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Confusing Algorithms: sprech4: friendlytroll replied to your post: DID THE MOSTLY BORING...

friendlytroll:

sprech4:

sprech4:

friendlytroll replied to your post: DID THE MOSTLY BORING DESIGNS FOR DOWNPOUR MAKE YOU CRY TO BECAUSE I REALLY DID BWEEHHH

ITS WORSE THEN YOU THINK. THE MAIN THREE MONSTERS YOU SEE ALL OF THE TIME ARE JUST HUMAN SHAPED. No wierd LIMBS, no disfigurement, no…

So first off if anything I say doesn’t make sense I apologize! I’m still a little woozy because I had to like drown myself in sugar to stay awake during that road trip and now my body is rebelling against itself. BUT.

YEA THEN LET US HAVE PASSIONATE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT SILENT HILL, SO THAT WE MAY CLOG THE DASHES OF OUR COLLECTIVE FOLLOWERS. GOD BLESS.

IIiiiiii actually kind of disagree about there being absolutely no handhold of humanity, and also with the concept of that being the best way to go about this! A lot of the more successfully upsetting designs are scary because there are these…I dunno, glimpses of humanity that shine through in either the designs themselves or the way they act/react. Lying Figure is one of my favourite designs because of this - it’s upsetting because it looks and acts like an actual conscious person in a very horrifying kind of distress. It creates a certain amount of empathy that tends to intrinsically put people on edge. Granted, this is a thing that I see happening less and less as the series goes on.

Also it’s not as if there’s anything wrong with the monsters that don’t invoke that weird fearful empathy response! It’s just A THING that I really like to see happen because of just all the thought processes that go into it, and it’s one of those motifs that is consistently scary and distressing to me.

Evidently Wall Corpse and Tormented aren’t even hostile? Which is kind of funny to me, actually, because it feels like there was more effort put into what are essentially decorative enemies. Well, funny in a “laughing so I don’t cry” way.

That is upsetting, because these are both really interesting ideas for monsters AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED. All of my tears. All of my emotions.

Hahaha, thats okay! It’s just a different way of seeing it. I guess what I meant is that silent hill monsters don’t look like ‘humans, but then fucked up’. They have those human shapes, and human… ahhh, evocative nature? I think I can agree with you abotu feeling emptahy *for* them- what I meant is that, you dont feel like they might be feeling sorry for *you* the protagonist. 

For me, that seems scary! Like, Its not as scary to be fighting humans, because they have lives, and pity, and might flinch to really hurt you… silent hill monsters, I really enjoy the sense that you can’t understand them. But I can really concede that leaving behind the empathetic sting for the *viewer* is a step in the wrong direction! It should feel like… they might flinch to hit you, but you feel bad to hurt them, maybe?

Yeah, seriously? It’s like they only had the budget for monster that moved, OR monsters that actually *work* for most of the game. Hell, I didn;t even notice the Tormented because they only show up in scenes where you literally *have* to run by them! Whats with that. 

And don;t worry about the slow replies, eh~? I dont mind~ I;m just exited to talk to someone about these design things… my followers knew what they were in for. 

Oh, my misunderstanding then! Sorry! No there’s definitely no sense of real empathy from the monsters, and that does go pretty far in making them scary. In that sense, any sort of empathy you feel is suddenly dangerous. And I just think that’s really freaking cool.

“Humans, and then fucked up” is an excellent way to describe the Downpour designs, by the way. It’s also a really fucking stupid way to go about making scary monsters, because it’s decidedly un-scary. Incorporating human elements into these things is scary when done correctly and to an extent, but there is a point where there’s too much human and they turn into just people who look kinda weird and it just kinda ruins everything. All of these designs have regular humanoid silhouettes (and really boring regular human silhouettes, at that), with dingy clothes and minimally fucked up stuff happening to their faces. The most interesting hostile is Weeping Bat, which is has kind of a neat silhouette until you realize it’s the only interesting one.

That is disappointing! Though The whole THE BEST DESIGNS ARE MONSTER DECOR AUGH issue doesn’t bother me…as much as it probably ought to? Mostly because a lot of my favourite things to look at in Silent Hill games are the random bodies and monsters that hand around in the scenery like these things. In that sense it kind of didn’t surprise me that the only designs I liked were more or less scenery pieces.

YES IT’S WONDERFUL TO TALK ABOUT THIS and I hope to do it as much as possible damnit. And I hope that other people following this will put in their two cents as well damnit. Because a mass discussion of Silent Hill aesthetics would make my life complete DAMNIT.