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+--- Thread: Real Silent Hill Towns (/showthread.php?tid=63)
Real Silent Hill Towns - Dejajeva - 04-12-2024
I've heard a bit about the theory that Silent Hill is based on actual towns. What real towns was Silent Hill based on?
RE: Real Silent Hill Towns - SilentKitten - 04-12-2024
wouldn't be surprised. I tried looking up towns named 'Silent Hill', but none are in the U.S.A.
RE: Real Silent Hill Towns - =AoD= Captain - 04-12-2024
There is a Toluca Lake in California, but it is very small (more like a glorified pond). Funny enough though the buildings boarding it are all called Lakeside something or another, but for the real lake there is Lakeside Golf Course and Lakeside Community Center. You can get a good upclose view by using Google maps. Search for Toluca Lake, CA, then switch to sat images and zoom in.
RE: Real Silent Hill Towns - narrator - 04-13-2024
I've been to Toluca a few times, it's only about a 30 bus ride from where i'm at. It definitely has a creepy vibe to it, i can see why they would pay homage to it.
RE: Real Silent Hill Towns - shootzombies - 04-21-2024
This entry below is from Wikipedia.com. Now I understand that you can't quite rely on the site but it does have some good points:
What is Silent Hill?
Silent Hill is a lakeside resort town, in the United States, that seems to be shifting between this world and the "Otherworld." In the first two games, the protagonists are seemingly accidentally (or incidentally) drawn to the town, which to the protagonists appears abandoned and replaced by fearsome monsters and demonic entities. In the third and fourth games, the horrors of Silent Hill have been "brought to" the games' protagonists. In each game, players are required to uncover a complex mystery to explain why they are being haunted by Silent Hill's native horrors. Thus, the games have a primarily narrative basis rather than being driven by action.
Silent Hill is portrayed in different ways in the various games. The enemies and environments all relate to the themes and plot of each game. The first game is focused on a cult in Silent Hill and their religious activities, and therefore the game contains religious symbolism of the struggle between good and evil. The second game suggests that the town may be a metaphorical incarnation of a person's troubled psyche, or perhaps a kind of purgatory. The third game continues the notion of the battles between good and evil forces (like the first installment) in religious overtones. The fourth game is openly surreal in its depiction of environment relating to the psyche of the protagonist. There is a prevalent presence of sexual metaphors throughout the series that seem to derive from the protagonist's angst and fears and gives a symbolic representation of the characters' mentality. Much of the underlying themes in the games are depicted by scenery rather than by dialogue, and gives Silent Hill a great deal of ambiguity which can be interpreted in more than one way.
As Silent Hill is perceived through the protagonists' eyes, it is not always clear whether what is seen by the player is a just a deranged hallucination or if the town is truly changing into the grotesque scenes that the player must travel through. In all of the games, the player will occasionally run across clear defiances of the laws of physics. For example, a player may enter a doorway only to find themselves inexplicably back in the same location or somehow transported to a far away place. There are also times when the protagonist is situated in a location that cannot be pointed out on the map provided. When present in such a situation, in the first installment the map simply names the place "Nowhere." Here, the game is wholly lent to the player's interpretation.
It is worth noting that the manual to the first game describes Silent Hill as a small New England resort town. The surroundings of Silent Hill are similar to the region, particularly the fog. The town might be located in Northern New England, possibly Maine. In the second game, the number plates on all the cars in the game are from Michigan. The fourth game takes place in a town called Ashfield, which resembles Fall River, Massachusetts. The town of Silent Hill is also located near a large body of water called Toluca Lake, which suggests a Southern California location. This is reinforced by the fact that Douglas' car in Silent Hill 3 has California tags, although to wit, Silent Hill 3 does not initially take place in the town, which itself is only visited in the second half. Again, this provides a fair amount of ambiguity about Silent Hill and its surrounding environment.
Numerous fan forums and message boards have sprung up on the Internet in the years since the games' introduction, where the symbolism and themes in each game are enthusiastically discussed and sometimes debated
So perhaps this supports the theory that people don't necessarily go to Silent Hill- Silent Hill comes to them. Maybe thats why there is no definite location as to WHERE Silent Hill really is. Maybe Silent Hill just materializes into the persons deepest fears and secrets and then travels right to there doorstop, and make there life a living hell.