"Shinjū" in Silent Hill 2?

[Anonymous No.]

Yo, /jp/

So, I recently played Silent Hill 2 and loved it. It's one of those rare games that has you thinking about the experience for a good while after completing it and what everything you witnessed meant.

In an interview with Guy Cihi (James Sunderland) and Dave Schaufelle (Eddie Dombrowski), Guy mentions that he suspects Team Silent's intention for the 'canon' ending of the game is the 'In Water' ending, because Sato has said twice that he believes Mary was in the back of James' car the whole time.

He went on to say that he believes they were dedicated to this ending because it fulfils "Shinjū", which he describes as 'family suicide' and lists the methods of this suicide practice as being very similar to the actions James seems to take in the 'In Water' ending. (Smothering family members and then drowning oneself in the car with their bodies.)

However, wikipedia (best source ever, I know) lists Shinjū as being something closer to a mutual suicide pact, often relating to romantic drama, like Romeo & Juliet or whatever.

My question to you guys is that in your sagely knowledge of Japanese culture, have you heard anything about "Shinjū" and what it means or any media examples of such cases, similar to way Mr. Cihi describes? Apparently such instances are kept very hush-hush.

The interview where he mentions Shinjū is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhyT4gjDHM8

Thanks for reading.

[Anonymous No.]

How can it be called Family Suicide if he killed his wife, probably against her wishes?

She didn't kill herself, therefore it's not suicide.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9994496
Yeah, it was weird wording he chose. I think he meant it was a suicide in a way that one member of the family chooses to end the entire family, not that the whole family does it wilfully together. It's a loose use of the word, but still makes sense I think.

Horrible concept, but that makes it kind of fascinating too. That's why I'd love to find out more about it, but there doesn't seem to be much.

And, as I said in the OP, the wiki article on the practice of Shinjū describes it as a mutually voluntary thing, likely because two lovers cannot be together in life, so they choose to end their lives together so they can be united in death.

Cihi describes it as something that sounds quite dishonourable in popular opinion. Think the guy lived/lives over there, so I'm willing to assume he knows, at least vaguely, what he is talking about.

[Anonymous No.]

I've spent so much time playing that game and hearing their voices over and over that picturing them as ordinary humans who look and sound almost exactly like the characters they portrayed is really unsettling for some reason.

Anyway, "shinjuu" is almost always used to refer to situations where the couple commits suicide together simultaneously, so I'm not feeling it. Maybe the team had an explanation how it would work out for them in that fucked-up Silent Hill way, though. I like the idea of Mary being in the car in In Water, though.

[Anonymous No.]

murda suicides up in dis bitch

[Anonymous No.]

>>9994507
Forgot to mention, there is also a word for whole-family suicide, "ikkan shinjuu" (一家心中). This usually refers to a large family, including more than two members, some of whom are children, but it's also more likely in this case that one member of the family will decide to end it all and kill the others before committing suicide.

Although I still don't think that describes the Sunderlands' situation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9994513

Yeah, it's always bizarre to see the real human behind the voice of a character that you have become really invested in. The character kind of becomes their own being so to see a real person with "their" voice is weird.

Yeah, the idea of Mary being in the car is great because it emphasises just how deluded and broken James had become if he didn't even see her there!

(Also, I was wrong saying Sato said that. It was Masahiro Ito. Here's the tweet: https://twitter.com/adsk4/status/196960739410460672))

>>9994522
Hmm. That's interesting. Probably what Guy Cihi was referring to with his interpretation of Team Silent's motives and maybe thinks that they were exploring the concept loosely with James killing Mary out of desperation and frustration, rather than shame or whatever.

I'm a 'Leave' ending man, myself. It makes the whole ordeal more poignant for me if James was able to face up to what he did and carry on living with the guilt, rather than letting it overwhelm him to the point of suicide.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9994470
Hmm. For anyone else who is interested, I found an interesting Psychiatric paper discussing murder-suicide and its categorising as Shinju here: http://www.japanpsychiatrist.com/Abstracts/Shinju.html

Murder-suicide discussion starts under the Shinju sub-heading.

[gigs !A7GLsxo4c. No.]

I wish the Silent Hill HD Collection turned out good. I was hoping to play SH2 for Halloween but I didn't want to drag my copy out.