A Comprehensive Theory/Explanation Of Silent Hill: Origins

Truck drivin' Travis detours into Silent Hill. Tree Top Tall & Wall-to-Wall, Good Buddy.

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A Comprehensive Theory/Explanation Of Silent Hill: Origins

Post by Droo »

The following is an attempt to contextualize and explain the events of Silent Hill: Origins, as well as the significance of what occurs in it.

It is clear that an understanding of both Silent Hill 1 and 3 is essential to understanding Origins. However, I would first like to point out the importance of Silent Hill 2 to the events of Origins. How is SH2 related to Origins, you might ask?

I believe that something horrific would have happened to Travis Grady in Silent Hill that night whether Alessa had been burned or not.

How? Why? The answer to this question lies in SH2. The second game makes it clear that those with guilty consciences, especially those with a connection to the town of Silent Hill, are drawn to the town as a sort of supernatural grounds for punishment (or possible redemption). This is separate from Alessa. I believe that the realm we call Foggy Silent Hill has always existed, before Alessa and the events of Origins/SH1. Travis comments to his trucker friend in the intro that he’s taking a shortcut past Silent Hill to make a delivery that he’s running late on. He does, however, also comment that he is going to stop in Brahms for coffee. Why not stop in Silent Hill? The answer is, because while he doesn’t remember the traumatic events of his childhood in relation to that town, he knows that the place makes him uncomfortable. Therefore, he will not stop there.

One might ask why he’s even going past the town at all if it makes him uneasy. Again, he claims it’s due to a delivery he is late on that he just must take a shortcut for. However, at the same time, he seems to have enough time to make a pit stop in Brahms. Is he really in that much of a hurry? Or does he just think he is? I think he was being drawn to the town, to face his past and deal with his own inner demons, precisely the same as James, Eddie, Angela, and who knows how many people over the course of the town’s history?

Thus, it is my belief that something very similar to SH2 would have occurred that night in Silent Hill even if the whole Alessa thing had not been going on.

So what happened to change it? How did Travis end up being mixed up in Alessa’s story? Well, at the exact moment he entered the vicinity of the town, Alessa was being burned to death by her mother. Travis begins to have visions of his father’s funeral, and I believe it is at this point that the town begins to draw him in, which alerts Alessa to his presense, as she is powerfully connected to the spiritual pulse of the area. Alessa manifests on the road in front of Travis as, in pain and scared of dying, she reaches out to the only other person in the area who was tapped into the mystical elements of the town at the time, causing Travis to screech to a halt. She casts a cryptic look at Travis and then runs back in the direction of the Gillespie house. Travis, concerned about her safety as well as baffled by the smoke that begins to pour up the street, follows her. At this point, I believe Travis is still in Reality, but has already begun to tap into the area’s power. When Travis reaches the Gillespie house, he spies Dahlia, who may or may not have seen him. She runs off, and Travis runs into the house to save Alessa. When he finds her, Alessa asks that he let her burn. Now, why does she do this? Seconds after she asks this, it seems as if she manifests as Halo of the Sun underneath her.

We know Alessa does not want God to be born. However, we know that if Alessa had been allowed to continue to burn, God almost surely would have manifested to save its host body. Why would Alessa request to be allowed to burn, knowing this would happen? I believe the answer lies in her manifestation of the Halo of the Sun.

What does the Halo mean? We know that it is the symbol of the Order’s deity. It is usually drawn in red, as it is when Alessa manifests it as well. Why would she do this? It almost seems that drawing The Order’s deity symbol underneath her as she burns would only serve to hasten God’s birth. It seems as if she is purposefully trying to aid Dahlia.

However, Travis also immediately picks her up and removes her from the house. I don’t think Alessa was done with the Halo. We know that if it is drawn in blue that it represents a curse on God. Perhaps Alessa was trying to bring God as close to the surface as she could, and then would have changed the Halo to blue, thereby cursing God and preventing it from manifesting to save her. She then would have simply burned to death. Alessa is torn between her desire to live and her desire to stop Dahlia’s plan from coming to fruition. Remember her memo in SH3: “That I would like to bestow a more gentle and peaceful death on ‘myself’.Why do ‘I’ resist? I never thought of ‘myself’ as such a fool.....” She led Travis to the house, ostensibly to save her, but then her resolve strengthens and she decides that she should indeed die.

Once Travis picks her up, however, she is unable to alter the Halo. This plan ruined, Alessa cannot die. If she comes close, God will appear. This, coupled with the fact that Alessa has no desire to see this innocent man who is trying to help her get hurt because of her, makes her use the power of God to remove the fires impeding him from escaping and assists him to the exit as best she can.

As Travis collapses on the front lawn of the Gillespie house and blacks out, Alessa is left with another dillema. Does she let the paramedics and firefighters discover Travis lying there, unconscious from smoke inhalation? He would be taken to Alchemilla with her. Surely, Alessa believes, if he is taken to the Hospital and is identified as the man who has ruined The Order’s plans, Dr. Kaufmann or Dahlia would likely kill him. At the last moment before she passes out, Alessa makes a decision: she whisks Travis out of our Reality into Foggy Silent Hill. When the ambulances and fire trucks arrive, Alessa is alone on the front lawn. Notice that none of the doctor’s notes in Alchemilla mention Travis being found at the scene, nor does Lisa when she speaks to him afterwards. She’s never like “Oh, you’re the guy who saved her?” It’s obvious that he wasn’t actually there when Alessa was found.

Travis wakes up on Crichton Street, near the Hospital, and decides to head to Alchemilla to check on her. Although he is in Foggy Silent Hill at this point, a few people in reality are able to see him due to their connection to Alessa: Dr. Kaufmann and Dahlia. Kaufmann is able to see and interact with Travis, and learns that Travis is the one who saved Alessa, and dismisses Travis as he retreats into the elevator to head to the room on the second floor where Alessa is being examined by the baffled doctor whose memo we read in that room.
Kaufmann removes Alessa from the room, to where I am not sure. Perhaps to behind the locked room next door. Anyway, Travis is directed into this room by the debris blocking the hallway (which may or may not be real. I think it’s possible that Alessa put them there to ensure he went into the right room. Then again, there is rennovation-related chaos going on in the hospital, so it could be real. I digress…). Once he is inside, he does not see Alessa, but he does see the Otherworld behind the mirror.

I must now direct your attention back to SH2 to explain this. Remember, Silent Hill manifests ones inner demons. Travis’ mother raved and raged about a world behind the mirrors, a common delusion amongst schizophrenics. Travis surely heard this at some point, and integrated it into his memory of his mother, as well as all the associated guilt. The town then takes this, and makes it a reality for him. I propose that it is Travis Grady himself who is responsible for the creation of what we call The Otherworld. Much the same as Pyramid Head and Maria were manifestations custom designed for James, The Otherworld is especially for Travis. However, Alessa is also able to use the power of God to almost hijack The Otherworld from Travis and make it partially her own.

For what purpose? Well, Silent Hill 1 indicates strongly that Dahlia and her group are unable to reach her when she is in The Otherworld. Again, I must stress that Foggy Silent Hill has always existed. The Order knows about it, and we know that Dahlia and Claudia are both able to use their limited spiritual abilities to access it. Alessa knows that Foggy Silent Hill is not the ideal place for her to hide. Thus, through Travis she sees this other plane of existence, and sees a perfect way to prevent Dahlia from reaching her.

However, at this point, Alessa’s intention is not to hide. I don’t think she could. Not yet. Not while she is still whole. So what is Alessa’s plan at this time? She knows that the Flauros could be used to seal away the demon inside her. Dahlia knows this too, and she instructs Kaufmann to hide the pieces of the Flauros and protect them. Protect them from who? From Travis. See, at this point Travis has made his presense known to Kaufmann, and they’re able to put 2 and 2 together. Travis is involved, and asking questions, and concerned. He’s also invisible to everyone else around them. Dahlia must know that Alessa has somehow diverted him into Foggy Silent Hill, and must be planning to use him to assemble the Flauros, since she clearly cannot do it herself.

At this point, I imagine that Dahlia and Kaufmann are in quite a panic. Their long-awaited and difficult plan has been ruined by the unexpected intervention of Travis. They need to figure out what to do about Alessa, and how to proceed in a way that will result in God manifesting. The examining doctor notes that Alessa has suffered no internal injury. Only her shell is damaged. She is not dead, but the demon has not manifested either. They need time to decide their next course of action, but there’s also the very serious threat of Travis. The best that they can do is break up the Flauros and scatter it. Kaufmann hides one piece in the hospital, quickly boarding up the door in the Exam Room behind which the first piece lies. He knows he needs to get the other pieces out of there, but that he also needs to tend to Alessa and work on faking her death. He decides that Lisa is the perfect pawn to use to scatter the Flauros. Lisa will blindly do what Kaufmann asks in exchange for drugs and/or sex. He requests for her to meet him at the Sanitarium, so that he can give her the remaining pieces of the Flauros.

Meanwhile, Alessa guides Travis through the mirror into his Otherworld, gambling that he may be able to bypass the boards and access the first piece of the Flauros, which he does. She is also able to learn of this plan, so she makes Travis visible to Lisa as well. In her initial interaction with Travis, Lisa unintentionally drops the clue about the Sanitarium, and her plans to meet Kaufmann there. Travis knows that Kaufmann knows something, so he decides to follow her to the Sanitarium so that he may inquire further about the girl. Lisa claims that Alessa is dead, but something seems off about the whole situation to Travis (beyond the whole alternate worlds and demon nurses thing, of course).

At the Sanitarium, Lisa acquires the other pieces of the Flauros, and is instructed by Kaufmann to hide them around town. It is likely Lisa simply agrees, itching for her next big fix. She does, however, speak to Kaufmann about the tragedy of Alessa’s death and the nice man who saved him. Kaufmann is thus made aware of the fact that Lisa can also see Travis. This means that not only is Alessa aware of Lisa, it also means that Lisa may be a liability if she listens to Travis and cooperates with him. To attempt to turn Lisa against Travis, he shows her Helen Grady, who is still committed at Cedar Grove, and tells her of how Travis abandoned her there and never came back for her. He tells Lisa essentially that he is a bad man, and that she needs to make him leave. Again, he probably promises her drugs as a reward. I am unsure of how he knows who Travis is. Perhaps he somehow traced his truck, still swerved off the road up on the highway.
At the same time, Dahlia appears and tries to pursuade Travis to leave. He refuses, and continues on to Helen’s room, where he finds Lisa. Lisa accosts him angrily for continuing to ignore his abandoned mother, who to Lisa is right there in plain sight, but not to Travis. Thus, Travis is confused and has no idea what she’s talking about. This further infuriates Lisa, who then storms out. SH2 comes back into influence as Travis is forced to deal with the memory of his mother, and the guilt he feels from her situation. The entire game is a play between the town’s feeding off Travis’ inner demons (a la SH2) and the antagonism between The Order/Alessa (a la SH1 and 3).

Lisa, an aspiring actress, decides to head to one of her favourite spots: the Artaud Theatre. However, Alessa also has a history with the theatre, having been terrified of Caliban when she watched The Tempest there. Alessa is able to provide Travis with a ticket to enter the theatre.

For some reason, the car outside, ostensibly belonging to Lisa, Kaufmann, or Dahlia, contains the key to the lumber yard. I’m not sure what the lumber yard has to do with anything. I know from a gameplay perspective it’s a way to bypass the road chasms to allow Travis to reach the theatre, but from a narrative perspective I am unsure as to why Alessa doesn’t just fill in one of the roads to allow him to go there. It’s probably just a gameplay device with little narrative importance, but if anyone has any suggestions regarding this, feel free to fill them in. I’d like to hear them.

Anyway, at the theatre, Lisa attempts to flirt with Travis and get him to leave, but she is unconvincing and Travis doesn’t respond. Lisa shrugs it off, and leaves. She has already left a piece of the Flauros there, but Travis finds it. With no personal connection to the theatre, the town instead manifests one of Alessa’s own fears in the form of Caliban. Travis kills it and claims the next piece.

Lisa has headed to the Motel with the final piece of the Flauros to meet Kaufmann to claim her “reward”. Alessa provides Travis with a key to the motel. She is probably able to do this because of Travis’ coincidental personal connection to the Motel, where he probably would have been led on his SH2-ish journey of self-discovery if he hadn’t be tangled up in Alessa’s drama. Once there, he happens upon Lisa and Kaufmann and is able to confront the truth about what happened to his father and claim the final piece of the Flauros.

Travis’ journey to assemble the Flauros is bizarre in that it runs very parallel to Alessa’s goals. I think this can be regarded as a mere plot device, or it can also be looked at as if it’s fate intervening. Maybe the town is influencing the other players (Lisa and Kaufmann) to go to places that will allow Travis’ journey to proceed almost as if it would have without them. We know the town has an interesting way of making sure things line up for its purposes, through the highly intricate weaving of James around the actions of the other characters in SH2. For example, the town seems to throw James and Eddie together with the purpose of having James kill Eddie to jog his memory of his prior murder. It’s not beyond the realm of reason that the town is also somehow making sure that Lisa and Kaufmann mainly go to the exact same places Travis needs to go to confront his past.

You’re all probably at this point a little fatigued, so I’ll try and wrap this up fast. Travis assembles the Flauros, and returns to Alchemilla only to be led by an image of Alessa to the Green Lion Antique Shop, where she has been removed to by Dahlia and The Order for a final ritual in a desperate attempt to force the demon out of Alessa. He arrives just in time, and manages to seal “God” away into the Flauros, a cage of peace. In the chaos that ensues, Cheryl manifests and vanishes, and Travis is able to slip away as The Order is left staggering to figure out what to do now. Harry and Mrs. Mason find Cheryl, and Travis is able to leave town.

Following this, Dahlia and Kaufmann formulate their plan to keep Alessa alive (under the care of the very unfortunate Lisa Garland), until Harry returns with Cheryl seven years later.

When Silent Hill 1 occurs, Dahlia has learned her lesson about the threat of outsider action from Travis. She is prepared to deal with Harry when he shows up, and quickly recruits him to literally carry God around in his pocket as he searches for Cheryl/Alessa. At this point, Alessa has retained Travis’ Otherworld, and plans to use both it and the Seal of Metratron to seal herself into a reality that Dahlia cannot access. However, Harry is able to access it. This could be the Cheryl part of her consciousness wanting to be rescued by her father. Same as how part of her wanted to be saved by Travis, Alessa’s emotions allow her to create a situation in which Harry is able to reach her and literally force God back into her, bringing Alessa, God and Cheryl together as one for the first time in seven years. Unlike when Dahlia tried to simply remove Travis from the picture in Origins, she changes her tactic to actively using Harry for her own purposes.

This expansion/explanation of Origins is by no means complete. I am sure there is much to add, and much to modify, but I just thought I’d put down in writing my understanding of it for us to discuss and debate. My main point is that Origins relies as much on SH2 for its logic as it does SH1 and 3, and to propose that the origin of The Otherworld actually lies in Travis Grady, not Alessa.

Thanks for reading. I know this was a lot of text, but I wanted to be as comprehensive as possible.

Questions, comments and discussion please!
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Post by The Adversary »

>Why not stop in Silent Hill?
Perhaps because Brahms is closer.

>it seems as if she manifests as Halo of the Sun underneath her.
It's already there when Travis enters the room. She was placed over it as part of the ceremony. This hurts a good portion of your theory.

>He arrives just in time, and manages to seal “God” away into the Flauros
The demon w/in the Flauros is not the god The Order worships. It is Flauros, the demon, and is used by Alessa to split her soul, thus creating who we know as Cheryl. If it were god in the Flauros, then Dahlia would have no reason to give it to Harry, nor would she have any need for Alessa--because, after all, god is already resting dormant w/in her.
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Post by Droo »

Why does The Order even possess the Flauros if its only function is to manifest a demon that prevents God from being born?

My understanding was that God was sealed inside the Flauros, and that Dahlia still needs Alessa because Dahlia herself cannot hope to control it without her.

Also, how is Brahms closer? He passes the sign that says Brahms is 13 miles away, and then immediately almost hits Alessa. He is then able to run on foot to Silent Hill. Clearly, he is closer to Silent Hill than Brahms.
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Post by angelofROOM302 »

Major props for explaing all this. Thanks, and I agree with alot of it.
I didn't really catch the part where Alessa lead him to the Antique shop, so i'm sure I missed something.
This, may sound stupid and lame, since I don't really understand much about Alessa and the whole cult thing, but since Travis found Alessa in the middle of that red symbol thingie, does that mean that the god's powers were then transformed into her? Or at least some of them?
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Post by Droo »

Well, Tommy is correct. I went back and checked. The symbol is always there, it just lights up when she says "let me burn".

I don't see how this one alteration hurts "a good portion" of my theory.

But anyway, the Halo of the Sun presumably was to assist in "bringing out God". God resides inside Alessa. The point of her ritual abuse was to force God to manifest in order to save its host body. The idea behind the fire was that as Alessa's body came close to dying, God would be forced to the surface.
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Post by angelofROOM302 »

Well, I was just complementing.
Okay, that makes much sence.
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Post by The Adversary »

>Why does The Order even possess the Flauros if its only function is to manifest a demon
Then that clearly isn't its only function, now is it?

How would god be in the Flauros when god is in Alessa? God has always been in her. Remember, Alessa was impregnated w/ god at the beginning of Silent Hill: Origins--that was the entire point of the immolation.

You seem to be forgetting everything that happens in Silent Hill 1, Drew. Apply what we already know (Silent Hill 1) to what we learn (Silent Hill: Origins). Since when was god in the Flauros during the first game? It wasn't.

Think of the Flauros (artifact) as something similar to the Virun VII Crest. It is polyvalent as witnessed by both games and according to the document regarding it.

>I don't see how this one alteration hurts "a good portion" of my theory.
Because it segues into your god-being-in-Flauros portion which just isn't correct.

>Clearly, he is closer to Silent Hill than Brahms.
Forgot about the sign, but that doesn't mean he's avoiding Silent Hill because he decides to stop in Brahms, thirteen miles later. Why not stop in Silent Hill? Because he's "late on a gig." For all we know his gig is in Brahms. Why waste the time in Silent Hill when he's already late?
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Post by AuraTwilight »

I agree with everything except for the stuff Mockingbird touched up upon. Beat me to making those same points. However, I do disagree on some more trite, metaphysical things:

1) Can we really say the Foggy World has ALWAYS been there? It seems to be different for everyone to the point of barely being a persistent world. (But then, I've never disagreed with the Three Worlds cosmological model.)

2) No way is Travis's Otherworld the same as SH1's Otherworld. Alessa OBVIOUSLY made her own.
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Post by Droo »

Yes, but The Otherworld came from Travis' inner demons. As I said, Alessa hijacked it and adapted it for her own purposes. I don't think that there was anything other than Foggy Silent Hill and Real Silent Hill before Travis.

As for Foggy Silent Hill, I point to The Little Baroness' disappearance as indicative of the existence of Foggy Silent Hill (or at least some other plane of existence) in the past. How did a ship disappear without a trace in a lake as small as Toluca? It was spirited away.

I willingly accept the alterations with regards to the Halo of the Sun as well as the Flauros. Demonology/mythology has never been my forte.
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Post by AuraTwilight »

Yes, but The Otherworld came from Travis' inner demons. As I said, Alessa hijacked it and adapted it for her own purposes. I don't think that there was anything other than Foggy Silent Hill and Real Silent Hill before Travis.
Travis' Otherworld came from Travis' inner demons. That doesn't mean his was the first Otherworld ever. I personally consider Foggy Silent Hill and the Otherworld to be the same plane anyway.
As for Foggy Silent Hill, I point to The Little Baroness' disappearance as indicative of the existence of Foggy Silent Hill (or at least some other plane of existence) in the past. How did a ship disappear without a trace in a lake as small as Toluca? It was spirited away.
I think I didn't mean it quite like that. You seem to treat the Foggy World as a sort of "default", and I do not. Rather, instead of a three world model of Reality/Foggy/Otherworld, I see it as Reality, and numerous specialized worlds. For Travis, there may be a Foggy and Otherworld, but for James, it's one world with characteristics of both, probably shapeshifting between the two? Whatever. Point is, I see it as "Everyone's World", "Alessa's World", "James' World", etc.

The Little Baroness apparently got pulled into it's own world, I suppose.
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Post by Droo »

The only reason I am inclined to treat Foggy Silent Hill as a sort of default is that every protagonist in the series has experienced it, from Travis to James to Henry.

I would caution against treating The Otherworld and Foggy Silent Hill as the same, because SH1 seems to suggest quite strongly that they are not.
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Post by Darkness Concept »

^ agreed, as there is no real indication Im aware of that Foggy Silent Hill isn't a constant (yet anyway).

Thanks for taking the time to share this theory Drew. Interesting stuff (I'm currently mulling it over whilst I balance my checkbook, and I think it's screwing with my math).
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Post by AuraTwilight »

The only reason I am inclined to treat Foggy Silent Hill as a sort of default is that every protagonist in the series has experienced it, from Travis to James to Henry.
Perhaps, but then every protagonist experiences shitty, gritty, bloody Otherworld too. (Henry sorta-kinda. The properties of Otherworld are still there, but he was almost entirely removed from the town of Silent Hill's cosmology). If anything, I'd attribute it to collective unconsciousness of the town's natural "sponge" quality.
I would caution against treating The Otherworld and Foggy Silent Hill as the same, because SH1 seems to suggest quite strongly that they are not.
I think I already addressed that in Alessa's case, yes, there's two planes, but they belong to one world. James, for example, probably has the one shapeshifting world, but Alessa seems to have divided hers into two as an extra measure of protection.
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Post by Nightmare Man »

Your theory of the True Nature of Silent Hill sounds exactly like the Umbra/Shadowlands from White Wolf's World of Darkness games hence the while Real World Silent Hill with people going along with their daily lives whilist the "Foggy/Otherworld" Silent Hill exists amoung them as a seperate plane/realm...Or should I say the "Spirit World" (since it explains alot for why there are computers in Brookhaven Hospital during SH3)

That also leads to a possibility of the same "Foggy/Otherworld" actually exists all over the world not just Silent Hill (which would explain SH3's and SH4's case for the half or most of the game taking place outside of Silent Hill)
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Post by Video Gamer »

Nice, really in-depth, well-written.
You made some good points.
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Post by D90 »

"Let me burn."

Have you ever thought that Alessa just didn't understand what was going on, and genuinely believed her death would see God killed as well?

I mean, I know she seems pretty clued in most of the time, but that's after the burning. Maybe she just didn't know what the hell was going on?
My reaction to the line isn't that she has some master plan to turn the Halo blue (a very hypothetical theory, in the first place), but that she really thinks she should die.
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Post by Mis Krist. »

>Have you ever thought that Alessa just didn't understand what was going on, and genuinely believed her death would see God killed as well?

I do, considering she wants herself to die in SH3 and does what she can to ensure it.

As for turning the halo blue... Bzzuh? O_o it needs to be *drawn* in that color, clearly.
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Post by LastGunslinger »

While I agree with the general flow, I think some details and character motivations seem a little off.

First, the Flauros. I don't pretend to know what it is or what exactly it is supposed to do, aside from the things we witness. The note at the end of Origins states that it was either used to capture a demon or tied to a holy entity. When it is assembled, it appears to somehow empower Alessa. When it is presented to the evil entity at the end of the game it entraps it. When Harry brings it to Alessa in Silent Hill 1, a blast cuts down Alessa and it may even initiate their travel to "Nowhere." We can't trust what Dahlia says about it, being a "cage of peace," because she is known to have lied continuously to Harry.

I think the Flauros is some kind of spiritual rechargable battery. You can put godly (or evil) energy into it and take it out again. The reason Dahlia didn't want Travis using it was because Alessa's power, her ability to fight back, was trapped in the Flauros pieces. Conversely, the reason she gives it freely to Harry is that Dahlia had used him to engineer the recombination of Alessa and Cheryl, and the energy was a catalyst.

While I'm sure Lisa was manipulated by Kaufmann, I'm not sure it was as extensive or as direct as you described. All we know about Lisa is that she genuinely seems to care about her patients, or even patients in general, and (given the Motel scenes) that she was having a less-than-professional relationship with Kaufmann. (I've heard of a book called "The House of God," a kind of bizarre retrospective of the lives of hospital interns in the 70s, including promiscuous sex and drug abuse. This reminded me of it). They both worked at the hospital, got involved in the drug culture, which was a gateway to them having an affair. Kaufmann was able to leverage all that on Lisa to take care of Alessa after Origins.

As to her behaviour in the asylum vs. the theatre, somehow she must have made the connection between Travis and his mother (I find it just as likely as Kaufmann telling her, as he would have had to make a leap as well). One theory (and this is a big assumption) is that, being curious about Travis and something about him reminding her of the story about his parents (she was a nurse in a small town, so even events long ago probably would have become known to her at some point) she looked up case files at the asylum (hence their being scattered around the place) and arrived at the conclusion that Travis was Helen's son. She may also have been high when speaking to him, as certain drugs make people more emotional. This would have been forgotten and her little crush might have endured to the point where he met her at the theatre.

Finally, about the town. I think I posted one of my own theory earlier about the town being a "thin" place, like the thinnies in the Dark Tower books. Each character has a history, a sort of dimension of pain and guilt that follows them everywhere, but Silent Hill allows that to bubble up to the surface. It's kind of like reality is a nice shiny car, and Silent Hill is a body shop where the chassis is removed and you can see all the dirty components and change them around. It's not so much that the town "creates" a world for each character or has some powerful extra dimension, but that the dimensions always have existed everywhere and Silent Hill just scrapes off some of the paint. Likewise, people who are trapped there for long periods of time or have supernatural powers are able to control more of that world.
“The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment. And only this condition of vicious insight allows us a full grasp of the world, all things considered, just as a frigid melancholy grants us full possession of ourselves. We may hide from horror only in the heart of horror."
--Thomas Ligotti
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AuraTwilight
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Post by AuraTwilight »

While I agree with the general flow, I think some details and character motivations seem a little off.

First, the Flauros. I don't pretend to know what it is or what exactly it is supposed to do, aside from the things we witness. The note at the end of Origins states that it was either used to capture a demon or tied to a holy entity. When it is assembled, it appears to somehow empower Alessa. When it is presented to the evil entity at the end of the game it entraps it. When Harry brings it to Alessa in Silent Hill 1, a blast cuts down Alessa and it may even initiate their travel to "Nowhere." We can't trust what Dahlia says about it, being a "cage of peace," because she is known to have lied continuously to Harry.

I think the Flauros is some kind of spiritual rechargable battery. You can put godly (or evil) energy into it and take it out again. The reason Dahlia didn't want Travis using it was because Alessa's power, her ability to fight back, was trapped in the Flauros pieces. Conversely, the reason she gives it freely to Harry is that Dahlia had used him to engineer the recombination of Alessa and Cheryl, and the energy was a catalyst.
I like your theory. The Flauros seems to have always had the demon inside of it, though, given the flashback right before Travis goes into the dream. An idea I was kicking around was that the demon needs to be defeated to form a sort of contract with it and use it's power. Dahlia used it to seal some of Alessa's power twice, and when Travis defeats it, Alessa uses his status as Conduit to make the demon split her soul.
As to her behaviour in the asylum vs. the theatre, somehow she must have made the connection between Travis and his mother (I find it just as likely as Kaufmann telling her, as he would have had to make a leap as well). One theory (and this is a big assumption) is that, being curious about Travis and something about him reminding her of the story about his parents (she was a nurse in a small town, so even events long ago probably would have become known to her at some point) she looked up case files at the asylum (hence their being scattered around the place) and arrived at the conclusion that Travis was Helen's son. She may also have been high when speaking to him, as certain drugs make people more emotional. This would have been forgotten and her little crush might have endured to the point where he met her at the theatre.
Lisa was acting, she doesn't have a crush on him. Furthermore, she didn't seem high to me. I think the scene was supposed to show us how, despite all of her faults, Lisa really is a kind person, to the point where she might cry over total strangers. And no way Lisa could've just thrown papers all over the place in an inhabited asylum.
Finally, about the town. I think I posted one of my own theory earlier about the town being a "thin" place, like the thinnies in the Dark Tower books. Each character has a history, a sort of dimension of pain and guilt that follows them everywhere, but Silent Hill allows that to bubble up to the surface. It's kind of like reality is a nice shiny car, and Silent Hill is a body shop where the chassis is removed and you can see all the dirty components and change them around. It's not so much that the town "creates" a world for each character or has some powerful extra dimension, but that the dimensions always have existed everywhere and Silent Hill just scrapes off some of the paint. Likewise, people who are trapped there for long periods of time or have supernatural powers are able to control more of that world.
That's a pretty neato idea. And what of the fact that some Otherworlds seem to overlap or that the thoughts of total strangers can manifest as printed documents and such?
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Post by LastGunslinger »

AuraTwilight wrote:Lisa was acting, she doesn't have a crush on him. Furthermore, she didn't seem high to me. I think the scene was supposed to show us how, despite all of her faults, Lisa really is a kind person, to the point where she might cry over total strangers. And no way Lisa could've just thrown papers all over the place in an inhabited asylum.
While I realise she was acting in the theatre, there is still that hint of flirtation. It was there in the hospital the first time, too. A "crush" might be stretching it, but I seriously doubt she would be that manipulative, even if coerced by Kaufmann. It contradicts her otherwise kind behaviour.

Also, the scattering of pages doesn't necessarily have to correspond to a real-life act, they're just represented in the game as information that had been rummaged through.
AuraTwilight wrote:And what of the fact that some Otherworlds seem to overlap or that the thoughts of total strangers can manifest as printed documents and such?
Well, if the effect of "dissolving" barriers between this reality and others' personal realities, by extension it's not unreasonable to assume that the boundaries between those realities would be eroded as well, especially if one reality is very well-defined in the character's subconscious. Say they're layers in GIMP (or Photoshop, for you closed-source software people), where normally the top layer (reality) is opque. Set that opacity setting to, say, 50%, and then set all of the layers beneath to varying levels of opacity, and you get one fucked up blend of images, some layers more visible than others.
“The sinister, the terrible never deceive: the state in which they leave us is always one of enlightenment. And only this condition of vicious insight allows us a full grasp of the world, all things considered, just as a frigid melancholy grants us full possession of ourselves. We may hide from horror only in the heart of horror."
--Thomas Ligotti
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