Hidden Clues In Silent Hill That Forever Change ... Zelda

What does a game series about Aryan elves repeatedly spanking uppity pig warlords have to do with one about killing Freudian monster nurses? A surprising amount, actually. It all starts with a really dark religion ...

The Legend Of Zelda takes place mostly in Hyrule, which is home to The Sheikah. Also known as "the shadow folk," this is a near-extinct group of kickass ninja nannies who originally served the goddess Hylia but these days spend their time serving her reincarnation (Zelda) and the rest of the royal family -- pretty much the way they do it in modern-day England. The Sheikah are also fans of the forces of darkness and like hanging out in their Shadow Temple, probably because their dads just don't understand them.

Over on another planet sits a sleepy little town called Silent Hill, where its local cult, The Order, adopted some Native American beliefs, added a bit of Christian flavor, and somehow came out the other side serving a god that will usher in paradise by killing everyone dead as shit. Violent and brimstoney enough to make Jim Jones look like Mr. Rogers, The Order also has a thing for black magic and getting psychic girls knocked up by their hellspawn god. Much like modern-day Pennsylvania.

Given the evidence, we believe that The Order has been influenced by a Sheikah entity that ended up on Earth ... and here's where shit starts to get weird.

Let's start with the shocking similarities in their religions. The Sheikah and The Order both serve goddesses that died and promised to return, both try to get said goddess to do said returning by way of psychic chicks, both of whom have apparently been advised by the same stylist that white robes are the in look for today's medium.

Then there is the resemblance between The Order's symbol (the Halo Of The Sun) and several symbols in Zelda. First, let's take a look at the Halo Of The Sun itself:

The first thing that catches your eye is ... er ... the eye. Looking at you. Judging you. It knows what you did and is both disgusted and impressed. An eerily similar symbol is often associated with Zelda's Sheikah, appearing as their insignia on items such as Gossip Stones and the Mask Of Truth:

The eye is also listed as being tied to the Eye Of Night tarot card you find in Silent Hill 3, which just plain sounds like something connected to the shadow-obsessed Sheikah:

So far, no big deal. It's just an eye, right? That symbol has been used so much in real-life religions and fantasy storytelling that it's beyond cliche. So let's take it a step further and bring up the medallion you get at the end of Ocarina Of Time's Shadow Temple stage, which is the dungeon best associated with The Sheikah. You might notice it looks an awful lot like a stripped-down version of the Halo Of The Sun:

But even that is pushing it. It's vaguely similar to The Order's symbol, but come on. Show us something with some detail. Oh, wait ... BAM:

That's the Gate Of Time from Skyward Sword. You've probably noticed that the three circles on the gate contain the symbols of the three goddesses that created Hyrule, while the ones on Silent Hill's Halo are empty. Obviously. Why wouldn't you notice that? (Get help, man.)

That just means whatever crossed over to the Silent Hill area rejected the three goddesses. Maybe this new god was banished by them. Maybe they had a falling out like the deity version of Heathers. This argument is demonstrated by the fact that the Triforce in the center of the gate is replaced by a crown thought to represent the dominion of The Order's goddess. Forget signs of openness and shit. This goddess is a queen. Like Beyonce but even scarier when she's angry.

For those still unconvinced, there is one more connection between the two. See those symbols on the gate of time? Put the Halo Of The Sun over it and holy poopshit:

The runes around the gate are aligned with the runes around the halo, the inner circle is aligned, the empty circles are now filled with the symbols of the three goddesses, and we have a crown sitting right on top of the Triforce. If the similarities stopped there, it would just be an interesting coincidence. Maybe the game designers contracted out their symbol creation to the same guy or something. But it doesn't stop there.

You'll also find connections between The Order and The Sheikah within the dungeon that emotionally scarred many an unsuspecting 10-year-old with an N64: the Shadow Temple. We get a link to The Order at the very entrance when we have to open its door by lighting numerous torches. This seems like a minor point, until you consider that fire is super important to The Order's rites. It's needed to conceive their goddess and to summon this phallic-ass monster:

Basically, if The Order is involved, something is going up in flames.

Then when traveling around the Shadow Temple, we see Sheikah-Order connection No. 2: The temple has torture equipment. We're talking guillotines, rotating reaper statues, crushing spike blocks next to cages, and ... whatever the hell this was:

The only in-game reason we're given for this stuff being inside a temple is that it was the gathering place of "Hyrule's bloody history of greed and hatred." So, basically, at one point either the Shadow Temple was Hyrule's answer to Guantanamo Bay or human sacrifice was once a thing here. Both these notions fit in with The Order and their insanely violent doctrine.

And that is before we get to the fucking monsters. Just in the Shadow Temple and its general area you can find lovely creatures like ReDeads, the Dead Hand, and Bongo Bongos, which are not as cute as they sound.

Few other Zelda monsters have the same kind of fleshy and nightmarish aesthetic, which also happen to show up in Silent Hill.

But the most obvious Sheikah-Order connection is the idol that pops up around the temple. At first it kind of looks like a raven ... until you notice the horns, six-pack, and arms:

Rather than looking like any real-world animal or even another Zelda creature, this idol actually bears a striking resemblance to the Incubus, which is the version of The Order's deity that you fight at the canon ending of the first Silent Hill game:

In-game, the Incubus is based on what Dahlia Gillespie (the game's antagonist) pictures the deity to look like. Perhaps, as a leader of The Order, she saw a text with a picture of the Shadow Temple's idol and assumed it was its god. What's more, the Incubus is essentially prematurely "born" in the game, explaining why it doesn't completely look like an adult version of the Shadow Temple idol.

Similarities aside, just how does this Sheikah-related force get to Earth in the first place? Well, Hyrule has an interstellar program that would make NASA look like a kite factory. Despite these plot devices being referred to as "realms," the heroes of Hyrule have a tendency to straight-up go to other worlds throughout the series. And so, consequently, do the villains. Hyrule often opts to banish their criminals to these other worlds, which more often than not bites them in the ass. One such case of ass-bitery is in Twilight Princess where one banished criminal by the name of Ganondorf is confused for a god by co-antagonist Zant, who is the descendant of another group of criminals Hyrule banished.

And what is Zant's main evil plot? To cover the world in darkness, not unlike with the Otherworld in the Silent Hill series. (And, of course, The Simpsons did it.)

An interesting thing to note is that something similar is replicated in Skyward Sword, with alternative realities created as tests by the goddesses. An interesting-ier thing is that these tests are called "Silent Realms."

But all this is moot unless we can actually prove that Hyrule made contact with Earth. And that brings us to the Triforce itself.

This is the Seal Of Metatron:

This stupid-looking triangle from Silent Hill isn't a carbon copy, but what's important is its power: It is capable of subduing the forces of The Order and its goddess, provided the user is strong enough to use it. Sound familiar?

But that's not as crazy as what I'm about to show you ... the Flauros, also found in Silent Hill, is capable of amplifying thought and power. This important item/plot device is capable of suppressing demonic creatures and empowering or disarming powerful psychics. It also happens to be shaped like the most famous symbol in video game history:

The origin of the Flauros is (literally) listed as being unknown, but it first made its appearance in China with a man who claimed to contain a demon within it:

And that demon just so happens to look like murals you find throughout the Shadow Temple, complete with buggy eyes, pug nose, and that weird divot on his forehead:

After its owner died in a fire (suspicious much?), it ended up in the hands of a monk that proclaimed it was left by "God himself, claiming it was a weapon left by angels as a force for good." Maybe Hyrulean forces, realizing just how hard they screwed the pooch, left the Flauros on Earth as a means of good will.

But what is perhaps the weirdest piece of evidence in this theory is that both games have magical fairies that upgrade your weapons.

As even the most fair-weather Zelda fans can tell you, Hyrule is chock full of powerful fairy women that hang out in magic pools and upgrade your shit. Well, Silent Hill has a powerful fairy woman who hangs out in shit to upgrade your ... pipe? If you play a New Game+ file in Silent Hill 3 and do some stuff in a sewer, you get this:

Yes, it's somewhat of an Easter egg. And sure, it might actually be a nod to the Zelda series. But in-game, after all of this evidence, it feels like a whole lot more than that.

Want to help 162's cousin spank cancer/treatment debt? Maybe help her friend start an art school? When not sitting in a cave illuminated solely by computer light and filled with piles of used K-cups, Kera "162" Hildebrandt is doing shit like writing for this video game or this movie. She's got a Twitter here.

For more theories so crazy they have to be true, check out Inception Is A Prequel To The Matrix ... No, Seriously and A Theory That Will Change How You See The Simpsons Forever.

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