hey wisecrack Michael here and today
we're talking about in nearly 22-year
old game that still gives us nightmares
the ps2 horror classic Silent Hill -
often ranked as among the greatest games
ever made
not just in horror it is influential for
other games and films as well even
guillermo del toro confesses to being a
fan because it's one of my favorite
gaming franchises on storytelling
franchises ever so what makes it so
great and why did it successors which
borrows so heavily from it not quite hit
the mark well it has a lot to do with
the psychological part of its
psychological horror so turn on your
radios and grab a plank of wood for this
wisecrack addition on the psychology of
Silent Hill 2 and spoilers ahead for an
old video game let's do a quick recap
Silent Hill 2 is the story of widow
James Sunderland who arrives at the
titular town of Silent Hill after
receiving a letter from his wife Mary
asking for him to visit but Mary's been
dead for three years dead person can't
write a letter Mary died of that damn
disease three years ago so James is
understandably confused and decides to
investigate upon arrival pretty mean fog
rolls in that hides some grotesque
monsters and draw distances he soon
realizes the town is nearly empty save
for Nightmare fuel he does however meet
some normal people
well sort of normal the schlub with a
stomach bug Eddy the lost and erratic
Angela and the really obnoxious little
girl Laura none of whom are all that
interested in hanging out or being
particularly helpful like when Laura
locks James in a room to die Laura what
are you also witnesses the main
antagonist of the game everyone's
favorite geometric ghoul Pyramid Head
doing something - two pairs of legs
stitched together look we'll get to that
anyway
he then meets a woman who looks
identical to his wife Mary but weirdly
named Maria who tags along in hopes of
escaping the town after exploring a
hospital with questionable health
standards
Maria is killed by Pyramid Head only to
be found inexplicably alive a little
later James further explores Silent Hill
repeatedly rescuing Maria and watching
her die rescuing Angela
watching her die trying to help Eddie
and having to kill him all while that
little jerk Laura keeps trying to kill
him this all culminates in James
confronting his past
turns out he euthanized slash murdered
his wife as she was wasting away from a
terminal illness both the put her out of
her misery and so he might move on with
his life depending on how you play the
game James can either leave Silent Hill
with the wife doppelganger Maria leave
the town with Laura revive his dead wife
using the evil power of the town or take
his own life after being torn apart by
guilt Silent Hill 2 is as tragic as it
is scary sure the lighting and the
isolating atmosphere makes wandering the
empty streets creepy as hell
and yes waiting for your radio to fill
with static as another shambling
nightmare approaches can be unbearably
tense but it's James's tragic backstory
that makes it all so bleak to understand
how the tragedy and scares worked so
cohesively
we have to turn to Swiss psychoanalyst
Carl Jung a one-time pupil of Mother
Love and Sigmund Freud Jung believes
human neuroses are born out of the
subconscious which is influenced by our
desires he thought of this subconscious
desire as a type of energy a sort of
driving force that he referred to as
libido this was different from Freud's
definition which was explicitly sexual
like everything in Freud as Jung put it
libido denotes a desire or impulse
unchecked by any kind of Authority moral
or otherwise libido is appetite in its
natural state Jung believed our psyche
was a self-regulating system and our
libido is part of them our libidinal
energy or drive simply knows where it
should go to help the psyche likening it
to water the libido has as it were a
natural tension it is like water which
must have a gradient if it is to flow
but just like water it can meet
resistance and back up for Jung this is
what depression is a sort of clog in our
libido
so our desires or libido shows us where
to go but we have to do the work to pull
out that clog this concept is the first
step in understanding the main premise
of the game most people quite rightly
wonder why James would go all the way to
spooky Silent Hill in the first place
when he knows damn well his wife is dead
you know because he killed her we might
also ask why as soon as he sees
first half melt that figure moved to
attack him he doesn't just turn tail and
run right back the way he came in after
all in some endings he just strolls
right back out of town no doors locked
shut behind him no fallen rocks block
his path he even has an abundant supply
of maps instead
James stays because of his subconscious
desires his desire to know who sent the
letter but mostly his desire for
forgiveness this is James's libido in
action pushing him in the directions
towards what he desires most and
encouraging him to work through the
traumas that are clogging up the natural
flow of his libido and that starts
before he's even set foot in the town
once he's there the Jungian psychology
kicks into overdrive
not long after arriving in the town
through a grave area my dad James
encounters a monster walking on two legs
but with no arms and no face though it
must have a mouth because it likes to
throw up on another type of monster you
meet has two sets of legs stitched on
top of each other an anatomical oddity
that might in any other scenario seem
goofy instead of terrifying part of his
terror is driven by how they're
introduced along with the breakout star
of the Silent Hill franchise Pyramid
Head while searching a hallway
James hears a commotion in one of the
rooms he runs inside and then ducks into
a closet where he peers through the
blinds to see what is happening and what
is happening geez
when pyramid heads not terrorizing you
he's jamming a long spear a huge sword
into women's bodies and yeah you can
probably see where we're going with this
salad l2 is full of the types of symbols
a Jungian psychoanalyst would love to
decode Jung's theory of symbolism was
that certain primal energies like love
and fear manifest in our psyche as
symbols sometimes these symbols are
specific a hammer you banged your thumb
with could become a symbol of your pain
or stupidity but sometimes these symbols
are shared between all people and are as
primal as the energies they represent
Jung called these kind of symbols
archetypes a phrase you might have heard
before patients suffering delusional
episodes often focus their paranoia
on an external tormentor usually one
conforming to Jungian archetypes these
archetypes represent figures and
characters we see throughout history in
different cultures and civilizations for
young the mother is an archetype in
every culture and most religions all
over the world symbolizing fertility the
earth and compassion while he saw the
wise old man archetype as similarly a
symbol of age wisdom and guidance in a
lot of cultures now whether these
symbols are actually Universal has been
contested but we're just sticking with
Jung's model for this video whatever
form they take these symbols express a
fundamental aspect of our psyche that we
have trouble consciously articulating
per young every psychological expression
is a symbol if we assume that it's
States or signifies something more and
other than its self which alludes our
present knowledge in the case of silent
hill we are able to diagnose a lot of
what is going on in James's head just
through the symbolism in the game though
some of these symbols are obvious some
aren't so let's get all Jungian and
psychoanalyze James and apologies in
advance this might get a little graphic
don't blame us blame Konami let's start
with the most obvious symbol Maria she
is an exact likeness of James's dead
wife but more seductively dressed and
aggressively flirtatious at the end of
the game James confesses he was
frustrated and angry with Mary because
he wanted to move on with his life
instead of having to care for her the
truth is part of me hated you for taking
away my life so when James arrives in a
haunted town and meets his wife's near
identical twin with a similar name who
is more assertive and sexually alluring
we begin to realize she represents not
what his wife was but what he might have
wanted her to be knowing this we've
realized James's libido might be as
sexual as Freud believed after all so if
Maria symbolizes the frustration James
felt during his wife's long illness that
puts into context a lot of other symbols
he encounters throughout the game like
Pyramid Head for instance James says at
the end of the game that's why I needed
you
need someone to punish me for my sins
suggesting he or the town created
Pyramid Head in an attempt at self
flagellation but while that might be the
monsters purpose what he symbolizes ties
into James's sexual frustrations like
when we see the muscular unstoppable
powerhouse stabbing his wife's
look-alike with a huge long spear and
look guys we don't want to get
demonetised but you know what we're
talking about right this kind of overt
sexual symbolism is consistent
throughout the game scene in the nurse
in the hospital wearing inexplicably
revealing outfits are those freaky sets
of women's legs that are literally
attacking you with their well you get it
and it's not just the monsters either
the image in the frame when you see
Angela for the final time is a corrupted
representation of a naked female body
before that you find her in a room that
has walls seemingly made of flesh also
there are orifices above your head with
cylinders sliding repeatedly in and out
at other times the monsters symbolize a
less sexual version of James's guilt
the first monsters you meet resemble a
person in a straitjacket this is before
you find all the notes about violent
patients in the asylum for James who we
learn felt trapped in his marriage to a
dying woman the symbol of a visibly
bound creature attacking him can be seen
as a symbol of the restrictions he felt
while caring for his wife the final boss
of the game amounts to a surreal
nightmare version of Mary or Maria
depending on how you played the game
strapped in a bed hanging over James
this image of a woman bound to her bed
floating above him literally hanging
over his head as it injures him
symbolizes how James felt about his wife
as she was dying an oppressive presence
following him wherever he goes that he
ultimately ends up destroying the other
people driven to the town by their
libidinal energy are struggling with her
own demons too early on in the game
James reads a note that says I saw those
demons they were there I'm certain but
my friend says he didn't see anything if
that's true does that mean that what I
saw was an illusion the more we talked
to the other characters especially Eddie
and Angela we realized they might see
things that we don't and vice-versa
not only do characters not see what you
see but mention seeing the
own visions pyramid I know what you
talking about honest I did see some
weird-looking monsters they also exhibit
bizarre behavior best explained by
experiencing some other reality Eddy who
admits to maiming a bully and killing a
dog before he attacks you it seemed
nonchalantly eating a pizza earlier on
in the game right after you found him
throwing up into a toilet bowl Angela
who we discovered killed her father in
self-defense when he assaulted her go
ahead say it or you could just force me
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flips between barely noticing you and
being terrified she even mistakes you
for her mother if I was looking for you
but before she disappears into the
flames
she says you see it too for me it's
always like this all of their strange
behaviors hint that these characters are
also going through their own traumas
implying that Silent Hill could be
manifesting each person's own demons
just like James they have a libidinal
desire which has been clogged by trauma
from their past and has brought them
there to work through these issues but
because we are playing as James we don't
know exactly what their traumas or
desires are and can only see what he
sees but how does all this psychology
also make it so scary there aren't
really any jump scares in the game these
symbols simply show you what is going on
in James's head without needing to
explain it and this is why a lot of the
more recent games and the movie in
particular missed the point instead of
exploring the psychology of their main
characters they simply recycle the
imagery from Silent Hill 2 that bears no
relation to the protagonist meaning they
don't symbolise anything they're so
scary
but don't have the same effect or
significance in the movie the character
of Rose is searching for her adopted
daughter who is lost in Silent Hill well
you could argue that creepy baby
monsters might be some sort of symbol
for Rose's maternal instincts what does
Pyramid Head symbolize or the sexy
nurses Silent Hill 2 is still so
rewarding by contrast because of another
of young psychological processes he
called the cathartic method
is the method of becoming conscious of
repressed feelings or trauma through the
retelling or reliving of it also known
as abreaction one then confesses so as
to heal and move on as Jung describes it
the goal of the cathartic method is full
confession not merely the intellectual
recognition of the facts with the head
but their confirmation by the heart and
the actual release of suppressed emotion
it's this form of catharsis that Silent
Hill 2 captures perfectly after James
watches the video tape of him smothering
his wife the player finally understands
his guilt the traumatic clog that his
libido drove him to the town to fix in
the first place and the meaning behind
all the gross sexy monsters no matter
what ending you get it is satisfying
because they all feature a confrontation
with his memory of Mary and a reading of
her final letter to him explaining her
feelings before she dies
I feel so pathetic and ugly laying here
waiting for you it is only when James
confronts these symbols of his guilt
that the game can finally end it
provides a kind of catharsis for James
and as a result the player this is why
Silent Hill is still a horror classic
not just because you probably played it
when you were too young but because it
uses actual psychology and Jungian
psychoanalysis to get into your head the
town scares its characters by
understanding what drives them there in
the first place their libido that forces
them to confront their past traumas it
then plays on those fears and traumas
and because we have come to sympathise
with James and code throughout the game
it scares the player too it takes what
James is already afraid of and
represents it symbolically so that one
is inner and outer demons are defeated
or not depending on your in-game choices
James's story is a cathartic experience
about closure and coming to terms with
loss and sex a lot of it is about sex
and short it takes this quote from Oscar
Wilde literally we are each our own
devil and we make this world our hell
but what do you think let us know in the
comments a big ol thanks to our awesome
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the channel go ahead and hit that
subscribe button and as always thanks
for watching don't have nightmares
wisecrack peace
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