Canon or no?

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Edea
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by Edea »

Actually I'm really curious about what it says about canon and the sources, I have English class in college so I could probably use this, lol.

I see, but aren't you arguing that Origins is not canon? I'm kind of confused. I know you had stated you didn't believe it was canon on Silent Hill Talk a few years and I thought you still maintained this position?

I confess I did not read all the posts in the thread, especially the mass e-debates because I can lose track quit easily.
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The Adversary
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by The Adversary »

Burning Man's argument is basically what I've been saying for ages now: The developers/writers don't decide what's canon. The people reading and applying and interpreting the material do. My parallel has always been Christianity. The authors Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John didn't decide when they wrote their gospels "This is canon." It wasn't until the Council of Carthage that an "official" biblical canon was established, three centuries after the authors' deaths. Even the very first biblical canon, Marcion's canon, wasn't established until about 70 years after the first gospel (Mark) was written, and the canon more resembling what we have now, the Muratorian, wasn't established until a century after the Gospel of Mark was written.
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alone in the town
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by alone in the town »

That parallel is problematic. God did not write any of the books of the Bible, nor did he ever come down and clarify its disputed content. Biblical canon must be determined by its interpreters because they have no other choice.

Works of fiction are written by people who can communicate their intent. There's none of the ambiguity of a God who never says anything and probably doesn't exist. If a creator of a fictional work says "this is so", what is it but arrogant to tell them they are wrong?

Burning Man's argument is an attempt to disenfranchise a game on the strength of the weakest sort of technicality, because apparently, we cannot suffer a poor game within a series we like. We must excise it and pretend it never happened.
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by The Adversary »

>God did not write any of the books of the Bible<
You're right. I never said otherwise. The authors of the Christian Scriptures were human, writing their versions of stories they'd been told and read. Climax interpreted the material it was given and had available—the previous games, the supplementary material—and produced their version of what happened before it. To make a similar parallel, the Gospel of Matthew was written about a decade after the Gospel of Mark, and used Mark (and something called the 'Q' source) as a basis for its own narrative. Mark and Matthew share many similarities, even identical passages, but also have numerous, and significant, variations, due to Matthew's different interpretations of the events Mark wrote.

So, the Gospel of Mark is SILENT HILL; the Gospel of Matthew is SILENT HILL: ORIGINS. The authors used their interpretation of SILENT HILL to create ORIGINS.
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alone in the town
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by alone in the town »

Unlike those who decided which books to include in biblical canon, Climax had the opportunity to communicate with those who created and inspired the works. They did not have to make any assumptions.

As I seem to have to repeat, if whatever members of Team Silent with whom Climax discussed their game found that the very concept of Silent Hill: Origins contradicted their vision, no doubt they would have said something. It would seem this either was not the case, or Team Silent didn't think think it made any real difference if the otherworld manifestations began with the events of the first game or if they were possible beforehand. And, if they didn't think it was important, why should we?
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by Cyrus Hanley »

What, no discussion on the "summoning spell"?
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AuraTwilight
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by AuraTwilight »

What ABOUT it?
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by Cyrus Hanley »

AuraTwilight wrote:What ABOUT it?
:shock:

I... I would think th-that p-people would be angry about it.

Please don't hurt me. D:
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by AuraTwilight »

I'm just asking for you to be more specific, I'm not angry.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Cyrus Hanley
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by Cyrus Hanley »

AuraTwilight wrote:I'm just asking for you to be more specific, I'm not angry.
I know, I just thought I'd play along. :lol:

Anyway, this thread brought up the discrepancies between Book of Lost Memories and Origins. One major discrepancy between the two is the explanation for why Cheryl was called to Silent Hill. Book of Lost Memories says, "In order to escape Dahlia's control, [Alessa] calls out to Cheryl, her other self (7 years old at the time) to return."

At the end of Origins, however, there is the following conversation:

Kaufmann: "Half the soul is lost. The seed lies dormant."
Dahlia: "The other half is not lost. We'll use a summoning spell. Hearing her pain, it is sure to come."
Kaufmann: "It will take time."
Dahlia: "We can wait."

That retcon seems a lot more significant and context-altering than whether or not Alessa was immolated in the basement or the second floor of the Gillespie House.
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by Soulless-Shadow »

Cyrus Hanley wrote:
AuraTwilight wrote:I'm just asking for you to be more specific, I'm not angry.
I know, I just thought I'd play along. :lol:

Anyway, this thread brought up the discrepancies between Book of Lost Memories and Origins. One major discrepancy between the two is the explanation for why Cheryl was called to Silent Hill. Book of Lost Memories says, "In order to escape Dahlia's control, [Alessa] calls out to Cheryl, her other self (7 years old at the time) to return."

At the end of Origins, however, there is the following conversation:

Kaufmann: "Half the soul is lost. The seed lies dormant."
Dahlia: "The other half is not lost. We'll use a summoning spell. Hearing her pain, it is sure to come."
Kaufmann: "It will take time."
Dahlia: "We can wait."

That retcon seems a lot more significant and context-altering than whether or not Alessa was immolated in the basement or the second floor of the Gillespie House.
*attempts to rationalize the retcon in context of the story*
Perhaps both worked together to bring Cheryl to Silent Hill? For example, if it was just the one method/calling, then it may have taken Cheryl longer to go, but because both sort of worked together it happened a lot sooner. /attempting to rationalize a developer's oversight with conjecture.
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by mikefile »

^ Dahlia opressed Alessa so she could invoke Cheryl. Because of the suffering inflicted by Dahlia, Alessa, desperate and hurt, wants to escape her by calling back Cheryl. Alessa is calling Cheryl in order to escape Dahlia, but doesn't know that if Dahlia pulls it off right at the right moment, she instantly becomes the source of use and escape is not an option. There's really no much retconning as much as it regards this issue.
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by Soulless-Shadow »

mikefile wrote:^ Dahlia opressed Alessa so she could invoke Cheryl. Because of the suffering inflicted by Dahlia, Alessa, desperate and hurt, wants to escape her by calling back Cheryl. Alessa is calling Cheryl in order to escape Dahlia, but doesn't know that if Dahlia pulls it off right at the right moment, she instantly becomes the source of use and escape is not an option. There's really no much retconning as much as it regards this issue.
Yes, but a "summoning spell" is a little different than saying "we'll oppresses Alessa and make her suffer so that she calls out to her other half, blah, blah, blah."
"Summoning" suggests that they are doing something slightly different than making Alessa suffer and wait for her to call out, such as simply calling Cheryl themselves (perhaps somehow using Alessa in the spell as well).
We were told in SH1 that Alessa called Cheryl because of her pain and suffering, and while I admit the details of which weren't given, it is still a bit of a retcon to go from "Alessa called out because of pain/suffering" to "we'll summon her ourselves".
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by mikefile »

Kaufmann: "Half the soul is lost. The seed lies dormant."
Dahlia: "The other half is not lost. We'll use a summoning spell. Hearing her pain, it is sure to come."
Kaufmann: "It will take time."
Dahlia: "We can wait."
Soulless-Shadow wrote:it is still a bit of a retcon to go from "Alessa called out because of pain/suffering" to "we'll summon her ourselves".
I think that the two adjudgements you just stated are present in the final SHO dialogue. Dahlia sais they'll use a summoning spell. And right after states that Cheryl will come after hearing her pain, not that Cheryl will come after they summon her.

They will use a summoning spell that will use Alessa's pain for the invocation. The summoning is the mediator between the girl's suffering and Cheryl. The whole calling thing is not all Alessa. There's the spell in between.
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by AuraTwilight »

Except Alessa isn't divided yet during that summoning scene in Origins. The general assumption seems to be that they're trying to summon the deity out of her early since Alessa's being all uppity.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by mikefile »

^ I'm sorry. I'm not following you. How is Alessa not divided during the final scene?
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by AuraTwilight »

She's divided after you defeat the final boss, and given that the ritual was disrupted by Travis showing up previously, I'm not sure it count as part of the 'summoning scene' we're shown from BEFORE the boss fight.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by mikefile »

^ You completely misunderstood me. It's my fault- when I say summoning scene- I refer to the conversation in the end (because it's about summoninng the other half of the soul). That's why I also quoted the dialogue between Dahlia and Kauffman.
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by AuraTwilight »

Alright, so remind me again how the 'summoning ritual' is apparently a plothole, or why you brought it up in the first place? I'm confused now.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: Canon or no?

Post by mikefile »

^ And the confusion keeps on going. AuraTwilight, I never said the 'summoning ritual' was a plothole. In contraire, I was against the retcon/plothole issue as I am constantly giving arguments against it. Did you even read the previous eight posts?
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