Silent Hill Mythology - God

[Music] [Applause] it's been almost nine months since I did the last episode of Silent Hill mythology for the longest time when people have asked me if I would ever do another mythology video I said I would and the subject would be the order of Silent Hill however I have refrained from doing that these past nine months for one core reason unless I can bring an original perspective to something about the game there's no point you see there is already a pre-existing analysis of the order that I believe is near-perfect and it was done by a youtube user named reinstall Paul I referenced his work in the last video when I was discussing silent hill's roots in alchemical tradition if you want a thorough analysis of the order and its various real-life religious influences I highly recommend you go watch reinstall Paul's presentation which I will link in the description box below with that said the fact that you are watching this video indicates that I finally have an original perspective to offer the ideas I will present in this video came to me when I was rewatching reinstall Paul's series a couple of weeks ago while I listened I noticed that while he did a good job applying his knowledge to the character of God the orders highest deity I felt that there were some cool bits of information that went unmentioned today I want to present an addendum of sorts that will give a greater appreciation as to what the god of Silent Hill actually is I believe that my theory will not only clear up some pre-existing confusion about the nature of God but it will also provide a deeper appreciation for silent hill's horror let us begin by listing what we know for certain about the character of God and then we will address those more confusing elements God is the highest deity of sound Hill's secret doomsday cult the Afra mentioned order unlike the gods of our reality the God of Silent Hill did not preexist humanity rather the orders God was supposedly born from the pleas of the suffering before God humanity suffered relentlessly all they knew was a never-ending cycle of pain and suffering out of despair a random man and woman offered a serpent and a reed to the Sun and asked for joy from this God was born it was solely a desire for God that birthed God in other words God was willed into existence this newly birth God brought forward many gifts to the world such as the invention of time which apparently did not exist prior to God's Advent God purposefully invented time as a promise that the cycle of pain would no longer be eternal but would come to an end alongside this God birthed lower God's angels and even the paradise that would come at the end of time but before the pious could be delivered to paradise God's strength ran out and she collapsed as she breathed her last breath she promised her followers that she would come again and deliver them to paradise the order intends to bring about this paradise via the rebirth of God throughout the many years that the order existed as an institution they sought a mortal female that could serve as a vessel they sought a womb for Immaculate Conception this person ended up being Alessa Gillespie the daughter of the orders leader Dalia Gillespie it is from this point that the story of the Silent Hill saga begins starting chronologically from Silent Hill origins onward there were other pieces of information regarding the order that will be addressed momentarily but I must now return my focus to the character of God specifically the aspects of God that have caused Silent Hill fans some confusion first of all I would like to ask all of the Silent Hill fans watching this video to pretend for a moment that you know nothing about the franchise that this video you're watching now is the only thing about Silent Hill that you have ever watched now I ask you to consider everything I've told you about the character of God if the only information you know about God is what I just you does God seem like a villain we all know that God is one of the primary antagonists of the whole saga but to an outsider does God seem all that villainous God seems to want to deliver the world from pain and suffering on the surface there doesn't seem to be a lot wrong with that yet if you play the game you find that the character of God often takes on a demonic malevolent appearance to make matters worse the character of God displays a wide range of positive and negative forms throughout the series allow me to run down the list of God's contradictory descriptions up until this point I have shown you two images of what one might classify as God one is the God in the paintings with orange hair and a red dress the other is the incubator from Silent Hill 1 to those who argue that the incubator isn't God but merely the vessel I point you to the holy grail of Silent Hill mythology the book of lost memories the book confirms that the incubator is in fact a form of God aside from these pleasant portrayals of God we also have frightening portrayals we have the Incubus which emerges from the incubators back in Silent Hill origins there is the version of God known as alice's dream which looks like Incubus but not entirely in Silent Hill 3 there was the character that again looks a bit like Incubus but now has a head that looks like alice's in total we have five representations of the orders god that greatly differ in their presentation we have depictions of a divine goddess as well as an evil devil so which is it it seems that even the members of the order can to offer a direct answer to that question for instance there is a conversation that Vincent and Heather have about God that amplifies our collective confusion common for people to worship the same God and still disagree God you sure you don't mean devil Chevy like so what does one make of these contradictory depictions of God in order to address this fully I need to give two separate answers first the simple yet incomplete answer and second the complex complete answer the simple answer regarding why God takes these multiple forms lies in the avro mentioned book of lost memories quote the form of God that is born to the earth changes depending on those who summon it as we know the monsters of Silent Hill are the physical manifestations of one's unconscious mind this fact extends to the character of God as well one might view God as a heavenly angel and another might view it as demonic that is the simple answer but nonetheless it is an incomplete answer there are still questions that arise first of all if the members of the order believe God is benevolent and will deliver them to paradise why does the book of lost memories say that the demonic versions of God are projections of Dahlia and Claudia when these do be most likely to perceive their God like could be heavenly one in the paintings moreover why does the book of lost memories say that the heavenly incubator is alessa's projection of God while alice's other projection of god alessa's dream is much more demonic also we still have to deal with the fact that to a lot of people the promise of a paradise free from pain is both relished and chastised by various characters in the series again what do we make of this did the lead writers for the sound hill games make canonical mistakes games posed Silent Hill for not included or was all of this mysteriously intentional I intend to argue for the latter and reinstall Paul's presentation he addresses the character of Incubus and its striking resemblance to Baphomet the history of Baphomet in occult and alchemical tradition is very complicated so I will give you the basic information on the one hand ferment is viewed as demonic is the official symbol of the Church of Satan as well as the image of the devil in the early turret most importantly the most famous depiction of Baphomet from the French occultist le fais la vie describes Baphomet as quote a pantheistic and magical figure of the absolute now what does he mean by absolute well let's look back to reinstall Paul's presentation if you look at lady's depiction of Baphomet you see many contradictions one hands points upward the other down it has a goat's head but a human body it has fish scales but bird's wings and so on it is because Baphomet possesses all of these opposite elements that Lavy describes it as the absolute like Baphomet the God of Silent Hill bears these opposite elements now they're firmly good nor evil divine nor demonic but all of the above it is the very fact that both Baphomet and the goddess Silent Hill are paradoxes that makes them divine the notion of God being a unity of opposites is not unique to Silent Hill nor ladies illustration it is a concept that has been plundered for millennia going as far back as the beginnings of judeo-christian tradition and maybe even further than that one person who has investigated this contradictory god image is somebody who has been referenced many a time in this series Carl Jung in his book called ion Jung outlined his belief that all human beings strive to greater things he called the pinnacle of the striving the end of this process the self the self is the god image the highest ideal human beings have symbolized this striving towards the self in many ways but most importantly with religious depictions of perfect men for example Christians strive to emulate Jesus who was supposedly a perfect man Buddhists follow Buddha Muslims follow Muhammad and so on according to Jung what made these beings perfect to avatars of the self was their ability to bring their light and darkside into perfect balance in Jesus's case following his crucifixion his soul descended to the depths of hell the lowest low so that he could be reincarnated and ascend to heaven like Baphomet young viewed Jesus too as a union of opposites he was a man but also a God he is everlasting but also only existed once in time given how well Jung's theories seem to have applied to the sound he'll meet those up until this point I think it is reasonable to assume that Jung's conception of God as a union of opposites applies after all references to the unity of opposites in Silent Hill don't stop merely with the character of God one of the items you can obtain in the first Silent Hill game is the disk of Ouroboros the Ouroboros is the ancient symbol of the dragon eating its tail while it symbolizes the neverending cycle of life and death it also symbolizes especially in Jung's mind the state of being before time began where all of life and all of its opposites were contained in one seed a concept that the human mind cannot possibly fathom hence the Dragons still being alive even though it is eating its own tail this state of being also reflects the state of being that existed before the God of Silent Hill was born before God invented time there's also the amulet of Solomon as reinstall Paul explains the symbol represents the unified polarity of masculine and feminine energy amongst other things this union of opposite elements continued with the key of hagath the centaur pillar the crest of mercury and more to drive the point home I would like to reference Carl Jung's analysis of the Jewish God in the affirmation texts I on Yonge discusses the problem of the Yahweh istic God image which had been constellated in men's minds ever since the book of Job during the development of the Christian religion the notion that God was solely good was brought about a notion that quote did not satisfy the conservative Jews again I must summarize for the sake of simplicity and time unlike the Christian God which is widely viewed as only good the Jewish Yahweh seemed to be both good and evil even rabbinical scholars have noted that the destructive aspect of God it doesn't seem to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked at times like the power of a tornado as for how this relates to silent held there were several references to Jewish religious tradition the after mentioned amulet of Solomon is one of them with the Star of David however there are also references to Metatron and Samael Metatron and Samael were Archangels from Jewish tradition Metatron was the heavenly reincarnation of the biblical prophet Enoch and some Al is often accorded with Satan another pair of opposites while I believe that the case is now clear that the god of silent hill continues the age-old tradition of depicting God as a paradox I understand that some people might not be satisfied the main complaint I think might be offered is that the game still does cast the members of the order including their God as evil and all those who oppose the order as good this is true but we must not forget the orders argument in favor of their religion they believe that existence is so full of pain and suffering that it would be better if it had never existed they believed that it must be destroyed and that a new paradise old world should be formed in its place while some of you might take the side of somebody like Heather who thinks that such a paradise would be boring and that conflict is inherent to existence it's never that simple there are people that believe life is nothing but tragedy and moreover have good reason to believe that when pain gives way to agony people will go from praising God and its creation to praying for death as an escape from suffering if you think you know for certain what is good and what isn't or that God is good or isn't you are sorely mistaken you might have chosen the right answer but your faith in that answer will be tested thank you all very much for watching it's really good to be doing Silent Hill videos again if you'd like this video please hit that like button it's free and it helps me out immensely if you want to see more videos like this in the future make sure to hit that subscribe button plus if you're new here and want to see more Silent Hill analysis please click one of the two videos you see on screen now

Channel: Max Derrat

Views: 934,784

Keywords: max derrat, max derrat silent hill, silent hill 2, silent hill 3, silent hill mythology, god, god silent hill mythology, silent hill god, incubus, baphomet, alessa, silent hill alessa, explained, silent hill explained, silent hill theory, silent hill analysis

Id: D-yjzAs6PB8

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 26 2020