This review contains spoilers
You're very fortunate if you happened to have not grown up in a religious household. Not all religious households are awful, of course, but many are. The structure and hierarchy of a lot of organized religions lead to a lot of abuse and damage.
A lot of my fellow queers have experienced this firsthand. I won't go into specifics here, one for privacy reasons and two for the fact that you probably know the story already. Organized religion, especially the big ones like Christianity, aren't often kind to us, in spite of what their belief systems say. It's one of the most often used excuses for violence - whether that be ostracizing people or outright killing them.
It's no surprise, then, that Silent Hill resonates a lot with queer people, even if that wasn't really the original intent. In many ways, it itself is a game about dealing with religious abuse and the scars that it leaves on a community, the way that cult-like mentalities can be integrated so easily into family models.
Alessa is the victim in this situation, to her abusive mother and the main villain, Dahlia. Alessa was only born in order to serve as the mother for the cult's god - and in doing so, was forced to do horrible things for the church. Even though the source of my familial abuse wasn't religious, it was very uncomfortable how familiar the scenes where Dahlia guilted Alessa into using her powers or being experimented on were. It all culminates in Alessa being forced to become god by merging with her other half - the half that she wanted to give new life away from the town of Silent Hill.
Alessa's abuse formed the twisted, feverish dream that is Silent Hill, a town where nothing ever feels right because it's not right itself. A town born out of religious trauma, from Alessa's own horrible experiences. From her horrible experiences in school to her many stays in the hospital from her abuse (including her own mother trying to torch her to death), it's all reflected here.
And that's the truest horror. Just a poor, scared little girl who's been betrayed by everything that was supposed to protect her. As so many of us were when we were young.
A lot of my fellow queers have experienced this firsthand. I won't go into specifics here, one for privacy reasons and two for the fact that you probably know the story already. Organized religion, especially the big ones like Christianity, aren't often kind to us, in spite of what their belief systems say. It's one of the most often used excuses for violence - whether that be ostracizing people or outright killing them.
It's no surprise, then, that Silent Hill resonates a lot with queer people, even if that wasn't really the original intent. In many ways, it itself is a game about dealing with religious abuse and the scars that it leaves on a community, the way that cult-like mentalities can be integrated so easily into family models.
Alessa is the victim in this situation, to her abusive mother and the main villain, Dahlia. Alessa was only born in order to serve as the mother for the cult's god - and in doing so, was forced to do horrible things for the church. Even though the source of my familial abuse wasn't religious, it was very uncomfortable how familiar the scenes where Dahlia guilted Alessa into using her powers or being experimented on were. It all culminates in Alessa being forced to become god by merging with her other half - the half that she wanted to give new life away from the town of Silent Hill.
Alessa's abuse formed the twisted, feverish dream that is Silent Hill, a town where nothing ever feels right because it's not right itself. A town born out of religious trauma, from Alessa's own horrible experiences. From her horrible experiences in school to her many stays in the hospital from her abuse (including her own mother trying to torch her to death), it's all reflected here.
And that's the truest horror. Just a poor, scared little girl who's been betrayed by everything that was supposed to protect her. As so many of us were when we were young.