Butcher

The Butcher is a monster in Silent Hill: Origins as a major antagonist against Travis Grady.

The Butcher also appears in the spin-off game, Silent Hill: Book of Memories.

Silent Hill: Origins
Travis meets the Butcher several times throughout his journey in Silent Hill, each encounter occurring in the Fog World version of town.



The first encounter occurs when Travis finds him in the back hallway of The Family Butcher, where he lifts a trembling Faceless Nurse by the neck before stabbing her in the abdomen with his cleaver, cutting downward between her legs before dropping her and skulking away.

Later, as Travis makes his way back through the butcher shop, the nurse has been dragged out to the front of the shop and has had her large, previously-incurred wound spread open. Not long after, on the way to the Artaud Theater through the lumber yard, the sound of the Butcher's dragging knife seems to indicate the monster is nearby. Fortunately for Travis, there is no encounter with him at this point.



While in the maintenance tunnel in the Riverside Motel, Travis can look through a peephole into Room 503, a room he was standing in only moments ago, and see the Butcher standing next to the bed. If he looks again, the monster will have disappeared. Coincidentally, Room 503 is filled with both photography and anatomy artwork of the Butcher and other monsters.

In their second direct encounter, Travis meets the Butcher in the Riverside Motel's kitchen, where he is slowly slaughtering a Two-Back creature. An intense battle ensues, and Travis mortally wounds him in self-defense. As the Butcher bleeds out on the floor, Travis picks up the Great Cleaver, considers for a moment, and then slams it into the creature's back once, finishing it off. Travis then leaves the cleaver.

Appearance
The Butcher is a humanoid creature much like Pyramid Head in design, behavior, and function. He is well-built and dons a butcher's apron that is almost completely covered in blood. He wears a series of metal plates that cover the left half of his face and left shoulder, and the other half of his face is fairly empty, save for a deep hole where the ear would be on a human head, a nose, and a very mild relief on his visage that almost resembles the top of an eye socket. Overall, his quite featureless mug is rather similar to that of Valtiel. His trademark weapon is a heavily over-sized meat cleaver known as the Great Cleaver.

Character
The Butcher not only resembles Pyramid Head, but also behaves much like the latter does, with his frequent slaughtering of various monsters. However, while Pyramid Head's movements are very jerky and almost twitchy in nature, the Butcher's movements are always calm, lucid, and controlled, giving him a much more fluid and focused appearance than the former. This calm demeanour breaks exactly one time, when he begins to brutally stab and hack at the Two-Back after cutting it. This is notably also the instance in which he attacks Travis, having left him alone at one point earlier despite being in the same room.

It is very difficult to stay close to the Butcher and live, and the area he is fought in is extremely small, so it is wise to keep moving at all times. One strategy is to use all the throwable items salvaged up until that point, as they can cause small to moderate damage from a safe distance. Another is to use high-power firearms, making the shotgun a great weapon thanks to the close quarters nature of combat. A combination of these strategies may be used to conserve ammo and items.

Further increasing the danger of the Butcher is his AI, which causes him to change direction, depending on which way is closer, a factor that can prove deadly to the player. He also has massive quantities of health, making the fight generally long and tedious.

Should the Butcher grab Travis and lift him into the air, a successful Quick Time Event will allow him to escape unharmed. However, the Butcher's swipe with the Cleaver is much harder to avoid.

Symbolism


The Butcher represents cruelty and sacrifice, particularly that of the Order. His calm, emotionless torturing and slaughtering of other monsters speaks of the Order's tendency to murder and sacrifice human life for their worship. The Butcher also represents Travis' inner rage and pent-up anger - he is, therefore, involved heavily in the Bad ending.

The Butcher may actually represent Travis himself, as implied by the various voices heard during the Bad ending, Travis' face blurring into the Butcher's, as well as by the description of the Butcher accolade. The helmet that covers half of his head could possibly symbolize a split personality; one half of the head is protected but blind, and the other half is open but vulnerable. Travis is shown to be an animal lover and would probably find a butcher repulsive. It therefore follows that his split personality would be his complete opposite: a "butcher" who kills animals. A split personality is also described and directly implied by a note found in Artaud Theater.

"'One personality continues to love the abuser and seek their approval. The other personality contains all the rage and anger of the abused and in many ways becomes a mirror of the abuser, seeking to inflict its pain on others.'"

There is another possibility that the Butcher represents what Travis fears about himself and/or what he could become. The Butcher's method of killing involves attacking his victim's genitals, representing possible anger associated with repressed sexuality.

Trivia

 * Travis has no problems in holding the Great Cleaver, and the Butcher is shown stabbing monsters with the Great Cleaver with ease. This could be related to the power of anger or fear, or the violent leanings of Travis himself. It could also easily be developer oversights.
 * In Silent Hill: Revelation, there is a brief scene of Heather Mason finding a man in Happy Burger cutting off a large hunk of another human's torso, then throwing this flesh onto a grill to be cooked. This is possibly a reference to the Butcher.
 * The Butcher is the only monster that was salvaged from Silent Hill: Origins' initial design.
 * In Silent Hill: Book of Memories, there is a trophy called "Choice Meat" where the player needs to use the Great Cleaver weapon to kill 25 Butchers. This is far trickier than it may sound, as the Butcher takes little damage from his own weapon and the wildcard effect is nullified, so the best way to perform this is to weaken the Butcher with another weapon and use the Great Cleaver for the killing strike.
 * If Travis examines the Butcher in the beta before he awakens, he will comment that he looks as though he's been dead for weeks.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories
Butcher Butcher Macellaio