ATTENTION SPOILERS: This post contains details about the ending of Silent Hill 2.
It was in 2001 when Konami wowed the gaming world with Silent Hill 2, one of the best sequels of all time. The PS2 work was a before and after for the saga, since it made a strong commitment to psychological terror on the part of the protagonist James Sunderland.
The symbolism, magnified in the figure of Pyramid Head, is everywhere, but for 14 years no one knew what exactly was happening in one of the stays at Blue Creek Apartments. Built next to the Wood Side Apartments, this building contains several rooms that can be entered, with 203 being the most mysterious of all.
What’s going on in there? At random, it is possible to hear a very disturbing, practically unintelligible whisper, which seems to be spoken by a man. For a long time there was speculation about what kind of message it was. a reference to the ending of Silent Hill 2
Obviously, this is a phrase that points to James’s final discovery that not only is his wife dead, but that he himself was in charge of ending her life. The players sought to create theories about the meaning of the sentence, claiming that “Seeing my dead wife” is an indication that James is visiting Mary Sunderland in the hospital.
Following the path of sexual connotations of Silent Hill 2“return home to do laundry and escape” would be a reference to masturbation. It would make sense if we take into account the woman’s state of health and how the protagonist is continually disturbed by monstrosities that remind him of his sexual impulses. To try to understand why the whisper is heard so quietly and its interpretation is almost imperceptible, it was argued that it is all a repressed memory and a very subtle nod from Konami about what we would later know.
Although it may have its logic, the truth is that everything held together like a really fragile house of cards. Furthermore, everything pointed to a very clear case of auditory pareidolia
In other words, people heard what they wanted to hear and convinced his brain that the words were there. So, the years passed and some light was shed in 2010 by Jeremy Blaustein, one of the English localizers of the work, who participated in several installments of Team Silent. His role was fundamental for the developers, since he also collaborated as a creative consultant, and he was the responsible for offering an explanation
“As for the whisper, I’m pretty sure it’s just a small loop of one of the actors doing what at the time we called ‘butsu-butsu’ or ‘hitori-goto’ (mumbling or talking to himself) in the booth. recording. I think they just cut a loop and added some reverb to it. The Japanese sound guys wouldn’t have known what I was saying either, if I’m right, because it was just an unscripted improvisation.”
Therefore, it seems that the doubt was resolved and it was all a hidden error in Silent Hill 2although the truth came to light in 2015. It was in a Silent Hill forum when user peronmls revealed that it was all about a stock sound called Nightingale Voice Box Sound Effects Library Volumes 1 & 2, which you can listen to it in its entirety.
In this way, it became clear that the person who recorded the audio did not intend to say anything more than gibberish. The good thing is that the origin of the disturbing sound that tormented players for more than a decade was clarified, but what remains unexplained is why Konami decided to include it and why it appears spontaneously. Perhaps it is a mystery that will always remain hidden in the fog.
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