Alessa Gillespie

General CVG character
name=Alessa Gillespie
width=245px


series= "Silent Hill"
firstgame="Silent Hill" (1999)
creator=Team Silent
artist=
voiceactor=SH1: Sandra Wayne (Alessa)
SH3: Heather Morris (AlessaHeather)
japanactor=
motionactor=
inuniverse=

Alessa Gillespie is a fictional character in the "Silent Hill" video game series, largely created by Team Silent. Their enduring popularity has led to many incarnations of the "Silent Hill" story and of its Alessa Gillespie character. Alessa's first appearance took place in the 1999 "Silent Hill" video game. The character Alessa has been included in two follow-up "Silent Hill" games and in a horror film based on the "Silent Hill" series.

Alessa is the daughter of Dahlia Gillespie, the leader of a cult known as The Order that operates out of the fictitious titular town of Silent Hill. She was originally meant to follow in her mother's footsteps and take over as spiritual medium for the religious group, but her role in the franchise is greater, her history directly influencing all events in the "Silent Hill" universe.

In the 2006 "Silent Hill" film, a young Alessa is portrayed by Canadian actress Jodelle Ferland, with her older self played by Lorry Ayers.

Conception and creation

Character creation

"Silent Hill" writer Hiroyuki Owaku described Alessa's situation as one of "obsession", wherein "the object of Alessa's obsession was only for herself to cease to exist. It is a sentiment rooted in benevolence".cite web|publisher= while acting as the vessel for her faith's unborn god, she becomes affixed to the idea of escaping life to die. Her appearance changes depending on the place within which she resided, as her most negative emotions are concentrated in certain locations that hold significance to traumatic experiences in her past.

Team Silent originally intended to name her "Asia" after Italian film director Dario Argento's daughter, Asia Argento, but dropped it in favor of "Alessa" when they decided that it was much too uncommon a name. [cite web|publisher= symbology.

Although Alessa is not always physically present throughout gameplay, her presence is reinforced by symbolism. Images of wheelchairs, bloody bandages, and halved things are suggestive of her hospitalization and death, and rotating objects such as fans and valves are indicative of her constant cycle of death and rebirth. [cite web|publisher=|accessdate=2007-07-26]

Actor portrayal

In the first "Silent Hill" video game, Alessa was voiced by Sandra Wayne. She was succeeded by Heather Morris, who took on the role of Alessa's reincarnation in "Silent Hill 3".

Characteristics

Alessa's thoughts and fears are contorted by her powers into the various supernatural phenomena that plague Silent Hill. When she is young, the girl enjoys collecting butterflies and drawing pictures, but she was afraid of insects other than butterflies, and menacing or frightening animals like large dogs, snakes, and worms.cite web|publisher=|accessdate=2007-07-26] In addition, she develops an aversion to adults from being mistreated by her mother and the cult.

Fairy tales and similar books read by Alessa in her youth also contribute to the town's motif. Her favorite work, Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World", is the in-universe basis for the "Air Screamer" monster, and the predicament that Harry Mason and his daughter Cheryl face in the first "Silent Hill" game (that of being lost in another world) is compared to Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland".cite web|publisher=s are prevalent as well. The transformation that Silent Hill goes through therefore embodies Alessa's mind, and signs of her influence become more prominent as the town sinks deeper into darkness.

PseudonymsReincarnations

Cheryl Mason

The adopted daughter of Harry Mason and his wife, Cheryl disappears when Harry takes her on vacation to Silent Hill. It is later revealed that Cheryl is a part of Alessa intended to escape torture and oppression from Dahlia and her fellow cult members. When Cheryl entered the city limits of Silent Hill she rejoined with Alessa, bringing about the fractured world explored by the series' protagonists. Harry wanders the town in search for her and, after a final encounter with Dahlia, two of the possible outcomes have AlessaCheryl bestowing a new child upon Harry before he escapes.

Heather

Later in Silent Hill 3 it is revealed that the game's protagonist, Heather, is the child handed to Harry at the end of the first game and that the two have been on the run from The Order since then.

Dark Alessa

Dark Alessa is a character in the film version of Silent Hill, she is a manifestation of the dark side of the soul of Alessa Gillespie, who was burned alive by a group of religious fanatics at the age of nine. Dark Alessa is portrayed by Jodelle Ferland.

Games

=Silent Hill=

Alessa debuted with the January 31, 1999 release of the video game "Silent Hill" in North America. The character is born in 1972, with incredible psychic powers, including spiritual intuition and premonition, leading to her being ostracized at school and branded a witch. [Heather: Her classmates called her a witch. She could make things happen with her mind. She could kill people just by wishing for it.cite video game|title=Silent Hill 3|developer=Team Silent|publisher=Konami|date=2003-07-03|platform=PlayStation 2/PC|language=English] Her only friend in childhood is Claudia Wolf, who sympathizes with her because she also comes from an abusive family background.

Dahlia becomes convinced that a certain ritual, to birth the cult's god, would likely be a success if she used her daughter as its birthmother. The technique had been performed on other girls that The Order abducted, but all previous attempts had failed. At the age of seven, Alessa is offered as a sacrifice by Dahlia to the god in their house by immolating her body. [cite web|publisher=.

In order to lure the missing portion of Alessa's spirit back to its point of origin, Dahlia intentionally keeps her daughter in a state of excruciating pain for the years prior to the first game to compel Cheryl to return. Confined to Alchemilla Hospital's basement and tended to by Lisa Garland, Alessa is given hallucinogenic drugs, further intensifying her torment. Upon Cheryl's return, Alessa's latent psychic abilities are triggered; she shrouds Silent Hill in fog and altered reality to prevent her mother's scheme from advancing. Many of the drastic changes that befall the town in the game, such as the horrific creatures that come to inhabit it, are conjured from her imagination and delusions.

While searching for the missing Cheryl in Silent Hill, Harry is manipulated by Dahlia into believing that Alessa possesses the "Mark of Samael", the mark of a demon. She instructs him to use a sacred item, the Flauros, to stop Alessa from completing Samael's five crests and plunging the entire town into a hellish alternate dimension known as "Otherworld". [Dahlia: There's only two left, to seal this town to the abyss, the mark of Samael. When it is completed, all is lost. Even in daytime, darkness will cover the sun. The dead will walk, and martyrs will burn in the fires of hell! Everyone will die!...Stop the demon! The demon! The demon taking that child's form!...You will need to use it.
Harry: Use what?
Dahlia: The Flauros. Only with that can you stop it.cite video game|title=Silent Hill|developer=Team Silent|publisher=Konami|date=1999-03-04|platform=Sony PlayStation|language=English] Taking the bait, Harry neutralizes Alessa, only to learn that she was really trying to contain Otherworld herself with the "Seal of Metatron" (a talisman that recurs in "Silent Hill 3"). [Dahlia: I was shocked to realize the talisman of Metraton was being used.cite video game|title=Silent Hill|developer=Team Silent|publisher=Konami|date=1999-03-04|platform=Sony PlayStation|language=English] At the end of the game Dahlia finally combines both halves of Alessa's soul into one to complete the ceremony of the god's birth. Depending on the player's actions during gameplay, Alessa emerges either as a white-clad figure named "Incubator" or the demonic "Incubus", the latter coming about by Dahlia's former associate Dr. Kaufmann throwing a sample of Aglaophotis onto Alessa to prematurely expel the god. In either case the birthed deity kills Dahlia and fights Harry as the final boss.

Following the defeat of the "Incubus" a fading apparition of Alessa creates a small portal back to the real world to enable Harry's escape after handing him a newborn child containing the fused soul of herself and Cheryl, who he raises as his own child. [Heather: After the god died, the girl reappeared. She was holding a baby in her arms. Before she died, she gave the baby to my father. He loved me just like I was his very own daughter.cite video game|title=Silent Hill 3|developer=Team Silent|publisher=Konami|date=2003-07-03|platform=PlayStation 2/PC|language=English]

Silent Hill 3

In "Silent Hill 3", seventeen years after the events of the first "Silent Hill" game, the child given to Harry by Alessa (going by the name Heather) is approached by Claudia Wolf (now a priestess for The Order), who intends to bring about the descent of the cult's god to usher in Paradise. For this to happen Heather must remember her "true self" (Alessa). To nourish the growing fetus within her, Claudia has Harry murdered. A "memory" of Alessa, a dark emotion mimicking her likeness, is encountered by Heather in Silent Hill's Lakeside Amusement Park. This "Memory" attacks Heather as a boss enemy, intent on ending the character's life herself to spare her and everyone from further pain after the god is born. [cite web |url= http://guides.ign.com/guides/482701/page_5.html|title= Enemies|accessdate=2007-07-31 |work= Silent Hill 3 guide|publisher= IGN] [Memo left by "Memory of Alessa": When I think of the endless pain it will bring when it is birthed....I decided that, instead of the suffering and cruelty I endured in that sick room, that I would like to bestow a more gentle and peaceful death on "myself". Why do "I" resist? cite video game|title=Silent Hill 3|developer=Team Silent|publisher=Konami|date=2003-07-03|platform=PlayStation 2/PC|language=English]

To rid herself of the god, Heather swallows a tablet of Aglaophotis given to her by her father, thereby vomiting it out of her body. Claudia, however, in desperation, devours its remains to birth the god herself. Being born of Claudia's womb, the god personifies her vision of what God would look like, and therefore vaguely resembles Alessa. [cite web|publisher=|accessdate=2007-07-26|]

=

After being saved by Travis Grady from a house fire at the start of the story, Alessa helps Travis throughout the ordeal in order for him to understand his past and clear up his mind. At the same time, Travis unknowingly helps her to take control over Silent Hill. Once Travis collects the "Future", "Past", "Falsehood", "Truth" and "Present" pieces from various places in the "Otherworld", he assembles the Flauros which liberates Alessa's power. As a result, this allows her to temporarily take control of Silent Hill, transforming the town into its grotesque Otherworld counterpart. She then guides Travis, via a drawn children's map, to the Antique Green Lion, where her burnt body is being used in a summoning ritual by The Order. With the help of Travis (Who confronts the Flauros demon in a dream-like vision, containing him and his powers into the pyramid), she uses the power of Flauros to split her soul in half, creating a newborn baby.

As Travis leaves Silent Hill, he sees Alessa once more in his truck's rearview mirror, holding the baby in her arms and smiling as he heads off. A static radio message can then be heard of a couple, Harry Mason and his wife, who find the baby near the road, and give her the name "Cheryl". Another message is then heard between Dahlia Gillespie and Michael Kauffman, who plots to cast a spell in order to finish the ritual one day.

Film

The 2006 "Silent Hill" film's Alessa, as well as the adaptation's version of Cheryl Mason - Sharon DaSilva - and Dark Alessa, were played by Jodelle Ferland. Director Christophe Gans selected Ferland after viewing her performances in "Kingdom Hospital" and her screen test for Terry Gilliam's film "Tideland". [cite web|last=Ferry|first=IIan|date=2006-04-02|url=http://www.ecranlarge.com/interview-282.php|title= Master Class Silent Hill (French)|work = Ecranlarge] Alessa's older, scarred self was portrayed by Lorry Ayers.

Based on the first four games of the series, with plotline mainly from the first game, the movie presented Alessa as a kind, but troubled girl who was the subject of constant ridicule by her classmates. It is implied that, at the age of nine, she was molested by the janitor of Midwich Elementary School, Colin. Refusing to divulge the name of Alessa's illegitimate father, the film's more sympathetic Dahlia caves in to requests by the cult's Puritanical leader, Christabella, to set things right.

Alessa is burned alive by the cult to "purify" her and supposedly hold off the Apocalypse. When the ritual fails, the fire rages out of control, consuming much of Silent Hill and eventually reaching the town's coal mines. Alessa is pulled out of the blaze and sent to the nearby Brookhaven Hospital, where, after an agonizing period, her doppelgänger, the personification of Alessa's dark side, promised her revenge upon those that had wronged her. Growing hateful, she allows her demonic counterpart to send the town and its people into a dark facsimile of her nightmare, spawning creatures symbolic of her tormentors to slay the remaining cult members trapped in Silent Hill. Alessa then used her power to create an infant (Sharon) from the last pure, uncorrupted part of her soul, and her dark alter ego delivered the baby to Toluca County Orphanage, where it would be adopted by Chris and Rose DaSilva.

With Rose's assistance, Alessa is able to penetrate the safe haven of the cult's church by means of possession, and slaughters Christabella and her flock in a scene inspired by the erotic anime "Legend of the Overfiend", [cite web|last=Prin|first=Kevin|date=2006-12-22|url=http://www.dvdrama.com/news.php?18185|title=INTERVIEW: CHRISTOPHE GANS (SILENT HILL) PARTIE 1 (French)|work = DVDRama] tearing them apart with living barbed wire. Her appearance at the climax of the film closely resembles the Mary/Maria demon James Sunderland sees at the end of "Silent Hill 2" due to the game being Christophe Gans' favorite installment in the "Silent Hill" series. [cite web|date=2007-07-29|url=http://videogames.yahoo.com/ongoingfeature?eid=444641&page=0|title=Q&A with Christophe Gans]

ee also

Dark Alessa

References