“ | Apologize? They should be saying "sorry" to me! Anything goes wrong in this town, it's always Toby fucking Cirelli. Even when I'm doing something right, it's wrong!
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” |
Toby Cirelli is one of the six ensemble protagonists of Silent Hill: Ascension. An alcoholic resident of Hope's Junction, Pennsylvania, he struggles with the stigma of a fatal accident at the local steel mill, and is caught in the Foundation cult's operations when his sister dies in one of their rituals.
History[]
Background[]
Toby and his sister Joy lost their family at a young age. Their relationship was important, but heavily strained by the addictions both of them developed to deal with their struggles. While Joy turned to narcotics, Toby became an alcoholic and lonely man with trouble keeping his life straight. [2]
Despite his status, he met and befriended Eric Hernandez, an immigrant who had lost his family as well. Toby and Eric became very close over time, holding each other in high regard despite what the townspeople thought of Toby, and went on to work together at the town's steel mill. While this seemed to improve his life, Toby was still unable to let go of his alcoholism, and it would cause a fatal accident in the years following. [3]
While working at the steel mill, Toby befriended his manager Rachel Hernandez as Eric established a romantic relationship with her. The three of them would hang out often, giving some sense of normalcy to Toby's life. However, the steel mill profits died down over time, prompting Rachel to put on measures to pump the mill's activity and sell it to other companies. One of these measures was to force overtime, and one night that Toby started drinking on the job during those shifts, Rachel locked the exit doors to ensure the workers wouldn't leave. Toby promptly passed out from drunkenness and failed to monitor the furnace temperature, which Eric accidentally worsened when trying to put the fire under control. The resulting accident killed many of the workers trapped inside the workshop, with both Eric and Toby surviving in the control room. [4]
As Toby recovered from the accident, he was branded as the driving force behind the fire that had killed his coworkers. Convinced the blame was on Rachel, Toby became further isolated from the town, spiteful about the turn his life had taken. He delved deeper into his alcoholism and hatred for the townspeople demonizing him, neglecting Joy's increasing abuse of her already strong addictions. It reached a point where Joy overdosed on drugs in Toby's presence, but he was too drunk to help her in that state until emergency services arrived. [5]
When Joy was discharged, she was approached by Rachel to join the Foundation, with promises to help her overcome her past and dependency on drugs. Toby, holding a strong grudge about Rachel, was angered about this development. He tried to convince Joy to leave the Foundation to no avail. Meanwhile, Eric himself had been pulled into the cult by Rachel. Feeling alone and frustrated, Toby retreated himself to the local bar to drink his sorrows away.
Silent Hill: Ascension[]

Toby learns of Joy's death.
During a bathroom break in the bar, while stalked by the Entangler, Toby received Joy's final voicemail before a cleansing ritual, wanting to hear him and asking for him to not hate her. While trying to call her back, Toby came across Eric, who had come to deliver the news of Joy's death during the ritual. Toby reacted in denial immediately, distraught at the voicemail he had just received. As Eric was unable to give him details and attempted comforting him with a Foundation prayer, Toby lashed out and punched him in the face before returning to drinking.
That night, a drunk Toby went by himself to the woods, replaying Joy's voicemail. From the fog, an apparition of Joy confronted him for his failures as a brother and directed him to get revenge on Rachel and the Foundation. Despite his fears, she urged him to attack the Foundation and burn it down. [2]

Toby meets a former follower of the cult.
He met an ex-member of the Foundation at the bar, who advised him to dig into the Foundation's plans for an important event later that week. As Eric was his only possible way to know more, Toby became apprehensive about upsetting his only friend left, but knew it was his only chance. When he went to the bathroom, he was haunted by Joy's dry-heaving sounds and a vision of pills in an empty stall.
As he arrived to the Hernandez' laundromat to question Eric, Toby heard the distressed voices of the steel mill workers coming from the washing machines, before Eric found him in there. Toby's initial questions didn't get him any information, so he reluctantly resorted to begging him until he spoke about a ritual the next night. Now with the details that he wanted, Toby swiftly left the laundromat without explaining his intentions to Eric.

Joy demands revenge.
Once outside, Toby got lost in a dense fog, hearing Joy's distant sobbing. The sobbing led him to an alley with a single needle on the floor, followed by Joy's apparition from behind a corner, covered in syringes stabbed into her. Toby retreated in fear, being reminded of Joy's prior overdose, before Joy demanded once again for Toby to get revenge on the Foundation for her.

Toby (right) in the Otherworld.
The next night, Toby prepared a molotov cocktail and barged into the Foundation building in the middle of Rachel's "ritual of clarity." He threw it and set a corner of the ritual room on fire while Rachel fainted from the cuts sustained in the ceremony, causing him and everyone else present in the room to shift to the Otherworld. In there, he screamed in fear at the Entangler's apparition, before it killed one of the cult members and the rest of them returned to the normal world. The horrified Toby misunderstood the experience for a deliberate monster's summoning, threatening Foundation leaders Xavier Candless and Barbara to expose the Foundation for it and forcing them to take him out of the building.

Defending himself to the cashier.
He then went to the local convenience store to buy a drink, but Joy continued to haunt him into causing a scene with the store clerk, accusing him of running away from his fault at everything, including the mill accident. Toby tried to defend himself to the clerk by saying that he's trying to make things right, although she maintained that he had to take responsibility for his mistakes. Toby became defensive, feeling like it's the town that owes him an apology for making him the scapegoat of all the bad things that had happened. Growing upset, he left the store.

Toby runs away from the vision of Rachel.
Back outside, Joy's voice kept pursuing him into the alley, demanding revenge again. Toby lashed out about having already tried that, but then composed himself to voice an apology to Joy for his failures as her brother and asked her for forgiveness. She appeared in front of him, sobbing, before vomiting a Wanderer while the horrified Toby stood paralyzed in fear. Before his eyes, the Wanderer became an illusion of Rachel, terrifying him into sprinting away from the alley.

Eric tries to reason with Toby.
Toby contacted the FBI and began to prepare his testimony about the things he witnessed in Rachel's ritual. While sketching the Entangler's appearance at the bar, he bragged to the bartender about how he was going to expose the cult in the public eye. Eric then entered the bar and tried to approach Toby to make him quit his pursuit of the Foundation, but Toby refused to back off as Eric was, to him, just saying what Rachel wanted him to say. The two got in an argument, with Toby trying to make Eric quit the cult for his daughter's safety when they get exposed. In the end, neither managed to convince the other, and Eric left the bar. [5]
Discontent with the argument's outcome, Toby visited Eric again at the laundromat to reason with him about the hold Rachel had on Eric's life and make him leave her. Despite his appeal to his daughter's well-being, Eric ignored most of his words and bluntly told him that he would side with Rachel over Toby. Frustrated, Toby left the laundromat, not without seeing a laughing Joy mock him for his failure.

Meeting Zayn near monsters.
He wandered into the fog outside and attempted to leave Hope's Junction, but found himself looping through the same street several times, unable to move forwards. Eventually, he came across a horde of Fighters in the middle of the road, that became alert upon hearing him. A few meters away, he spotted a lost Zayn Davies calling for help, who he promptly silenced to not draw the attention of the monsters. When Toby asked who he was, Zayn recognized him and called him by name, surprising him and alerting the group of Fighters to them. As Zayn ran away, Toby attempted to chase after him, but was unable to find him.
Lost and incapable of leaving the town, a dazed Toby was suddenly approached in an alley by Joy's drug dealer and Rachel. The dealer prevented him from leaving them, claiming that Rachel helped him and that she could help Toby as well. He reluctantly stayed, only to laugh at Rachel's proposal of joining the Foundation. To convince him, Rachel admitted her flaws and apologized for her past mistakes involving him. Toby, remembering the mill accident, refused her proposal as, "when [they] work together, people die."

Toby and Joy outside the Foundation.
The fog continued to trap Toby in town, leading him to the Foundation building while Joy watched him from afar. As he realized she wanted him to go inside, Joy told him about her ignorance and despair when she first joined, now proposing to feign interest in becoming part of the cult so he can destroy them from the inside. He promised that he'd make things right, prompting Joy to disappear and for Foundation member Krista Lee to welcome Toby at their doorstep. Inside, Krista explained to Toby the purpose of "growth" in the Foundation, as well as the initial steps for joining. Toby described his motivation as being tired of running from things. When Krista told him that he would need a mentor, Toby asked for Eric, but that was impossible due to Eric's initiate status. Instead, Toby was offered Rachel or Krista herself. [6]

Xavier convinces Toby to stay.
Accepting Rachel as his guide, Toby went through his induction ceremony under the watch of the cult's leaders and the Hernandez family, pricking his finger in a needle and signing his name in the Foundation's manifest. Although he was welcomed, Eric quietly told him that he was surprised, but hadn't forgotten what he said about Rachel. After the ceremony, Toby spent some time bitterly listening to Rachel's support in the conference room, before being interrupted by Xavier. While Xavier tried to speak to him about Joy, Toby's patience ran out and complained about how none of them could give him what he wanted: for Rachel to be held accountable. Xavier swiftly shifted to something that Toby would want more, and when offering protection to his friends didn't prove convincing, Xavier offered instead to make Toby a loved figure in the community, reaching into Toby's desire.

Toby shifts to the Otherworld mill.
Following Xavier's orders, Toby forced himself to overcome his fear and visited the ruins of the steel mill wielding only a flashlight. Shortly after entering the main workshop, Joy's taunting voice called him deeper in, until an emergency siren blared and Toby experienced an Otherworld shift recreating the memory of the accident. Overwhelmed and in shock, Toby was caught by the Entangler's vines and pulled close to the fire while Joy gleefully watched. Toby yelled apologies out and that the accident was his fault before being dragged into the flames, while his body in the real world cowered unconscious in place, holding onto a furnace's tool.

Xavier tells Toby that he's Blighted.
Upon bringing it to Xavier, Toby demanded to have Rachel brought to them to have justice for Joy's death. While Xavier promised that Rachel would be dealt with in due time, he arrived to the conclusion that Toby was the source of the Withering in Hope's Junction, the phenomenon causing all the supernatural events encountered in the past weeks. Toby reacted in denial at Xavier's accusation, angrily leaving at the suggestion that he had to sacrifice himself to save the town.

Toby is attacked by townspeople.
Troubled at the prospect of his own death being the only way to save Hope's Junction from damnation, Toby sat on a bench at night to drink with Joy's apparition. Joy sat in silence while Toby pondered his options, knowing that he was unable to leave town but not wanting to sacrifice himself for the town that ostracized him. Upon suggesting to kill Rachel instead, Joy vanished and left him to chuckle in self-deprecation. Shortly after, two men appeared asking for help after being attacked by a monster. Toby, in his drunk state, walked up to them to offer help, but they reacted with fear instead. Seeing him as a monster, one of the men knocked Toby to the ground and repeatedly hit him with a wooden plank, running away after "killing" the monster. Toby, confused and hurt from the beat-down, got up and saw himself as a Fighter in a window's reflection.

Toby hears Joy for the last time.
Keeping his drunk state constant and unable to get in contact with Eric, Toby continued to drink at the Silver Pines bar. Eric walked in, but he immediately avoided interacting with Toby, even as Toby called for his attention to buy another round. Following him to the bathroom, Toby tried to speak to him about the sacrifice asked of him, but Eric refused to help him. While Toby correctly guessed that Rachel had ordered him to not talk to him, he was too drunk to speak coherently and ended up falling over to the bathroom floor, letting Eric leave with indifference. Upon standing back up, Toby received a final phone call from Joy, following the pattern of her last voicemail. He sobbed and apologized to her, and admitted that Joy's fate, the mill accident and the Withering were his fault, as Joy said to him on the phone. Following the call, Toby made his choice. [3]

Toby stabs himself.
After leaving an envelope with money at the laundromat and recording a voice message for Eric, an emotionally exhausted and defeated Toby arrived to his severance ritual at the steel mill ruins. As Xavier promised, Rachel was made to pay for Joy's death with a slice on the ear from his knife. Toby then offered his wrists for Rachel to cut, screaming in pain at them once they were done. However, as Rachel perceived, a shift to the Otherworld took place for both of them, stranding Toby in the dilapidated factory. Although the Entangler trapped him in place, Toby reached for Rachel's knife and used it to cut the monster's vines pulling him, before stunning it with a stab to the head and running away. In his escape, he came across Rachel and urged her to finish the severance. Being met with Rachel's sudden hesitation to kill him, Toby forced the knife on her hand and made her stab his stomach, fatally wounding him. In his last moments, seeing Joy stand next to Rachel, he repeated that he "made it right." His body was taken by the Collector later.
Shortly after Toby died, Eric received a call from him, containing the message he recorded. Toby asked him to take the money in the laundromat and buy a round at the Silver Pines bar and insult the customers, as well as breaking the news to him that he's dead. After saying that he'd do "the right thing, like [Eric] always seems to do," Toby's saddened voice confessed that Eric was the only real friend he ever had. Upon trying to call him back, Eric could only hear distorted noises and screeches. [7]

Eric finds Toby's collected body in the Otherworld.
With Toby's death not stopping the Withering, it was proven that he wasn't the sole source of it. His body was found in the Otherworld by Eric a few days later, missing the finger that was taken by the Collector.[8] One of Krista Lee's visions showed his body still in the Otherworld, along with Mette Dahl's and the Collector (with the Entangler by his side).[9] Weeks later, while the Hernandez went against a new faction of fanatics in Hope's Junction, an unconscious Eric was woken up by Toby's words on his phone call, before seeing the Collector standing before him.[4]

"Toby" strangles Eric in the illusion bar.
As Eric faced his ultimate fate in the steel mill ruins, trapped in place by the Entangler, he found himself back in the empty Silver Pines. At the counter, an apparition of Toby greeted him, prompting an excited hug between the two of them. Toby congratulated Eric on his resilience to keep his family afloat and safe. Eric, who had unearthed the mill accident and confessed the truth about it by then, began to apologize to Toby for having allowed him to take the blame alone for the accident all those years, for not standing up for him when he needed it. Toby took a deep sigh before grabbing Eric by the throat and strangling him, blaming him for Joy's death and his life being ruined thanks to his lack of courage. Toby's apparition was then replaced by the Entangler, snapping Eric's neck with its vines. [10]
Behind the scenes[]
“ | Toby Cirelli. 27 to 37 years old; all ethnicities; man. Suspicious and conspiratorial, Toby always questions authority. He's reckless, addictive, and crass. However, he's got a wounded soul and speaks with a haunted affect. He wears his fuckup status proudly and loves to get worked up about local cryptids, politics, and his favorite conspiracies. He is paranoid, but most locals view him as harmless white trash. While Toby owns this, he secretly resents having no options in life and always looks to pass blame. He's intelligent but always ignored; due to his status as the town drunk. This makes him resentful, prone to grudges, and rebellious. Deep down, he's a very loyal person to those he loves.
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” |
Toby Cirelli first appeared in the interactive television series Silent Hill: Ascension as one of the six ensemble protagonists,[12] voice by Michael Ursu.
Gallery[]
Silent Hill: Ascension[]
Promotional material[]
Live event[]
References[]
- ↑ https://i.imgur.com/ExfaOKX.png
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 1: AMISS
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 4: SEVERANCE
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 19: IGNITED
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 2: BLIGHT
- ↑ Chapter 3: PENANCE
- ↑ Chapter 5: VANISHED
- ↑ Chapter 7: QUALMS
- ↑ Chapter 9: DECEIT
- ↑ Chapter 20: REPENTANCE
- ↑ https://www.backstage.com/casting/murkwood-2590037/?role_id=4583507
- ↑ https://screenrant.com/silent-hill-ascension-character-reveal-exclusive/
v · e · d |
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Characters |
Major Characters |
Astrid Johansen - Brit Johansen - Eric Hernandez - Karl Johansen - Rachel Hernandez - Toby Cirelli - Xavier Candless |
Other Characters |
Aurora - Barbara - Eva Johansen - Faith Hernandez - Ingrid Johansen - Joy Cirelli - Krista Lee - Lejo Kant - Mette Dahl - Nils Grønbekk - Nora Jackson - Olivia Haugen - Orson Johansen - Zayn Davies |
Monsters |
Crawler - Fighter - Hanger - Snarler - Stinger - The Bruiser - The Collector - The Entangler - The Immolator - The Smotherer - Wanderer |
Locations |
Hope's Junction - Stilledalen |
Terms |
Monster - Fog World - Otherworld - Paul Radcliffe - The Foundation - The Heralds - The Purifier - The Withering |
Archives |
Episodes - Story Branches - Cameos - Arcane Library - Soundtrack |