We are constantly at odds with ourselves, only thinking we know what we really desire.

We are often times betrayed by our own desires

Not sure if my current predicament is just an extraordinary coincidence or not, but I seem to be in a rare moment of conceptual malaise. I don’t want to say writers block, per se, as I most certainly have the energy, focus, and even desire to write, as I am doing so right now, but my brain is kind of at a lost for coming up with a worthwhile concept to write about. The coincidence I speak of is that this happens to be my 99th article, in a streak of 100 in a row, and I was quite hoping to finish this off with the same kind of gusto I have been for months now, as I can’t remember the last time I even really paused in hesitation in the face of putting words to a screen, but I just…feel like I’ve run out of gas on some level.

What makes this even more bizarre, is that I’m basically in the endgame of my playthrough of the Silent Hill 2 Remake (SH2R), so I definitely have a game to talk about, though, at my current juncture, I argue I don’t have much to say about said game, which very much brings into question why I am still pushing myself to write something at all, but then we circle back around to the 99th out of 100 articles in a row…and well, round and round we go. I also have this dreadful feeling something quite ridiculously silly is going to come between me and seeing the credits tomorrow, thusly forestalling me completion of the game by a day, which would muck up a nice alignment of of me finishing the SH2R on the same day I reach consecutive article #100. Perhaps I am worrying myself into a tizzy for no reason, but I am nothing else but a bundle of concerns at the moment, so I’ve got to speak to what is currently gnawing at the brain, as it were.

Hmm… I have no idea why I feel like I have nothing to say about this game, I genuinely can’t tell if it is indeed my brain psyching itself out, or if on some level, the SH2R is more of a game that one feels, instead of thinks through, that a whole lot of logical deconstructionism just feels wrong to me. I will posit, it is hard for me to parse which abstract elements of the game are intentional mysteries one is suppose to think about, or unfortunate byproducts of the nature of video games. For example, it’s just kind of taken for granted that game characters do not possess the same abilities, tools, equipment, where with all etc to traverse the map the same as the player character. So when an NPC in SH2R gets from point A to point B in a similarly described fashion, am I suppose to be perplexed as to how they did it? As in, is this notion suppose to add to the surrealist fever dream the journey through Silent Hill represents, where nothing is as it seems, and elements of the abstract, paranormal, and incomprehensible are around every corner? Or is it suppose to be one of those “video gamey” qualities one is suppose to suspend their disbelief over, and not think too much about how such things are possible? Is this metaconsideration also something Team Silent thought of, and decided they enjoy the confusion involved? I’m not quite sure if this is intentionally unanswerable, or purposefully unanswerable, and it is also weird I never thought of this consideration before this moment.

I almost hesitate to write about this, and ask it aloud, cause as mentioned, my memory is a bit shit in terms of remembering quite a bit of the original, with only the big beats kind of remaining in my head, so some of what may be more concrete moments may be alluding me. What’s more is that even though I greatly enjoyed the Silent Hill games, I was never an ardent fan, so I didn’t spend time on forums, digging through interviews etc back in the day, so this kind of information may be common place for someone who’s been in the know for a long time now. I guess I’m wondering this aloud because I’m grasping at straws for more concrete subject matter to discuss, and wonder if there is any genuine value in even asking these questions about these issues.

I think this is related to my preponderance about how much of SH2R is fantasized about, vs how much of it is literal/actual reality? Half real, half hallucinated? Concerns in regards to where reality ends and fantasy begins? Cause there are allusions to the enemies and bosses being directly linked as inspirational amalgamations bleeding or projecting from the characters subconscious you meet within the game, thus we get a glimpse into the real possibility that Silent Hill is some kind of metaphysical conduit of sorts, where it is able to magnify the subconscious of individuals inhabiting the town, and making these fears, anxieties, nightmares etc manifested in the flesh, or seemingly so. The quote from that character in Silent Hill 3 (?), where he says “they look like monsters to you?”, would suggest there is not a shared reality among the denizens of Silent Hill. I realized that might be playing with fire, as it is from a future release, with ideas that may not have even been canonized as of the release of Silent Hill 2, but the conclusion to draw from that comment seems salient with what I posit.

I still haven’t landed on whether or not I’m happier with the notion that the landscape and it’s surroundings warp around the character physically, or if it exists in a bizarre place in spacetime, where it borders, say, either an actual hell dimension that affects the environment, or if the town itself is possessed or corrupted by something metaphysical. We know the citizens of Silent Hill practice occult magic on some level, as they are seen practicing as such in summoning demons in other games….would this entail a literal convergence of hell energy/and or an intersection of Hell as merely a physical entity with qualities that affect the populace, creating hallucinations? Where does it begin and end?

One of the curveballs in interpretating where on the physical/metaphysical spectrum the town falls in terms of literal nightmare vs imagined, and whatever inbetween state aside from that it may represent, with some variance of otherworldly powers literally bleeding into our world, is Pyramid Head himself. If we are to accept the notion that Silent Hill is an actual place in our real world, then Pyramid Head is an example of an entity that can travel between worlds. However, part of this curveball scenario is that we see a picture of Pyramid Head in the Historical Society. If this is suppose to be evidence of some executioner style individual in Silent Hills past, this still leaves questions about how much of him is reality vs fantasy. For example: I know I’ve been hearing forever that Pyramid Head is some kind of manifestation of James’ guilt involving the events of the game and his past, but I don’t think the game ever says that explicitly, and I do not know if that was the intent of the developer, a fan theory outside of the original intent, or a reality thrown down by Team Silent that fans picked up on. However, it remains inconclusive within the game, never being conclusively stated. And yet, this entity can manifest himself on a whim, and vanish at the same time, also resembling historical figures from SH’s past. What makes this even more bizarre is that you find Pyramid Head’s room at some point. So it’s like….this room? This is where he lives? He just hangs out here when not terrorizing James? This is a bizarre example of literal evidence of a being we are not quite certain of his physical form, how it substantiates, manifests, genuine origin, etc, but have some absurdist example of one of his physical places of “residence”, so to speak.

Some questions and more, which I know are suppose to remain ambiguous, as it is more in the style of Eastern horror to leave unanswered portions of reality related to the story itself. Part of the intent of this write up was pondering out loud, instead of just looking up whatever answers that do exist on a wiki somewhere, as it would have taken the fun out of the speculation, which is a lost art in this day and age of hyper immediate information gathering, thus ruining any mystery intended in such a process. Again, I’m sure fans in the know might be able to answer some of these questions, or are aware of parts of my curiosities as taken for granted information, but it is a pleasantly surprising moment of interest when I am able to be someone who enjoys media without being a scholar in the matter, which I do think is a constant issue in our current age. No one can just like something anymore, they have to have degrees related to the backstory, started some kind of side business involving the property, part of their identity totally entangled within the piece of media, etc. It’s uncommon to just enjoy something with some form of ignorance, or perhaps more accurately, as a passive enjoy-er, as opposed to some ardent purveyor in the realm.

In anycase, I suppose much like the subject material today, this line of thought was never going to have any kind of conclusive ending.

So it goes…

-Pashford