Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Murphy's been a bad boy ...

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sgillespie31
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by sgillespie31 »

I think that's a good theory to want to believe... (anne's anger or the void chasing murphy because he is a monster) but i don't think it has enough merit all things considered.
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Wigeke
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by Wigeke »

The Adversary wrote:I also thought the "aristocrat" was supposed to be J.P.
Looks like Tomm Hulett confirmed that here.
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Aerith Gainsborough
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by Aerith Gainsborough »

^I saw that. It's pretty interesting. I didn't notice all of the coins in the carts like Tomm mentioned, so that's definitely something I'm going to look for next time.
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wonder's boy
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by wonder's boy »

Did anybody else find it interesting that the same crazy noises go off every time you evade the Void and it gets trapped behind a magic wall? It almost sounds like an angry dinosaur, gargled and mixed with other sounds of rage. It just further influences my belief that the Void represents Murphy's rage, vengeance, guilt and any other negative emotion/thought/belief tied to his relationships with Sewell, Frank, Napier and others in his past. I know people like to link the Void to the quote from Frank somewhere in the game, the one about the sun and revenge consuming a person, but I like to think a bit more broadly.

Like the Void (or that part of Murphy that wants so badly to give into revenge or would have wanted to wholeheartedly) gets extremely angry that it can't consume him. Through evading the Void, Murphy gets the chance to put his own negativity into the can versus himself being put behind bars.

The same thing could be said about the Void representing Anne's rage - the freakish noise could represent her repressed feelings for wanting Murphy to cease to exist, which is pretty much what happens when the Void gets you.

Anyway, I thought the noise the Void makes when evaded spoke a lot for what it's supposed to represent, as well as it's appearance and relation to quotes/characters in the game. It may not even be the Void making that noise - I just got a strong impression that it was related to it heavily.
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KiramidHead
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by KiramidHead »

^I noticed that too. It gets better when you escape the Void in the Centennial Building. You fall through the floor after seeing the Bogeyman in front of you. I can only guess that the Void and the Bogeyman got into an epic throwdown in that part.
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by Thommy Razor »

That noise sounds almost identical to the sound in Hellraiser 2 when Kirsty and "Tiffany" escape the labyrinth, as the wall seals up behind them. Same squealy-dinosaur scream thing.
Huh. Radio. Whats going on with that radio?
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wonder's boy
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by wonder's boy »

God I love that angry dinosaur sound. It freaked me the HECK out when I first heard it. I get chills thinking about it! Now I'll have to look into the Hellraiser series just to hear that noise...
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by RinoTheBouncer »

I'd give the

gameplay 9/10
music 9/10
puzzles 9.5/10
re-play value 10/10
monsters 0/10

The monsters had nothing to do with the whole game.

Screamers? the whole game has screamers scattered everywhere as if there are no other things to symbolize. And what do they symbolize? pain? agony? well in that case, every Silent Hill game should have them cuz each SH game had pain, agony and suffering as the main ingredient.

Weeping Bats? they don't even feel like bats, more like monkeys and they're just a silly design, low polygon count and absolutely have nothing to do with confinement. They would only fit if they want to symbolize Murphy learning parkour lol :P

The Doll, okay that's a whole story ... the first impression we had is in the library when we see one doll lying on a chair and Murphy commented "Now someone has some special interests" (or something similar) and the doll has lipstick or blood around it's mouth, the only thing I could come up with is sexually abusing a women or S&M. It's pretty misleading, maybe the shadows can refer to revenge but it's more like the ones whom he raped are trying to take revenge from him while the entire story had nothing to do with women except for his wife and it wasn't something sexual at all.

The Postman (Howard): Probably the most interesting character beside Murphy the game and the sad thing is that he only appears 3 times (I guess) and we never see him again nor he explains what he's got to do with all this. I guess he was such a mysterious figure just like Dark Alessa from SH movie which was really amazing.

It makes me feel like the whole game had a whole different story but was changed in the last few moments and they kept the monsters like this.
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by AuraTwilight »

The monsters had nothing to do with the whole game.
That is patently not true.
Screamers? the whole game has screamers scattered everywhere as if there are no other things to symbolize. And what do they symbolize? pain? agony? well in that case, every Silent Hill game should have them cuz each SH game had pain, agony and suffering as the main ingredient.
How about Carol Pendelton? How about the spirits of Silent Hill no longer being silent?
Weeping Bats? they don't even feel like bats, more like monkeys and they're just a silly design, low polygon count and absolutely have nothing to do with confinement. They would only fit if they want to symbolize Murphy learning parkour lol
They're not about confinement, they're about the feeling of isolation in prison, and the fear that causes one to watch their own back. Which is why their backsides are their vulnerable part, and in the mine scene, they cluster together like a prison gang around the Aristocrat.

Also, Weeping Bat is derived from prison slang. :V
The Doll, okay that's a whole story ... the first impression we had is in the library when we see one doll lying on a chair and Murphy commented "Now someone has some special interests" (or something similar) and the doll has lipstick or blood around it's mouth, the only thing I could come up with is sexually abusing a women or S&M. It's pretty misleading, maybe the shadows can refer to revenge but it's more like the ones whom he raped are trying to take revenge from him while the entire story had nothing to do with women except for his wife and it wasn't something sexual at all.
The sexuality thing isn't about women. Charlie was kidnapped because Napier wanted to rape him. There's no way Vatra would be allowed to have a sexualized child monster, so the pedophilia anger has to come from a toy/motherhood thing.

The Dolls and Shadows represent how vengeance is a distraction from what Murphy really wants and needs. The Shadows attack and hurt him, and that causes him to destroy them in vengeance, but they're a distraction from the true thing he needs to target (The Doll). Vengeance is something he's using to run away from his problems.
It makes me feel like the whole game had a whole different story but was changed in the last few moments and they kept the monsters like this.
I would recommend browsing the forum more. Monster symbolism has been obtuse since the first game. Just because you didn't get it on your own doesn't make you, or the game, stupid.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by RinoTheBouncer »

AuraTwilight wrote:
The monsters had nothing to do with the whole game.
That is patently not true.
Screamers? the whole game has screamers scattered everywhere as if there are no other things to symbolize. And what do they symbolize? pain? agony? well in that case, every Silent Hill game should have them cuz each SH game had pain, agony and suffering as the main ingredient.
How about Carol Pendelton? How about the spirits of Silent Hill no longer being silent?
Weeping Bats? they don't even feel like bats, more like monkeys and they're just a silly design, low polygon count and absolutely have nothing to do with confinement. They would only fit if they want to symbolize Murphy learning parkour lol
They're not about confinement, they're about the feeling of isolation in prison, and the fear that causes one to watch their own back. Which is why their backsides are their vulnerable part, and in the mine scene, they cluster together like a prison gang around the Aristocrat.

Also, Weeping Bat is derived from prison slang. :V
The Doll, okay that's a whole story ... the first impression we had is in the library when we see one doll lying on a chair and Murphy commented "Now someone has some special interests" (or something similar) and the doll has lipstick or blood around it's mouth, the only thing I could come up with is sexually abusing a women or S&M. It's pretty misleading, maybe the shadows can refer to revenge but it's more like the ones whom he raped are trying to take revenge from him while the entire story had nothing to do with women except for his wife and it wasn't something sexual at all.
The sexuality thing isn't about women. Charlie was kidnapped because Napier wanted to rape him. There's no way Vatra would be allowed to have a sexualized child monster, so the pedophilia anger has to come from a toy/motherhood thing.

The Dolls and Shadows represent how vengeance is a distraction from what Murphy really wants and needs. The Shadows attack and hurt him, and that causes him to destroy them in vengeance, but they're a distraction from the true thing he needs to target (The Doll). Vengeance is something he's using to run away from his problems.
It makes me feel like the whole game had a whole different story but was changed in the last few moments and they kept the monsters like this.
I would recommend browsing the forum more. Monster symbolism has been obtuse since the first game. Just because you didn't get it on your own doesn't make you, or the game, stupid.
What you said is true but still, the monsters of this game aren't as inspiring as the previous ones. This one and Shattered Memories didn't really have complicated monsters like Origins, SH3, SH:Homecoming and SH2.

They showed the Gray Children in the movie as a symbol of abuse to children n the burning n all so they could've shown something similar here. It's not that they'd show a child with blood on his ass or something.

I also think that the otherworld had less to do with the story cause the early parts like the first and 2nd time we get there, it's like a typical sunken ship n all these large halls, paintings and ship-like designs. It feels like the place is a ship from the 40s/50s.

I'm so happy with the game we got, it's just that it could've been much better with the symbolisms.
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wonder's boy
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by wonder's boy »

The Doll had the most effective design as a fightable creature, I think. It's design is right up there with the Void in terms of complexity. They're the two enemy entities that made me think the most. Some, I'm sure, believe the Boogeyman has a more complex meaning than the Dolls or the Void, but I honestly had to think a lot more about the two latter ones before their purposes hit me.

The Boogeyman just seemed a bit obvious to me after I connected the dots in the whole St. Maria's sequence. It was still effective and interesting, and quite fun to battle in the game, and even to play as!
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Aerith Gainsborough
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by Aerith Gainsborough »

I don't think the monsters need to be challenging. I'd rather have a good story than a monster that's hard to kill. This is one reason why I don't like Homecoming. I'll say that the symbolism wasn't handed to you in an easy way, but it certainly was there.
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KiramidHead
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by KiramidHead »

^I loved fighting the Bogeyman because it wasn't just a shoot, shoot, and shoot some more until it dies boss like most of them are in this series. It was a little more difficult than that, but not in the BS killing you in two hits way. It was about figuring out a simple but not too obvious trick.
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by thy_butcher »

I view The Void in a much different way than the posts I've seen in this thread.
I'm not saying that said posts are wrong. In fact, they make sense.

My personal view of The Void is a bit hard to put into words; I see it as the actual Void of existence. An entity created where reality & un-reality intersect. Infinite in power. Its origins are unknowable & beyond comprehension.
The Void is always there, but Silent Hill's unique "properties" allowed The Void to take physical form.
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Luotka Snih
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by Luotka Snih »

thy_butcher wrote:I view The Void in a much different way than the posts I've seen in this thread.
I'm not saying that said posts are wrong. In fact, they make sense.

My personal view of The Void is a bit hard to put into words; I see it as the actual Void of existence. An entity created where reality & un-reality intersect. Infinite in power. Its origins are unknowable & beyond comprehension.
The Void is always there, but Silent Hill's unique "properties" allowed The Void to take physical form.

but If the Void has always been there, then why it has only shown up in Downpour?
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Aerith Gainsborough
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by Aerith Gainsborough »

^Why did Valtiel kill Lisa, but only shows up in Silent Hill 3? Probably because it was never thought of prior.
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by AuraTwilight »

Valtiel didn't kill Lisa, for one thing.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Aerith Gainsborough
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by Aerith Gainsborough »

^Actually, it was confirmed by Ito, I do believe. Edea/Xuchilbara posted this on SHC. I'll find the link.

Edit: http://silenthillcommunity.com/viewtopi ... 8&start=60

I guess I misread it. So, he killed her in the comic? I don't follow the comics, so I wouldn't know.

Also, I don't mean to bring up a discussion about this. There's no need.
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by The Adversary »

I'm not sure Ito knows exactly what he's talking about, to be honest.
This post is the property of its author and is not to be used elsewhere without explicit permission from the author.

. . . AND THAT'S THAT.
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Re: Monster / Character / Location Symbolism

Post by RinoTheBouncer »

thy_butcher wrote:I view The Void in a much different way than the posts I've seen in this thread.
I'm not saying that said posts are wrong. In fact, they make sense.

My personal view of The Void is a bit hard to put into words; I see it as the actual Void of existence. An entity created where reality & un-reality intersect. Infinite in power. Its origins are unknowable & beyond comprehension.
The Void is always there, but Silent Hill's unique "properties" allowed The Void to take physical form.
Perfectly said ;)
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