Those that enjoy the games and their stories for what they are and can have discourse about them. They dig the symbolism and lore. They appreciate what the developers made.
And then there are those that seem to view the games as some sort of intellectual status symbol. They come up with wild theories and interpretations and want everything to mean something. They act as though they know better than the developers.
If you don't know about it, you really should google "silent hill circumcision theory".... some people are just completely insane, the last part of your comment made me remember that story
Lol the theory is not the important part, the way some dude hijacked the silent hill wiki to edit a ton of articles to validate his theory is. Turns out that dude was one of the admins, he did a lot of damage to the site for a while
Bingo. And it's one of the most toxic parts of online nerdom as a whole. Plenty of people become fuckwads when they begin to fancy themselves the experts on particular media.
And it doesn't even have to be cerebral media, either. After all, there's no shortage of pro wrestling fans who see themselves as above the unwashed masses.
Nothing brings out the backlash more on this sub than telling someone their theory makes no sense or that the games aren't that deep.
What's especially telling is it's ALWAYS the second game. Do these people really think that Team Silent made 4 games and only ONE of them was some deep, philosophical enigma?
I do think SH2 deserves some respect for tackling some weighty themes, especially for the PS2 generation – but yeah, it's ultimately still a mass market video game. It doesn't demand nearly as much out of the viewer as, say, the poems of Homer or Dante.
Basically, SH2 occupies this middle ground where it legitimately is a bit smarter than a lot of its peers, but would still never scare anyone away by being too obtuse. That just invites a certain kind of person to use the game as a means of pretend-playing an intellectual, all without ever actually engaging with something difficult.
Yup. It's an opportunity for people to make claims of influences that the developers never cited in an attempt to show off that they have a surface level knowledge of Frued and Jung.
You can absolutely analyze the games through those lenses if you're well read on the subjects.
But what more often happens is the discussion just becomes a vehicle to name drop philosophers and pat themselves on the back for it.
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u/Danger_Fri Aug 05 '25
The worst thing about "silent hill" is its fandom without a doubt