What is the main story of Silent Hill?

Silent hill is a person's inner world, and he is a place of atonement.

Foreword:

1On February 24th, 999, KONAMI launched a third-person survival adventure horror game, Silent Hill, which was sold on the PS console at that time. At this time, the residual temperature of Resident Evil 2 in 1998 has not passed, and everyone has been discussing all the problems related to biochemistry all day. The emergence of Silent Hill has not attracted much attention, and some even think it is another biochemical imitation. However, Silent Hill soon attracted many people's attention because of its heavy world outlook and strong religiosity, and players naturally compared it with biochemistry. Compared with the slightly thin biochemical plot, Silent Hill pays more attention to this interpretation, especially by adding religious beliefs, which makes many problems become thoughtful and reflective. In order to avoid the suspicion of copying biochemistry, KONAMI set the space in Silent Hill quite spacious, which is different from the horror of the closed and narrow space that biochemistry should reflect. Silent Hill creates a different game atmosphere with dense fog and darkness. With sad and decadent music, people are always in extreme depression, and anxiety and panic cause another kind of psychological terror. Puzzles are also set by metaphor, so we must guess the answers according to the understanding of obscure sentences in the materials. It is precisely because of these advantages that the success of Silent Hill was achieved and KONAMI had the idea of serialization. Because I am crazy about horror games, Silent Hill is one of my favorite games. Although I can't fully understand the profound connotation of Silent Hill, I also have my own opinions. Let me take you into the world of Silent Hill in my mind. (Note: Because the world view of Silent Hill series is very complicated, this article only makes personal understanding and inference about the information appearing in the game, and other readers may have objections. For your reference only. Welcome to discuss! )

Basis-1 generation:

There is a small town in central America called Silent Hill, where there is an ancient religion. Because a large number of immigrants mostly believe in Christianity, coupled with the death and loss of local residents, local religion gradually declined, and Christianity replaced its dominant position, and claimed that the main god of local religion was Samael, the black angel in Christianity, also known as Samael.

3 1 years ago, Dalia gillespie, the leader of the church in Samael, learned that her daughter Ai Lisha had a special ability to summon Samael. Crazy Dalia firmly believes that as long as Ai Lisha is burned as a sacrifice, Samael will be reborn, mankind will be liberated and a beautiful paradise will be created. But in the end, the ceremony failed, Ai Lisha was burned into a coma, and most of his soul fled everywhere. The burnt body was sent to the C4 ward in the basement of Archie Milla Hospital, and the doctor Kaufman assigned the nurse Lisa to take care of it. Seven years later, the witch held another ceremony and gave birth to another baby girl. Part of the soul that escaped from a previous fire was recalled and attached to the baby girl, while the other part of Ai Lisha's soul created an inner world out of self-protection to avoid persecution by Dalia. At the same time, nurse Lisa, out of sympathy, didn't want to see the baby girl persecuted again, so she put it beside the highway in Silent Hill. Harry, a foreign tourist, happened to pass by here. After discussing with his infertile wife, he decided to adopt a baby girl and named it Cheryl. Three years later, his wife died of illness and his adopted daughter Cheryl became Harry's only spiritual sustenance.

On his daughter's 7th birthday, Harry, who had long regarded her as his own, suddenly wanted to go to Silent Hill, so he drove to Silent Hill with her. On the road, a woman in blue (the soul of Ai Lisha) suddenly crossed the road. Harry had no time to dodge and had an accident. When Harry woke up, he found his daughter missing. On the way to find his beloved daughter, he met Sybil, a female police officer. She's here to investigate the local church's drug trafficking in white Claudia. Harry was trapped in the town because of the fog. With her help, he began his journey to find his beloved daughter.

In the church in the town, Harry met Dalia, the chief culprit of the whole incident. She gave Harry a mysterious prop named Flauros, saying it could help Harry drive out evil forces. He also claimed that Cheryl had been swallowed up by her inner world, and Harry had to go deep into the dark inner world to find his beloved daughter. Being too worried about his daughter's safety now, Harry completely listened to Dalya's lies and was used by her. Later, I met Dr. Kaufman and Nurse Lisa in the external and internal world of the hospital, and learned that Nurse Lisa had stolen the baby girl. Dr. Kaufman knew about it and killed her. In addition, Harry also discovered the mysterious potion Aglaophotis hidden by Dr. Kaufman, which is extracted from rare red herbs and is said to drive away demons. On the merry-go-round in the amusement park, this red potion was used to drive away the soul attached to Hibel, another part of Ai Lisha's soul that escaped from the previous fire. Dalia took the opportunity to take Ai Lisha's soul. At this time, Harry knew that he had been used by Daria. In order to hold the ceremony again, Daria had to find all the scattered souls in Ai Lisha, while Ai Lisha created an inner world to protect himself from his mother's persecution and hid some souls in it. Daria took advantage of Harry's desire to find women and let him enter the inner world to find that part of his soul. Harry, who knew the truth, hurried to the last altar, but it was too late. The ceremony combined Cheryl's body with Ai Lisha's soul to form a complete body-Ai Lisha, a woman in white, which Dalia called the mother of God. At this time, Dr. Kaufman also arrived, because he had a secret agreement with Dalia before, and he used his medical knowledge to help Dalia extract the drug Claudia, which can paralyze people's nerves. With this drug, the church regained the rule of the town and then shared the rights and powers of Samael. But Daria didn't fulfill his promise, so Dr Kaufman poured Aglaophotis, a secret exorcism liquid, on the woman in white, forcing the monster out of her body. But Lisa, who was killed by Kaufman and trapped in the world hospital for a long time, also appeared later, dragging Kaufman into the dark world of the world for revenge. The monster separated from his mother was greeted by Harry's powerful weapon and was quickly defeated by Harry. By this time, Ai Lisha was exhausted. Before she died, she gave the reincarnated baby girl to Harry and helped Harry and Hibel escape from Silent Hill. (Note: The above contents need to be combined with three generations of data)

1 silent hill introduced the town of silent hill to all players, and put the so-called Samael in front of them, but little was introduced to the teachings and background of Samael, just to give players a glimpse. What kind of church is Samael? What exactly is the mother of God? Why did Ai Lisha have to be burned to death to summon Samael? What is the inner world created by Ai Lisha? Wait, there are too many questions unanswered in the game. Finally, Harry brought the reincarnation baby out, which was a big foreshadowing left by the producers. The story will definitely continue, because players are expecting that the doubts left by 1 generation can be reasonably explained in the second generation. KONAMI also has a lot of room to play on the basis of 1 generation, and the emergence of the second generation has become a matter of course. Until September 25th, 200 1 year, silent hill 2 finally appeared, but it also surprised all players.

Innovation-the second generation:

All players who are looking forward to the sequel to Silent Hill must think so. The second generation will certainly follow the story clues of 1 generation, because 1 generation has left too many problems and foreshadowing. However, all the players were surprised and "disappointed" when they got the second generation. KONAMI abandoned all the valuable materials left by 1 generation, started a new stove and put a brand-new story in front of the players. But after each player has played it, the word Yimei will keep ringing. Until today, silent hill 2's story is recognized by all players as the best in the series. The atmosphere of silent hill 2 continues to follow the way of 1 generation, and has been strengthened. Heavy fog and darkness, noise and limited visibility keep the players in a passive state of depression. In terms of puzzles, KONAMI had a whim to separate the difficulty setting of puzzles from the difficulty setting of games. Different puzzles have different difficulties and solutions, which meet the needs of players at different levels. What we want to say in the game is the biggest highlight of the game-the plot. The theme of the second generation is crime and punishment. Silent Hill is compared to the dark world in everyone's heart, and all people who feel guilty subconsciously will come here to atone. The whole game is about the dark side of the human mind, full of sexual hunger, sexual violence, sexual abuse and other abnormal psychology, just like Freud's psychoanalysis. When the player goes deep into it, he has forgotten that he is playing the game, and it feels like watching a psychological detective movie. The success of silent hill 2, which is integrated with philosophy, is inevitable, but its profound plot is also the killer weapon that restricts it from becoming a popular game, so its sales volume is always inferior to some masterpieces, but the series has established its status as a masterpiece since the second generation. Because everyone has different understanding of the second generation story, the controversy is also the biggest. Here I can only write my own superficial understanding of the game for everyone to enjoy.

James, the hero of this novel, suddenly received a mysterious letter one day, signed by his beloved wife Mary, who died three years ago, telling him to go to the special place where Silent Hill once belonged to them. James, full of expectation and doubt, drove to Silent Hill, hoping to find out the truth. At this time, Silent Hill has been surrounded by fog, and the appearance of monsters and fragments of memory subconscious makes James feel uneasy. After many twists and turns, James finally arrived at Room 302 of the Lakeview Hotel on the shore of toluca, which is the location of the "special place" mentioned by his wife in her letter, and also the place where they lived during their honeymoon trip. Here, the image he saw from a video connects his subconscious memory of waking up after coming to Silent Hill. It turned out that his terminally ill wife Mary did not die immediately three years ago, but decided in her mind that her wife was dead and forced her to forget the cause of death. Now he remembers everything. James also came to Silent Hill, the land of atonement, because he felt guilty subconsciously.

Because his wife was ill in bed at that time, James went to the hospital to take care of her every day, but his wife's condition gradually deteriorated, her mood became very violent, and she often accused James. At first, James was patient everywhere because he loved his wife deeply. For a long time, his spirit fell into extreme depression, and with the heavy financial burden brought by medical expenses during hospitalization, James could no longer bear this mental torture. Looking at his wife's haggard face, he felt that it was only a matter of time before her death, so he had the idea of euthanasia, which could end each other's pain and suffering. But he couldn't bear to kill the wife he had always loved. Wandering between morality and reality, James finally chose to abandon his wife, because he didn't want to be condemned by his conscience, so he forced himself to forget this memory and thought that his wife was dead. At this time, Mary in the hospital is also very contradictory. She doesn't want to drag her husband down like this, she wants to die, but she is eager for her husband's concern. After James left, she stayed in the hospital bed every day to see James again, but he never showed up again. Mary, who was terminally ill, left two letters before she died, one for James, hoping that he could understand his mind; Another letter was written to Laura, a sick friend, hoping that she wouldn't criticize James too much. James thinks that he abandoned his wife when she needed him most, and that his infidelity led to her death, so he subconsciously blames himself constantly, and "guilt" arises immediately.

In the game, James meets Maria, a woman who looks like his wife, but her dazzling red dress, sexy and open personality, provocative language and movements are in sharp contrast with her wife. This is also the form of the perfect wife that James subconsciously needs. The pursuit of Maria and his own pyramid head is also a manifestation of James' subconscious guilt, so he has never been able to kill this monster. Every time a monster with a triangular head appears, he is doing something related to sex: rape or sexual abuse. This is because James has been living a single life since his wife fell ill. As a normal man, it is inevitable that there will be sexual repression and sexual fantasies. Attack James because he always wants to punish his subconscious; He attacked Mary because he always thought he killed her himself. The final battle with the triangle-headed monster shows that James's subconscious "guilt" has been gradually eliminated and he is about to get rid of the spiritual bondage that has been pestering him.

Besides Maria, James also met Laura, Endy and Angela in Silent Hill. Laura is an eight-year-old girl. She is innocent and has no sin in her heart, so she has never been harassed by monsters when walking back and forth in Silent Hill. Because I used to live in a ward with Mary, I was taken care of by Mary, so I trusted Mary and liked her very much. But then Mary's condition deteriorated, and James was often accused because of his great emotional changes. James finally abandoned Mary. These are all seen by Laura, who is young and ignorant. She always thinks that James is not good to Mary. So I fought against James all the time, which deepened his inner pain every time, especially the scene of standing on the wall and saying, "In fact, you don't love Mary at all", which made James completely blame himself. When Eddie was a child, his parents divorced, and without the warmth of his family, his personality became very strange. I have been laughed at by others, and I feel very inferior. After a long period of mental depression, I will kill those who laugh at myself in a rage, and my inner guilt will also arise. In Silent Hill, the killing scene is repeated again and again, which constantly stimulates Andy's subconscious. He struggled in his heart and was finally killed by James, and he got the punishment he deserved. On the contrary, this aggravated James's idea that he was the murderer and further deepened his inner remorse. Another character, Angela, has always had a question in her life story. As can be seen from the progress of the game, her mental state is very unstable, with personality split and suicidal tendency. The death of her family has become a fact, and it is certain that her father was killed by her, but why did she kill her father and how did her mother and brother die? The explanation in the game is very vague. The game said, I feel that her father often sexually assaulted her after being drunk, so she killed her father, and her mother and brother died because they didn't stop her father from raping her, so she killed them in resentment. She came to Silent Hill entirely to find her mother, which also shows that she subconsciously feels guilty about her mother's death. Once she even mistook James for her mother, which shows that she has been escaping from reality and paralyzing herself with fantasy. In the middle of the game, she said to James, "You don't have to be so kind to me. You men are very kind to women. You might as well force me directly. " Later, before she walked into the fire, she said, "My mother said I deserved it." However, it contradicts my previous inference. Any other stories? I suddenly had an idea: could it be that she was schizophrenic and had a deformed way of thinking, first seducing her drunken father to have sex, then killing her under another personality, including the whole family, and then freeing herself with fantasy? Of course, these are just my personal guesses, and the evidence is insufficient. When she finally walked into the fire, it showed that she had realized that her crime must be punished, and escaping could not solve her subconscious guilt. Only death is the only relief. This also made James reflect on himself. He is also running away from his wife and her death. Now it's time for him to face everything, so he must know something about it in Silent Hill.

Compared with 1 generation, the second generation left more problems for people to think about. Unlike 1 generation's exploration of the game itself, it is an exploration of people's innermost feelings. Only customs clearance is no longer the main purpose of the game. In order to understand each character and search every corner of the game, we hope to find clues to explore the inner activities of the characters, even if it is trivial little material, players also repeatedly scrutinize the hidden meaning. However, most games only give a hint, asking players to guess by themselves in combination with the whole game, but everyone's understanding is different, so players have caused great controversy on some issues. Although the excitement of the second generation has won unanimous praise from players, the problems left by 1 generation are still remembered by all players, and the third generation has naturally become the next expectation target of Silent Hill fans.

Regression-the third generation

Let all fans of Silent Hill wait for the sequel for two years, and finally meet the players on May 23rd, 2003. Unsurprisingly, the story background and world outlook of the three generations come down in one continuous line with 1 generation, and they still make a big fuss about religion. The questions left by 1 generation are basically answered here. Because the difficulty separation of the second generation puzzles has always been popular with players, this book continues to carry it forward. In the setting of puzzles, the producers have racked their brains. Among them, the puzzles about five Shakespeare anthologies and five tarot cards are my personal favorites. Of course, I mean that in the case of hard puzzles, the former requires players to understand these five works, and the latter requires players to understand tarot cards, and then solve the mystery according to the obscure hints in the sentence. If the puzzle is not difficult, or the players who play the game have seen the merits and demerits, of course, they will not appreciate the subtlety, and they will not be moved by the producers' good intentions. The atmosphere and sound effects of the game have maintained a series of consistent styles. With the enhancement of the first mate, the real-time calculus animation is close to the realm of being genuine, especially the facial expression depiction of each character has once again impacted the visual nerves of the players. The weapon part of this game can be said to be deceptive. On the surface, more kinds of weapons have been added to the game, and even machine guns have appeared. You need to choose different weapons to deal with monsters according to different situations, which enriches the fighting content. However, when the player finished the game, he found that the game was still dominated by cold weapons. In the face of many monsters and their wide attack range, the weakness of the gun in durability and practicality is undoubtedly exposed. Mainly rely on various knives and blunt objects to attack the enemy, and it is this primitive violence that makes players more interested. At the end of the game, the players shouted and fell for it. As for why? Let me analyze it for you now.

After the 1 generation Dhalia "Summon the Gods" ceremony was destroyed by Harry, Harry fled Silent Hill with the transformed saint left by Ai Lisha before his death, and named the saint Heather. After Dalia's death, the church was succeeded by Claudia, who became the new leader of the church. When she was young, she was a good friend of Ai Lisha and the most devout believer. Her belief in God has reached an outrageous level. In order to find the saint, he sent his congregation to kill Harry everywhere, and Harry kept wandering between cities with Heather. Douglas, an old detective, mentioned in his investigation report that when Heather 12 years old, Harry once killed a man, but was acquitted in self-defense, and then the father and daughter left the area immediately. As can be seen from this report, the father and the daughter have been living without a fixed address in order to avoid the pursuit of the church. This is where the story begins.

When Heather/Kloc-was 0/7 years old, she temporarily settled in this city with her father. But Claudia hired Douglas, a private detective, to find their trail, and experienced Douglas soon found their residence in this city. While persuading Heather to go with him to see Claudia, the church killer broke into Harry's house and killed him. When Heather came home, she saw her father's body, and her heart was completely covered with hatred. She vowed to kill Claudia and avenge her father, and the old detective Douglas knew that she was being used. Deeply guilty, he decided to accompany Heather to Silent Hill. Speaking of this, I have to mention the important information "Harry's Diary", in which I can learn about the approximate time and some clues of this story. Among them, Harry mentioned that he had hesitated. The appearance of Heather made him lose his beloved daughter Cheryl. He painfully tried to strangle her with his hands, but in the end, kind Harry raised Heather as his own daughter and loved her deeply. In order not to hurt Heather, Harry kept her story a secret. Knowing all the truth, Heather in the car left tears. "I haven't had a chance to tell you how happy you make me." Heather said what she always wanted to say to her father, and he never had a chance to hear it again, which also set off the sad atmosphere of the whole game to the extreme.

During this period, Heather also met Vincent, the "think tank" of the church. Under his suggestion, the church became stronger and stronger, with its own church and a charity orphanage (4S for short) attached to the church. He is a hero of the church, but contrary to Claudia's point of view, he advocates money worship very much. Although he also believed in the existence of God, he mainly used the name of the church to restrain money. He thought that after the arrival of God, he could not satisfy his desire for money, so he tried his best to destroy the ceremony. He also used Heather to go to the hospital to find Claudia's father Leonard, who has become a monster. If Heather dies, he can just ruin the ceremony. If Leonard dies, he can get Metatron's seal and use it against Claudia (1 Ai Lisha used it to compete with his mother Daria).

When Heather was looking for Claudia in Silent Hill, she learned about another terrible plot of Claudia. Claudia killed Harry in order to fill Heather's heart with the revenge of killing her father, and create an illusion that Heather would treat a large number of Christians as monsters, thus stimulating Heather's inner sense of killing in constant killing and making Heather's "God" grow up in a good environment. Claudia believes that the "God" born of blood and hatred is absolutely the most powerful and perfect. Heather, who knew Claudia's plot, finally met this "devout" believer in the church. Vincent's wishful thinking didn't work, the seal didn't stop the ceremony, and Claudia also killed the traitor of this church with one knife. Heather suddenly remembered a red pill, aglaophotois- 1, which was left in the necklace by her father. After eating it, Heather spit out a worm-like monster-the so-called "God" ontology. Heather was about to trample it to death, and crazy Claudia swallowed it into her body, but because she was not the real mother of God.

The whole story has come to an end temporarily here, and the story of 1 generation has been basically completed in the third generation. Although some details are still unclear, the religious framework of Silent Hill has been established. According to the convention of the series, the third generation has left a foreshadowing, and the introduction of new roles can only be guessed from obscure sentences, and no specific information can be found at all. The mental patient who has always had a crush on Heather didn't give an explanation at the end of the game. Because KONAMI has also produced 4, 5, 6 ~ ~ generations, and has been continuing the Silent Hill series. But personally, I still like unique works like the second generation. After all, if a story is often told in different forms, people will always get bored. Looking forward to the fourth generation can bring us new surprises.

Fading-the fourth generation

June 17, 2004, perhaps KONAMI was too eager to achieve success, and the practice of making a series every two years was broken. 1 years ago, it was only three generations, and the fourth generation rushed to meet the players, which made people wonder whether its quality would decline. As the players expected, the 4th generation brought too many disappointments and complaints to the players. The picture became too bright and clean, completely losing the dim line of sight characteristics of Silent Hill series, and the cancellation of radio and flashlight made people feel "suddenly enlightened". In the previous works, due to fog and darkness, the visual range is very limited, which makes it impossible to see the surrounding situation clearly. In addition, the feeling of long-term upset and depression caused by the noisy sound from the radio also disappeared in this work. For the first mate, the puzzle setting is even smaller, and all of them are just clearance puzzles. The obscure but intriguing puzzles are gone, and the puzzle difficulty separation method that has been praised by the second and third generations has also been cancelled. Although the newly added props carrying quantity restriction system makes the game play strategically, the ratio of the number of props to the carrying quantity in each scene is too large, especially the separation of similar props is very annoying, and it is often necessary to go home repeatedly. Players in online forums even joked that their subtitle should be "Go home often". Henry, the hero of the game, has completely become a dispensable character, which is the most abnormal character in the whole series. He said no more than 20 sentences in the whole game, and most of them were repetitive. At best, he is the clue that drives the whole game. In the worst case, he is like a walk-on in the movie, and the image of the villain Walter Su is the most prominent. All right, that's all for now. Although it is a shortcoming, it can be seen that KONAMI is trying to innovate. After all, every game in the series is a pattern played repeatedly, and players will get tired of it one day. The fourth generation still has many remarkable advantages, and the plot is as wonderful as ever. It even took Walter Su Liwen, an "obscure" name that only appeared in the second generation newspapers, as the villain of the game, and joined the Silent Hill Smile Support Society, a charity affiliated to the church, in the third generation. Among them, the "2 1 virgin arrival" ceremony is similar to the conditions required for the ending of the second generation rebirth, and it can be said that it is a work that spans the whole series, but the relationship between the two is nothing more than that.

Glory koei

Capcom