“In my restless dreams, I see that town…Silent Hill.” As one of the first monologues in Silent Hill 2 from the deceased character Mary Sunderland, the quote is important in foreshadowing its horrific and complex narrative. As one the most popular and critically-acclaimed games in the Silent Hill series, Silent Hill 2, is widely considered to be the best horror video game of all time, and among the best video games ever created (GamesRadar, 21). From historic horrific imagery to its use in media like literature and television, the horror genre has dominantly relied on audience’s emotional and physical reactions. In the book “The Philosophy of Horror, or, Paradoxes of the Heart,” author Noël Carroll recognizes the particularity of horror
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As a summary of Silent Hill 2’s plot, the game follows James Sunderland as the main protagonist, who receives a letter from his late wife, Mary, to meet him in a town called Silent Hill. In searching for his wife in areas like apartments, hospitals, hotels, and streets, James immediately recognizes the quiet town is only filled with various hostile and monstrous beings. In addition, James meets a few non-playable characters (NPCs), like Maria, a flirtatious women who aesthetically reminds him of his wife, and joins him in his search. Of all the monsters that attack James, the most recurring is Red Pyramid Thing, later nicknamed Pyramid Head. Pyramid is a contorted humanoid with a large, metallic and sharp red pyramid as a head. Pyramid Head antagonizes James throughout his search, with examples like raping other monsters in his sight, repeatedly killing Maria in front of him, and attacking him with his giant cleaver. The story reaches its climax once James enters a hotel room and finds a video tape of himself murdering his diseased wife. From this, James realizes that both the horrors of the town, and Pyramid Head, were a result of repressed feelings of self-punishment. The game features multiple endings, however in my own play-through, James finally finds a final emotional letter from his late wife, and leaves the town with a child NPC he meets …show more content…
In other words, in horror, the monster represents the impure, to which the character must recognize and overcome to progress the plot further. In generalizing the plot structure of character interaction with the monster, Carroll theorizes a “complex discovery plot,” which focusses on the characters progression through four interactions with the monster: onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation (99). In application to Silent Hill 2, Pyramid Head serves as the most influential and recurring monster in his antagonization and punishment of James. Additionally, Pyramid Head represents impurity through his actions of murder and rape, and aesthetically with a contorted spine and pyramid cage for a head. The onset, in which the monster’s existence is first revealed to the audience, or in this case the player, is in the first location of Blue Creek Apartments. After the player solves a puzzle in one of the rooms, James returns to a dim-lit corridor where Pyramid Head is silently staring at the player from afar. This accounts for the first acknowledgment of his existence from the
As a summary of Silent Hill 2’s plot, the game follows James Sunderland as the main protagonist, who receives a letter from his late wife, Mary, to meet him in a town called Silent Hill. In searching for his wife in areas like apartments, hospitals, hotels, and streets, James immediately recognizes the quiet town is only filled with various hostile and monstrous beings. In addition, James meets a few non-playable characters (NPCs), like Maria, a flirtatious women who aesthetically reminds him of his wife, and joins him in his search. Of all the monsters that attack James, the most recurring is Red Pyramid Thing, later nicknamed Pyramid Head. Pyramid is a contorted humanoid with a large, metallic and sharp red pyramid as a head. Pyramid Head antagonizes James throughout his search, with examples like raping other monsters in his sight, repeatedly killing Maria in front of him, and attacking him with his giant cleaver. The story reaches its climax once James enters a hotel room and finds a video tape of himself murdering his diseased wife. From this, James realizes that both the horrors of the town, and Pyramid Head, were a result of repressed feelings of self-punishment. The game features multiple endings, however in my own play-through, James finally finds a final emotional letter from his late wife, and leaves the town with a child NPC he meets …show more content…
In other words, in horror, the monster represents the impure, to which the character must recognize and overcome to progress the plot further. In generalizing the plot structure of character interaction with the monster, Carroll theorizes a “complex discovery plot,” which focusses on the characters progression through four interactions with the monster: onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation (99). In application to Silent Hill 2, Pyramid Head serves as the most influential and recurring monster in his antagonization and punishment of James. Additionally, Pyramid Head represents impurity through his actions of murder and rape, and aesthetically with a contorted spine and pyramid cage for a head. The onset, in which the monster’s existence is first revealed to the audience, or in this case the player, is in the first location of Blue Creek Apartments. After the player solves a puzzle in one of the rooms, James returns to a dim-lit corridor where Pyramid Head is silently staring at the player from afar. This accounts for the first acknowledgment of his existence from the