Gillespie House

[PyP]

Hi all

Looking for help, I need something to know.

The opening video shows the Gillespie House:

http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Gillespie_House

But in the game, is it shown this short video in which you see the house?

I mean, I know that you are in that house during the game, but that short video shown?

Really thank you

[Silent Chill]

The opening cutscene shows the Gillespie home before the fire broke out. At the end of the game, in "nowhere" you visit parts of the home manifested from Alessa's memory of her childhood.

[Lifetolifeless]

I’ve always been curious why the Gillespie home would have been located in something of a partially flooded basin, to the point that a power pole lay uprooted and diagonal in the foreground of the video.

[Lifetolifeless]

Is the state of the house depicted as someone remembered (or even dreamed) it, rather than what it actually was?

[Jonipoon]

You never actually see the exterior of the Gillespie house in the game, only parts of its interior during flashbacks from Alessa's memory in Nowhere.

The problem is that you can't say for sure that the house seen in the intro is the Gillespie house. In the game, the Gillespie house is described as being located in the business district of Silent Hill, and the house seen in the intro is clearly located in a more rural scenery. Besides, the photo of the house in Alessa's room is a distorted, mirrored image of the house seen in the intro.

[The Adversary]

>The problem is that you can't say for sure that the house seen in the intro is the Gillespie house.<
Well considering the exterior of the Gillespie house seen in Silent Hill: Origins is identical to the one depicted in Silent Hill's intro is all the evidence we need to know it's the same house.

It seems to me the Gillespie house is north of Green Lion Antiques, where Dahlia had her secret altar. That would still technically be in the business district if it were a mile or so away, especially if development just sorta stops at where Green Lion is.

[Jonipoon]

Well considering the exterior of the Gillespie house seen in Silent Hill: Origins is identical to the one depicted in Silent Hill's intro is all the evidence we need to know it's the same house.

And we all know how "good" Origins was at continuity, a game that made the fire accident look intentional.

One truth does not prove another truth.

[The Adversary]

Silent Hill: Origins didn’t create inconsistencies. They were already there since game one. Climax didn’t state the Gillespie house was in the business district and then depict it in the middle of a field—Team Silent did. That’s on them.

Origins expanded on ideas already presented in the original game, many of which help us understand the town and cult’s lore, particularly regarding the Flauros and Hauros, the demon.

No, I’m not buying the whole Climax ruined everything because it doesn’t fit my narrative narrative. Is it perfect? No. None of them are. Yet the shoe still fits.

[Jonipoon]

I'm most certainly not trying to push for a Climax ruined everything narrative, it's just that some things are easier explained when they're left untouched. Not everything needs an explanation and the Gillespie house is one of those things that doesn't need it. The exact location of the house or what it looks like from the outside is not important to the story.

[NanayaShiki]

I'm most certainly not trying to push for a Climax ruined everything narrative, it's just that some things are easier explained when they're left untouched. Not everything needs an explanation and the Gillespie house is one of those things that doesn't need it. The exact location of the house or what it looks like from the outside is not important to the story.

These are more or less my feelings on it as well. I do think the house we see in SH1 was intended to be the Gillespie house but it's intentionally vague. Similarly, the way the demon stuff is handled in Origins felt like it was making things more complicated than it needed to be. Also the whole creepy grinning "Dark Alessa" nonsense they added from the movie.

Origins is my least favorite one, so I'm less kind to it overall. I don't think it retroactively ruins SH1, but I do think it's very clear that their goals included "make it more like the movie" and "make it more like SH2", goals which are not only at odds with each other, but also at odds with SH1. I don't think we can write off all criticism of it as people pushing a "they ruined everything" narrative. It has legitimate inconsistencies.

But in regards specifically to the house, I think it was implied enough in SH1 that Origins running with it makes sense. And if we want to count every game (which I generally do) then I think it's a fine piece of "evidence".

[Lifetolifeless]

I'm definitely not put off by oversights, nor by taking an opportunity to run a comb through things upon revisiting them. Oftentimes, especially back in the late '90s when the first game was built, these kinds of disconnects are the result of mismatched production schedules without budget (or good reason) to go back and rework content once the overall game details come together and solidify. It's a rad-looking house as depicted in the pre-rendered cinematic, and that, ultimately, was of benefit to the final product, even if the story's details ultimately muddled its depicted surroundings.

I'm also keen to discuss these things as if they were intentional, to see whether they hold water. Totally fine if they leak a bit. The leaks are interesting in themselves, and that's still fun to me.

[The Adversary]

> Not everything needs an explanation and the Gillespie house is one of those things that doesn't need it.<
This is just such an easy thing to explain, though. So much so that, while it might not matter in the grand scheme of things, there’s even less of a point to dispute it. Heck, it’s even addressed in Silent Hill Chronicle.

>I do think the house we see in SH1 was intended to be the Gillespie house but it's intentionally vague.<
I don’t think this was ever even intentionally vague. Seemed pretty clear to me even in 1999 as a high schooler.

I don’t necessarily look at these things as ‘inconsistencies’ at this point. Are they different from what we initially perceived? Sure. But we’re not the ones writing the games. If said inconsistencies were so egregious they couldn’t be reconciled, that would be one thing, but these are not. Even the demon at the end of Origins, that might at first seem shoehorned in, adds to the story—significantly, in my opinion.

[NanayaShiki]

I don’t necessarily look at these things as ‘inconsistencies’ at this point. Are they different from what we initially perceived? Sure. But we’re not the ones writing the games. If said inconsistencies were so egregious they couldn’t be reconciled, that would be one thing, but these are not. Even the demon at the end of Origins, that might at first seem shoehorned in, adds to the story—significantly, in my opinion.

I appreciate that way of looking at things, though I also understand why someone who isn't a fan of additions and changes made to a story in a later entry would choose to ignore it. Death of the Author is a legitimate way of engaging with media. I think I mostly agree with you that nothing in Origins is so bad that I want to strike it from the canon or anything, but I also just kind of... don't consider it one way or the other, personally.

Or maybe it makes more sense to say, I consider it when looking at the series lore/story overall. But when engaging with SH1 individually, be it about plot details or (more interesting to me) thematic readings and character arcs, I don't take what Origins has to say into consideration.

[The Adversary]

That's fair, I just can't do that myself. If a game (or book or whatever) is part of the overall narrative, I have to look at it all together. It seems that's what Masahiro Ito is doing—especially in saying Silent Hill 2 takes place in the late '70s or early '80s. That might have been his/their intent, but at this point it's just not accurate.

[Hammerin'InMyHead]

If you'd really like to tie up the loose ends with some pseudo artistic interpretation I would offer the option that the house was able to exist on its own regardless of urban and historical developments, idealizing and becoming present through the image of Andrew Wyeth's painting.

One could say the house existed regardless of there being yet a town built or not.

That or the house was built before the rest of the business district...

[Aeternus]

Not ignoring what is seen, but I think those cutscenes were more for the purpose of showing rather than depicting.

For a wooden house that was known to have suffered a violent conflagration, it looked almost unscathed, with the only visible damage being mild burn spots on the walls, and windows still intact, despite being one of the first things that would shatter in the heat of a house fire.

With the risk of drifting from topic I'll mention that Alessa in the intro also looks quite healthy for someone who was known to be in a coma, with charred skin all over, barely a pulse and barely breathing. And there's no way Takayoshi Sato didn't know the background of the characters since he was the character designer himself.

It's a similar case with the view of the house I believe, accurate depiction was not his intent, but more scenic presentation. Chronologically he was aware of the story, as he inserted that image towards the end of the sequence, seven years later when Cheryl was returning. It's just that from the beginnning he created its look directly from the source material it was inspired of, which was in a countryside. In fact a demo version of that house I think, it was almost undistinguishable, and included the small shed, a wheelcart, and a ladder to the roof which were all present in the real world painting, but only later removed to avoid too much resemblance.

[The Adversary]

>For a wooden house that was known to have suffered a violent conflagration, it looked almost unscathed<
Many of those scenes were from prior to Alessa's immolation, so the house appearing in its previous state isn't unexpected.

[Aeternus]

You mean appearing as a memory of Cheryl? That does make sense, she was asleep in the car after all. But still, if not burned it at least looked too decrepit to have been used in years, so I'm kind of torn here. That intro has always posed more questions than answers, both the state of Alessa and the house give the false impression that the fire was less serious than it actually was.

As I suggested, maybe Sato wanted to show more of his characters and scenery, rather than a burned body on a bed and a scorched ruin in a business district, or maybe he wanted to avoid spoiling too much of the story by potentially making things too obvious in the opening. That's what I like to tell myself atleast, it's still an inconsistency.

[The Adversary]

>You mean appearing as a memory of Cheryl? <
No, as just reality, before it was torn down post-fire.

Droo and I were having a discussion about this in another thread—specifically where the house is located—and I always maintained it was north of Green Lion Antiques. Though now I'm leaning more toward it being on the north end of Crichton St.