Guilty Conscience

[WhiteClaudia]

Remember the Guilty Conscience test given by Dr. K? I would like to here what your thoughts were.
Here's the story: Prince Wilhelm is passionately in love with Celestine. But she does not love him. One day, Wilhelm comes to the King and asks for Celestine's hand in marriage. Celestine begs the king not to marry her to Wilhelm, but the king ignores her pleas. Royal protocol means he must say yes to the match. They are married and Wilhelm takes Celestine back with him to his kingdom. That night, he attempts to consummate the marriage, but the distraught Celestine flees. She runs from the safety of the castle and across a field, ignoring the sign which warns of danger. In that field is a bull, who, seeing the girl, charges her. She falls under his hooves and is killed instantly.

So what is your order from most guilty to least guilty between the Prince, the King, Celestine, and the bull?

[TraceBASS]

I like that somebody put this up. Makes for interesting discussion.

I would put them as: Celestine, the Prince, the King, Bull.

I have too much going on in my brain right now to explain why I put Celestine as most guilty, and the Prince as the next (if you want the novel-sized explanation, ask and you may receive).
I can say, however, that I thought the King didn't really have a say in it. You can't really ignore royal protocol (even if you are the King), and if you did, that wouldn't lead a good example as the ruler of a kingdom. And the bull doesn't necessarily have the typical conscience/reasoning that a human has (as far as I know), and it didn't decide itself to be there, just for the sole purpose of eventually running down and killing Celestine in the field.

This one was a complete brain-destroyer. Climax, I will say you did a good job with it, as well as the rest of Shattered Memories. (But that's another discussion.)

[Kivi]

This one was a complete brain-destroyer. Climax, I will say you did a good job with it, as well as the rest of Shattered Memories. (But that's another discussion.)

Climax did good with the story but i wish i could say the same about the game play. i mean i like the harry mason that take his pistol out and kill every damn monster stands between him and his little girl.

[JaneTheNurse]

"Run, daddy! You can't fight them!"
There's always the possibility that Harry is a little cowardly, since the Wicked and Weak ending is a possibility.

Anyways, I'd say the Prince, Celestine, the King, and the Bull. No means no, boys, even if you're a prince.

[Piece0fSheet666]

This is a nice read: http://silenthillforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... 1f77564aaa

Personally, when arranging the pieces I didn't really connect them to any character within Shattered Memories. I just thought of the story as a fairytale/test about ethics, decisions and responsibilities. That is mostly concerning you and your impact on the game, not the game/characters themselves.

For me it's like this: King > Prince > Celestine > Bull

It's a bit hard for the two as the prince is an asshole in everyway (I doubt he feels guilty to begin with and since 3rd/4th are an animal and a dead person...), the king follows a tradition/law but he is the one really making the decisions. Both their personalities are flawed but the king is the one who can alter the situation and receives the biggest impact. The others don't really matter in the given environment.

[WhiteClaudia]

I read that same thing some time ago too! It was very interesting. I too didnt really connect the story with the game, but I made my choice:
Celestine, Prince, King, Bull. I chose Celestine since I believe we are all responsible for our own actions and she completely ignored the warning signs of the Bull. I did think that the Prince was somewhat guilty cause he shouldnt have force her hand. I would have placed the King last because I really didnt think he has a choice in the matter, but the Bull had to go last for me simply because he's a wild animal acting on his natural wild animal instincts. Although for me it was originally Prince, King, Celestine, Bull but that changed soon after.

[all_in_the_mind]

Totally agree:

First of all; I thought the Prince: But then this was a long time ago (Probably) so unloving royal marriages like that are common and accepted. (Think still are now aren't they? )

Then the King: But again royal protocal wins the day, he would have lost face in front of his whole court should he of agreed with her. Plus Royal marriages are quite often made to establish and strengthen relations with countries/powerful families/wealth & land etc (Come on, you all went to school!)

Then the Bull: But the poor thing is an animal after all, does not have a moral code the same as humans, so would have been acting instinctually and can't really be blamed.

So I decided Celestine: All of this that had happened to her until her death was NOT her fault. But ignoring signs warning of a dangerous bull and running right into a field??.....sorry Celestine.

[gustavopi]

For me it's like this: King > Prince > Celestine > Bull

My choice too. Bigger power, bigger responsability (and guilty). Last time I put the bull first for a change, doctor didn't like it, I'm curious to see the end...

[all_in_the_mind]

Cool, That's interesting. Wonder why K didn't like your first answer-do you remember what he said to you>?
To be fair, he didn't seem that impressed that I put Celestine first but hey ho!

[Floodclaw]

In today's day and age:
Prince, Celestine, King, Bull.

In the story's day and age:
Celestine, Prince, King, Bull.

My reasoning there being that the Prince is the cause of all this. He (probably) knew the princess didn't want him and that she wouldn't want him sexing her up, leading to her running away. Today, that is 'oh god why'. In kingly times, though, that was normal, and Celestine is the cause of her own death.

I think it is unanimous that the bull holds no guilt, though.

[TraceBASS]

Very good points there, Floodclaw. I think the bull is mostly unanimous, because most people understand that it lacks the same depth of morality and logic that humans do.

[all_in_the_mind]

Yop, totally agree. Floodclaw touched on the same point and took it a bit further actually.
That we have to remember the supposed time period it was set in, makes all the difference.

[KiramidHead]

I blame Celestine for not looking where she was running. Pay attention to your surroundings, you silly bitch!

[gustavopi]

That's very interesting! The story got several points of view, like the historical context. Seems good for a analysis, since there is no better answer without the context. The bull is less guilty because his nature and he can't really be a part of the history (he is out of context).

I'm just get out of Toluca's Mall and seen the scene of the crime. There is some people involved in the incident: guard, sheryl, other guard, store's owners, etc.: after reading and hearing all the messages, I wondered who would be more or less guilty...

[Axiomatic]

It's a shame that SHSM doesn't get much love.

This is going to be my longest post, so please bear with me as I'll probably jump around quite a bit and will be unclear in some parts.

In today's day and age:
Prince, Celestine, King, Bull.

In the story's day and age:
Celestine, Prince, King, Bull.

My reasoning there being that the Prince is the cause of all this. He (probably) knew the princess didn't want him and that she wouldn't want him sexing her up, leading to her running away. Today, that is 'oh god why'. In kingly times, though, that was normal, and Celestine is the cause of her own death.

I think it is unanimous that the bull holds no guilt, though.

It's important to make a distinction between being moral and being responsible. Most people don't make moral attributions to the bull and instead blame either the prince or king. I held the bull responsible in one play through.

The key term is guilt. How could a bull possibly be guilty? This scenario is set up in such a way to get a psychological, perhaps unclear interpretation of the situation. For the most part,

REVEAL SPOILER

Cheryl is forced to choose an order which emphasizes her personal issues

But if the question is a matter of responsibility, then the bull is immediately responsible for the death for the death of the princess.

To remind people of the scenario:

Remember the Guilty Conscience test given by Dr. K? I would like to here what your thoughts were.
Here's the story: Prince Wilhelm is passionately in love with Celestine. But she does not love him. One day, Wilhelm comes to the King and asks for Celestine's hand in marriage. Celestine begs the king not to marry her to Wilhelm, but the king ignores her pleas. Royal protocol means he must say yes to the match. They are married and Wilhelm takes Celestine back with him to his kingdom. That night, he attempts to consummate the marriage, but the distraught Celestine flees. She runs from the safety of the castle and across a field, ignoring the sign which warns of danger. In that field is a bull, who, seeing the girl, charges her. She falls under his hooves and is killed instantly.

So what is your order from most guilty to least guilty between the Prince, the King, Celestine, and the bull?

Let's take a look at the different possible answers.

(1)If you think the king is most guilty, then Dr. K says, "Poor Harold. You felt he should have ignored protocol."
(2) If you think the princess is most guilty, then Dr. K says, "Poor Celestine. She didn't have to run, right?"
(3)If you think the prince is most guilty, then Dr. K says, "Poor Wilhelm. You think if he really loved her, he would never have forced the marriage."
(4) If you think the bull is most guilty, then Dr. K says, "Bull. You couldn't ignore the facts. He was the one who killed her."

For (1),

REVEAL SPOILER

this sets up an interpretation of Harry as someone who needs to do whatever he needs to save Cheryl. No matter what happens, he needs to be a knight in shining armor. This demonstrates an uncompromising, idealistic view of Harry from Cheryl's perspective. This answer plays up on the idea that those in power should do something to prevent bad things from happening.

For (2),

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this could demonstrate a person who holds them responsible for everything - a person who really kills him or herself over how much control he or she has. But this might suggest that Cheryl thinks she is responsible for the break up of her parents, for example. There is a certain sense of self hatred and extreme amounts of burden placed by this choice. This choice focuses not on the factors which led to Celestine being charged by a bull, but the fact that she ran away and put herself in the situation

For (3),

REVEAL SPOILER

this represents a particular view of love. If someone really loves you, that person should do what is in your best interest. Perhaps we could tie this into Cheryl's life in the sense that what's going on in this scenario is that the prince is trying to rape Celestine. Since she didn't want to be married, we can assume she wouldn't want consummate the marriage - especially since she runs away. Though this might have been how marriages went during that time, it is clear that Celestine didn't want to engage in that. It still strikes me as rape.

Generally, under this choice, maybe this plays up on how Cheryl might have been raped in that lodge (Bryant's Lake?) area, and she might blame herself for the situations she's been in.

On another hand, this choice could be touching on how Cheryl doesn't want to conform to particular roles because Celestine doesn't want to be forced into marriage and wants to be free.

For (4),

REVEAL SPOILER

what is interesting is how since the question is framed in terms of more guilty/less guilty instead of responsible, this drastically changes how you order the figures. Also, the bull is not given any name. The bull generally represents those things which we do not make moral attributions to - things such an inanimate objects.
I think most people view the bull murdering Celestine as a case of moral bad luck - it is something that happens. Or people view it as there's no sense in making a moral attribution to that thing. It's important to notice that if you order the bull first, I think to some degree this might get at how it was not the intent of the king or Wilhelm to try to murder Celestine. They acted in whatever manner. What I am saying is perhaps choosing the bull as most guilty gets at how the intentions of people in moral deliberations matter. It's just a thought.

I think Cheryl is forced to ignore the facts to some degree because of the methodological set up of this Guilty Conscience test by Kaufmann. If we think about this for a second, this tells you a lot about the character of Cheryl - and we the players who control her - as we are caught up in the game: we are not thinking about the facts, we are more focused on answering things from a psychological, emotional perspective.

The methodological setup of this Guilty Conscience test mirrors the skewed nature of memory: we often don't remember events clearly, no matter how great we think our memories are. In fact, we often fill in the blanks.

In today's day and age:
Prince, Celestine, King, Bull.
In the story's day and age:
Celestine, Prince, King, Bull.
My reasoning there being that the Prince is the cause of all this. He (probably) knew the princess didn't want him and that she wouldn't want him sexing her up, leading to her running away. Today, that is 'oh god why'. In kingly times, though, that was normal, and Celestine is the cause of her own death.

This is espousing a very particular view which the Guilty Conscience test aims to probe. If we think something is wrong or right no matter what, then the ordering should not matter based on the time when the events occurred, that is, it shouldn't matter whether it was back in the day or now.

To move on a bit, I think Celestine, the bull, Wilhelm, and the King could correspond to some events or characters. It's particularly helpful to view this ordering of guilty with respect to deaths, so let's take:

REVEAL SPOILER

Harry and Lisa's deaths, for example. They are important because they line up clearly with cases where someone ends up dead and you figure out who or what is most to blame. Both their deaths mirror the judgment which is going on in this test, so I think it's not too farfetched to make the connection.

For the death of Harry, maybe we would have these four characters: Harry, Cheryl, Dahlia and the car.

If we run this parallel, Dahlia could function as the prince under certain interpretations/endings. Harry could function as the King, Cheryl the princess, and the car as the bull.

Viewed this way, the car doesn't have any sort of guilty or moral attribution which could be made to it, but other characters do.

For Lisa's death, the characters would be Lisa, Harry, the car crash she was in, and the pills. Though I don't want to spend too much time on Lisa's death, I think the connection can be made. And you can play a similar more guilty/less guilty game.

I'll probably come back to this later to edit some stuff to make my thoughts clearer.

[Purramid_Head]

I said the bull was innocent and I got a bunch of stuff about dragons I would say if I was a kid because I love animals, first playthrough. I blamed like the prince and then Celestine and then the king I think. The king was following protocal, Celestine ignored the sign, the prince is self-centered.

[gustavopi]

Axiomatic's post is long, but interesting. That's an important part of the treatment, the patient obviously can't deal with the facts of life and elaborate this mind game we all do when a tragedy happens.

Also, the story applies to the patient's life not exactly, but enough - as all this kind of "tale". The story leads the patient to think about himself, what is good side effect.

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Nobody can tell to you who you are - you already know and there is no doubt about. But if you start to think too much, you may found inconsistencies in your self that may leads to a paradigm shift.

[Axiomatic]

Haha, it is a long post.

REVEAL SPOILER

I am saying that perhaps it isn't so obvious that the player is ignoring the facts. This depends on your evaluation of what characters are most guilty.

I am also pointing out that (a) the figurines correspond to cases in the game where people die - Harry and Lisa, for example - and (b) to how we morally evaluate/hold responsible people for their actions.

[WhiteClaudia]

Either way, for guilt or responsibility, I don't believe the Bull should be held accountable. Once again, he's a wild animal, a wild animal protecting his territory. Doing what every wild animal should do.

I think of it like this: A person goes to the Zoo, and walks up to a cage that holds a Lion inside it. The person becomes intrigued with the Lion, sticks his hand in to pet the Lion. The Lion reacts to the person suddenly sticking their hand in touching by biting their hand off. Who do you blame in this situation? You blame the person, not the Lion. The person should have known better. We know how wild animals are, they don't know better and it's our job (as the most intelligently superior species walking the Earth).

So, in this case, Celestine (like the person in the Zoo), should have known better and noticed the warning signs ahead of time. Instead, she ignored them and proceeded (like the person in the Zoo).

Another reason why I hate it when they put down animals at Zoos for just being a wild animal. It's the person's fault for sticking their damn hand in.

However, as I think I've stated before, I place all blame on the Prince. He DID try to rape her after all. I don't blame the King because as King, he's following protocol, as every good King should do.

[Axiomatic]

Either way, for guilt or responsibility, I don't believe the Bull should be held accountable. Once again, he's a wild animal, a wild animal protecting his territory. Doing what every wild animal should do.

I think of it like this: A person goes to the Zoo, and walks up to a cage that holds a Lion inside it. The person becomes intrigued with the Lion, sticks his hand in to pet the Lion. The Lion reacts to the person suddenly sticking their hand in touching by biting their hand off. Who do you blame in this situation? You blame the person, not the Lion. The person should have known better. We know how wild animals are, they don't know better and it's our job (as the most intelligently superior species walking the Earth).

So, in this case, Celestine (like the person in the Zoo), should have known better and noticed the warning signs ahead of time. Instead, she ignored them and proceeded (like the person in the Zoo).

Another reason why I hate it when they put down animals at Zoos for just being a wild animal. It's the person's fault for sticking their damn hand in.

However, as I think I've stated before, I place all blame on the Prince. He DID try to rape her after all. I don't blame the King because as King, he's following protocol, as every good King should do.

You're welcome to think of the bull as not accountable, but this demonstrates a particular view about how you view responsibility. This might extend to your analysis of

REVEAL SPOILER

Harry's death and who is responsible. It might reflect how your Cheryl evaluates the situation.

Your lion example is a fair comparison, but we have to remember that the princess was in a ridiculous situation.

REVEAL SPOILER

I think the princess could be analyzed in terms of how Cheryl doesn't want to stick to norms and protocol and the like.

I say it's important to make a distinction between moral/guilty and responsible because if you view it in pure terms of responsibility, you can hold the bull responsible, but not moral.

On the other hand, you would probably never say that the bull is guilty or immoral. We typically don't make these attributions.

So the test is set up to force you to think in moral terms - and I think this forces you to make the bull the least guilty.

Most people combine guilt with responsibility and understandably so. I am saying we should separate the two. How you view each person and their role is important to your evaluation. You're a bit more forgiving of the King because he is following protocol. Some people are far less forgiving.

REVEAL SPOILER

The King, for Love Lost Cheryl I would say, should break protocol.