Notes on the English Translations of the Silent Hill Series

-In her monologue before the final battle, Dahlia refers to the entity inside 
Alessa not as "God" but as "(her) savior."

-Blaustein decided to use the word "hometown" in the memo about Walter Sullivan
from Silent Hill 2, which doesn't quite reflect the wording in the original
script.  Pleasant River isn't Sullivan's hometown, but simply "where he was 
living."

-A line from the diary on the roof in Silent Hill 2 reads, "would they have 
saved me if I didn't have a family to feed?"  Blaustein seems to have taken quite 
a liberty with this sentence.  What it literally says is "would they have (not)
saved me if there was no one who would grieve for me?"

-In a journal found in Brookhaven Hospital, a doctor makes a comment about the 
"other side" that was translated as:  "After all, there is no wall between here 
and there.  It lies on the borders where reality and unreality intersect."  The 
second sentence is actually a word for word reiteration of something that's 
mentioned in the Koshiki Guidebook Q&A.  More literally, it says that there is 
no wall because "the exact line (or border) between reality and unreality is 
indistinct (or vague or ambiguous)."

-In the English version of Silent Hill 2, a line from Mary's letter to James 
reads, "You promised you’d take me there again someday, but you never did."  
What the translation doesn't capture is the fact that Mary blames not James 
but herself (and her illness) for this.

-In the car on the way to Silent Hill, Heather tells Douglas that Alessa had
"a power that wasn't normal and could not be explained."  Jeremy Blaustein 
reworded this sentence as "she could make things happen with her mind."

-The first sentence of the "cult's symbol" memo from Silent Hill 3 was translated 
as "Represents the deity known as the Halo of the Sun," but it's the symbol itself 
that is known as the Halo of the Sun and not the deity.  In the original sentence, 
the word "crest" has two modifiers:  One is "known as the Halo of the Sun" and the 
other is "represents God."  A better way of putting it might be "the crest 
represents the deity and is known as the Halo of the Sun." 

-In the conversation on the cassette tape found in the church, one of the cult 
members tells Vincent that according to Claudia, Alessa had been located.  
Vincent replies that it must be true because "[Claudia's] Sight rarely fails 
her."  However, the original script doesn't say anything about a "sight"-- 
Vincent's line is simply "There is a power in [Claudia]."




back