Silent Hill Downpour - Original Plot Theories (Spoilers)

[RinoTheBouncer]

While going through the Saint Maria Orphanage and these memories or visions started to play, I was like there's gotta be something that has to do with the game events and when they game finished I was like "What the hell?!, what about the orphanage? the little girl? the voices? the medicine that children were being forcibly given?"

I think that game was meant to be something much bigger than this and hence the delay in release date and when they realized that they delayed it far enough from it's original date, they cut it in half, changed the plot a bit and released it which explains the numerous bugs, lagging and unfinished stories / unexplained symbolisms.

I think the whole game had something to do with Murphy and that there was never a Charlie, there was just Murphy who was in that orphanage, he was being forced to take certain brainwash classes with all these medicines from those nuns there (hence the screamers which they're more like an ugly version of a nun that screams because their voices and approaches to him are that painful (hence the disturbing moves he makes when they scream).

Murphy might have been sexually abused prior to being taken to the orphanage (They used to be neighbors). Murphy never mentions his parents which might mean that he lived his entire life in an orphanage OR he just doesn't want to mention them because they could've left him alone while he was young.

Young Murphy could've lived with his parents, his dad might have left his mother and she might have been a prostitute or something that she ignored him the whole time (hence the appearance of prostitute like dolls on which Murphy comments "Someone might have a certain type of interests" (which gave Napier the chance to abuse him. Or his parents might have just left him alone at home (hence the reference to room 302). Napier might have abused him and then Murphy was taken to an orphanage which he though of as a place to feel safe but he was in Silent Hill where The Order take care of everything (hence the references to Shepherd's Glen and Shepherd's House). He was given drugs forcibly along with a girl (Anne Cunningham) until one day he let out an unspeakable rage and killed everyone out there (the cracks and the earthquakes that shakes the places every once in a while as well as Murphy's note "Was there an earthquake here?" and a reference to the film Identity where similar events occur at a motel).

Murphy ran and ran away from this place and settled to live somewhere out of Silent Hill, he could've turned into a murderer because of his painful experiences as a child or he just killed Napier one way or another (whether at his house or followed him to prison by stealing a police car) which led him into being taken to jail and coincidence got Anne Cunningham (the little girl) to grow and become that police officer we know now.

We also have that theater in the Saint Marie level where we have to set the stage and it turns into a house and we hear voices of "I've been good girl" (or something similar to that) and there's this puzzle of a little girl too so this also might hint to child abuse whether by Murphy against a little girl or by someone who attacked Anne Cunningham as a child.

I guess Vatra had something similar in mind and they either thought that it's too complex and would make a very long game that is hard to release on time so they changed plans or that there's so much darkness and child abuse that they just thought is too much for one video game.

[AuraTwilight]

There's honestly no reason to believe they rewrote THE ENTIRE DAMN STORY, and it doesn't make sense to do so to the extent of making up entire new characters when they were set back for more time. It's just baffling to imagine how that would actually work out on the drawing board.

"Okay guys, we needed to get a time extension in order to fix a lot of the bugs and glitches in the game....so instead let's strip down our entire story and rebuild it from the ground up."

And as I told you before, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's meaningless or incomplete, and frankly I find the arrogance of that point of view extremely insulting to Vatra and all their hard work. Besides, it's not like Silent Hill hasn't had tangential subplots for different areas that didn't connect to the greater whole, before. Off the top of my head I think of Jack Davis and the other patients of Brookhaven in Silent Hill 2, or the whole thing with Stanley Coleman in SH3 that didn't really go anywhere except be creepy.

That, and throughout the whole game, Murphy has been touching the pasts and spirits of completely unrelated people by way of the sidequests, so why should this be any different? Especially since he has a known soft spot for children, and completely loses his shit if he learns a kid is hurt or in trouble.

[Glenn]

After I finished the game I thought the part where the kid told Murphy that the girl said he was the Boogeyman might mean that Cunningham came by and told the kid that and the person crying in the background was her (as she was crying another time she met up with Murphy). It would make sense because apparently she sees him as the Boogeyman.

I also thought that Murphy was going to kill the nun after he found out about the forced medicines and procedures.

Edit just saw the Orphanage thread, and I see a lot of other people note the similarity between the girl and Anne. I'm still confused about who the boy is though.

[Yuki]

We have no reason to believe there was ever a time when Charlie wasn't in the plot. None whatsoever. Also:

Young Murphy could've lived with his parents, his dad might have left his mother and she might have been a prostitute or something that she ignored him the whole time (hence the appearance of prostitute like dolls on which Murphy comments "Someone might have a certain type of interests" (which gave Napier the chance to abuse him. Or his parents might have just left him alone at home (hence the reference to room 302). Napier might have abused him and then Murphy was taken to an orphanage which he though of as a place to feel safe but he was in Silent Hill where The Order take care of everything (hence the references to Shepherd's Glen and Shepherd's House). He was given drugs forcibly along with a girl (Anne Cunningham) until one day he let out an unspeakable rage and killed everyone out there (the cracks and the earthquakes that shakes the places every once in a while as well as Murphy's note "Was there an earthquake here?" and a reference to the film Identity where similar events occur at a motel).

They had confirmed ages before the game was released that the Order wasn't going to play a role in the story.

[RinoTheBouncer]

There's honestly no reason to believe they rewrote THE ENTIRE DAMN STORY, and it doesn't make sense to do so to the extent of making up entire new characters when they were set back for more time. It's just baffling to imagine how that would actually work out on the drawing board.

"Okay guys, we needed to get a time extension in order to fix a lot of the bugs and glitches in the game....so instead let's strip down our entire story and rebuild it from the ground up."

And as I told you before, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's meaningless or incomplete, and frankly I find the arrogance of that point of view extremely insulting to Vatra and all their hard work. Besides, it's not like Silent Hill hasn't had tangential subplots for different areas that didn't connect to the greater whole, before. Off the top of my head I think of Jack Davis and the other patients of Brookhaven in Silent Hill 2, or the whole thing with Stanley Coleman in SH3 that didn't really go anywhere except be creepy.

That, and throughout the whole game, Murphy has been touching the pasts and spirits of completely unrelated people by way of the sidequests, so why should this be any different? Especially since he has a known soft spot for children, and completely loses his shit if he learns a kid is hurt or in trouble.

Well first of all, I'm a consumer, I'm here to receive a product and enjoy it and give comments about it, I'm not here to make Vatra feel good or anything. If their product didn't make sense or didn't work well (whether in glitches or plot holes) I'm not gonna hold it and say "Oh Vatra, you've done a wonderful job" while inside I think the game sucked big time.

I'm not saying the game sucks, nor that it wasn't good, I've played it 3 times till now and aiming to get the Platinum Trophy. But I'm saying that something similar to this happened with another video game that I know and the game was cut in half and few characters were omitted and the story was slightly altered so they can release the game on time. I think SH wouldn't be any different from other games. Any project can get into problems with it's development and work deadline.

I'm just assuming, based on what we've got so far that there "MIGHT" have been things that were different.

Side Quests were created to make Silent Hill seem more alive to us and of course to extend the gameplay time and give more worthy trophies/achievements but when it comes to the main storyline, there's gotta be some sort of connection between the things we encounter, unlike the side quests.

There was a little girl with brown hair who's probably Anne Cunningham because Murphy didn't have any daughters that we know of and Charlie didn't have any girl-best-friends either. Besides, in the otherworld, we notice the little girl talking with the man on the wheelchair which is Anne's father, so why would that scene show up if she isn't Anne? The little boy is certainly a manifestation of Murphy's kid so now, so far, everything is connected, why the hell would there be earthquakes in the church/orphanage? and why would Murphy hear these voices and chats about not wanting to take a medicine, being a good kid, wanting mom, wanting to go home.

There's gotta be something.

You're saying "Just because I didn't understand something doesn't mean that it's meaningless" well I assure you that nobody got a solid answer about those voices, everyone's speculating and so am I here.

[KiramidHead]

I started replaying the game tonight, and I had a thought about J.P. He insists that the newspaper reporters lied through their teeth about him being drunk and is adamant that the train crash was an accident. With this in mind, I gave the article about the incident a closer look. It describes the crash as "an unprecedented tragedy" in the history of Silent Hill. Sorry, but that isn't true at all. The Little Baroness was a much greater tragedy, not to mention the various plagues that struck the town in the past. They at least exaggerated that much, so how accurate could the whole story be? Just a thought.

[JuriDawn]

"Unprecedented" doesn't mean that Silent Hill had never had a tragedy. Its details—a bunch of children killed by gross negligence while visiting a tourist spot—are what make the tragedy unprecedented.

[AuraTwilight]

Well first of all, I'm a consumer, I'm here to receive a product and enjoy it and give comments about it, I'm not here to make Vatra feel good or anything. If their product didn't make sense or didn't work well (whether in glitches or plot holes) I'm not gonna hold it and say "Oh Vatra, you've done a wonderful job" while inside I think the game sucked big time.

I'm not asking you to.

I'm not saying the game sucks, nor that it wasn't good, I've played it 3 times till now and aiming to get the Platinum Trophy. But I'm saying that something similar to this happened with another video game that I know and the game was cut in half and few characters were omitted and the story was slightly altered so they can release the game on time. I think SH wouldn't be any different from other games. Any project can get into problems with it's development and work deadline.

We've had evidence for the existence of Charlie and other plot elements since the very first trailer of the game. I'm not here to argue with you about whether the plot is good or bad or whatever, I'm just stating I see no reason to think it was ever significantly changed in development.

Side Quests were created to make Silent Hill seem more alive to us and of course to extend the gameplay time and give more worthy trophies/achievements but when it comes to the main storyline, there's gotta be some sort of connection between the things we encounter, unlike the side quests.

Tell that to James Sunderland and the information he found about Jack Davis and the other random Brookhaven patients.

There was a little girl with brown hair who's probably Anne Cunningham because Murphy didn't have any daughters that we know of and Charlie didn't have any girl-best-friends either. Besides, in the otherworld, we notice the little girl talking with the man on the wheelchair which is Anne's father, so why would that scene show up if she isn't Anne? The little boy is certainly a manifestation of Murphy's kid so now, so far, everything is connected, why the hell would there be earthquakes in the church/orphanage? and why would Murphy hear these voices and chats about not wanting to take a medicine, being a good kid, wanting mom, wanting to go home.

I already concurred that the little girl is Anne. I never claimed otherwise.

The little boy isn't 'certainly' a manifestation of Charlie. They look nothing alike, and an actual Charlie manifestation shows up later. The little boy DOES, however, have a strong symbolic tie to Frank Coleridge, who has multiple forms in the game. The little boy is killed by the Bogeyman, who the little girl/Anne claims Murphy is, and Anne sees Murphy as the Bogeyman because she believes he killed her father.

As for the Earthquakes, I imagine those are an environmental hazard to make Murphy go through his trial, just like how entire pieces of road were replaced with bottomless pits in SH1, or SH2 had use blockades.

Why would Murphy hear all that stuff? Well, why did James meet Angela's monster, and see her flames? Otherworlds can overlap even if they're not directly relevant to each other. Maybe some kid's ghost haunts the Orphanage, so there's a bit of bleedover while Murphy is going through what the Nun wants him to see.

You're saying "Just because I didn't understand something doesn't mean that it's meaningless" well I assure you that nobody got a solid answer about those voices, everyone's speculating and so am I here.

People speculated endlessly with no solid answers about the original games until we got the Book of Lost Memories. Chillax. I just think it's extremely rude to assume that Vatra changed stuff really sloppily at the last minute just because you haven't immediately gotten satisfactory answers.

[John Akam]

But I'm saying that something similar to this happened with another video game that I know and the game was cut in half and few characters were omitted and the story was slightly altered so they can release the game on time.

Why do I have a sudden urge to say Tomb Raider The Angel of Darkness?

[RinoTheBouncer]

But I'm saying that something similar to this happened with another video game that I know and the game was cut in half and few characters were omitted and the story was slightly altered so they can release the game on time.

Why do I have a sudden urge to say Tomb Raider The Angel of Darkness?

Probably because that's the one

[CandyLander]

Maybe as a child, murphy lived in an orphanage, and when he had a son, charlie, he promised himself he wouldn't let charlie's childhood be as bad as his. And the screamer would have made more sense, the screamer could represent not just carol, but also the nuns and his mother.
look here:
http://www.silenthillforum.com/viewtopi ... 60#p652060
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