I loved the Silent Hill games, I must confess that the series has run away with itself and I dont pretend to a full canonical knowledge, also some of my favourite games, like The Room, Shattered Memories, Homecoming, were not the favourites in the series for fans.
Apparently the first games were conceived as resembling Twin Peaks, although I have always thought that they resembled other ideas from my own culture, in Ireland there was in the theories and mythological memory of the celts the idea of what they described as The Otherworld, there was also Tir Na Nog, which was the land of sleep and where the a whole host of mythical folk had retreated to, including the fairy folk, who were more like the traditional and menacing elves (seriously read up on this some time, Broken Sword by Poul Anderson and The Iron Dragons Daughter and The Dragons of Babel by an author I cant recall right now capture it perfectly, those things are scarier than vampires or anything from the mythical canon and nothing like Tolkein's valourisation of them as ubermen).
The Otherworld was something that people could accidentially slip into by going to isolated places at the wrong time of year or when something tragic or terrible had happened there, old battlefields or burial sites were favourites but also mounds, there were also some myths about walking counter clockwise around monuments, often not deliberately. They were often terrifying places and you'd survive by the skin of your teeth if you survived at all. Sometimes it was the home of the dead but was not conceived as a paradise or a punishment but something like Hades in Greek Myth were people exist but dont exist and envy the living.
With the second and third games featuring more of an idea that ghosts or demons had been somehow trapped by a cult's actions and were reacting to and manifesting trauma or horrific memories it sort of took a turn for appearing like something purgatorial or a hellish place but a temporary one you are not destined to forever, if you can figure it out. I think one of the games, Shattered Memories, actually takes this to the point of suggesting that the place is more of an experience and the whole thing the untangling of memories in a psychotherapy session, since I dont own that game I dont know for sure but I think that may have purged a lot of the paranormal or supernatural elements and substituted psychological ones.
The point of the discussion I'd like to kick of is do you think this about the game and series or is it reading too much into what's just a lame bit of pop culture? Something which got accidentially popular and sparked a series complete with merchandise which covers for the fact that they are really making it all up as they go along and any profoundity is completely accidential?
Apparently the first games were conceived as resembling Twin Peaks, although I have always thought that they resembled other ideas from my own culture, in Ireland there was in the theories and mythological memory of the celts the idea of what they described as The Otherworld, there was also Tir Na Nog, which was the land of sleep and where the a whole host of mythical folk had retreated to, including the fairy folk, who were more like the traditional and menacing elves (seriously read up on this some time, Broken Sword by Poul Anderson and The Iron Dragons Daughter and The Dragons of Babel by an author I cant recall right now capture it perfectly, those things are scarier than vampires or anything from the mythical canon and nothing like Tolkein's valourisation of them as ubermen).
The Otherworld was something that people could accidentially slip into by going to isolated places at the wrong time of year or when something tragic or terrible had happened there, old battlefields or burial sites were favourites but also mounds, there were also some myths about walking counter clockwise around monuments, often not deliberately. They were often terrifying places and you'd survive by the skin of your teeth if you survived at all. Sometimes it was the home of the dead but was not conceived as a paradise or a punishment but something like Hades in Greek Myth were people exist but dont exist and envy the living.
With the second and third games featuring more of an idea that ghosts or demons had been somehow trapped by a cult's actions and were reacting to and manifesting trauma or horrific memories it sort of took a turn for appearing like something purgatorial or a hellish place but a temporary one you are not destined to forever, if you can figure it out. I think one of the games, Shattered Memories, actually takes this to the point of suggesting that the place is more of an experience and the whole thing the untangling of memories in a psychotherapy session, since I dont own that game I dont know for sure but I think that may have purged a lot of the paranormal or supernatural elements and substituted psychological ones.
The point of the discussion I'd like to kick of is do you think this about the game and series or is it reading too much into what's just a lame bit of pop culture? Something which got accidentially popular and sparked a series complete with merchandise which covers for the fact that they are really making it all up as they go along and any profoundity is completely accidential?