How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

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KingCrimson
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How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by KingCrimson »

Is it stated or implied anywhere in the game or in the secondary material coming from the game's creators that Alessa was intentionally burned as part of a cult ritual, or was that interpretation first made explicit in the opening to Origins?
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by alone in the town »

Silent Hill Official Guidebook Complete Edition wrote:Q: What was the cause of the fire that broke out seven years ago?
A: A ritual that Dahlia performed using Alessa.

Dahlia originally thought that Alessa would follow in her own footsteps as a spiritualistic
medium for the cult, but realized that the ritual would be far more likely to succeed if she
used her as the surrogate mother to bring about the descent of the cult's god. And so
seven years ago, Dahlia performed the technique to bring about the descent of the cult's
god using Alessa in the cellar of her own house. Although it seems the cult has a place
they use for rituals, Dahlia was confident that she would be able to summon the malevolent
deity if Alessa was the surrogate mother; therefore, as it was not necessary to choose a
location, she impulsively carried out the ritual in her own basement. The ritual process
involved a great deal of fire, which consequently escalated into a conflagration.
Incidentally,
there is information in the game about "six houses that burned down in the business district,"
but the actual site of the fire can't be located on the business district map. It seems the
houses were completely torn down during those seven years.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by KingCrimson »

I hadn't come across that! Who wrote it?
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by KingCrimson »

Not to belabor the point, but none of those links have any information about the author of that Q&A. Was it Owaku, Ito, someone from the development team?
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by AuraTwilight »

It's an official Konami publication; does it honestly matter? It was clearly written with the input of the game's writers.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by Kenji »

One of the most irritating aspects of gaming auteur theory (and/or worship) is the idea that everything springs from the fount of a single mind. It doesn't.

Gaming, more than any other medium, is a committee effort.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by alone in the town »

The copyright is listed as KCET, so whoever wrote it was either a member of Team Silent or speaking for the team.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by KingCrimson »

I'm curious now, because the Q&A section includes lines that indicate authorship ("Silent Hill is a town where nightmares become reality, so I want those who have played the game to take the truth to be whatever each of them feels is the most frightening."). I know the game isn't just written by one person, but I tend to trust whoever was involved in the game's creation at the time as authoritative. Konami also put their logo on the Bradygames guide, written by Dan Birlew, who got loads of stuff wrong in his original plot summary for the first game (writing under the GameFaqs username PresidentEvil). I'm not saying everything he says is therefore wrong, just suspect. By extension, I tend not to worry about 'canon' and whether something is official, I look at the games as artworks and want to know what the artists were trying to convey.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by alone in the town »

Konami may put their logo on strategy guides, but this was published by the company (actually, the specific development team who made the game), itself. Given this fact, I treat the information within as canon.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by KingCrimson »

Well, technically anything that Konami releases in the Silent Hill universe is canon, as Blaustein has said. I think it's a separate question of whether the canonical explanations are the same as the originally intended ones. It looks like you're correct about the Lost Memories book, however, so I'll tentatively accept it as authoritative, although it would be really awesome to have a specific "director's commentary" type of source specifically attributed to members of the dev team. Some of their differences in interpretation may be interesting.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by Kenji »

I suppose, but even a director or writer can change their mind as time goes on. In that case, which version of that person is right? The one who spoke immediately, or the one who spoke after long reflection? How much reflection is too much reflection? The list of complications is potentially endless.

At a certain point, you're gonna have to decide what "feels" right to you, and even that can change over time. Personally, I think we put too much emphasis on canon, and this ain't even the medieval Church, where there are real and painful consequences for getting it wrong.

Part of the point of it being ambiguous, in the first place, is to let the observer choose personally satisfactory details, because nobody knows how to satisfy you better than you. That's certainly a better reasoning (to my way of thinking) than indecisiveness or pure trollishness.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by KingCrimson »

I agree to a certain point, but there are correct interpretations and incorrect ones as well. Just as a silly example, Cheryl is not Harry's mother, even if interpreting the story that way is personally satisfactory to me.

The Bladerunner movie is a good example. Regarding Deckard's true identity, some prefer it to be left ambiguous and some don't. But the director says he filmed the whole movie with one specific answer in mind, and not any other. It's fine to enjoy any work of art on whatever level is appealing, but I think that information is valuable nonetheless.

In the case of Silent Hill, I think some of the details were never really fleshed out at the time of their creation. Personally, I don't think it's possible to construct an accurate mythology of the cult's beliefs, because there are no reliable primary sources. In one of TwinPerfect's rare moments of insight, they say that all of the notes and iconography from the third game could have been part of the revitalized cult's attempt to plaster over what happened in the first game. Vincent sure seems like the type to fabricate something like that. Between his opportunistic meddling with the cult's history, the secrecy of the cult itself, and the changes brought about as a result of Christian influence, I don't think one can get a definitive picture of what the cult's god actually is.

That's just an example. I see now that the ritual burning of Alessa is a little more well-supported, though.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by Trauma_ »

KingCrimson wrote: I see now that the ritual burning of Alessa is a little more well-supported, though.
I've never in a million years heard of a ritual sacrifice that involved fire but didn't involve any immolation of some sort. It would be much easier to burn down an entire neighborhood if you had lit someone on fire as opposed to just lighting a few torches.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by HeartlessBastard »

Ryantology wrote:
Silent Hill Official Guidebook Complete Edition wrote:Q: What was the cause of the fire that broke out seven years ago?
A: A ritual that Dahlia performed using Alessa.

Dahlia originally thought that Alessa would follow in her own footsteps as a spiritualistic
medium for the cult, but realized that the ritual would be far more likely to succeed if she
used her as the surrogate mother to bring about the descent of the cult's god. And so
seven years ago, Dahlia performed the technique to bring about the descent of the cult's
god using Alessa in the cellar of her own house. Although it seems the cult has a place
they use for rituals, Dahlia was confident that she would be able to summon the malevolent
deity if Alessa was the surrogate mother; therefore, as it was not necessary to choose a
location, she impulsively carried out the ritual in her own basement. The ritual process
involved a great deal of fire, which consequently escalated into a conflagration.
Incidentally,
there is information in the game about "six houses that burned down in the business district,"
but the actual site of the fire can't be located on the business district map. It seems the
houses were completely torn down during those seven years.
Well, that dosen't say that Alessa was intetionally burned. I says that it involved a grat deal of fire, but never says that the fire need to be in the mother of God. Dosen't make much sense to me to burn the vessel of God ._.
I still think that the fire was accidental, something to do with a boiler and Alessa's power out of control, due to her stress during the ritual. Add that to the fire, and we get Alessa toast.
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by AuraTwilight »

Except the ritual is called an "Immolation ritual" in other parts of that same book.

And that the Mother of God needs to suffer.

And that they tried the process multiple times but all the previous girls burned to death.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by The Adversary »

>Except the ritual is called an "Immolation ritual" in other parts of that same book.<
Is it . . . ?
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by AuraTwilight »

I'm pretty sure. I might be misremembering one of Burning Man's translation dumps. In any case, I think I recall it being called such in SH4 either way, so worst case scenario we have a retcon.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by The Adversary »

After so long, it's hard to trust memory alone. . . .
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Re: How do we know that Alessa was burned intentionally?

Post by HeartlessBastard »

I don't remember this Immolation Ritual thing at all.
Sure it's from SH4? There is a memo in the third game about a immolation ritual, but it's a sacrificial ritual involving only the high members, I recall, nothing to do with the "mother of god" thing. I also do not remember ever reading about other girls being burned. I know some were used in the ritual but failed.
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