"She needs them to be villains so she can be the hero, because if they are not villains, she's just running from her own choices" ok chill, thats too personal :face-pink-tears:

"Real understanding means accepting when someone's dreams exclude you or when their fears include you" I will be thinking about this for at least the next week

Hinako's mother refusing modern treatment could be her own escape from her unhappy life. If she passed due to illness, she'll be remembered with sympathy.

It’s such a breath of fresh air to hear someone say “we don’t know what is real and what is not in silent hill, but just because it can’t be defined as fact doesn’t mean it has no meaning”.

I just recently got into silent hill and has been very drawn in by the abstract nature of all the games, but whenever I go on here to see if anyone found something I missed — I just see people trying to figure out the facts, which personally has no interest to me.

I also love that Ryukishi managed to write this despite being a man because his background means he's very concerned with people having their voices heard. He is capable of generalizing the impact of an experience to be broadly applicable to humans, which is a valuable skill for writers

I feel, as women, we are forced into gratefulness a lot. Like the sky will fall if we dont acknowledge how things could be worse. Thank you for this video

Hearing silent hill f from a woman who actually understands the nuances of the characters IS refreshing. I cannot thank you enough for this :)

"Forced gratitude is a violence" I cannot agree more. My so-called mother always said "Be grateful that I gave birth to you", that was the major key of her manipulation and violence on me. One day I decided that I've had enough of this bullshit and started saving money. When it became enough for me to rent a room far, far away from home I screamed at her saying if I'd ever had a choice in my birth, and known that she would come along, I would have chosen not to be born. I declared I would never see her again. I know it might have caused pain for the rest of my family, but I still decided "I" comes first. Hinako did the same in the last ending.

I’m a Japanese woman that plans to marry soon, but all of these fears and confrontations as a Japanese woman are so valid. I’ve chosen for myself to lose my family name and is not forced into marriage like Hinako, but I do have an abusive father and an obedient mother, which is still very common for a Japanese family (it’s been 80 years but no change!), and it really makes me anxious.

Though luckily I did have my time to explore myself, look for my partner, and decide I want this marriage, and my partner is a very thoughtful partner that asks what I want, it’s still so terrifying and stressful to fight the pressure from the Japanese society to mold me into an obedient ideal version of a Japanese woman, which is called ryousaikenbo (良妻賢母、good wife and wise mother) . Haha, recognize that the “wise” doesn’t go before the wife and the wife is in front of mother? It’s purely to please a man with fragile egos.

It’s a pity I have to fight for my rights and decisions in this very patriotic society, but I will keep fighting this generational stupidity in our tradition with the help from my parter. Thank you so much for this video. I didn’t know that much about this game bc I’m not a horror fan, but I think I’ll do it in the future to reassure myself what I’m doing is not wrong.

A coming of rage is a wonderful twist on the coming of age saying

23:03 I always viewed the scene of Hinako cutting off her arm as a way to convey her giving up her agency and bodily autonomy, while the branding on her back was her starting to be seen as a possession rather than another human being and the cutting of her face was her losing her individuality and identity, taking on a new one in the form of a mask that was meant to show her conforming to her new "role" as a wife

The best part of this for me is that neither of the two potential male partners, Kotoyuki and Shu, are evil or bad. They are somewhat kind and supportive even! Hinako didn't reject them because they were bad, she rejected them because she didn't want a married life. She wanted to find herself first

I have been begging for an analysis of Silent Hill F by a woman and you killed it. Thank you!

Something interesting I don't see many folks mention that I found really cool: during the walk with Kotoyuki down the hall just before the boss fight with Rinko, the womens' fox masks are sewn on like Hinako's, but if you look closely, the mens' masks are only tied around their face, able to be removed easily and at any time, like Kotoyuki does earlier in the game.

coming to this video essay from a strange direction but i'm a south korean adoptee and it wasn't until i grew up and met other adoptees that i learnt how much we're all told "be grateful" for our adoptions. and it wasn't until the past year that international news broke that thousands of "adopted" south koreans are actually victims of kidnappings, bribery, and human trafficking. and my stomach turns at how many times i've been told to "be grateful" for such a thing.

" Her fear that confirming to any feminine standard, even aspects that appealed to her, would also means accepting the parts of womanhood she hated." ... DAMN BARS. OMG!!! Someone finally put this feeling in words.

The blind spot of realising Rinko might actually a projection of how Hinako sees the world is actually quite eye opening for me. I lso wouldnt have expected that she had to put in effort to be this conservative "right way" to be a woman because I was similar to Hinako, easily blaming her for her attitude. Also the interpretation that they might be married but Shu still having feelings is just heartbreaking and adds another layer to the game. You reminded me that this is a game has an unreliable narrator. I wasnt gonna comment but I feel this deserves a boost in the algorithm.

An interesting similarity between Hinako and her father is that both wear clothes that don't really fit their situation. Her dad still wears clothes typical of a fisherman and Hinako wears her school uniform.

I’m happy they reintroduced the supernatural into this game because I think it makes the psychological aspects more relevant to larger things and brings it into the scope of cosmic and existential mysteries. The mysteries are what allured me about silent hill in the first place when I was young

Okay I know I shouldn’t find it funny but the idea of hinako childhood friend accidentally giving her a meth addiction that prevents her from fighting the fox god is honestly funny in comparison to everything else