Love Letter to Downpour Pt 3: Centennial Building
The Centennial Building chapter explores the more clinical psychosis that is behind Murph, his own self loathing, and how it drives him to be self destructive. “It's me. It's always been me, my own worst enemy, the one who always screws up and lets others down. I've tried so many times to start over and find my way to peace, but then... Back in the can the Chaplain told me that I should not punish myself, but it's the only thing I've got left under my control. Maybe this horrible place is exactly where I've been heading all these years.”--Murphy’s own thoughts regarding himself. The books dispersed throughout the library offer a glimpse into his mind and how he thinks; he believes he deserves prison–it’s somewhat implied in how he pronounces his last name (PenUL vs PenDUL)–and thus he is creating the torture he believes he deserves with the aid of Silent Hill; just as a bee sacrificed it’s own life to exact revenge he sacrificed his own ego to seek revenge on the one he believed by whom he was wronged (note: there are no memos throughout the game that explicitly states that Napier was charged with Charlie's murder.) “Trust yourself, Murph. You know more than you think you do.”
Murphy may be one who is willing to help when another needs it but himself is not willing to receive help when needed; he would rather distract himself from his obsessive thoughts through more carnal expressions. Help was offered to him through counseling, but he did not take it; the placing of the Screamer between the persecution of the native religions book and the grief counseling business card suggests that Murphy felt unsupported and harangued by Carol.
The main enemies of Centennial are Screamers, weeping bats, and dolls (grief, isolation, and lust). Charlie's death isn't central to Murphy’s hell but it accelerated the slippery slope of self-destruction; grief leading to isolation, isolation leading to intrusive thoughts, thoughts that can only be quieted by a “certain taste in entertainment”; his grief made him confuse the need for emotional intimacy with physical (“I wanted a lover, I needed a friend”). [Some hidden game files of a child’s drawings point to Charlie observing the dissolution of the marriage and expressing his sadness over it. It could be a leftover from when the game was planned to have a psych profiling like Shattered Memories and connect to the Execution ending, or his spirit observing the dissolution.]
“Truth is like the sun, boy, you can shut it out, but it ain't going away.” Murphy is a deeply emotional and introspective guy, so instead of addressing the deep wound that was Charlie’s death he chose to run and hide from his emotions as he bobs and weaves amongst an upturned parking garage; the “escape from the world” that he planned for falling to crush him. He is chased by the red void of his own inner darkness, always just barely outpacing it to be swallowed up by his sadness and anger. The toxic masculinity that prevents him from properly expressing his grief keeps him locked into a perpetual hell of sadness.
The Otherworld Centennial introduces the Wall Corpse–after a sequence that demonstrates how humans are turned into caged livestock within prison–which parallels the avenging bee and haruspex as mentioned in one of the texts. Attacking Napier didn’t solve anything, but instead, made Murphy feel worse about himself–gutting him to the core. “Truth is like the son, boy. You can shut it out, but it ain’t going away.”
After the Screamer ambush in the radio station Anne and Ricks were transported to a cage outside of the Centennial Building where he opines on how Silent Hill is the Devil’s Interval; it’s a tritone chord that, albeit not discordant (jarring), is unsettling–unharmonious. It is purposeful as change can not come if one is comfortable in their own hell. Change requires discomfort.
DJ Ricks provides more than just a voice over the radio to hone your sights for escape but is a warning of how cowardice can hold you back and keep you confined to your cage. “...If you don’t change the record, you gonna hear the same damn songs over and over again…Change takes guts, though. You got enough guts to see this through?” (Ricks to Anne in Anne’s Story)
