Alessa Gillespie

"Oh, but Mommy, I just want to be with you. Just two of us. Please understand."

- Alessa as a child to her mother, Dahlia.

Alessa Gillespie is a major character in the Silent Hill series who debuted in the first Silent Hill game.

She is presented as the driving force and one of the most influential characters behind the events of the series. It is gradually revealed that Alessa had a very dark, violent, traumatic and abusive childhood. Alessa was bullied, beaten, tortured, and set on fire as a child; her immolation and extreme suffering caused by her mother's cult, the Order, for the sake of rebirthing her god, served as a catalyst of the current warped and twisted state of Silent Hill's mysterious spiritual power.

Besides being an important part of the game canon, Alessa also plays a major role in the film adaptation of Silent Hill as well as its sequel.

Early life
Alessa Gillespie was the only daughter of Dahlia Gillespie, a spiritualistic medium, a miko, in a certain cult known as the Order that has been established in Silent Hill, Maine's underworld. Dahlia and Alessa lived together in a house in Silent Hill's business district. Any information regarding Alessa's father is unknown.

From a young age, Dahlia began forcing her religion onto her child and Alessa was indoctrinated into her mother's cult and its beliefs and ideas. Alessa dreamed of the arrival of the Order's Paradise, a vision of a utopian world with no human evil, hatred, greed, war, disease, starvation, or old age. Alessa believed that their current world must be cleansed with fire before creating Paradise. Dahlia brought Alessa to the Order's chapel frequently, and Alessa often looked up at the stained glass which depicted God and the man and woman who birthed Her. Alessa came to worship God and to ask for her prayers to be answered; however, this wish was never granted.

"There's a girl named Alessa in my class. If your memory is any good, you may remember her. She's the one I said they called a witch. Most likely her mother is abusing her. I've never seen her come in without some sort of scrape or bruise. Her expression is pitifully dark for a 6-year-old."

- K. Gordon in Silent Hill.

Alessa had unique supernatural abilities since she was very young. At Midwich Elementary School, her classmates called her a witch and tormented her by excluding her and scribbling on her desk. Alessa's teacher, K. Gordon, noticed her bullying and believed Dahlia would physically beat her, especially for not wanting to believe in God. It is also implied Dahlia would lock Alessa in their house's dark attic for long periods of time for any irreligious behavior where she would cry under a table. Gordon wondered if there was anything they could do to help and considered consulting a lawyer. Eventually, Alessa's teacher did lodge an unspecified complaint regarding Dahlia's treatment of Alessa. Investigation into the matter by both an unnamed officer and Dr. Michael Kaufmann, the director of Alchemilla Hospital, resulted in the dismissal of the complaint on the grounds that no evidence of any mistreatment of the child was found by either the officer or the doctor.

At some point, Alessa skipped school and snuck into the Artaud Theater. The director felt pity for Alessa and let her watch their run-through of The Tempest. Alessa apparently used her powers to hurt an actor named Tony, who was portraying Prospero, this bringing the proceedings to a premature end. Alessa provided the director feedback, which he felt was useful, and was noticeably terrified by the character Caliban which would later be manifested as a monster.

Alessa's only known friend was Claudia Wolf, a girl two years younger than Alessa and who was also forced into the Order by her father, Leonard. Their parents were of the same faith, and it seemed that they were already on extremely good terms during their childhood — Alessa thought of Claudia as a "little sister", despite not being directly related. On Claudia's 6th birthday, Alessa gave her a card that said, "I love you as if you were my real sister. Here's to you!". They did activities such as drawing and playing cards, which often made Claudia cry since she had a difficult time winning. Alessa wished for a "nice daddy and mommy and a fun school, and a happy world where everyone smiled and laughed all day long", which was, in short, everything Alessa and Claudia never had. Alessa shared her visions and thoughts of the Order's Paradise with Claudia, such as the world being cleansed with fire, with good intentions of eternal happiness and bliss.

Dahlia originally thought that Alessa would follow in her own footsteps as a spiritualistic medium for the cult, but realized that the ritual would be far more likely to succeed if she used her as the surrogate mother to bring about the descent of the cult's god. The technique to impregnate the womb of a human mother with the malevolent god had been carried out many times in order to achieve that end, but it had always failed. Among the mysterious disappearances that took place in town, there are cases in which young girls were abducted by the cult as prospective surrogate mothers, although most of them were simply young people who grew tired of the countryside and left for the city.

Silent Hill: Origins
"The fire in the business district? How awful. I heard about that. No one knows how it got started. And that poor girl, Alessa Gillespie... To die like that."

- Nurse Lisa Garland before discovering Alessa Gillespie is still alive. When Alessa was seven years old, Dahlia performed the technique to bring about the descent of the cult's god using Alessa in the cellar of her own house. Although it seems the cult has a place they use for rituals, Dahlia was confident that she would be able to summon the malevolent deity if Alessa was the surrogate mother; therefore, as it was not necessary to choose a location, she impulsively carried out the ritual on the second floor of her own home. The ritual process involved a great deal of fire, immolating Alessa, which consequently escalated into a conflagration.

During the ritual, possibly to escape her immense suffering, Alessa used astral projection and wandered on a road outside the town. A trucker, Travis Grady, saw her astral projection before Alessa fled in the direction of her house. Travis pursued and heard Alessa scream from within her house where he found her on the floor. Although Alessa told Travis to let her burn, he carried her outside before he fainted. Despite Travis' interfering actions, the plan was a success, with Alessa becoming pregnant with the deity in embryonic form. Dahlia fled the scene of the fire and people believed that she became crazy due to Alessa's supposed "death".

The Order moved Alessa's body to a secret ritual site located in Dahlia's antique store. Due to the ritual's fire, Alessa had received many burns on her body. The ritual performed by Dahlia was kept secret and the residents of Silent Hill assumed that the Gillespie's house burned down due to an antiquated boiler, which was popularized by a newspaper article. Kaufmann prepared a substitute body; it is possible he was also the one who performed the "autopsy."

During Travis' exploration of Silent Hill, Alessa uses astral projection to guide him through the town. Alessa gives hints to Travis to help her to create the Flauros, an artifact that would "trap" the evil side of her. Alessa seems a little indifferent to Travis throughout the game, even when he helps her continuously, she remains quiet. Though Travis becomes angry with her, she continues to use him for her plans.

The method Dahlia used to bring about the descent of the cult's god had nearly succeeded with Alessa as the surrogate mother, but Alessa quickly let part of her soul escape and the technique was not completely successful. In short, even with the embryonic malevolent god within her, the ritual was in a suspended state and seed of the god laid dormant.

Alessa later appears at the end of the game in the Good ending, holding a baby in which she is then reincarnated, when Travis is finally able to get back into his truck in the good ending. Alessa's other half is then found by Harry Mason and his wife on a road outside of Silent Hill. They named the baby Cheryl and begin to raise her as their own daughter.

Between Origins and Silent Hill
After the fire and the events of Origins, Alessa was transported to Alchemilla Hospital and hidden inside a room in the hospital's basement by Dahlia and the director of the hospital, Dr. Michael Kaufmann, who had an alliance with her centered around drugs. To the public, Alessa was thought to have died in the fire, and was declared a "saint" by the Order as the "Mother of God" and "Daughter of God". Only Dahlia, Michael, a few members of the Order, and a young nurse working at the hospital knew that Alessa was still alive. Kaufmann ordered the hospital staff to not enter the basement, but had the young nurse, Lisa Garland, care for Alessa; in return, Lisa was supplied with PTV from Kaufmann.

Alessa had suffered burns covering her entire body that were far beyond a fatal level, but she continued to live — that is, she was kept alive — because the malevolent deity protects its mother's body and Dahlia cast a magical incantation on her daughter. Additionally, Dahlia continuously inflicted pain upon Alessa in that state for seven years by means of an incantation that compelled the missing part of her soul to respond to her.

For seven years, Alessa endured her suffering because she had not wanted to destroy whatever small happiness her other self was able to enjoy, but little by little, Dahlia's incantation succeeded and it became more than Alessa could bear. At some point when Alessa was a teenager, as a present, Lisa secretly gave Alessa a diary for her to write her thoughts in. Alessa wrote in April about how she was nearly ready to take her bandages off, and she began to envy the other children who could play outside. One day, she heard a group of people discuss what seemed to be important information outside her room. Alessa also discovered she was going to be visited by a "certain person."

Silent Hill


In order to lure the missing portion of Alessa's spirit back to its point of origin, Dahlia used both a summoning spell and intentionally kept her daughter in a state of excruciating pain for several years to compel Cheryl to return. Confined to Alchemilla Hospital's basement, Alessa is given hallucinogenic drugs, further intensifying her torment. Alessa, however, decided to interfere with her mother's endgame. In endless agony, Alessa reached out to Cheryl, calling her to the town with the intent of reuniting her soul and killing herself, thus ensuring God could never be born from her womb. Sensing Cheryl is near Silent Hill, Alessa uses her astral projection and walks in front of the Masons' Jeep, causing Harry to swerve off the side of the road and off a cliff. Cheryl is separated from an unconscious Harry and lured to Alessa.

Upon Cheryl's return, Alessa's latent psychic abilities are triggered and she shrouds Silent Hill in fog and an 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", which is 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 permanently plunging the entire town into a hellish alternate dimension known as the "Otherworld". Taking the bait, Harry goes to Lakeside Amusement Park and neutralizes Alessa, only to learn that she was really trying to contain the Otherworld herself with the "Seal of Metatron" which is a talisman that recurs in Silent Hill 3.

At the end of the game, Dahlia finally captures Alessa, who recombined with Cheryl immediately after the car accident, and uses her to birth God. Depending on the player's actions throughout the game, Alessa emerges either one of the deity's two seperate forms as a serene white-clad figure named the 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. Alessa then points towards a light as a path for Harry to escape. Harry looks at the reincarnation of Alessa and ponders what to do, and eventually decides to carry her with him as he escapes. Alessa, with her remaining power, stops the fire surrounding Harry before collapsing to the floor.

From then on, Alessa's soul lives on in the new baby whom Harry names Heather. With no memories of her previous life as Alessa, Heather lives a life without pain or suffering, the life Alessa had wanted. Silent Hill 3 is about Heather remembering who she was and what happened to her father in Silent Hill 17 years prior to the game.

Portland and murder case


After escaping Silent Hill, Harry lived an ordinary life in Portland with his new adopted daughter. Harry was unsure about raising the baby; he even considered killing, strangling, and abandoning her because he suspected the baby was a reincarnation of Alessa, and Alessa was responsible for taking Cheryl away from him. Harry's suspicions were ultimately correct, although it is unknown if Harry realized that part of that baby also contained Cheryl's reincarnated soul. Regardless of whether or not the baby was Alessa's reincarnation, Harry ultimately decided to forgive Alessa and raise the baby.

He also decided to name the baby Cheryl again, presumably because Jodie chose it and he wanted to honor her decision, as well as his previous adopted daughter. However, he later felt this name was a mistake since at the time, Harry only thought of her only as a replacement for his lost Cheryl.

The religious organization of Silent Hill, the Order, had planned to abduct the reincarnated Cheryl/Alessa and proceeded to track her down. Five years after the events of the first game, Harry killed a cult member in self-defense. The cult member attempted to kidnap the reincarnated Cheryl/Alessa. Harry was acquitted in court and relocated to another town to hide incognito.

To ensure his adopted daughter's safety, he dyed her hair from brunette to blonde and renamed her from Cheryl to Heather. Afterwards, he eventually settled in the Daisy Villa Apartments with her. Despite feeling confused and frustrated at who Heather could be, Harry was determined to raise her.

Sainthood
Sometime after Silent Hill and before Silent Hill 3, in this seventeen-year timespan, Alessa was declared a "saint" by the Order as the "Holy Mother of God and Daughter of God". This is extremely ironic because Alessa became a saint of the very religion she despised. Her motives in Origins and Silent Hill were to stop the cult and prevent God's birth, yet the Order manipulated the truth into making it seem like Alessa wanted to birth God and propagate the Order's mission of Paradise. While Alessa indeed dreamed of Paradise, she changed her mind and decided that a Paradise brought about by such a demonic god would not be adequate.

Silent Hill 3


In Silent Hill 3, seventeen years after the events of the first Silent Hill game, Alessa's reincarnation Heather is approached by Claudia Wolf, who is now a priestess of the Order. Claudia 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).

Heather has the seed of God still in her. It is not entirely clarified why this is; it may be because a part of "God" was still inside Alessa when she was reincarnated, a result of Claudia's doing, or Heather's own fears manifested it. Regardless, Heather is at a mature age of childbirth. To nourish the growing fetus within Heather with hatred and also as seventeen years of revenge for taking Heather/Alessa away, Claudia has Harry murdered. During the game, Heather slowly regains her memories of being Alessa. Meanwhile, Heather/Alessa is being monitored by Valtiel.



The Memory of Alessa, a dark emotion mimicking Heather's likeness, is encountered by Heather in Silent Hill's Lakeside Amusement Park. On the Happy Carousel, the Memory of Alessa attacks Heather as a boss enemy, intent on ending Heather's life herself to spare her and everyone else from further pain after God is born. Upon dying, she leaves a message printed in blood on the carousel floor. The message left by the Memory of Alessa reveals her intention to free "herself" from the suffering she must endure as the Mother of God:


 * It would be better for "myself" to die.
 * After all, it's nothing to be afraid of...
 * That child... that demon...
 * 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? I never thought of "myself" as such a fool...

In response to this, Heather says,


 * Alessa... I guess it's kinda strange for me to call you that, since you are me.
 * But y'know what? "You" and I don't think alike, after all...
 * And it's not that I don't remember that sick room either...

Heather then enters the Order's chapel that Alessa used to visit. In the entrance, Claudia greets Heather, and Heather begins to speak as Alessa, calling Claudia her "little Claudia" and her "dear sweet sister". Heather/Alessa says she is fine with the world the way it is. It is unknown if this was actually Alessa, or just Heather pretending to be her as a way of manipulating Claudia.

The chapel merges with Nowhere, and Heather revisits several of Alessa's memories from the past, like her elementary school and bedroom. In two instances, Heather can find bloody footprints and hear crying, which will lead to an angel painting, as well as Alessa's sickroom. It is unknown if this is some remnant of Alessa, Lisa, or something else.



In a confrontation with Claudia, Heather swallows a tablet of Aglaophotis given to her by her father, causing her to vomit God out of her body. Claudia desperately devours the fetus to birth God herself. Being born of Claudia's womb, God again makes a re-appearance as a boss and holds a resemblance to Alessa, due to Claudia's mental association of God with Alessa.

Heather survives the ordeal, and it can be presumed she lives a happier life afterwards. She also switches back to her original name of Cheryl.

If the game's silly UFO Ending is to be believed, Cheryl becomes divorced and is a "young mom who goes it alone" with two children. If this is true and actually canon, then it is possible these two children may have inherited some of Alessa's/Heather's/Cheryl's psychic powers, but her life after Silent Hill 3 has remained a mystery.

Another explanation is that the song's description of her as a single mother of two is simply a reference to Alessa, Cheryl, and Heather having existed as three separate individuals at different periods in the story; hence, a "young mom" (after a fashion) and two "children".

Personality
Alessa as a young girl endures great tragedy, ostracized and abused by a cruel system of exploitation and loneliness; she is depressed, suicidal, and too often misunderstood. According to comments made by her reincarnation, Heather Mason, Alessa was "always" bored and sad, and it is shown through both her and Harry Mason's eyes that Alessa found respite when escaping to other worlds through fantasy to cope with and comfort herself in the face of her harsh reality. At times, Alessa seems to completely withdraw inward, perhaps as a result of years of trauma as there are many instances of her becoming unresponsive when questioned by Harry Mason or Travis Grady.

Alessa wished for a peaceful world full of empathy and love. The absence of parental love and being bullied by her classmates may be the cause of her attachment to certain people such as Claudia Wolf and Lisa Garland, and Douglas Cartland and Harry as Heather. Selfless at heart, she cared for her second half and reincarnation more than she cared for herself, wanting to spare them the hellish nightmare she endured at the hands of her abusive mother and her cult. As Heather, she loved Harry Mason as a father, and perhaps additionally due to the seven years of love and care he gave her other half Cheryl, and for helping end Alessa's torment and fulfilling her wish of being accepted and loved.

Alessa's story is about finding inner strength and perseverance in spite of being surrounded and influenced by depraved and heartless people. Alessa embodies a tenacious, determined character. She possesses astounding amounts of willpower and strength, demonstrated by resolutely enduring seven long years of pain, misery, and madness and refusing to let herself be used.

Alessa also has a great deal of anger, spite and hate, mainly at the members of the Order responsible for her suffering. This side is shown most in Silent Hill: Origins. Alessa is also known to be vindictive, scorned and dark-spirited to a degree, but not without reason; this side likely stems from being a victim of the cruel and malicious treatment of her peers, her mother, and the god that she was unwilling impregnated with. Her reincarnation Heather is also shown to seek revenge.



The Otherworld and Fog World in the first game are representations of Alessa's distorted perception of Silent Hill and her experiences there, containing a legion of horrific and frightful monsters, dark, surreal imagery, hundreds of abused, decaying corpses, dead animals, bloody stretchers, etc.: literally hell on earth. This is due to the god in her womb which continually fed her with unimaginable horrors and negative thoughts.



Alessa had multiple fears; she was frightened by large dogs (cynophobia), insects (entomophobia), worms (vermiphobia), snakes (ophidiophobia), fire (pyrophobia), and even some adults (anthropophobia or anthrophobia). Many of the monsters in Silent Hill are manifestations of these horrors.

Alessa kept a butterfly collection in her room and had two dolls, one of which she named "Scarlett", and would often sleep with them in bed. Alessa drew monsters when she was alone. She loved playing card games with Claudia and would usually win. She also enjoyed literature, including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Mother Goose, Cinderella, and The Lost World, and possibly Edgar Allan Poe and Macbeth as Heather.

Silent Hill


Alessa has pale skin, dark brown eyes, and very dark brown hair.

As a teen, Alessa has her long dark hair tied with a red ponytail holder which sometimes gives the illusion that teen Alessa has short hair. She also wears earrings. As a child in Silent Hill, she is depicted with short hair, her bangs covering the right side of her face.

In the game, while wears burns and bandages, her astral projection manifests as a teenager wearing her old school uniform.

Alessa's navy school outfit design is modeled after Japanese uniforms, and with it she wears white socks and black dress shoes.

Silent Hill: Origins


Alessa (age 7) looks markedly different, with pinkish skin, medium brown hair, and light blue eyes. She wears her hair in a ponytail with her bangs covering the left side of her face, as opposed to the right side in Silent Hill. Her school uniform sports a more traditional red tie, rather than a red ribbon, and has two white buttons on the waist, despite there being no buttons depicted on her school uniform prior.

Powers and abilities
Alessa was apparently born with psychic powers; however, if she had been living under normal circumstances, these powers would almost never manifest themselves. It is also worth noting that while Dahlia may have performed magic and the like, this did not mean she had special powers. Thus, it is possible that having the malevolent deity dwelling within her body and uniting with Cheryl were what led Alessa to acquire supernatural powers.
 * Astral Projection: Alessa could control and focus her astral projection, allowing her to escape the confines of her burnt body. She could even kill someone with thought alone, projecting her desire to kill into the body of the victim.
 * Premonition: Alessa naturally possessed a certain amount of spiritual intuition and, prior to being immolted, her "sixth sense" was powerful enough that she was having premonitions, but these were more like hunches than supernatural powers.
 * Telekinesis: Alessa's astral projection could levitate, and she shoved Harry Mason telekinetically. Alessa also erected some kind of force field that prevented Harry from following her; however this barrier proved useless against the Flauros.
 * Pyrokinesis: After being burned by her mother, Alessa released a wave of fire and lit several candles surrounding her. She was also probably the reason several fires parted for Travis Grady when he saved her from her house fire.

Silent Hill film series
In the film adaptation of Silent Hill, which is set in a separate continuity from the game's, Alessa Gillespie is portrayed as three distinct entities sharing one identity: Alessa (an adult woman, burned alive as a child, confined to a hospital gurney), Dark Alessa (the corrupted portion of Alessa), and Sharon Da Silva (the innocent side of Alessa). Young Alessa is portrayed by Jodelle Ferland and as an adult by Lorry Ayers.

As with the game series, Alessa is depicted in the film as mysterious and a driving force of the events occurring in the town, as well as being the creator of the monsters seen within the alternate realities. Alessa's powers are downplayed in the film, and Dark Alessa often fulfills Alessa's supernatural abilities; however, Alessa is shown using her powers to break a metal chain, wilt flowers, and create the Fog World and Otherworld, as well as create two doppelgangers of herself.



The film version of Alessa is much more vengeful and unbalanced than her game counterpart and seeks revenge on the religious fanatics responsible for burning her alive as a witch thirty years earlier.

Unlike in the game series, the film shows that Alessa was responsible for the creation of the Otherworld and the Fog World, rather than using a previously existing reality to her benefit. In the first film, it is never mentioned that Alessa was pregnant with God, something which Revelation retconned.



In Silent Hill: Revelation, Alessa is portrayed by Erin Pitt. The past Alessa has a relatively minor role in the film. Her child form is only seen once, being pushed and teased by her classmates. Her malevolent side, Dark Alessa, is seen creating the Otherworld and attacking the fanatics. An older version of Dark Alessa, portrayed by Adelaide Clemens, confronts Heather Mason on the carousel and merges with her.

Creator's comment
"In the initial stages of development we used the name Asia, which is taken from the daughter of the Italian film director, Dario Argento. However, because it's an uncommon name, we decided to rename her."

Quotes
Silent Hill: Origins
 * "Let me burn!" (to Travis)

Silent Hill
 * "Mama..."
 * "No! Get away from me!"
 * "Mommy...?"
 * "No! I don't want to do it!"

Play Novel: Silent Hill
 * "I wish I could play outside like the other children..."
 * "Perhaps it's because he doesn't want to disturb me? Even the hospital director has not come to see me much lately. I don't like the director very much, so I'm honestly quite happy."
 * "Everyone has been in a rush for some reason since before sunrise this morning. Something about a dead person coming back to life. Does that really happen?"

Silent Hill 3
 * "That child... that demon... 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'."
 * "I had a dream. In my dream, I opened a door. But was that really me? I had a different name."
 * "Dreams are like lies, after all."
 * "I love you as if you were my real sister." (to Claudia in an old birthday card)

Trivia

 * Alessa's appearance could be inspired by the film The Legend of Hell House and its character, medium Florence Tanner. Among other features, their hairstyles are also similar: long hair tied with a ponytail that looks short if seen from certain point. Richard Matheson is also credited as an inspiration of the series, and a street, Matheson Street, is named after him.
 * Alessa was likely inspired by Stephen King's Carrie. Both are teenage girls born with supernatural powers, and they also have fanatical religious mothers and were ostracized at school. There are many other Stephen King homages in the series, including Carrie posters across from Green Lion Antiques.
 * In early concepts for the first game, Alessa would have had fears of more animals. There are unused models in the game files for monsters based on butterflies, frogs, monkeys, snakes, chickens, and even ostriches and stingrays. It is debatable if these fears are still canonical or not to the mainstream timeline, no manner the enemies having been scrapped.
 * There is a misconception that Alessa's heightened stress levels made her psychic energy cause a boiler explosion in the Gillespie House which started the house fire. This is only a theory due an interpretation of the Fire Article, and it has never been officially confirmed. It is possible that Dahlia intentionally burned Alessa with fire as part of the ritual and that the boiler had nothing with the fire and was a scapegoat for the Order to hide the truth of Dahlia's ritual as a cover up. The Fire Article only says the boiler was "believed to be the source of the fire", not that it actually was the source of the fire. In addition, Kaufmann left a substitute dead body at the scene to fake Alessa's death, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch for Kaufmann to have tampered evidence in order to blame the fire on a boiler.
 * When Keiichiro Toyama (writer of Silent Hill) was asked, he also thought Alessa was burned on purpose by Dahlia and her cult.
 * In the comic Cage of Cradle, which has debatable canonicity, Alessa is responsible for killing Lisa's boyfriend named Matthew.
 * Alessa is the first character to appear in the Silent Hill series, making her debut within seconds of the opening sequence of Silent Hill.
 * One of Alessa's favorite books, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, is the in-universe basis for the Air Screamer monster. Alice in Wonderland, another of her favorite books, is referenced in a puzzle that unlocks a door in Alchemilla Hospital. It can even be found on the bookshelf in her bedroom, if examined.
 * The Book of Lost Memories refers to Alessa as "The Empress", the third of the Major Arcanas of a Tarot Deck, due to her absolute dominion over the town. The Empress is often represented as a mother, creator, and nurturer. In many decks she can be shown as pregnant. She can represent the creation of life, similar to how Alessa is pregnant with "God". The Empress can represent the germination of an idea before it is ready to be fully born, and the need to be receptive to change, similar to how Alessa's immolation acts as a catalyst for changing the town of Silent Hill.
 * A video of Cheryl crying can be seen on a television inside the Silent Hill Town Center. If the video is paused, an image of Alessa can be seen every few frames.
 * Alessa, in Italian, means "defender of mankind". This may be an allusion to her mother using her sacrifice to birth a "god" and bring about a "paradise", as well as Alessa's will to prevent God's birth from mankind.
 * The Halo of the Sun contains mirrored rovásírás letters for "Alessa". It could be thought that Dahlia named her Alessa because it's a name with deep significant meaning to the Order. The Halo of the Sun also contains mirrored rovásírás letters for "Dahlia".
 * In Silent Hill 3, mostly in the Otherworld parts of Hilltop Center and Brookhaven Hospital, there are several repeated pictures of a mouth, another mouth with braces, ears, and an eye. When asked what this meant, Masahiro Ito answered:
 * "Mouth" means Alessa's shrieking insanity from the bottom of her heart. Silent Hill 3's "Another world" where Heather enters is reflected in Alessa's conscious. Alessa was bullied at school and suffered from her mother's cruelty. Incidentally, the mouths in Silent Hill 2 means Mary's shrieking insanity. In the bleeding ear's case, I wanted to express Another world's personality like human. That ear is Alessa's. But I didn't want to use the "eye" because I didn't use it in Silent Hill series creature's design. The bleeding means Alessa's conscious is mad. And the nurse's red mouth means mad, too."


 * In Silent Hill 4: The Room, Alessa's image appears on the Saint Medallion item. Her name is shown in a memo in Wish House Orphanage which asks, "Have you found Alessa yet? Send me a report."
 * During the development of Silent Hill: Homecoming, a rejected script of the game involved a final battle between Alessa and Joshua Shepherd over Toluca Lake; Alessa representing fire, Joshua representing water - a battle, described as "Super Saiyan"-like, to determine the fate of Silent Hill and Shepherd's Glen. Tomm Hulett dissuaded it from happening.
 * Alessa is the only major character in Silent Hill that does not appear in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, although Cheryl Heather Mason could be seen as a composite of Alessa and her incarnations. Some similarities to Alessa include Dahlia being her mother operating a pawn shop, Cheryl being bullied at Midwich High School, and it is implied Cheryl was briefly hospitalized with Lisa as her nurse.
 * In terms of background story, Alessa is strikingly similar to Alma Wade from the F.E.A.R. series. Both have a parent never mentioned (Alma's mother and Alessa's father) and suffered great abuse at the hands of the other, and the two later use their psychic powers to exact revenge on those responsible for their suffering. They exhibit immense psionic powers, including the ability to create monsters from the depths of their minds. At seven, they were both used to give birth. The two of them were forcibly impregnated through unnatural means and were still adolescents when they gave birth. Both Alessa and Alma delivered newborns to the protagonists in the endings of their respective games before disappearing. Both their names start with "Al". In personality and physical appearance, Alma is very closely matched with the movie version of Alessa, who is much more emotionally volatile and vengeful than her game counterpart. Like Alma, the film version of Alessa also appears as a child throughout the film, until near the end, where she is seen as a badly injured adult woman.
 * There is a painting of Alessa in Metal Gear Solid 3, another Konami game, in the Graniny Gorki lab level, along with other paintings from Silent Hill 3.

Dead by Daylight: Chapter XVI - Silent Hill
Alessa Gillespie ალესა გილესპი Alessa Gillespie Alessa Gillespie Alessa Gillespie Alessa Gillespie Алесса Гиллеспи