Topic 5: Lisa

Lisa is perhaps the most tragic character of Silent Hill (and my Personal Favorite). She is really nice to Harry when he meets her in the Dark Silent Hill Hospital. But she serves a higher purpose in the game. The only time Harry meets Lisa is in the Dark version of Silent Hill. She is in the Dark version of the room Harry first met Kaufman in. If we agree that Alessa is in control of the Dark version of Silent Hill, as was stated in previous Topics, then that means that Lisa must be under her control as well. But to what end? Previous Topics have discussed Harry's purpose in the game due to Dahlia's manipulations of Alessa's conjured world. He is Dahlia's pawn, her Trojan Horse, sent to find the girl he thinks is his daughter, but is really Alessa, who is trying to hide from Dahlia. Along the way, Alessa must figure some part of this out, and keeps plunging the conjured world into darkness and decay, featuring awful creatures that should cause Harry to pause in continuing his search for her. But he loves the girl he thinks is his daughter, and keeps chasing her. Lisa is Alessa's Other strategy for stopping Harry. Lisa is nice to Harry and concerned for his safety. If he continues searching, he won't be safe. If he leaves Lisa, she won't be safe. She displays terror and anguish at being left alone by Harry. Truly, she doesn't want him to continue searching. This is actually what Alessa wants.

Notice how these scenes with Lisa happen almost as dreams. Harry is suddenly "awakened" from each one of them. The first time he meets Lisa is after searching the entire Darkside Hospital. When Harry meets Lisa in the Darker side of the room he met Kaufman in, he gets to know and like the young nurse (as do we all). Abruptly, in the middle of the conversation, Harry wakes up in the Misty Silent Hill version of the room he met Kaufman in. The last time Harry was in this version of Silent Hill, he was in an elevator going between floors. So how did he get back here?

Simple. Dahlia used the power of the Flauros to manipulate the conjured world. Thus, Dark Silent Hill Hospital becomes Misty Silent Hill Hospital. Now that we're back in Dahlia's territory, she steps in and gives Harry some further guidance. Thus, Dahlia knew that Harry was being persuaded to give up the search and stay with Lisa, and she stepped in to salvage the situation for herself. Notice how she's kinda angry with Harry? This sort of thing continues throughout the game, with Lisa appearing and disappearing, continually failing to keep Harry from pursuing his quest to find his daughter. But once Harry confronts Alessa with the Flauros, and Dahlia regains control of her daughter, Harry wakes up in the room Lisa is always in. But now, Lisa is kind of twitchy and agitated. She doesn't seem to have any control over herself. That's because she never had any; She has been controlled by Alessa this whole time, and now that Alessa is no longer in control of the conjured world, Lisa begins to revert to being the same as the other conjured creatures.

She runs away from Harry, who she has been programmed to be nice to, this whole time. But now that her programming has gone haywire, she begins bleeding uncontrollably and goes after Harry. He then uncovers her diary, in which she confesses to be a drug addict. She didn't want to go back to the hospital, because she was scared of her undying patient. But she needed the drug, which was why she had to go back to the Hospital. Who was at the Hospital, who was supplying her with the drugs? Kaufman. Who was in charge of the Hospital, and the patient kept secret in the sealed-off basement. Kaufman. Who is Lisa seen arguing with at the beginning of the game? Kaufman.

Then there's the videotape, with Lisa's confession. If such a tape ever existed, then Kaufman and the cult surely would have killed Lisa for taping a confession. (Notice how the tape has blood on it?) Lisa showed signs of compassion for Alessa, and horror at her situation. She also threatens to do something about it, toward "them". So this leads me to believe that Lisa knew that Kaufman was involved in something weird involving this child and a cult that Kaufman was in. If by chance she ever caught site of Kaufman and Dahlia together, which is highly probable, then she probably figured out for herself that her patient was related to Dahlia. The fact that Alessa's body was kept locked away in the Hospital basement goes to show that Kaufman and Dahlia were trying to hide her. That must mean, to Lisa, that they had something to do with the girl's unfortunate situation.

Then one day, maybe Lisa hears that Dahlia has had another child. It's a small town, so it's possible that word gets around. Lisa can't bear to think that they might do the same to another child that they did to Alessa. So if there is one person in the game who might've stolen the second child from Dahlia and left it by the side of the road for some strangers to find, it was Lisa. She's the only one with any compassion in the situation.

Now here's the thing: These events had to have occurred seven years ago. Kaufman surely would've been able to figure out who abducted the child. Maybe this is when he tries to confront Lisa in the Hospital corridor, only to have her throw wild accusations in his face. After all the other people that the cult silenced, they certainly wouldn't have let Lisa live, not after a scene like that.

So I'm thinking that Lisa was most likely killed seven years ago. The Lisa who appears in the game is only Alessa's fondest memories of her caregiver. Remember, the tactic is to keep Harry in the Hospital, to convince him to stop searching. Only a really nice person could do that, and the only nice person Alessa has ever known is Lisa. So I believe that the Lisa who appears throughout the game is only an enhanced construct of Alessa's. Yet at the core, she is just like all the other psychotically mutating nurses and doctors in the Darkside Hospital. She is a monster, but under Alessa's control, she takes on the form and aspect of the horribly burned girl's former caregiver.

When Alessa loses control of the conjured world, she also loses control of her Lisa. Dahlia is probably in control of everything in the game at this point, so Lisa is suddenly reprogrammed to attack Harry. The conflicting controls are probably what cause her to go berserk. I think that when we see Lisa begin to bleed from every pour, it is a metaphor that the Lisa clone is falling apart.

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Topic 6: Cybil Possessed