Foreshadowing / Silent Hill

• Silent Hill:
  • Cybil gives Harry a gun and warns him to be careful about what he's shooting and to never shoot her by mistake. Cybil is later possessed and attacks Harry, at which point he very well might shoot her. However, it's not the best option available.
  • Harry finds a book in Midwich Elementary talking about telekinesis and how it tends to manifest in adolescent girls. Just as it did in Alessa.
• Silent Hill 2 with some unsettling messages in the beginning parts of the game. "There was a HOLE here, It's gone now." and "The door that wakes in darkness, opening into nightmares." The messages point to psychological plot events later in the game.
  • There's actually a truly huge amount of well-done foreshadowing about the ultimate fact that James killed Mary. To point out a few:
    • Very early on, in the Woodside Apartment complex, James hears a scream and finds a dead body in a nearby apartment in a chair in front of a television set. The corpse represents James (it even seems to be the same character model) and how he's later going to find out about what he's done when he watches the video at the hotel.
    • There's a large amount of time spent going through a prison, complete with numerous execution motifs and following after the revelation from a painting in the Silent Hill Historical Society that Pyramid Head is an executioner/punisher. James even gets locked in a cell for a few seconds.
    • Numerous characters make some kind of reference to James's relationship with Mary maybe not being as good as he seems to imply it was. Maria: "Or maybe you hated her." Laura: "You didn't love Mary anyway!" Angela: "You didn't want her around anymore!"
    • Eddie tells James that they're the same, and the town called them because of that. He's right, they're both murderers. Additionally, after James is forced to kill Eddie in self defense, he stares at his hands and says, "I killed a human being. A human being . . . Mary, did you really die three years ago?"
    • When James exits Brookhaven Hospital, having just saw Maria die, he says, "Are you [Mary] really waiting somewhere for me? Or is this your way of taking . . .?" He means revenge, because he's subconsciously aware that he killed her.
    • One note found in Brookhaven discusses a patient who's living in a delusional fantasy, and that bringing him back to reality would be extremely painful. Which is James's exact situation. Another note found later as James leaves the hospital continues the theme, telling him that the truth often betrays people and can only be found by going forward. The writer also wishes for God to have mercy on James's soul.
    • Going back to Neely's Bar (the location of the "There was a HOLE here" message) later on when the town is in its Otherworld state, another message appears on the wall that reads: If you ReaLly wAnt to sEE Mary, you shOUld just DiE. But You might be hEadiNg to A diffErent place than MARY, James.
    • Even the fact that James leaves his car unlocked and its door open when he goes into Silent Hill is an indication that he's not quite right in the head.
  • As for some foreshadowing unrelated to the above plot reveal, a room directly adjacent to where Eddie is first met is a bedroom plastered with football posters. It's later revealed that prior to the game, Eddie snapped and shot a football player classmate who bullied him.
  • In Maria's scenario, Born From a Wish, the words 'Keep out of haunted mansion' are spraypainted on the side of the Baldwin Mansion and foreshadow that not only is Amy Baldwin haunting the house, but Ernest Baldwin, who Maria's been talking to, has been Dead All Along.
• Silent Hill 3:
  • Heather finds a painting in the Otherworld Hilltop Center of a dark haired girl in a white dress, surrounded by flames with what looks like the silhouette of a monster emerging from her. Heather mentions that something about it seems familiar to her, which is because she personally experienced it at the end of the first game when she was still Alessa.
  • If a mirror is examined in the bathroom at the very start of the game, Heather will mention she doesn't like them. Because her reflection unconsciously reminds her of her dual state of being both herself and Alessa.
  • Numerous monsters have reproductive symbolism—Numb Bodies resemble sperm, the Split Worm is phallic, and there's a recurring motif of monsters having features that resemble a child's head crowning during birth. This is because Heather is 'pregnant' with the Order's god and about to give birth.
• Silent Hill 4: The Room:
  • Henry's first trip through the hole that appears in his bathroom is him moving slowly through a long, dark, cramped passage towards a light at the end, and then emerging into a twisted world full of monsters. This represents Walter's view of being born into a cruel world full of people who only hurt him, and foreshadows that he literally thinks of Henry's apartment as his actual mother. The hole even widens occasionally, as the cervix dilates during birth.
• Silent Hill: Homecoming gives a few goodies:
  • Early on in the game when you meet Curtis Ackers he has a gas-powered circular saw in the back of his shop. Later, when the Order Soldiers abduct Alex's mother, one of them is armed with said saw, telling you ahead of time that Curtis is one of the bad guys.
  • In the opening stage, the doctor is sliced in half by Pyramid Head. The doctor is Alex's father, if you look closely, foreshadowing how he will die later.
  • The lyrics to Soldier's Orders, Alex's theme song which plays early in the game, tells you the backstory and plot of the game.
  • Anyone with even a bit of military experience will be able to tell right away that Alex doesn't act at all like a soldier, and rather like someone who is faking the part. This was intentional, as it is meant as a hint that Alex was never actually a soldier to begin with.
  • In town hall, the portraits of the ancestors of the Holloway, Fitch, and Bartlett families are still hanging up, but the one of Isaac Shepherd, the founder of the town, has been taken down. Because the Shepherd family is the reason the sacrifice failed.
  • During Alex's first conversation with Wheeler over the radio, Wheeler says he's surprised Alex is back because he thought he was away somewhere. He then proceeds to lock Alex up in a cell when they finally meet and has to be convinced to let him out. Because Wheeler—a close associate of Adam Shepherd—probably knew Alex was institutionalized, not in the military, and felt he might be unstable and dangerous.
  • The deaths of Nora, Joey, and Scarlet are glimpsed in silhouette in hospital rooms Alex is wheeled past at the beginning of the game.
  • Behind a locked hospital room door, the sound of a large body of water can be heard. Josh drowned in Toluca Lake.
  • In an Abandoned Playground, Alex finds a photograph of a toy soldier standing beside a giant spider. The final boss is a massive, spider-like creature.
  • Elle mentions to Alex that she found it odd that he was just gone one day without any warning. It would make logical sense that someone leaving for the military would take the time to say goodbye to their friends, but Alex didn't because his depature was sudden and involuntary.
• Silent Hill: Shattered Memories:
  • Very early on, Harry finds a snowglobe which has the scene inside of a girl standing beside a lighthouse. Cheryl is eventually revealed to be at the lighthouse.
  • While going through Toluca Mall, Harry can call security, who in turn dismiss him as a prank caller because they're looking at the security cameras and don't see him anywhere. This is because Harry is a ghost.

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