(3/3)
Arms cut off, faces removed, and identities torn apart.
The story's gimmick, which draws heavily on the beliefs of both the fox shrine and the higanbana, is a key part of the Showa-era Silent Hill. The story emphasizes femininity and the struggle to maintain one's identity, or rather, the choice to avoid being like one's mother and sister.
The game interprets abstract social issues like gender and identity more clearly, using the horrors of life and experiences we all experience.
A subtle aspect of gender that the game consistently emphasizes is Hinako's denial or assertion that she is not a typical girl. Sho sees her as a genderless friend with equal status. What we sense is that Hinako is a girl who truly has modern dreams and aspirations. But due to the customs and social frameworks of the time, in the village, she is no more than someone else's mother and wife.
Stepping into another realm, this time at the fox shrine, Silent Hill's standout horror lies in its psychological horror. The real, tangible horror may be the distortions of our own minds.
In this other realm, the shrine and the half-fox man gradually reveal Hinako's identity, which must gradually become another Hinako, entering the status of wife in a fox marriage.
It is during this marriage that the story plays with the complexities of identity. Our identity as we ascend to another status, as we may have to abandon something, become "something else," the identity we must deliberately distort and change. This is interpreted as a cruel, violent, and twisted wedding ceremony. But Hinako, as a woman, willingly and undeterred, willingly saws off her arms, peels off her skin, and brandes her with a hot iron.
This is where the story takes us to its ultimate pressure and pain. It is a fascinating, intense, and poignant exploration of identity theory. Ultimately, Hinako, as she gradually transforms into a demon, must confront herself, ultimately leading to various endings.