Thanatophobia
Self-preservation is the biological reason why humans experience fear. To keep them out of harm’s way and avoid dangerous situations. This grave concern about bodily damage flows into the avatars we control. When playing games, we make sure our controlled characters survive their horrific adventures with as little physical trauma as possible (although mental trauma is unfortunately often neglected). This is what most of our digital fears revolve around; the anticipation of elements that make us worried about our avatar’s health, or even life. This morbid fear of digital death however, makes us especially vunerable when developers get extremely creative.
Right after the birth of conventional surival horror, Resident Evil ruled with an iron fist. Positioning guntoting agents in front of horrific monsters turned into a formula, which was used extensively by other developers wishing to repeat such a succes. Konami however, decided to go into a slightly different route, trading in trained agents for everyday people, making their developed fear a less direct one and a more subconcious one. A scary athmosphere that lingered, often without taking shape, creating a sense of impending doom around every corner. The result became Silent Hill, a series known for it’s ‘deeper’ scares, accompanied by a great eye for detail. Each aspect (no matter how small) often reflecting an important part of the storyline. Nowadays, the town has been explored by multiple groups, many of it’s secrets uncovered and unfortunately, many of it’s elements repeated. Back when the first game hit, the all-enshrouding mist the series is known for, accurately portraited how little was known about the game’s actual content. It truly was a venture into mystery, into a dense fog and into a creepy town called Silent Hill.
You, Harry Mason, are on vacation with your young daughter Cheryl, heading for the resorttown of Silent Hill. This obviously took place before such endevours were deemed irresponsible. Upon nearing the town, your car is passed by a female cop on a motorcycle. Nothing quite out of the ordinary, if it weren’t for the fact that you’ll quickly see that motorcycle again, this time lying unattended next to the road. Before Harry can even ponder it’s meaning, he spots a girl on the road right in front of the car. He pulls the steering wheel, swerves and crashes. He loses concious and when he regains it, Harry turns to his right side, sees the passengerside door open and no trace of Cheryl. He panics, gets out and wonders where she is. Snow falling all around him, he slowly walks into the foggy ghost town. Hearing footsteps, he rounds the corner and sees a girl remiscent of his daughter. Upon discovery she quickly hurries into the mist. This is when you are placed in control.
You can immediately run after the shadowy figure, although it’s impossible to catch up to ‘her’. The fog always seems to hide her. Following the footsteps and shadowy shapes, you are slowly guided into a wide street with garages on both sides. Trailing after the supposed daughter, you reach the end of street, the only option available is to enter the small gate to your left. A sign warns you: ”Beware of Dog”. Going through the gate however, you’ll quickly find out there’s nothing to be beware of anymore. The remains of some animal are smeared across the garage, a horrific sight making sure that even our avatar resorts to curses. There’s only one way to continue, moving into a very narrow alley with high walls on both sides. It doesn’t take long before the camera starts skewing, creating a more claustrophobic feeling while you twist and turn through the long alley, snow still floating down.
After you’ve gone through another meshgate, you’ll notice that it’s getting darker and that the snow has stopped. Harry takes out a lighter automatically, using that to illuminate the dark and increasingly creepy alley. You slowly move forward, hearing the annoying creak of something metallic. At the next corner you find the source to be a misplaced wrecked wheelchair, one of it’s wheels still turning. Airraid sirens are softly heard in the background, growing louder with every step. The sound gets more frantic when you also discover a gurney carrying a humanoid shape covered by a bloody tarp further down the narrow alley. The madness increases and now both sides of the alley feature mesh fencing, pieces of meat hanging from barbed wire. Rain has replaced the snow, metallic fences have replaced the walls and blood is smeared all over the floor….
As you reach the end of this maddening alley, the music hits it’s climax and you are confronted with some skinned human corpse tied to a fence using barbed wire. ‘What is going on here?!’ Harry wonders. But when you turn around, instead of being confronted with answers, you are confronted with small demons. Looking somewhat like misshapen children, they immediately assault you, plunging their knives/claws into your legs (depending on the region version). You have absolutely no way to defend yourself whatsoever, so you’re only option is to flee the scene. Trying to backtrack through the narrow alleyway without getting hit is nearly impossible, however. Even if you do manage to go back a corner or two, you’ll quickly discover another dead-end. Fearing for your life, you come to the sad conclusion that you’re trapped; there used to be an escape here, it’s gone now. Sooner or later the tiny demons corner you and with you being greatly outnumbered, they will take your life.
Perhaps the gamer first experiences some frustration about the impossible scene. How could an introduction to a game be this unforgiving? What did the player do wrong? When the game continues instead of going back to the titlemenu or even showing a Game Over screen, things start to make some morbid sense. You were supposed to ‘die’. It’s a destiny Harry cannot avoid (and quite a foreboding one as well). It’s meant to happen in order to make any progress. It’s a very creative introduction into the world of Silent Hill, defintely underlining the position your character takes in the overall heirachy of mistloomers. People generally fear the death of their character, so forcing them to die is a really dark yet memorable experience. There isn’t even the slightest hint that you have to die, in fact, you are free to avoid the creatures for as long as you can, although it won’t get you anywhere. The only way to know to do it correctly, is to let something generally considered incorrect occur. A ’survival’ horror game in which, at a certain point, you’ll have to die in order to continue is not only paradoxical, it’s absolutely genius.
The descent towards the scene is nothing short of brilliant either. Where at first the athmosphere is perfectly reflected by the thick mist and sweet drifting snow, it’s later moving into the dark territories, literally. This first transistion to Silent Hill’s otherworld (aka Violent Hell) couldn’t have been done better. Later installments sometimes use a cutscene to show the flow of worlds, but actually progressing through the dark alley in realtime, each step increasing the insanity, is far more frightening. Minor details which actually have a deeper reflection of the situation than known at that time, greatly improve the tension. The Silent Hill has made this juxtapositioning of everyday situations with insane items their trademark, and rightfully so. Silent Hill’s got this trick nailed, and although further characteranalysis shows that nobody is normal or average in the town, people still seem to connect to such characters better than a trained special agent, which increases the fear for their lives.
The fear of death is found in nearly all videogames, not just the survival horror genre. Dieing is rarely an objective and it’s often penatalized. You get set back to a checkpoint, or even the beginning of the game, progress is made by living. The survival horror genre takes it up a few notches by increasing the weight of the terrifying situations. Often by introducing a supernatural element into the lives of average people. Players get so protective over their characters that they start feeling scared for them. Forcing said-players to let their avatar die is genius. Dooming such videocharacters and making a player pull through such a scene takes quite a lot of guts. It’s a daring creative choice that will forever be engraved as a defining moment in Survival Horror.
Destined Demise
- A point in the game where the character has to die in order to continue the plot.
Thanatophobia – Fear of death
