Human beings have an almost religious fascination with storytelling.
It is through myth that universal truths are established, standards of quality are fermented.
But moreover the best stories give us insight into our complicated
selves. For these reasons, our collective worship of fiction extends
cross-culturally; upwards into academia and downwards into our unconscious. Presently, however,
only books and films have received that scholarly level of respect, with little or no attention given to the narrative merit of
video games. Granted, video games' stories have only been matching the narrative density of books and films for 20 odd years,
making it a relatively nascent medium.
Nevertheless, fans have been analyzing and theorizing about the narrative depths of games for years, with sometimes
Overwhelming perception. There is a hunger for games to be given academic
legitimacy - to not only be accepted as an art form, but to be studied by scholars of the humanities for their themes and subtext.
While I am certainly no academic,
I would like to begin making proposals in the form of videos, in the hopes that certain academics might watch. That way,
individuals of greater stature might see the value of constructing a discipline based around video game narratives.
My first proposal
centers around Silent Hill, a series which began back in
1999 and released for the PlayStation 1. If Mario set standards for
platformers and Doom for first-person shooters, the Silent Hill franchise did the same for
psychological horror. Look on any top 10 list of the greatest horror games of all time - a Silent Hill game is bound to be in
the top five, if not number one. Unlike all-time horror
classics such as Resident Evil or Dead Space, Silent Hill's terror doesn't lie exclusively in the aesthetic mood or survival elements.
Silent Hill is unique because it gives equal importance to subtext; what the audience doesn't see. Throughout the franchise,
but primarily in the first three games, there are no clear explanations given to Silent Hill's idiosyncrasies.
Where did these terrors come from? Why do they look the way they do?
While there are answers,
they are not immediately obvious. In leaving things temporarily mysterious the game designers brilliantly exploited the instinctual dread
which arises from uncertainty. When a person cannot define a particular horror, when the mysterious
emerges from the darkness like a loathsome thought from your unconscious, when the sight they see
doesn't fit into any human category, it throws all your preconceptions of reality into question.
Worst of all,
Silent Hill mimics this inner confusion by projecting it into one's surroundings. Both the outer world and inner world
deteriorate, consumed by darkness, and as you contemplate the meaning of this madness, the truths emerge from unconsciousness
to consciousness, like a beast from the shadows. And herein lies Silent Hill's academic value, its
personification of inner terror, its real-life
formulations of mental suffering. Silent Hill's environments and inhabitants are external formulations of the ever elusive
human psyche, one of the few elements of human life that remains uncharted territory. While we continue to make
technological and medical advancements unprecedented for even the middle-aged segments of our population,
we still do not know how to contend with the neuroses of our own mind, the filth that lies in our collective imagination.
Our inner world, the realm that is closest to us is,
perversely, what we know least about, and thus scares us the most. Much like the video game medium itself,
psychology is a relatively nascent discipline. Thankfully,
psychoanalysts have managed to chart certain patterns in that oh-so-undefinable
unconscious, so the mentally ill among us do not have to. They have given certainty where there once was none,
so we may define our symptoms and give them the appropriate cure.
I have found in my time with Silent Hill that the theories of psychoanalysts share profound
congruity with the town's horrors - whether its Freud's mapping of the psyche, or Jung's collective unconscious, applying
psychoanalytic theory towards [?] Silent Hill not only gives us greater understanding of why the terror is so effective,
but it also might draw attention to deeper mysteries, ones that the Silent Hill fan community never considered.
Allow me to present the core example
this video will focus on. For those who have read the relevant literature,
Silent Hill fans know that the
reason why Silent Hill takes on such a bloody and rusted demeanor is because it gives form to the perceiver's innermost thoughts.
Take for instance, Silent Hill 2.
It is widely understood that sexualized monsters, like the nurse or the mannequin, are manifestations of James's repressed
sexual urges.
However,
the sickly dirty look of the monsters does not extend to all of James's projections - namely his projections of Mary and
Maria. Why is this? It's not like James could voluntarily keep his projections of these two pure,
given the unpalatable look of all his other projections.
Moreover, a character like Maria seems to be autonomous, like a fellow character that stumbled into Silent Hill with James. Yet
we know she is a projection, given her constant resurrections and her ambiguous statements to James in the jail.
So what is she? I believe I may have found the answer, and it lies in psychoanalysis.
Before I give my answer, I know there are some of you who might be questioning the
utility of this pursuit - after all there doesn't seem to be any proof that
Freud's theories or Jung's theories or Adler's theories gave any inspiration to the creators of Silent Hill.
Once again, the answer lies in Silent Hill supplementary material, namely, the Book of Lost Memories.
This book is the holy grail of Silent Hill mythology. Within, you will find answers to most of Silent Hill's
ambiguities. On page 77, under "The Making of Silent Hill 3",
Silent Hill's musical composer, Akira Yamaoka, reveals the following:
he says that Hiroyuki Owaku, Silent Hill's planner and scenario writer, took inspiration from Freud's psychoanalytic
theories. If Silent Hill 2 is any indication, one can deduce from this that Owaku took much
Inspiration from Freud's theory of the pleasure principle. To summarize that theory briefly, Freud believed that the driving force of the human
unconscious was a primitive will to pleasure; to satisfy urges of hunger and anger, but above all,
sexuality was supposedly the sole factor in the formation of human personality.
This theory seems to work perfectly in conjunction with James's sexual delusions. If personal development all stems back to one's
sexuality, this explains the nurse, the mannequin, Maria and Pyramid Head's tendency towards sexual molestation.
However, when applying Freud's theory beyond those specific monsters, things become a little less...
consistent. It is not obvious that the Mandarin, the Creeper, the Flesh Lip, or
Mary herself have any connection to James's will to pleasure.
This is especially the case with Silent Hill 3, where Freud's pleasure principle doesn't seem to apply to any
monster, at least according to the Book of Lost Memories.
Beyond Silent Hill, the aforementioned Carl Jung took issue with Freud boiling human motivations down to primitive
sexual urges. Jung believed that there were several factors,
unrelated to sexuality, which influenced our consciousness, such as Adler's will to power or
religious motivations. With all this said, even though Owaku took inspiration from Freud,
he probably wasn't the sole inspiration. Did Owaku draw from any other psychoanalytic theories?
We simply do not know for sure.
However, I would like to propose a hypothetical scenario where he did.
Specifically, I would like to entertain the idea that maybe Owaku took inspiration from Jung's theory of archetype.
Even if this is not the case,
I think you might find that in applying Jung's theory, things seem to fit too well to be coincidental -
especially in the case of Maria. Allow me to summarize Jung's theory of archetype briefly for those who are unaware.
It is a complicated theory,
but I'll simplify it for the purposes of this analysis. Jung theorized that there are patterns in human
imagination and the fiction that it produces. For example,
the reason why we love characters such as
Gandalf from Lord of the Rings, or Dumbledore from Harry Potter, is because they reflect an inner love and respect in all of us for
the "wise old man". Characters like Gandalf and Dumbledore are heralded as great characters because they embody the
archetypal ideal of the wise old man. Characters that embody archetypes best tend to amplify the quality of the overall
story. It is when a character reflects our collective ideal of a seasoned, wise,
powerful being that gives guidance to those around him, that the audience holds them up as the prime example of that
archetype. In respect to Silent Hill and Maria,
I would like to discuss one archetype in particular:
the "anima".
Much like the wise old man,
the anima is the prime example of everything that is feminine. Whenever a character embodies characteristics that are symbolically or
stereotypically feminine, audiences cherish those who embodied those characteristics best.
However,
what distinguishes the anima from any other archetypal female figure is its relation to men. According to Jung,
"The anima is the personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man's psyche."
For instance, if we consider profound love and care to be symbolically feminine, a man who is gruff and unempathetic
might unconsciously desire this feminine trait so he can integrate it into his inner and outer life.
If he encounters a woman in real life who
displays these characteristics to a profound degree, he might pursue this woman. To use Jungian terminology, the man projected his inner
anima onto this woman. Jung believed that by integrating all masculine and feminine traits
into one's being, it would lead to a higher state of consciousness, of wholesomeness.
However, in doing this, there is some potential danger. Take the example of the gruff,
unempathetic man. If he pursues the woman for her love and care,
he might genuinely need it. If he's successful, the union of the gruff man with the caring woman might be
psychologically healthy, as it satisfies his inner anima.
However, what if the woman doesn't accept the man's advances? What if there is something about the man that is unpalatable or unattractive?
What if the woman isn't as caring as the man wishes her to be? Worse,
what if the loving care the man seeks comes from a poor
relationship that he had with his mother and now he's trying to make this other woman a sort of caring surrogate?
In projecting one's inner anima onto other women, negative experiences might cause the man to become conscious of his faults and weaknesses.
If those faults are strong enough, dark enough,
becoming conscious of them might permanently destroy a man. In trying to describe the anima's power, our religious and
non-religious ancestors gave her human form,
so she may awaken with us a love and respect for the archetype, much like the aforementioned Gandalf and Dumbledore
did for the wise old man. While there are several symbolic women who have embodied the anima in religion and literature
one of the most common symbols of the anima is that of the Virgin Mary from Christian theology.
Seeing that a man's inner
anima is often shaped in early life by one's mother,
what better example is there for Christians than Mary, mother of Jesus Christ? Without even saying anything,
the parallels between the anima and Silent Hill are starting to be recognized. If the anima is a man's inner
psychological tendencies, and Silent Hill gives form to one's innermost thoughts,
maybe Mary and Maria are parts of James' anima. I theorize that Hiroyuki
Owaku took Jung's theory of anima, particularly the anima symbolism through the Virgin Mary, and applied it to Silent Hill.
Here's a proof to support my thesis: at the end of the game, James encounters either Mary or Maria,
depending on the players choices up until that point. Mary, or Maria,
transforms into a hideous, upside-down beast which James must fight. In the Book of Lost Memories,
this final boss is described as follows:
"Her face is like the Virgin Mary's, and her posture is reminiscent of a crucifixion."
Now, why would Mary or Maria need to take on the face of the Virgin Mary whatsoever?
What relation does the biblical Mary or the Christian religion itself have to James?
I argue that it is because the face of the Virgin Mary is arguably the best possible
personification of the feminine spirit, of one's inner anima.
However, unlike the Virgin Mary, whose visage is
often presented as wholesome and warm, the anima takes on an opposite demeanor when it is rejected by James. If the anima represents all
aspects of the feminine spirit,
it makes sense that it would take various forms,
including the negative ones. If James seeks to embrace the anima, it will take on pleasing forms,
and if he rejects it, it takes on repulsive forms.
This conclusion is pretty much reinforced in the jail, when James asks if Maria truly is who she claims.
"Aren't you Maria?"
"I'm not your Mary"
"So, you're Maria?"
"I am.... if you want me to be."
Roughly two decades from Silent Hill 2's initial release, there are layers to its story that are still being uncovered.
Though this video is reaching its conclusion,
there are still many other instances where
psychoanalytic theory might apply to Silent Hill. For instance, the Tarot cards in Silent Hill 3 feature
archetypal figures as well, and those cards reflect certain characters in the game, according to the Book of Lost Memories.
This will have to be an investigation saved for another time, however.
Even if my interpretation ends up being incorrect,
there is one important truth that must be seized upon: there is a density to Silent Hill's world and story that deserves to be given
academic consideration. If books can receive multiple interpretations from psychological
perspectives, and potentially elicit greater knowledge of not just fiction but ourselves,
is it so far-fetched to see the value in doing the same for video games?
What book has adequately Illustrated the chaos of the unconscious mind?
What movie has matched the horror one feels from an interactive experience,
personalized to the button prompts of the player?
There is a vast plane of valuable knowledge to glean from video game narratives.
Maybe this can be the first step.