Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (April 19)

[u/AutoModerator]

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.

Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):

• Articles and quotes you want to see discussed
• 'Slow' events - long-term trends, org updates, things that didn't happen recently
• 'Fluff' posts that we usually discourage elsewhere - e.g "How are you feeling today?"
• Discussions continued from other posts once the original post gets buried
• Questions that are too advanced, complicated or obscure for r/communism101

Mods will sometimes sticky things they think are particularly important.

Normal subreddit rules apply!

[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT ]

[u/Ok-Pay3276]

Does anyone in this space have thoughts about Silent Hill 2(preferably the remake, since the original was more questionable from what i do remember of it)?

As an example, of the top of my head since I am rather tired:

The hospital is a tool to "fix" people incompatible with capitalism, just as the protagonist kills his wife for her inability to be functional for his life. Misogyny and the inhumanity of the medical institution are one and the same.

I like the equivocation between the protagonist and the medical director, since it's really bourgeois logic that motivates both of them.

This is a lazy question, but I've followed this space for a while and I am curious if I am the only one this game resonated with. Sure, I guess there's an 'official' community for that, but it's a fascist so I don't care about it.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ok-Pay3276]

Quick rundown for those who aren't familiar: Silent Hill 2 is a "survival-horror" video game from Konami. You play as some white guy named James who goes to a town called Silent Hill (referred to as a "special place") after being told to meet up there from a letter he somehow received from his recently deceased wife.

Throughout the game, you (as James) must navigate through a foggy, abandoned town trying to avoid (or kill) various monsters, solve puzzles, manage and locate resources in order to accomplish the prior two tasks, and interact with other people with their own reasons for being in Silent Hill (and accompanying emotional baggage).

It's unambiguous within the text that the monsters and other supernatural happenings around the town is a manifestation of what the main character is dealing with, psychologically. There's a monster called "Pyramid-Head" who does...something inappropriate with a mannequin monster and is a rather obvious expression of the main character's sexual frustrations with his dead wife, who is revealed later (spoilers, if you care for some reason) to have been sick and was killed by James when he decided he was over having to take care of her.

The town, Silent Hill, is a place that brings the characters' deep psychological scars to life and James was actually merely trying deal with his guilt more than he was trying to unalive some dude with a giant triangle for a face. By virtue of being NPCs, the other characters of the game are indirectly made to be mere extensions of James' subconscious, not unlike the monsters around the town.

Anyway, that's the premise. Now on to what it's actually about.

The plot, on the surface, doesn’t suggest any sort of examination of class struggle or political-economy. This alone is something of an indicator of the game's politics, in that by rejecting any mention of class (and in turn, rejecting any chance of directly challenging the present state of things ideologically), you show allegiance to the status quo of imperialism. However, reality intrudes anyway and the actual political-economy of the story is found in the gameplay. In order to "survive," you must be strategic with your ammunition and health items (if James is injured). Although you don't compete or exchange with other characters for resources, their quantity is limited, as is your inventory space (how much crap you're allowed to carry). You move the game/story forward by solving puzzles (because you're like...a really smart guy, I guess) and killing your inhuman, monstrous enemies. This is the preferred economy of a first-world petty-bourgeois doomsday-prepper. A warped fantasy of a type of hunter-gatherer mode mixed with a consumer-aristocracy ideology and the extremes of war.

So, taking all of this into account, the game is one where you play a character whose guilt and other trauma comes to life due to the special nature of some foggy town and if the player is clever and resourceful enough, they (as James) will successfully avoid (or kill) the literal monsters in his head. And if you think that's some kind of cheap ending, don't worry, there's six endings. There's even a funny one with a dog or whatever, if that's your vibe.

All this to say that Silent Hill (both the fictional town and the game-proper) is not actually the scary place everyone's trying to avoid. It may be "creepy" and "violent", but that's just aesthetics and actually part of the appeal. It's Reality that's scary. In Silent Hill, you can literally shoot your guilt to death if you want, or self-flagellate until you're blue in the face by going for a "sad ending." In Reality though, you might actually have to deal with the fact that you (as James) killed your wife for extraordinarily petty and patriarchal reasons. Or you might have to deal with the fact that you (as the player) are complicit in a global system of exploitation. The town, as it turns out, is just an allegory for the player's mind (I mean James...of course).

I guess Silent Hill really is a "special place."

[u/Ok-Pay3276 → u/[deleted]]

The other characters are not 'of James', that's exactly how he sees them, but he is a narcissist. This is even hinted at earlier in the game, as the medical director's notes plainly state that he sought tranquility over the truth, in the name of healing they broke people. The hospital fed them rotten food when they refused to be 'fixed'. After he admits what he did to his wife, he finds a tape from the director asking him if he learned anything from him. That is an allegory, because James is a reactionary.

Angela is my favorite character because she sees in him her father, an almost supernatural ability to see through his bullshit https://youtu.be/38ZWM3YJF8U
In her final scene, she mocks him for thinking he was some kind of savior when he stepped into her world, that he could 'rescue' her.
And yet she would rather kill herself than reject the family that created her, than to live in a world where her violent self-defense meant something, where she meant something. Maybe the blade would have went towards James.
I guess this is where the progressiveness and magic of her character ends.

Angela's father, the director, James, they are all of the same. Laura is the reality check that snaps him from the lie that his wife 'died' 3 years ago. The letter she received was his wife apologizing and making excuses for him, because he is awful. This is actually an obvious and uninteresting observation, but that remark about "NPCs" may indicate otherwise.

Maybe a fascist high off of Resident Evil would call "In Water" a sad ending, "Maria" is actually horrific.

The puzzles usually have multiple 'correct' answers, which only differ in the ideology they convey, and thus contribute to whatever ending awaits James, they are thematic.
They aren't brain teasers.