Silent hill 4's otherworld

[fishthedinner]

Silent hill 4's otherworld is a mess of different things from Walter Sullivan's mind, but the fact that you go to this otherworld through a hole or portal makes me think of the otherworld as something different.

To me the otherworld in silent hill 4 is much like nowhere.

It has a lot of characteristics from it, especially later in the game whereas they all connect together through the winding staircase and this way it makes me think of it being similar to nowhere.

What do you guys think of this?

[Purramid_Head]

Walter's otherworld is not the otherworld of the other games. In the memos you get it talks about how he created his own world. This was done via ritual. He did it I think to kill people easilier so he wouldn't get caught. Its also a part of the main ritual to descend God.

[fishthedinner]

Walter's otherworld is not the otherworld of the other games. In the memos you get it talks about how he created his own world. This was done via ritual. He did it I think to kill people easilier so he wouldn't get caught. Its also a part of the main ritual to descend God.

Oh ok.

Its a world that was created by Walter

Thanks. I just thought of the world as being similar to nowhere because it is much like nowhere in the sense that it is a void filled with memories of the past

[Purramid_Head]

In the past and other games the otherworld is links to peoples' minds, in SH alone it's also their hearts.

With Walter's world since it's his creation it is also connected to his mind more so than normal, like Alessa's nowhere.

[Devoured]

That still doesn't explain why we have to crawl through his smelly umbellical cord...

[ÆNEMA]

Traveling in and out of the womb.

[NarooN]

Traveling in and out of the womb.

I never thought of it this way. Then again, this is my most least-played SH game, soo...

[fishthedinner]

Maybe room 302 at this point is part of Walter's otherworld and so it is connected in the same way all the other worlds are connected in this game

[captain crowbar]

I think it's literally in his mind...like the holes "magically" take the player into the world he created in his brain. This could be backed up somewhat by the fact that:

REVEAL SPOILER

his dead body is hanging out in the wall, where it perhaps is a beacon or generator for these worlds.

[Purramid_Head]

Funny I always thought the holes...

REVEAL SPOILER

alluded to sex/reproduction.

[captain crowbar]

REVEAL SPOILER

well yeah, it's totally an umbilical cord.

But where it takes you seems to be INSIDE either Walter or his "Mother", in a world he imagined into being.

[Purramid_Head]

Some of it is not Walter's memories. I.e. His mother and father "memories" of leaving him.

[Devoured]

I think it does allude to reproduction and birth. I mean, it obviously does in a way, but I think it's Walter's concept of the ritual that caused it...to be exact - believing he's bringing his mother back to life, the Otherworld makes it seem that's what's happening by more or less appearing as a mother. Crawling through a hole, an umbellical cord, falling into a womb and finally a pool of blood [the actual birth of 'his new mother'], I think all of them are tightly connected and sort of form the fundamentals of Walter's delusion about the ritual, a sort of automatic Otherworld trick to reinforce his belief.

[captain crowbar]

It's a series of tubes.

One thing that trips me out...there's only one entrance, (well, two eventually), but like 50 ways to get back out. Which just results in Henry waking up with a "what the hell" because he was apparently sleeping.

This game is so tits.

[ERROR]

>Some of it is not Walter's memories. I.e. His mother and father "memories" of leaving him.<
I think they are. While they may not be actual memories—because, clearly, a newborn has no genuine memories—they are representations of what Walter believes happened. This concept is represented earlier in the Panopticon: Obviously the Order wasn't forcing the children to eat other children, nor was it an entirely mechanized prison, nor were the kids given jars of black goo. These are just fantastic misrepresentations of how Walter perceived the place.

So, it's his perception of reality. Mr. Sullivan probably didn't call his newborn a stupid, little crybaby, but he did abandon Walter, so Walter has no reason to think his father thought otherwise.