alone in the town wrote:Burning Man suggests that the events will repeat, ad infinitum, until the Good+ ending is achieved. You mention it being Good. It is likely you can take any of the endings and attribute to it the status of being the one which breaks the cycle. The only problem is, if there is a loop, what makes any individual ending the loop-breaker? Why would, for instance, Good+ break the loop when no other outcome would?
Good+, if anything, seems to suggest a continuation of looping time rather than a halting of it, since the final scene with Harry and Cybil perfectly emulates the scene with Harry and his wife.
I also think that GOOD+ necessitates the continuation of the loop, hence why I referred to it as the "longest way back [to the diner booth]." The presentation of the last scene, as well as Cybil's replacement of Mrs. Mason in the opening sequence, contributes to this idea.
However, for the comparison to hold, the "GOOD+ Loop" also requires Harry and Cybil to leave Silent Hill for seven years, that Cheryl be raised by them, for Harry to be left a widower, and finally for Harry and Cheryl to return to Silent Hill and repeat the whole cycle again. They're still in the loop, it's just that the loop is longer and its orbit "wider."
An astronomical analogy would be Nemesis, the hypothetical (if it can even be called that) partner star to the Sun that has an orbital period of some few thousand years. Compared to the planets, which also orbit the Sun, its orbit is extremely elliptical, but it orbits all the same. Likewise, the "GOOD+ Loop" with respect to the "BAD Loop" or the "Harry Gets Stabbed To Death In Midwich Loop."
By that logic, Cybil can be outside of Silent Hill, yet still be a part of the time loop and not be free from it: She dies outside, as she must for Harry to reenter the town a widower, and restarts the loop in Silent Hill.
The reason I call GOOD the loop-breaker is because it leads to
Silent Hill 3 without referencing, in the ending cinema or opening sequence, another loop. However, having said that, let's consider the concept of a widely elliptical orbit again: Harry still dies on the GOOD track, just seventeen years later. All of the other prospective loops are completed by Harry dying: Even in the "GOOD+ Loop," he comes back to Silent Hill and presumably dies in that alleyway.
Is it inconceivable, given what I just said about Cybil, that he would then awaken on the diner booth all over again?
Hell is repetition, indeed.
Touching upon the deja vu aspect, there are really only two branches in which you, the player, are able to significantly alter the outcome, which would imply that these are the events he 'remembers', and is able to change, whereas everything else is predetermined. Why these two factors, when there are arguably other factors which would be far more important for him to remember (such as Dahlia's lying or the truth about his daughter)?
I inserted the deja vu concept to account for the fact that Harry says the same things in all of the cinemas, no matter how many times you select Next Fear from the memory card. However, there's something else to consider, and it's rather tricky because it requires taking the situation of Silent Hill, which is presented as an issue of game design, at face value. That is to say that Harry, even if deja vu would give him pause whenever Dahlia opens her mouth, has no choice but to follow her lead because there's nowhere else to go.
Now, I've never done this, but is it actually possible to go to the Balkan Church without clearing Midwich Elementary? If it isn't, what stops Harry? Are there locked doors, craters, or a feeling of inevitability on Harry's part (e.g. "I must check the school")? No matter what, because of Cheryl's notes and whatever keeps him from advancing, even if he (and the player) know that Cheryl isn't actually there, Harry must still search Midwich Elementary.
EDIT: I remember now. There's a locked door in K. Gordon's house.
Let's say that Harry goes to the Balkan Church and refuses to cooperate with Dahlia. Let's say he even tries to attack her, which may or may not work (what with Dahlia knowing magic and all that rot), what then? Either she kills him and he returns to the diner booth, or he can't advance beyond a certain point (the Green Lion Antique Shop), dies when Alessa finishes her Armageddon, and returns to the diner booth.
Like it or not, going along with Dahlia and letting the Flauros wreck Alessa is the only way for Harry to approach Cheryl and, by extension, an exit. Neither the game nor plot present any other viable alternative. Even foreknowledge can't help him, because there is no singular location where Cheryl is being kept that Harry can learn and attempt to access in subsequent loops.
Why is Cybil's survival necessary?
It really isn't, except to serve the role of Mrs. Mason in the prospective "GOOD+ Loop." Even then, it isn't "survival" in a satisfactory sense, because she's still subject to the time loop. However, it is a "solution" that allows her to leave Silent Hill and die outside, from a linear time perspective, even if she doesn't really "leave" at all. Of course, the same rules must apply to Harry, which means that even he doesn't truly escape: His path back to the diner is just longer than hers, under certain circumstances.
Of course, if you apply this concept even wider, James could leave Silent Hill with Laura, die of old age, and then suddenly find himself staring in that mirror off the side of the highway. Would that count as leaving, if he lives a whole life afterwards, or not?