Casually walking away from a car wreck?

[Droo]

Ryan: I think it's a combination of both. It's real, but also being manipulated by Cheryl's insane telling of the tale.

The actions of the real people are being manipulated by the town interacting with Cheryl's telling.

As for Jimmy, I think that Harry called him, he started instructing him on how to operate the bridge, then the phone cut out. The voice mail instructing him is not real. It's too convenient and arrives quicker than it would take to dial him, get his voice mail, and leave the message. Harry returns from the bridge room, tells Michelle there's no one there, and she leaves. He then takes a dip.

[AuraTwilight]

The actions of the real people are being manipulated by the town interacting with Cheryl's telling.

Why?

As for Jimmy, I think that Harry called him, he started instructing him on how to operate the bridge, then the phone cut out. The voice mail instructing him is not real. It's too convenient and arrives quicker than it would take to dial him, get his voice mail, and leave the message. Harry returns from the bridge room, tells Michelle there's no one there, and she leaves. He then takes a dip.

Occam's Razor. If we're going to knock out one part of Jimmy Capra's existence, we might as well take a full swing. Besides, why is Jimmy Capra asleep (with children that apparently only exist depending on Cheryl's profile) during what is approximately mid-afternoon if Kauffman's office is any indication?

Trying to justify the existence of these characters is too sloppy and messy, requiring a bunch of asspulls and unfounded justifications to make it work. I'm sorry.

[alone in the town]

But, Doc basically puts paid to any idea that this story shares anything but the most tenuous links to reality, said tenuous links being the snippets of info that are actually windows into Cheryl's real past. I thought it was pretty obvious that DADDY QUEST GAIDEN was a complete fabrication.

I mean, Harry gets into a car accident which, in reality, killed him. The fabricated narrative begins here, creating a complete point of divergence with actual events right from the start, and thus none of it, at least in how it relates to Harry Mason, can possibly be real.

I can't really conceive how the inverse could be true.

[ww_andi]

what i dont understand is why ppl are finding the need to come up with skecthy and far fetched theories such as this

[Harrys_Girl]

Well, almost: At least this Cybil didn't hand over her sidearm to an untrained civilian in what appears to be a disaster situation.

I hear that automatically make the untrained civilian a deputy sheriff. Hmmm...

As I've stated before, I believe everything (outside of Kaufman's office) in SH:SM is a complete fabrication. Nothing is real so if New!Harry wants to get up and walk away from a car crash to keep Cheryl from having to create, explain and narrate the actions of unnecessary emergency works, then by golly, he shall walk away unharmed, unscathed and unscratched.

[AuraTwilight]

what i dont understand is why ppl are finding the need to come up with skecthy and far fetched theories such as this

I don't understand why you have to make criticizing, unproductive flamebait posts that contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion.

[AlexShepherd555]

Well, not everything in a silent hill game is realistic, example if I shoot someone's weapon in silent hill homecoming, say one of the order member's steel pipes or his gun or curits' circular saw the bullet doesn't hit the steel weapon then explode into tiny shrapnel damaging the wielder of the weapon or even case the wielder to drop the weapon. What happens? They get shot in the hand/arm... Also the underwater car part in SH:SM is unrealistic... I mean try opening a window underwater when the pressure isn't equalized it ain't gonna budge... I don't think video games are suppose to be realistic

[AuraTwilight]

You're comparing the gameplay mechanics to storyline elements, dude. Not quite the same. There's a difference between an enemy not dropping a gun and...you know, the dialogue and behavior of cutscene characters.

[AlexShepherd555]

Oh right sorry, well if it's the behavior and dialogue of the cutscene characters how about Dr. Kaufmann shooting harry almost point blank in the chest in SH1 and after he does that Harry saying "stop don't shoot"... why pick on shattered memories? I'm sure there are lots of out of place behavior and dialogue in all of the SH games.

[AuraTwilight]

We're not "picking" on Shattered Memories, and they're also not comparable.

The Kauffman scene is Kauffman...shooting at Harry and missing, and Harry tells him to stop and calm down. What's so weird about that?

Anyway, the point is that the developers of Shattered Memories WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY to have the characters behave weirdly, such as Lisa asking about Cheryl, even though Harry doesn't mention her.

[AlexShepherd555]

When have silent hill characters ever behaved normally? James murdered his wife and forgot about it, Cheryl had her fair share of the craziness in SH1, Eddie was a nutball going trigger happy with a revolver because people stared at him oddly. Lisa was really a monster all along or something and bled all over for some weird reason... Dahlia is well dahlia... Alex was a mental patient well most people in SHH were odd, sacrificing their kids? Yeah I think the point is to make the characters behave weirdly in a Silent Hill game...

[alone in the town]

AuraTwilight's point isn't the sanity characters display--a nutcase forms his or her own context and acts within it.

What he's saying about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is that the characters often act outside of common narrative logic. They tend to break contexts previously established. Their actual behavior itself isn't altogether unusual, and the point is that you question Harry's sanity rather than those around him.

[AlexShepherd555]

Harry seems to react sanely in SM I would probably react similarly and a lot of the reason that he seems to be changing a lot is to do with the way you play the game and the answers you give mike. So yeah that would make you question his sanity I guess but still it's just a video game I guess.

[AuraTwilight]

....Yes...we know.

The point is that the characters contradict themselves, as if the script was broken, or something. It's comparable to how Maria in SH2 kept coming back to life and exhibiting incorrect memories. In a similar vein, characters like Cybil and Michelle are taking you farther and farther away from where Cheryl is, they disappear and reappear as if by magic, they keep knowing things they shouldn't know and not knowing things they should, etc.

This has absolutely nothing to do with sanity or insanity. Reality is just outright broken.

[AlexShepherd555]

Yeah SM is the only Silent Hill game that goes over the top to break the laws of the universe in an insane way I agree with you there.

[AuraTwilight]

...Er, no, that's not what I was saying at all.

[AlexShepherd555]

...Er, no, that's not what I was saying at all.

Yeah I know, and I agree. You're talking about Michelle being replaced by Dahlia and her talking to Harry like she's known him her whole life etc etc.

[AuraTwilight]

...*sigh*

[AlexShepherd555]

And when Dahlia dies in the car that's underwater and later on she mysteriously reappears and doesn't notice Harry that well until he mentions Cheryl and is talking face to face with her?

[simeonalo]

Harry's badass like that. He can walk away from car crashes as if nothing happened-and even lure beautiful nurses away from the wreck, even though he knows that the nurse probably needs medication, and that he will probably overdose her on pills, and that probably she will die from bleeding from every orifice and that Cybil will probably suspect him and try to shoot him, though probaaaaably the world will freeze over and that the game turns out to be all in Cheryl's mind.

Probably.