baby, and setting it out to be found by Harry and his wife. In SH:01 you have several years go by wear the body of Alessa, Cheryl, has aged to more or less the same when she split from Alessa. This would have been plenty of time for Harry to have issues with his wife, split up, and, as SH:01 starts up, to take Cheryl for a trip back into Silent Hill, unknowingly walking right into the spell Dahlia set. He loses Cheryl to Dahlia/Alessa (I don't know why, but I'm still fuzzy on this), meets Cybil, accidentally undoes Alessa's work, saves Cybil, then escapes with Cybil with the newly formed Heather, made from the reunification of Cheryl and Alessa. Fastforward to SH:03, and Heather has aged, dragged around by Harry as he attempts to keep one step ahead of the Cult. Cybil has by this point left them for whatever reason. If you look at what was around Harry, I wouldn't be surprised if drinking played a part. For however much Harry loved Heather, he had major issues that would not stay down. This comes back to kill him in Claudia. The game ends with Heather starting to realize her past, defeat Claudia, and scuffle off with Douglas. Finally, we have SH:SM. Heather's finally found a moment to try and fully appreciate all that's transpired in her life, but she doesn't have everything she needs. So she makes a simulation to try and see what, for instance, motivated her dad. She wanted answers she didn't fully have. Not having all the complete details means having an uneven means of peicing it all together, which, to an extent, we see as having happened here. She still didn't have a great deal right, but she did manage to come to the core of her daddy issues. Say what you will, but I'm certain that Cheryl's storyline is without error. Tis my two cents.
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Post by blacky on Nov 30, 2010 0:17:58 GMT
SH:SM seems to be about as canon as you can get. In SH:O you see see Alessa's sacrifice being interrupted, her mind seperated from her comatose body, Alessa then working against the Cult to stop there actions, and, ultimately, her stealing of her own body and transforming it into its own being, a new baby, and setting it out to be found by Harry and his wife. In SH:01 you have several years go by wear the body of Alessa, Cheryl, has aged to more or less the same when she split from Alessa. This would have been plenty of time for Harry to have issues with his wife, split up, and, as SH:01 starts up, to take Cheryl for a trip back into Silent Hill, unknowingly walking right into the spell Dahlia set. He loses Cheryl to Dahlia/Alessa (I don't know why, but I'm still fuzzy on this), meets Cybil, accidentally undoes Alessa's work, saves Cybil, then escapes with Cybil with the newly formed Heather, made from the reunification of Cheryl and Alessa. Fastforward to SH:03, and Heather has aged, dragged around by Harry as he attempts to keep one step ahead of the Cult. Cybil has by this point left them for whatever reason. If you look at what was around Harry, I wouldn't be surprised if drinking played a part. For however much Harry loved Heather, he had major issues that would not stay down. This comes back to kill him in Claudia. The game ends with Heather starting to realize her past, defeat Claudia, and scuffle off with Douglas. Finally, we have SH:SM. Heather's finally found a moment to try and fully appreciate all that's transpired in her life, but she doesn't have everything she needs. So she makes a simulation to try and see what, for instance, motivated her dad. She wanted answers she didn't fully have. Not having all the complete details means having an uneven means of peicing it all together, which, to an extent, we see as having happened here. She still didn't have a great deal right, but she did manage to come to the core of her daddy issues. Say what you will, but I'm certain that Cheryl's storyline is without error. Tis my two cents. But it isn't canon, Heather might not be clear of some facts, but I don't think she's fucked up enougth to confuse how and when Harry died, she was there after all. So was we First Harry was killed by the cult at Portland when Heather was 17, Second Harry died in a car crash in Silent hill When Cheryl was 7 In both games, these facts are presented as true. If your saying both are canon, then one of these is wrong, well which one would it be?
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Post by mr. worncoat on Nov 30, 2010 0:39:47 GMT
First Harry was killed by the cult at Portland when Heather was 17, Second Harry died in a car crash in Silent hill When Cheryl was 7 In both games, these facts are presented as true. If your saying both are canon, then one of these is wrong, well which one would it be? To this, I can only speculate, but speculate I shall: Harry dies in Portland. For good. Nobody's going to question that, right? Right. Now, in SH:SM, we are aware that Cheryl's peicing together peices of information. That's a given. What she's doing with that information is feeding it into a simulation that she at times loses control of. That's why the ice world happens, that's why she comes back to Kaufmann. If she had greater control, then at anytime she could have ended the simulation and gone to talk to Douglas or chill out doing whatever. She didn't.
What I propose is that one of the side effects of the simulation going awry is that those persons within the simulation act individually enough to stumble over the details that they're suppose to be based on. Cybil was incredibly confused, if you remember, over Harry saying who he was. She told him he was dead, but that she believed Harry was who he said he was. Doesn't that seem weird? It's of my belief that this figment representing Cybil was being independent enough that it was questioning itself, or a sliver of a detail that Cheryl herself had come across somehow, before. Cheryl knows when he father died, but the stress of the situation is enough that Cybil and Harry deal with.
Cheryl, at the time of the game, doesn't have complete control of her powers. What she can access is still wily enough that these things will happen.
In a practical sense, Cybil being an officer, wouldn't it have helped to fake Harry's death? We know that they attempted to escape the Cult, an organization whose reach had been spreading. If it was enough to change names, why not start over new through the know-how of Cybil? With as many times that they moved, perhaps it wasn't just for safety but also for legal reasons, where a constant changing of personal information kept the legal folk from calling fraud on any sort of transaction as simple as getting Cheryl into school, or getting assistance from social programs? Harry was a writer, but that doesn't mean he was that good or wrote that much to make a profit. If Cybil kept her distance, that's one man working a job under a pseudonym that might not have yeilded much cash, paying taxes, rent, food, utilities, and whatever Cheryl needed, ie clothes and school supplies. That doesn't leave much to play with. Also, I have no idea if I'm using these spoiler tags right. I'm throwing it out there, I'll stop if somebody tells me to.
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katran
Lying Figure
Deadly Blessing
Pyramid Head is my boyfriend
Posts: 398
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Post by katran on Nov 30, 2010 18:20:41 GMT
I think that's a hell of a stretch. I think it was meant to be an alternate version, as a previous poster said. More of a "what if it happened like this?" than part of the original canon.
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nureintier
Nurse
Warlord of Misanthropy
Posts: 144
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Post by nureintier on Nov 30, 2010 18:29:11 GMT
Okay, this game's been out too long for there not to be any theories or dissection of the games storyline etc. Seriously guys! This is so abnormal for us Silent Hill fans. Normally people are tearing the game apart months before it even came out! I wrote a very long thing on gamefaqs about the plot, etc www.gamefaqs.com/wii/959196-silent-hill-shattered-memories/faqs/58890too long to repost it here, and much needs rewritten but i am lazy. as for being canon, it's a reimagining, i don't see why it needs fit in with the other games in a direct sort of way.
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Post by Cenobite, that cute pariah on Nov 30, 2010 19:41:53 GMT
I think it was meant to be an alternate version, as a previous poster said. More of a "what if it happened like this?" than part of the original canon. The developers outright said this before the game even came out. People trying to incorporate it into the main storyline are really grasping at straws.
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Post by mr. worncoat on Dec 1, 2010 10:05:49 GMT
What I'm aiming at here isn't so much that it "needs" to be as I'm saying it works so well to do so. I think it was meant to be an alternate version, as a previous poster said. More of a "what if it happened like this?" than part of the original canon. The developers outright said this before the game even came out. People trying to incorporate it into the main storyline are really grasping at straws. And if people want to take it as the "what if" scenerio, that's fine. It's just that I don't get the aversion to taking it as canon when, as stated to the previous quote, there's absolutely nothing in the game that outright denies any means of connecting it to the previous games concerning Cheryl's storyline. That the new developers call it a reimagining is the only thing I see as any sort of proof contrary to what I say. Yeah, that means something because, hey, it's the developers saying it, but how weird is it that people will take the new developer's side on this perceived fact when so much else is taken to issue(or so I'll spin that)? Seriously though, general statements from myself aside for as long as I can keep from making them, what other reason is there to deny this game its place in Cheryl's story? Any reason I've seen can be answered with a bit of thought. Does that make me right? Nope. Like I said, speculation, yet speculation that can't be that incredibly hard to see as likely. Let's pretend for a second that "reimagining" was never mentioned. Would there then be any question that this game would make sense in its connections to others? If so, what questions are really so baffling? We can just as much call SM a reimagining as we could SH:2 and onward. This very same argument can be thrown at any of the games. For instance: South Vale was never shown on the map in the first game. And what's up with people having their own visions of what Silent Hill is? That wasn't in the first game either. No sign of Harry, Cheryl, or Cybil either. Nothing connects it to the first game other than a hotel that's suddenly suppose to be by the Lakeside Amusement Park that we also never saw in the first game. By itself, how can this be canon? And if that can't be canon, then what's this church in the middle of the lake that Heather's on in SH:3? That wasn't there before, except in SH:2. If SH:2 was a reimagining and can't be considered canon, then how is something from that game suddenly in SH:3. SH:3 is suddenly lies. Horrible, horrible, deceptive lies. This works for every subsequent game that reimagines the contents and quality of Silent Hill itself. When you do that, it's pretty much the first game with Harry dying or running away, with nothing else allowed to come after because reimagining anything new into the details cannot be allowed. Silent Hill's influence never goes as far as Vale, never follows Claudia to meet Heather in Portland, never continues to surge in influence to Ashfield, Travis never happened (which increases confusion as to the specifics of Harry finding Cheryl in the first place), there's no such thing as Shephard's Glen, and, ultimately, coming back to SM, the game, in standing on its own individual virtues, makes for a confusing romp about some guy looking for his daughter but who ends up being his daughter. By itself, without any connection to the rest of Silent Hill, we only a story that raises more questions than what it would in being connected. The purpose of the game, the collection of memories, is in the end still shattered. On itself, it's a story without purpose. To say that its value is in only the names and the "chuckle, Harry runs around with an IPhone, silly Har-ICE DEMON, ARGHLE!" is massively disappointing to not just, I would assume, a fan but also to any person playing the game as it is to be here suggested, that of a story without any actual prior precedence. The only thing it is at that point is a nifty bit of playing around to make monsters look like phalluses and see a drunken dad emotionally scar a child. Which, you know, can be fun, but my view point still stands as I hope I've made clearly expressed in this very long response I'll stop with right here.
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katran
Lying Figure
Deadly Blessing
Pyramid Head is my boyfriend
Posts: 398
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Post by katran on Dec 1, 2010 15:12:13 GMT
And if people want to take it as the "what if" scenerio, that's fine. It's just that I don't get the aversion to taking it as canon when, as stated to the previous quote, there's absolutely nothing in the game that outright denies any means of connecting it to the previous games concerning Cheryl's storyline. You're kidding, right? The ENTIRE game throws off the canon! The entire thing contradicts Cheryl's/Alessa's storyline. If SH:SM is true, then most of the other games never happened. In fact, most likely NONE of the other games ever happened if SM is meant to imply that it was all in Cheryl's head. Where does James Sunderland come in? Was he in her head too? What about Alex Shepherd? If so, Cheryl's got quite the twisted and vivid imagination.
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Post by blacky on Dec 1, 2010 16:15:43 GMT
We can just as much call SM a reimagining as we could SH:2 and onward. This very same argument can be thrown at any of the games. For instance: South Vale was never shown on the map in the first game. And what's up with people having their own visions of what Silent Hill is? That wasn't in the first game either. No sign of Harry, Cheryl, or Cybil either. Nothing connects it to the first game other than a hotel that's suddenly suppose to be by the Lakeside Amusement Park that we also never saw in the first game. By itself, how can this be canon? And if that can't be canon, then what's this church in the middle of the lake that Heather's on in SH:3? That wasn't there before, except in SH:2. If SH:2 was a reimagining and can't be considered canon, then how is something from that game suddenly in SH:3. SH:3 is suddenly lies. Horrible, horrible, deceptive lies. This works for every subsequent game that reimagines the contents and quality of Silent Hill itself. When you do that, it's pretty much the first game with Harry dying or running away, with nothing else allowed to come after because reimagining anything new into the details cannot be allowed. Silent Hill's influence never goes as far as Vale, never follows Claudia to meet Heather in Portland, never continues to surge in influence to Ashfield, Travis never happened (which increases confusion as to the specifics of Harry finding Cheryl in the first place), there's no such thing as Shephard's Glen, and, ultimately, coming back to SM, the game, in standing on its own individual virtues, makes for a confusing romp about some guy looking for his daughter but who ends up being his daughter. By itself, without any connection to the rest of Silent Hill, we only a story that raises more questions than what it would in being connected. The purpose of the game, the collection of memories, is in the end still shattered. On itself, it's a story without purpose. To say that its value is in only the names and the "chuckle, Harry runs around with an IPhone, silly Har-ICE DEMON, ARGHLE!" is massively disappointing to not just, I would assume, a fan but also to any person playing the game as it is to be here suggested, that of a story without any actual prior precedence. The only thing it is at that point is a nifty bit of playing around to make monsters look like phalluses and see a drunken dad emotionally scar a child. Which, you know, can be fun, but my view point still stands as I hope I've made clearly expressed in this very long response I'll stop with right here. But there is a differance from adding to an astablished canon, and rewritting it. For example since you brought it up, Silent hill 1 never said that there wasn't more of Silent hill that we've yet to see. it's just that Harry never traveled to South Vale or got the map spefic to that area, his Resort map (which only shows the resort area, hense name) stopped before that The theme park. The park wasn't even on the map, so whos to say the hotel wasn't there? Just because Harry didn't need to go there? the same goes for the church, just because Harry didn't go into the lake to witness the church, didn't mean there was a time warp and one just came into existance. You coulden't even see the whole lake on Harry's map, but that doesn't mean that the rest of it didn't exist. the Light house indicated that the lake was larger (or why else have a lighthouse if the lake wasn't as big?) We have no idea what time Silent hill 2 is set in, it could be ten years after SH1 for all we know, so the fact that a hotel could be built there by the time James gets there doesn't suddeny imply that the game writters retooled their storyline. Also why would one expect Harry and the gang to be there when James wonders in? Even if they was there at the same time, we know neither of the SH1 party went further south. Plus the different visions was long established to be related to the fog and otherworld that had existed in all silent hill games up till Shattered Memories. And actually everything in Silent hill 1 was a vision from Alessa, the worlds in the games always come from a person, mabye not always the prontagonist but the rules has been fairly constant with varibles depending on the situration The thing is, these examples can hardly be considered an reimagining because they can be made sense if one considers when, who, and where as constants. but Shattered Memories clearly is a different thing altogether because there are hardly any constants. the only constants are the characters but they are hardly constants because they are different too. But even if I was to take what you said as a possible thoery, and that Shattered Memories Cherly is indeed SH3 Heather, why would heather become so fucked up that every single thing she comes to believe is wrong? this isn't like James where a few details were twisted, everything in Cheryl's mind in Shattered Memories is different. Besides Heather had controll of things at the end of Silent hill 3, your intire thoery assumes she loses it at some point, an event that the games didn't establish or refer to. Another thing, surely when Cheryl finds out the nature of Harry's death, shoulden't the entire reality go back to normal? It revolves around him so why does Cheryl go home with the reality still in check? She still lives in a different Silent hill, Dahlia Mason and Kaufman still exist. Nothing has changed. Surely that indicates that the reality she is in was the default one, therefore isn't related to the other games
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Post by AlexY on Dec 1, 2010 19:10:59 GMT
IMHO SM is a "what if?" scenario.
However, if you take SH:3 Possessed ending and apply it to SM...
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Post by Cenobite, that cute pariah on Dec 2, 2010 9:58:57 GMT
You're kidding, right? The ENTIRE game throws off the canon! The entire thing contradicts Cheryl's/Alessa's storyline. If SH:SM is true, then most of the other games never happened. In fact, most likely NONE of the other games ever happened if SM is meant to imply that it was all in Cheryl's head. Where does James Sunderland come in? Was he in her head too? What about Alex Shepherd? If so, Cheryl's got quite the twisted and vivid imagination. Hmmm...
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katran
Lying Figure
Deadly Blessing
Pyramid Head is my boyfriend
Posts: 398
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Post by katran on Dec 2, 2010 17:46:35 GMT
Blacky, I agree with you 100%.
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Post by mr. worncoat on Dec 4, 2010 8:41:34 GMT
IMHO SM is a "what if?" scenario. However, if you take SH:3 Possessed ending and apply it to SM... Can you elaborate on your connection? You're kidding, right? The ENTIRE game throws off the canon! The entire thing contradicts Cheryl's/Alessa's storyline. If SH:SM is true, then most of the other games never happened. In fact, most likely NONE of the other games ever happened if SM is meant to imply that it was all in Cheryl's head. Where does James Sunderland come in? Was he in her head too? What about Alex Shepherd? If so, Cheryl's got quite the twisted and vivid imagination. Hmmm...I'm going to have to disagree with the first part of this. There's very little that contradicts the storyline, as I'm going to attempt to make clear throughout the rest of this. The only point I'm going to make before I shove everything onto Blacky's post is that, yes, Cheryl does have a very "twisted and vivid imagination". It'd be putting it lightly to say that she's been through a few things. To run through the previous games in the central arch: SH:0 - Going the way of the timeline, we're introduced to Alessa. She's had the misfortune of being born into a cult with, if not the immediate than the eventual, intent of bringing Samael into being. Both of her parents, Dahlia and (I think I have to argue) Kaufmann, have no actual interest in her as anything but a tool for a larger purpose. What that translates into is a pretty shitty childhood. With Alessa never mentioning a father, as far as my recollection goes, we get that she's raised solely by Dahlia. Try to imagine that by itself. You live in a tight community, no active father figure, no parental support, and your mother is a nutty cult member, with all the attachments such a position entails (meaning meetings, bake-sells, and the bouts of one-person ramblings of Paradise). In a quick mention of SH:3, we gather that she does go to school but her only friend is Claudia, who's heavily enthused with cult values. Even there, if I can suggest Claudia was perhaps treated more of a daughter than Alessa, that friendship would have been strained by a fear of mommy hearing about certain things, jealousy, and the idea that Claudia might ditch her at any moment for better liked friends. Back in SH:O territory, it's right at the start that we see Alessa being torched. Whether the house was initially collateral or else the actual ritual went for the worse and Dahlia was curious enough to see the outcome, the fact is blatantly there: Alessa was bound by those she trusted and put through a ritual that aimed to trade her life for a god's. That's some heavy stuff. Even more when she lives through it, seperating herself between physical and abstracted being. Her physical body, although saved by Travis, is locked up and prepared to draw back the other half to complete the summoning, while Alessa the manifested, sets about to stop the process from happening. To do this, she uses Travis. Put that into perspective. A child knows enough to take a grown person, consciously throw them in harm's way as a pawn, working against a host of other adults with years of practice-related know-how to keep a god, a god, and its twisted "paradise" from the world. At a very young age, she's matured into a schemer; nothing against her character, it's just that she's working on a level of tactical thought most mid-lifers have issue functioning at. It's also enough to ask as to what she was up to when she wasn't pushing Travis into collecting the Flauros peices from the spots where the Cult had stored them. I'd say it's massively doubtful she was out coloring in an art book. This all ends with her, after so much maneuvering, to, of all things, reincarnate her catatonic body into a new, functional baby girl, plus permitting Travis to leave, dishing out her second, renewed self to a random couple, and then go right back into the fight to outperform the movements of a cult for the next how many years until Harry and Cheryl show up. (Note: Come to think of it, chances are that Alessa was not initially conceived for the purpose of birthing Samael, considering the reason of the existence of the Wish House, used by the Holy Mother sect for possible the central part of sacrificial tomfoolery.) SH:1 - Keep all of that in mind as this continues. In SH:1, Cheryl is taken in by Dahlia, who reconverts her into a resemblence of Alessa's assaulted physical form. This is the body you see sitting in the wheelchair at the end. Not very lively. Why is that? One can only take a guess as to what Dahlia did to Cheryl to get her that way. Still, that's jumping too far too fast. Getting back to basics, we have Harry Mason driving with his daughter into Silent Hill. There's an accident. Cheryl is taken. This, however, is not an "accident". This is the end result of the spell initiated by Dahlia at the end of SH:0. Harry, oblivious to everything but still a good father, sets out to find Cheryl, befriend Cybil, befriend Lisa, meet Kaufmann, and, through the manipulation of Dahlia, manages to undo virtually most of the protective/interfering structures that Alessa had been keeping up for those years since. Imagine the isolation and bitterness that's been building up in Alessa, compounded even more by having to deal with what Harry's initiated. It's not just taking in of new factors, it's the emotional disturbances that lends to an inner conflict of Alessa's position. She's fighting an organized body of people; she recognizes Harry's actions as aiding the cult, but killing an unknowing man who, essentially, has cared for "her" like a real daughter would be wrong; and she can't get to Cheryl because, despite her years of fighting, her ability to have kept the influence of Silent Hill confined hasn't stopped the cult from fortifying themselves in their places of centrality. Before she knows it, she loses the juggling act, and Harry confronts her with the Flauros. Dahlia finally gains the upperhand. The finale, as we know, comes down to Dahlia combining Alessa and Cheryl to summon Samael, Samael kills Dahlia just for giggles, Lisa takes out Kaufmann, Harry takes out Samael, and Alessa, making good to seperate herself completely from the town, recreates herself into another reincarnated baby that Harry takes and runs out with, alongside Cybil. The only other detail amongst all of this is that neither Cheryl or Harry mention a mom/wife. Remember this. SH:3 - At this point, we have Heather. Who is Heather? Heather is a girl in her late teens who is the third reincarnation of a girl who, more or less, would at this time be in her twenties. In those two previous lives, she's been through some intolerable injustice. However, being who she is now, all of that stuff is tucked nicely in the back of her head. Life as she knows it consists of her dad, moving around, and otherwise pretty standard teen living. We know that they've had to move at least once, thanks to a single known confrontation by a cult member in the past. We also know that their names were changed. Seeing as they had to make a mad dash from a town consisting of a heck of a lot more than just Dahlia and Kaufmann, there's a very good chance that either of these details happened more than once. Harry just being some small-time writer (what's he going to know about law?), it makes sense that Cybil, for some unknown period of time, helped Harry "legally" arrange to keep one step above being discovered. That'd make for some paranoid living. Not trying to be found, it'd make sense that Harry, in his work, would be using a pseudonym. The chance exists that, if Harry thought so much of his own writing, he already had a pseudonym in place already. A chance further exists that he would've traded publishers for convenience, but I'd like to speculate as little as possible here (go ahead, laugh at that). At any rate, Cybil, at some point, lets them be and deverts off or, possibly, is even taken out. This is, again, speculation, but sensical enough to seperate it from the publishing pondering. So, Harry's a single dad. He's taking care of Heather the best he can under the circumstances running from a far-reaching cult can get him. Incidentally, when you put into account all that goes into a job with variable income, certain habits, and feeding/clothing/putting a child through school, one can only imagine how much that very little got them. Harry and Heather love each, obviously, but there's going to be that personal strain, as one can see if they take things into consideration. A large part of that comes in with SH:SM. But before we touch that, let's finish up SH:3. Here, Heather is met by Claudia, thanks to Douglas' handiwork. This sets it off where the details hidden in Heather's past begin to unravel. So does her life. Managing to survive the Otherworld despite it only existing as a trick by Claudia to ease out Heather's powers, she gets home to find her father stabbed to death in a chair. After this, we see a curious thing where Heather starts thirsting for violent revenge. Not surprising, but, in truth, it's what Claudia was after. Soon, the manifestations taking effect under Claudia's watch start to take influence from Heather's will. What this ends up doing is triggering Alessa, who's been cordoned off in the back of Heather's mind. We know this fight. Heather succeeds in claiming herself, acknowledging that she's got something to her name, and "hunts" Claudia down. Heather deals with a dead stalker, takes out Claudia's deranged pops, Claudia offs Vincent (who's responsible in his own way for subtly influencing Heather), the cute little fetus gets puked up, re-eatened, improperly born, and the showdown happens. Heather overpowers the semi-Samael and gets out with Douglas. What makes such a nice point here, in your mention of Heather's "twisted and vivid imagination", is that she made it to play a prank on Douglas where she pretended she was going to kill him. If you think that's normal, I want to know the people you hang out with. You guys gotta be a blast. The point to all of this is that, yes, Cheryl has a very disturbed mind. She's not out crushing squirrels with a hammer, but she also has more important things to deal with than what's happening on Idol. And who knows, maybe James and Alex were in her head. That'd make for an interesting thought. The only thing is, what happened to these two indicates an implied addition to the greater picture that more likely than not can be considered canon. This, then, is what I argue can be attached to SH:SM, as I continue with below. But there is a differance from adding to an astablished canon, and rewritting it. For example since you brought it up, Silent hill 1 never said that there wasn't more of Silent hill that we've yet to see. it's just that Harry never traveled to South Vale or got the map spefic to that area, his Resort map (which only shows the resort area, hense name) stopped before that The theme park. The park wasn't even on the map, so whos to say the hotel wasn't there? Just because Harry didn't need to go there? the same goes for the church, just because Harry didn't go into the lake to witness the church, didn't mean there was a time warp and one just came into existance. You coulden't even see the whole lake on Harry's map, but that doesn't mean that the rest of it didn't exist. the Light house indicated that the lake was larger (or why else have a lighthouse if the lake wasn't as big?) We have no idea what time Silent hill 2 is set in, it could be ten years after SH1 for all we know, so the fact that a hotel could be built there by the time James gets there doesn't suddeny imply that the game writters retooled their storyline. Also why would one expect Harry and the gang to be there when James wonders in? Even if they was there at the same time, we know neither of the SH1 party went further south. Plus the different visions was long established to be related to the fog and otherworld that had existed in all silent hill games up till Shattered Memories. And actually everything in Silent hill 1 was a vision from Alessa, the worlds in the games always come from a person, mabye not always the prontagonist but the rules has been fairly constant with varibles depending on the situration The thing is, these examples can hardly be considered an reimagining because they can be made sense if one considers when, who, and where as constants. but Shattered Memories clearly is a different thing altogether because there are hardly any constants. the only constants are the characters but they are hardly constants because they are different too. But even if I was to take what you said as a possible thoery, and that Shattered Memories Cherly is indeed SH3 Heather, why would heather become so fucked up that every single thing she comes to believe is wrong? this isn't like James where a few details were twisted, everything in Cheryl's mind in Shattered Memories is different. Besides Heather had controll of things at the end of Silent hill 3, your intire thoery assumes she loses it at some point, an event that the games didn't establish or refer to. Another thing, surely when Cheryl finds out the nature of Harry's death, shoulden't the entire reality go back to normal? It revolves around him so why does Cheryl go home with the reality still in check? She still lives in a different Silent hill, Dahlia Mason and Kaufman still exist. Nothing has changed. Surely that indicates that the reality she is in was the default one, therefore isn't related to the other games. I agree with you up until your third paragraph. Canon isn't canon unless it adds to previously established plots that the story could not thrive on if taken away. The previous games are canon because they fit that bill. My argument is the SH:SM does the same thing as those previous games. My proposal, as stated already, is that it does not detract from anything, rather building upon it, and, as we may see, opens up probabilties for the next direct installment of the Cheryl arch. When I tried to give my take on reimagining, the fact of the matter is that it has taken place, if but in, is I intended it to be taken, the most general of meanings. The extreme meaning of reimagining would be if the game had, say, Cheryl working in a coffee shop in Silent Hill, and the point of the game was to make the best damn cupcakes that side of Toluca so she could get a management position. In the meaning that I would argue is actually meant for SH:SM, reimagining comes in the introduction of other towns and persons. These additions, never mentioned in the first game, are still canon because they do not disturb the stonework. So why, then, must the events of SH:SM be taken to be unacceptable when they can be understood in the same context as Pyramid Head? The events in SH:SM are based on previous cicrumstances, build upon them, elaborate in their own way, and present an open ending for the next installment to take from. As you say about those other games, "they can be made sense if one considers when, who, and where as constants". These constants exist. How they exist is found partially in answering "why would Heather become so fucked up that every single thing she comes to believe is wrong?". The thing is, all that Heather is aware of are the details of her own life. Heather is the third reincarnation of the same person, yet the details of those previous lives are not open for ready withdrawl. That's the idea behind and the point of the game. All of the things that would answer her questions are from two seperate lifes that are buried deep in her subconscious. If we take it that the subconscious of any schmuck running into Silent Hill makes for a bad trip, then the subconscious of somebody with a background like Cheryl's is something far, far murkier. Recovering lost and burried memories is not a simple thing to do. A person does not just come to a realization and prace off. There is great emotional pain behind these emotions, the very reason why they're buried in the first place. It is the pain of the memories themselves and the pain of bringing them up that cause, as seen in the game, some observable, unpleasant mental distress. The only thing Cheryl had at the end up SH:3 was an understanding that she was more than some girl living with her dad. What real information she had came mostly from second and third-hand accounts, the rest being the occasional bubbling up of the subconscious. I would go so far to even say that Alessa still lives, if but resting in Heather's head, trying to keep the pain to herself. Heather proved she could handle things, but that didn't open up a resevoir of easily handled charts, graphs, and picture books. She's still going to have to work for this stuff. SH:SM is where that starts to take place. She's trying to bind together what she has to run a simulation that may press her subconscious to hawk up more information. All she has are scraps. I can't reiterate that enough: all she has are scraps. She's only heard of Dahlia, the real memory of which is back in the lives of Alessa and the first Cheryl. The same with the layout of Silent Hill, the only layout of the town she has is from the drive with Douglas, a map and the small part she traveled to get to Leonard/Claudia. All that would have made this game proven as noncanon is locked where Heather can only try and largely fail to get it. I mentioned in a previous post that the shift into the frozen world showed when the stress of peicing memories together and living through the simulation began to make the simulation run amock. Why she didn't simply snap out of it at all at any point, especially at news of Harry's death, let alone why she spent time with Kaufmann in the room, circle around this instability of her psyche. Judging by the end of the game, it seems obvious to me that the game never centered around Harry; it centered around Cheryl trying to understand, in part, Harry. He was her hero. She built him up as such, but was insecure and wanted very much to know why he seemed to love her so much. A part and just a part of the simulation, yes, but a very large part, personally, to Cheryl. She didn't snap out at any point partly not just because she was so imbedded in the simulation, but also because she was so committed to seeing it through. She'd be a psychiatrist's dream. Some people have tremendous difficulty seeing a diet through, much less sitting down and being led through their own mental issues. Which brings up Kaufmann and the office. When things did go bad, she would always end up there. It was, for all intents and purposes, her sanctuary. Kaufmann, her anchor. Her guide. Her father figure. This backs up my assertion that he was Alessa's biological father, which opens up a few other things, but at the very least, by his actions, we get that he was there to comfort her as much as the peace of the room was. Whatever bursts of emotional terror, the room and Kaufmann stayed the same, always willing to house and calm her. Knowing what her real life must be like (the cult's not going to give up just because they lost a few people), she's got nothing better to help her out with back in reality. Can you imagine somebody trying to find help, spouting stuff like this? It wouldn't end well. Hell, that much is stated at the very start of SH:SM. Before I forget, there is the matter of Cybil's revelation of Harry's death. She tells "Harry" straight out that he died in a car crash, but, despite that, she believes him to be who he says he is. This is the best example of the simulation going awry. To state my obvious point with her, this Cybil is not the real Cybil. It is the Cybil that Cheryl (Heather at that point) remembers from her childhood. This, as I reason, shows that Cybil must have had contact with Harry for at least a few years, off-and-on, after escaping from Silent Hill. It would explain the mannerisms expressed by Cybil towards Harry; the impatience, the reluctant concessions, the moments of understanding. Having to help a guy who pretty much dragged you into hell is an obligation that would get old after awhile. How Cybil treats Harry shows this. When she finally tells Harry that he died, she doesn't believe it herself. That death in a car crash can only be in reference to the crash Harry and the original Cheryl were in back in SH:1. As the arch calls for it, we know Harry didn't die. Yes, this is a contradiction, but only if you ignore how Cybil reacts to it. She acknowledges that it doesn't make sense. When a character does that, it's enough to question the validity of such a statement. In this case, the statement is made by a simulated Cybil working off of a detail of a faked death, a detail whose existence can be due to any given reason. I would think it's either Cybil's work, the cult's work to try and find them, or a combination of the two. At any rate, Cybil, the simulation, through her reaction of her own revelation, shows that such a revelation is invalid. This then grants us a connection to the first game and the probable events between its end and SH:3's beginning. In the end, all of it makes sense if taken in the way I've tried to descrive here. Cheryl doesn't succeed in getting her entire story dished out, but she's closer to understanding Harry and knowing that his love for her were about as genuine as they were going to get. Another thing that can be taken as certain is that Cheryl's been working on controlling her Otherworld tempering, enough so that she goes beyond generating monsters to fleshing out actual people. She's growing in power. What this may mean, and I hope it means, is that she is increasing her power to make an offensive attack against the cult. It makes sense. The cult view her as both a threat and an unused blessing, they will search for her to either kill her or attain her before she gets them first. I suppose we'll see. If an installment comes up that throws out everything I've said here, then, hey, fine by me. And I have not done this as a slight against those who consider SH:SM not canon. This is merely my thoughts and reasoning on a subject that I take way too seriously for my own good. So, nothing personal to anybody. It's all in good fun.
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Post by Lolli on Dec 5, 2010 14:19:06 GMT
What makes such a nice point here, in your mention of Heather's "twisted and vivid imagination", is that she made it to play a prank on Douglas where she pretended she was going to kill him. If you think that's normal, I want to know the people you hang out with. You guys gotta be a blast. What better way to scare him than to pretend she was possessed? Afterall, with all the shit they went through, little else was going to surprise him. Silent Hill is a complex place, but I doubt it's that complex. It still seems like a bit of a stretch to try and connect the previous installments to SM, especially when it's already been described as a reimaginning. I'd like to think of them as seperate games, because having both of them take place in Cheryl's head is, in my opinion, stupid.
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