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October 16, 2025 19 mins

SMNTY returns to Silent Hill to unlock even more secrets and themes around marriage, independence and choice.

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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I never told you, a protection of iHeartRadio, and welcome
to another edition of Happy Hour kind of Halloween additions.

(00:26):
As always, if you are drinking or whatever you're doing,
please do so responsibly whatever you might do in a
happy Hour. What about you, Smith? Are you doing everything responsibly?
You know? I'm keeping up with my water. Yeah, that's it,
that's what you got. I've got my red wine. I
got my red wine. I actually feel I have a
strange feeling right now because my mom's coming to stay

(00:48):
with me tomorrow. So it's both very stressful and it
feels like the end of school is coming out. I
have like the most bizarre emotion happening about this. It's
not bad, but it's just strange. But she always brings
me wine, so I'm trying to finish up the wine,
the last bottle she bought me. That's fair, yes, yes, yes, yes, Okay,

(01:10):
So I'm not really sorry to say. I've got more
to talk about when it comes to Silent Hill if Okay,
so this is a part two. Okay, Okay, I recommend
listening to part one, but you don't have to. In fact,
if you've never played these games, I'm not sure how
much more sense it will make either way. I've seen
a couple of movies. Once was the movie I Am

(01:34):
Bringing Back a Classic we did on Silent Hill three,
and I did not know the time we recorded that
that the second Silent Hill is based on Silent Hill three.
And now I've seen that movie several times and I
have a lot more thoughts, so look forward to that one.
Oh oh my goodness. So yes, this is a new game.

(01:56):
There will be spoilers. It just came out September twenty five.
I've it's not a sponsor at all, and I'm just
going to put this disclaimer in again. This is the
first Silent Hill game that is set in Japan, even
though the company that makes it is from Japan, and
it has a lot of Japanese myths in it, and
I don't know a lot about Japanese myths, so I

(02:18):
think there's probably plenty that I didn't understand. But what
I will tell you is now I have gotten all
five endings and I have a clearer picture of what
was going on, okay, and I want to talk about it.
But before I before I get into that if you
didn't hear the part one of this. The plot centers

(02:42):
around a young woman named Hinako who uh, Silent Hill
is kind of a purgatory place, Okay, So she goes
through all of these trials. She meets this guy in
a fox mast nam kata Yuki, who's putting her through
like he cuts off her or has her cut off

(03:04):
her arm by the way, cuts off her face, all
of this stuff. And then and she also has to
confront her her friends, her friends and how they actually
feel about her, and it's not good. And she has
to confront her parents, and her dad is abusive and
her mom she views her mom as weak, and her

(03:28):
sister was married off, and so she sees marriage as
this really negative thing. And it turns out when you
get to the end, her best friend Sho was giving
her these pills to help her with her stress, and
they were untested, and through the stress and through the pills,

(03:52):
she on the day of her arranged marriage, which was
arranged because her dad was in debt and he took
money for her to be married, she killed everybody. Then
that's how it ends. So that's the first ending you get,
but there's four other endings. And they're actually all related

(04:15):
and you learn more. So one of the things you
learn more about is both because it's kind of a
You've got Shoe, who's the good guy, and then you've
got Kodoyuk, who I would say is the bad guy,
and so you have an ending that's dedicated to both
of them, I would say, and to hear they're kind

(04:42):
of rationale for why they are controlling her, which they
are trying to control her, both of them in different ways.
Shoe says he was giving her the pills because he
didn't want her to get married, so he was trying
to convince he didn't want to lose her, and he
was trying to convince her manipulate her with drugs to
not get married. And then she saves him and they

(05:06):
kind of reconcile. But in that ending, there are two henicos.
There's the one that has you know, her face cut off,
the arm cut off and all that, and she wants
to get married. And then there's the other one who
doesn't have all that and she doesn't want to get married,

(05:27):
and so they fight in this ending, and the one
who wants to get married kills the one who doesn't,
and it ends with her marrying Kotayuki and they're having
a lovely time and then you see the shredded face
of the other henko and they stomp on it. So

(05:51):
I thought this was interesting because it's called the bad ending.
A lot of times in Silent Hill, they'll give you
the like they'll call it their own terminology, like this
is the good ending and this is the bad ending,
And whether or not you agree with it, I guess
it's up to you. But a lot of the times
I do agree, But this one, I was like, I
bet a lot of a lot of people wanted Hiniko

(06:14):
to get with koda Yuki. So I thought it was
interesting that they were like, no, this was the bad ending,
or she got married. Yeah, yeah, So that was fascinating.
I also didn't pick up on you meet koda Yuki
when he's a kid and Hiniko protects him from a fox,
and that's how he becomes kind of pledged to the

(06:37):
Fox Clan. Because if there's there's two ancient gods who
are fighting for control of this town, and one is
the Fox Clan, and I can't remember the name of
the other klan, but they are trying to get control.
So the Fox clan wants Hiniko, who has special blood
with the other clan, to marry into their klan because

(06:59):
then they controller, and so they're battling it out. I'll
get it. I'll get to that more in a second.
But then, yeah, so you do have this whole Henico
versus Henico thing where they fight in almost everyone and
they have to kill the other one to survive. And
she also has to kill like her friends and her family,

(07:22):
like there's a whole mission called kill your parents, because
that's how she views marriage. She views it as I'll
never really see these people again, or it won't be
in the same way. So and they kill each other
usually or they hate each other. They fight each other.
It's a very like you know that you look into
the mirror and there's the evil version kind of thing.

(07:43):
But when you get to the good ending, what they
call the true ending, which was a pain to get.
When you get to it, they both decide to live
in harmony with each other. Nice yes, And they decide
that they'll wait to see if they want to get

(08:05):
married or not. But the one who doesn't want to
get married says, I'm really afraid because I saw how
my dad treated my mom, and I don't want to
be in that relationship and I don't feel ready and
I don't I'm very scared. And the one who wants
to get married is very much like But it could
work out, and I think it would be safety and

(08:26):
all of these other things. So they decide to get
to know each other better and wait. Meanwhile, it turns
out Kotayuki, the Fox guy, was being controlled by a
spell to seduce her, and so these weren't really his
feelings at all, and he says, I don't know if

(08:49):
I like you at all either. Let us just wait
and maybe we'll meet up and maybe will like each other,
but I don't want it to be because of a spell.
That yeah, very fair, I think very fair. So yes,

(09:16):
there's also this whole God's aspect, which, if you've played
video games like this, you get to the end and
there's a boss battle, right like the Big Battle, and
so it alternates between which God you fight based on
which Henico wins. But if you get to the good ending,
you have to fight both of them and win. Because

(09:36):
the Henicos are mad that they're being used as puppets
and their control is being taken away and all of this,
and so the one fox Nico as we'll call her,
has to fight the fox god and the one who
is not Fox Nico has to fight the other god
so that they can control their own destiny. And you
learn throughout this that Quinico, the most important thing to

(09:59):
her is it's not happiness, it's independence and having choice.
And everybody keeps telling her a woman will be most
happy if she marries a man and has kids, and
she's like, I don't really care about happiness part. Then
I would rather have the choice. I would rather have
the independence. And so they do win, and that's when

(10:20):
they they get to hang out together. Although I have
to say for the good ending, it seems like everybody
did still die and Silent Hill is totally I'll call
it silent Hill because the ending is called in silence.
There's nobody there, there's nobody in the town. It's just them.

(10:40):
But hey, maybe maybe another thing that's new when you
get to the final ending is you. It's much more
about forgiveness. So, as I mentioned, I said her friend
group is terrible. I maintain that that is true. But
you do learn about you learn more about why, and

(11:01):
you see them being like I understand I'm being terrible
like each and everyone, this is all my own insecurity.
I shouldn't take it out on her. So you get
kind of this extra dimension of all of them realizing, Hey,
it's because I'm scared of this, or I'm scared of this,
or I shouldn't put this on her. So you have that,
and then with their parents, you have this really long

(11:22):
scene with her mom where her mom and Heinko confront
each other and her mom's like, I know what you
think of me, but here's what was going on behind
the scenes, and here's what I was doing, and like
that you didn't see in all of this, And then
you get the confrontation with her abusive father, and the

(11:43):
Henicovs are fighting because the new the one that's like
heard what her mom had to say, says, we should
listen to him. We don't have to forgive him, but
we should at least listen to what he has to say,
and the other one's like, no, no, no, no, no, I
don't care. I don't care. I don't care, but you
do you listen to but he has to say, and
they both agree, like, we don't forgive you, but at
least I kind of understand now, which I you know

(12:09):
it was. You know, sometimes when you play a game
with new game plus, you don't get that much new content,
but this is a pretty a lot of new content.
That's why I connect for a second part. Also, when
you do the kill your parents' mission, if you kill
your dad first, I didn't know this, you don't have

(12:31):
to kill your mom and you get an achievement that says,
just shut up, dada. But during that fight, he's yelling
at you like women don't talk back. A woman's place
is to just be silent, and the mother has She
always fights with the kitchen knife, which I think is
pretty telling because, as I said, a lot of their

(12:52):
fights occurred about her cooking, her being in the kitchen
and all that stuff, which, speaking of this is something
else I didn't mention. Silent Hill always does this. The
enemies that you fight, a lot of the I would
say women coded enemies. They're very sexualized in a way

(13:15):
that's disturbing. So there's an enemy in this game, it's
essentially just a woman with a lot of booze, and
she gives birth. That's all she does. It's really gross, Yeah,
because I think it's kind of her fear of this
is what will happen to me is I'll have to

(13:36):
just give birth, give birth and breastfeed my whole life.
But and she just kind of like screams in this
really horrifying way. And then there's definitely ones that have
had cesarian like they have the cesareans scars, so there's

(13:57):
just a lot of stuff about usually pregnancy in their
women villains and this and the I hate the dude
ones are worse because they're so loud and they won't
leave you alone, leave me b But yeah, I'm glad.

(14:21):
I almost broke that disk in half, though I was
so mad at one point trying to get this final ending.
But I have done it. I've seen it all and
at this point now you can watch them, but it
makes much more sense and context, like everything kind of
came together before. I feel like you only had pieces right,

(14:41):
and now I've got the whole thing. And I did
say in the last one it felt like somebody and
the writer's staff had been really burned by marriage and
they're just telling you don't do it, ladies. But in
this it's like final ending. It was more like if
you want to wait and see, but it's your choice

(15:04):
all this stuff wait and see, as opposed to like
the first one, which was like, don't you ever marry
the first ending? I mean, there's a whole lot happening
in Joante so I did. Yeah, it's true, I did
think about that. But it's also been I don't know,

(15:28):
there's been a lot of backlash against this game, just
because it is so different than every other game that's
ever come out in the Silent Hill series, and it's
been interesting to see mostly dudes being real mad about it,
like what are you saying here, Well, we need to
help the birthrate. No, no, Nah, She's good. She definitely

(15:54):
has a conversation with her older sister like I don't
want kids. I don't get what this is about. I
don't want kids. Were going to get me, I'll think you.
I'm good, And her sister's like, I don't understand you. Well,
I thank you for letting me talk about this. I
love it. I'll love it. You'll be able to go
through it. You can try to play it again, though,

(16:15):
I'll try to play it. I have a good friend
Katie who's been on the show, who we started playing
Silent Hill way too young nineteen ninety seven maybe, and
she's she's like my Silent Hill buddy. If she wants
me to play it again, I will play it again,
but right now, and you take a break, because I
really was mad about that. Trying to get that lasting
thing that was a bit too much. It was so

(16:38):
hard because if you accidentally take even if you accidentally
pick up any of the pills, and there are a
ton of them, you lose. You lose the ending. No no,
And the walkthroughs aren't done yet because it's a new
game and it's a complicated game. There are some that
are pretty close to being done, but a lot of
them are like partially done, so I couldn't look it
up anywhere. But I just was losing and I was

(17:00):
so mad. Oh I was furious. You didn't write any screens,
did you. No? No, no, no no no. I had
the thought. But I have more control than that. You
know another thing. A lot of people were mad about that,
which you know, it's a hard game, so whatever, But

(17:23):
it does tell you no other Silent Hell game has
given you this. But on the opening screen after you
beat it the first time, it tells you generally what
you have to do to get all the other endings
except for them, except for the last one. I didn't
tell you about that, but every other one told you
just But I will wait and see what Katie says.

(17:46):
But I'm much better now. I remember in the last
one I said I was very bad. Yeah, I'm so good. No,
this makes perfect And it was really fun. I haven't
had a new game, and while that I took time
to play, so that was a really nice thing, especially
for Halloween. Yeah, perfect timing. Yes, well, listeners Again, if

(18:09):
you have any thoughts on this, If you have any questions,
I can help you out now. I should fite a
walk through. Oh it would take so long. Shout out
to everybody who writes walkthroughs. By the way. Well, if
you have any questions anyway, you can email us at
Hello at Stuff iever told you dot com. You can

(18:29):
find us on Blue Scott Mom Stuff podcast are on
Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never told you for
us on YouTube. We have some new merchandise at Cotton
Bureau and we have a book you can get wherever
you get your books. Thanks as always to our super producer,
re senior executive producer and conjurer Joey. Thank you, and
thanks to you for listening stuff I never told you.
Speection my heart Radio. For more podcasts in my heart Radio,
you can check out the heart radio app, Apple podcast

(18:49):
or reb you listen to your favorite shows.

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