Red square

Red squares are a recurring object in the Silent Hill series. Introduced in the second game as both symbols and save points, they commonly represent the inner feelings of characters in the story.

History

Silent Hill 2

“

Looking at this makes me feel like someone's groping around inside my skull... — James Sunderland looking at a red square for the first time

”

The nine red squares represent James Sunderland's nine delusions.

Silent Hill 2 follows the story of James Sunderland, who is consumed by remorse after killing his terminally-ill wife Mary. He convinces himself that she died of her illness, but has a vision of a letter from her asking for him to find her in Silent Hill, Maine, where they once vacationed. Upon arrival, his subconscious thoughts are manifested into physical form and his delusions take the shape of nine figures he encounters on his journey: Red Pyramid Thing, a humanoid in executioner garb who represents the part of his mind that's trying to erase his delusions and force him to accept reality, Maria, a woman who acts as a surrogate for Mary and coping mechanism, Lying Figure and Mandarin, creatures that represent anguish and suffering, Bubble Head Nurse and Mannequin, creatures that represent memories of Mary's hospitalization, Abstract Daddy and Flesh Lip, creatures that represent bedridden Mary, and a vision of Mary herself.

While searching the town, he repeatedly comes across red squares resembling paper, which double as an in-game save point mechanic for the player. After coming to the realization of what he did to Mary, and shortly before his final confrontation with Red Pyramid Thing, James sees nine red squares grouped together, representing his nine delusions. The Bubble Head Nurse has a floating red square, caked in dirt or dried blood, in front of its lower face, which is thematically linked to the nine red squares.

Silent Hill 3

A corpse in the Otherworld.

In Silent Hill 3, Heather Mason, a reincarnation of Alessa Gillespie, is pursued by a cult that plans to use her body to birth their god into the material world against her will. She finds corpses in the Otherworld surrounded by square sheets depicting ears and a screaming mouth. According to art director Masahiro Ito, these body parts are intended to express the Otherworld's personality and Heather's subconscious emotions in human form. The ears belong to Alessa and the bleeding represents that her consciousness is mad. She was bullied in school and suffered child abuse from her mother, so the mouth represents the emotion of "insane shrieking from her heart." This meaning is synchronized with the red squares covering the mouths of the Nurses, creatures encountered by Heather in Brookhaven Hospital, which represent the same emotion. No eyes are displayed on the square sheets, because Ito avoided using eyes in the creature designs.

Alessa's inner madness.

The 'mouth' motif is carried over from Silent Hill 2, where it represented the same emotion in Mary. In the hospital, Flesh Lip attacks James with its mouth to represent how Mary verbally abused him during the bedridden stage of her illness. After the Flesh Lip confrontation, every creature introduced in the game has a mouth.

In other media

• The nine red squares from Silent Hill 2 appear on a T-shirt in the customization options for Silent Hill: Book of Memories, a dungeon crawler spin-off released in 2012.
• Squares are a motif in the short film Ki-No-Ko.

  

  The red square T-shirt in Silent Hill: Book of Memories.

• Masahiro Ito designed a creature outside of the Silent Hill franchise, the Bubble Twin-tail Nurse, that has a floating red square above its lower face.
• The red squares were adapted by Bloober Team in their 2024 rendition of Silent Hill 2. Compared to its source material, the first red square was moved from the bottom of a well to the top. According to lead designer Mateusz Lenart, this change was made due to player testing and wanting the red square to be more noticeable as a save point tutorial.

Trivia

• The save points in Silent Hill are presented as protagonist Harry Mason writing his experiences down on notes attached to red clipboards.
• The save point in Silent Hill 4: The Room is depicted as a red notebook in protagonist Henry Townshend's apartment.
  • Henry receives red diary pages from Joseph Schreiber that cannot be read in Walter Sullivan's Otherworld.

Gallery

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2 Japanese cover.

Red square in the well.

The red square's glossy surface.

Bubble Head Nurse face.

Save point with a fan behind it in the hospital.

Silent Hill 3

Gallery of Fine Arts.

Red squares hanging above a body.

Squares with mouth images.

Square on a Slurper's back.

Square on a Slurper's back.

Wheelchair in the Otherworld.

Ear picture and wheelchair square image comparison.

In other media

Squares in Ki-No-Ko.

Box containing Walter Sullivan's umbilical cord in Silent Hill 4: The Room.

Tarot cards lying upon red squares.

Save point in the well in Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Team).

Save point in the hospital in Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Team).

Concept art of the Bubble Head Nurse for Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Team).