Comparison to Silent Hill: No Escape (spoilers for both)

[AuraTwilight]

"Raised" was the wrong word. I meant to convey his having been to Silent Hill in his childhood. I wasn't sure if he was raised there or just visiting his mother.

One possible trait Travis may have had that was integral to Alessa using him was his ability to travel between worlds through mirrors. It might be that not anyone could do that, at least at the time of the game's events. Travis' mother, specifically, said that she had the same ability. If Travis inherited that trait, and it was a unique trait, then that might bring us out of the realm of happenstance.

Alessa's tutorial made it pretty obvious, to me, that she gave Travis the ability to travel through mirrors, given that she also made the two worlds he travels through, he's the conduit for her power, and she deliberately orchestrated elements of the Otherworld to tie into Travis's path. Helen Grady was probably just a nutjob, and Alessa played on the mirror world delusion of hers.

Besides, it's not like Alessa would NEED someone to naturally possess world-hopping powers, as the natural powers of Silent Hill itself, along with her own psychic powers, make this easy enough. Occam's Razor, activate.

[LastGunslinger]

I'll buy that she may have allowed Travis to travel through the mirrors, although I find it more interesting and equally plausible to think that he possessed the ability, like his mother, and didn't know about it. Alessa was never an orchestrator in the games; after seven years of existing in her nightmare world, getting to know its ins and outs, she was still outsmarted by Dahlia in SH1; her behaviour indicates a more "run and hide" personality type. I think she latched onto Travis so he could help her, and his own demons and memories (as well as hers) got in the way.

Remember, even though Alessa is intelligent and powerful, and even though the US developers played up the "creepy girl" angle with her a bit much, she is a traumatised little girl with very little experience in the world in which she finds herself. Forcing a man to go through personal trials in order to somehow prepare him for a final ordeal that foils the plans of the cult is expecting a bit much out of such a mind.

[Harrys_Girl]

What about the police report note? The one in which Mrs. Grady tried to turn her house into a gas chamber for her and her son?

I am not sure it was a Silent Hill Police report, but if it was, that would explain why they were in a hotel. That was the day she was checked into the assylum, and the day the checked into the hotel, is memory serves.

And that would explain why they did not "just go home, if they lived in Silent Hill".

[AuraTwilight]

I'll buy that she may have allowed Travis to travel through the mirrors, although I find it more interesting and equally plausible to think that he possessed the ability, like his mother, and didn't know about it.

It's not really "equally plausible" due to Occam's Razor. Alessa directly demonstrates control over both worlds that Travis travels through, shows him how to travel mirrors, and can even control when he does it if she has to. Plus, in the ending and the opening of the game, she manifests via mirrors. Not to mention his first transportation has Travis touching Alessa's handprint. SHE'S the one with the power, not Travis. She got the idea from Travis's mother, who had no powers and was just batshit crazy.

Alessa was never an orchestrator in the games; after seven years of existing in her nightmare world, getting to know its ins and outs, she was still outsmarted by Dahlia in SH1; her behaviour indicates a more "run and hide" personality type. I think she latched onto Travis so he could help her, and his own demons and memories (as well as hers) got in the way.

She may have been defeated, but how is she not an orchestrator? Orchestrating is what she DOES! She summons Travis and turns him into her conduit, manipulating the world around him in order to regain her power and the Flauros so she can stop the Birthing. Failing that, she splits her soul in half and hides it, making sure that Dahlia couldn't find it. She then creates another world and traps all of her enemies, kills most of them, and keeps the rest occupied with monsters while she uses the Seal of Metatron to try and seal the entire town in the fucking Abyss to defeat God once and for all. Then, when she's reincarnated, she, as Heather's memory, controls most of the monsters to try and kill Heather/herself and foil Claudia's plot.

To say she's not orchestrating things is to completely ignore the fact that she created and controls the Otherworld in three out of five games.

Remember, even though Alessa is intelligent and powerful, and even though the US developers played up the "creepy girl" angle with her a bit much, she is a traumatised little girl with very little experience in the world in which she finds herself. Forcing a man to go through personal trials in order to somehow prepare him for a final ordeal that foils the plans of the cult is expecting a bit much out of such a mind.

How so? That's CLEARLY what she does. Just because she's inexperienced, scared, and traumatized doesn't mean she's not a powerful being who holds most of the cards. The first two games in the series are essentially a big chess match between Alessa and Dahlia.

[LastGunslinger]

So, you're saying she clearly orchestrated events because she clearly orchestrated events? That's circular reasoning. There's just as much evidence to substantiate my claim as yours; I don't see Alessa as a master puppeteer at all, but as a victim. I have never gotten that impression in the many times I have played each game in the series, and I don't see any evidence to convince me to that effect.

Also, Occam's Razor specifically discourages elaborate conspiracy theories with a central character controlling everything in the background. Otherwise, the simplest explanation of any event would be "God did it." The idea of Alessa orchestrating everything is, in practice, a very complex explanation; it's just easy to say. The complexity of the story arises from simple interactions and events.

In other words, the simplest explanation is not one explanation that is easy to write off without evidence, but a long series of explanations simple in themselves.

[AuraTwilight]

So, you're saying she clearly orchestrated events because she clearly orchestrated events? That's circular reasoning.

It's not circular reasoning if it's clearly shown to you. We KNOW Alessa does all the things I described, and she did have enough foresight to fit the dictionary definition of "orchestrate".

I don't see Alessa as a master puppeteer at all, but as a victim. I have never gotten that impression in the many times I have played each game in the series, and I don't see any evidence to convince me to that effect.

I agree she's a victim, but not a HELPLESS victim. She's a cornered dog that started biting back and gave herself more room.

Also, Occam's Razor specifically discourages elaborate conspiracy theories with a central character controlling everything in the background.

That's nice. Who said anything about conspiracies? Aside from the obvious conspiracy of the Order.

The idea of Alessa orchestrating everything is, in practice, a very complex explanation; it's just easy to say. The complexity of the story arises from simple interactions and events.

Saying Alessa orchestrated events isn't the same as saying she orchestrated EVERYTHING, and it's certainly not what I or anyone else is saying.

[LastGunslinger]

>>She summons Travis and turns him into her conduit, manipulating the world around him in order to regain her power and the Flauros so she can stop the Birthing.

There is no indication that she summoned him or turned him into anything. He woke up in Silent Hill, and she found him. She led him around town looking for the Flauros, yes, but that's the only specific indication of any kind of plan. We can suppose further involvement, but we do not know for a fact.

>> Failing that, she splits her soul in half and hides it, making sure that Dahlia couldn't find it.

There is no indication that this was a conscious decision rather than reflex action, although the distinction may be irrelevant in this case.

>> She then creates another world and traps all of her enemies, kills most of them, and keeps the rest occupied with monsters...

While her mind definitely shapes her reality in Silent Hill, there's no indication that she consciously traps her enemies; it could be that they were trapped by the nature of the world itself, which had gone out of control.

>> ...while she uses the Seal of Metatron to try and seal the entire town in the fucking Abyss to defeat God once and for all.

While we can assume she was doing something with the Seal, we don't know for a fact her specific intentions. All the Book of Lost Memories states on the subject is she attempts to escape from Dahlia and destroy herself. I believe the Seal of Metatron was supposed to primarily be protective, but had multiple undefined uses.

>> Then, when she's reincarnated, she, as Heather's memory, controls most of the monsters to try and kill Heather/herself and foil Claudia's plot.

We know the Memory of Alessa tries to kill Heather for this reason, but even if she were the one who characterised the darkness in SH3 (which I don't necessarily believe it was, and the BoLM only hints at that idea as far as I can see) that still doesn't mean she controls every element of it.

There is a lot of flexibility in interpretation here; thus, very little is clearly shown in the game. That's what makes it interesting.

Also, this has gone way off topic. In response to Krysta, the one big thing that reminded me of No Escape was the ending in which the protagonist realised he was a serial killer. Of course, the comparable revelation with Travis only occurs during the "bad" ending, but it is still very similar.

[AuraTwilight]

There is no indication that she summoned him or turned him into anything. He woke up in Silent Hill, and she found him. She led him around town looking for the Flauros, yes, but that's the only specific indication of any kind of plan. We can suppose further involvement, but we do not know for a fact.

...are you kidding me? It's specifically said, with IN-GAME DIALOGUE, that Alessa made Travis into her conduit, and since she controls the Otherworld Travis is travelling through, and since she can warp him around at will, and since it's explicitly revealed that she's the one digging up Travis's past, it's very obvious she summoned him.

Quit being stubborn.

There is no indication that this was a conscious decision rather than reflex action, although the distinction may be irrelevant in this case.

Good point, but since the Flauros amplified thought, she had to atleast have been THINKING of soul-splitting.

While her mind definitely shapes her reality in Silent Hill, there's no indication that she consciously traps her enemies; it could be that they were trapped by the nature of the world itself, which had gone out of control.

The cosmology shown to us in the series makes it fairly clear that by default, people are drawn into their own Otherworlds. If you wind up in someone else's (instead of merely bleeding over with someone else's, like in SH2), it is a deliberate action, as shown in SH3 and SH4 already. Why should Alessa, a psychic who's demonstrated conscious control of the Otherworld, be any different?

While we can assume she was doing something with the Seal, we don't know for a fact her specific intentions. All the Book of Lost Memories states on the subject is she attempts to escape from Dahlia and destroy herself. I believe the Seal of Metatron was supposed to primarily be protective, but had multiple undefined uses.

It's been factually elaborated that Alessa was using the Seal to destroy her self and take God, and her Otherworld, with her. The rare time Dahlia wasn't COMPLETELY bullshitting, I suppose.

We know the Memory of Alessa tries to kill Heather for this reason, but even if she were the one who characterised the darkness in SH3 (which I don't necessarily believe it was, and the BoLM only hints at that idea as far as I can see) that still doesn't mean she controls every element of it.

Well duh. I'm only saying she controls the non-human monsters, though, which is true. Stop taking things a step further than I'm trying to in order to counterpoint, it's a strawman.

[The Adversary]

>we don't know for a fact her specific intentions.
Maybe you don't.

Q: What is the Seal of Metatron?
A: It's like a spell of annihilation.

What Alessa was actually creating was the Seal of Metatron. Its name is derived from the name of an angel of release in the Kabbalistic system. Bound by the cult's spell and living in an endless nightmare in agony, Alessa's wish was for a complete death. Since she was unable to die in a normal fashion while under the influence of the power of the malevolent deity, Alessa intended to "annihilate" herself by the power of the Seal of Metatron with the nightmare world at hand. At the moment Cheryl and Alessa united, she gained the power to escape from the cult's spell; at the same time, the technique that brought about the descent of the cult's god succeeded and the malevolent deity resumed its maturation process. This time, Alessa was engaged in a struggle, a race between the malevolent god's maturation and the seal's completion. If the seal were to be completed, Harry, Cybil, Dahlia and the others would all be annihilated along with Alessa.

[LastGunslinger]

I'm not being stubborn for the sake of stubbornness; I honestly don't see where these "facts" are coming from. I've played the games, I've (grudgingly, I admit) read the outside sources that have been accepted as canon. I've followed these games and the theories surrounding them for years. I am by no means stupid, nor do I lack for reading comprehension. In spite of all this, I have no idea what some of you are talking about half the time, yet speak as if it were plain as day.

The only conclusion I've been able to come to is that many of you are confusing subtext with fact, or you selectively interpret some things revealed by dialogue as literal while others are regarded as red herrings or outright lies.

It is good to extrapolate, and even build a framework of understanding based on extrapolation, and in many cases I agree with your extrapolations, just not that they should be regarded as fact.

Are these ideas dogmatically defended from a desire to have a single unified explanation of the storyline? I don't believe there needs to be one, which might be the main point of contention here. I'm just frustrated by the citation of evidence that is not factual, or if it is factual is not specifically related as such in the storylines of the games.

[The Adversary]

>I'm not being stubborn for the sake of stubbornness
You do a pretty good job at it, then.

>I'm just frustrated by the citation of evidence that is not factual
Case in point. The supplementary material from which these citations derive are factual and canon. Disputing them w/out reason is arrogance.

[LastGunslinger]

I am not disputing the supplementary material, though, as far as I know. As much as it annoys me to fact-check sources that I regard as sloppy and simplistic, I still do it, to prevent the kind of arguments that are occurring in this thread. I have not found many facts, at least in the sources I am aware of, that support these claims. I see where information could make implications of some of these claims, but that does not make them facts.

If the list of canonical supplementary material has grown, please point me to it. I can't tell anymore from reading the threads what is fact, what is incorrectly accepted as fact, and what is pure speculation. I'm not going to take anyone's word for anything, because that would not make for a rigorous argument. I'm just getting very tired of having ideas quashed because my perception of the facts is different from more established members of the forum, especially when I try to respect standards of canonicity that I disagree with.