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Fictional Women Around the World: Heather Mason · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Step
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: one Never Told You production of I Heart Radio. And
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: today it is time for another segment of fictional women
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: around the World Halloween. In addition, yes it's yes, this
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: one is on a character from one of my very
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: favorite franchises of all time, Silent Hill. We're talking about
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Heather Mason from Silent Hill three and buckle in because
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: this one is going to be just so confusing, which
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I think is fun. Salent Hill is confusing. I don't
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. Keep going. You've seen You've seen some
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of the movies, right, Samantha, Yes, I've seen the first movie,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: one movie, all right, which the movie was also confusing,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So all right, here we go. Um. I did want
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to put in some quick notes in the beginning here.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This one is like I'm not gonna go to in depth,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: but they're kind of disturbing, so just to put that
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  Speaker 1: out there. There's some talk about um, potential miscarriages, cults,
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  Speaker 1: god's evil gods. Also, if you play d d R
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: as a kid, Silent Hill three did have a d
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  Speaker 1: DR song and I was an expert at it, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure if I did it again, today, I would
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  Speaker 1: continue to nail it. And in fact, at an event
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: you had a couple of years ago, Samantha, Yes, there
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  Speaker 1: was a d d R game there and we my
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  Speaker 1: friend Katie, we did this song from three. We did
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  Speaker 1: not We did not nail it, but we at one
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  Speaker 1: time did. Also we just talked about the Coonami code
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and our spoiled Saturdays on Fear Street. Uh. Silent Hill
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  Speaker 1: three has the opening menu. If you enter the Konami code,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: you can get some some extras, but it does do
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  Speaker 1: a very sexual sound when you put it in. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so just put that out there. And also this is
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: one of those games where there's a lot of costuming
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  Speaker 1: choices for Heather when you get to the end. Um
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  Speaker 1: and some of them are pretty sexualized. But okay, here
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  Speaker 1: we go. Heather Mason is the main playable character of
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  Speaker 1: the two thousand three survival horror game Silent Hill three,
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  Speaker 1: though she technically first appeared in the first entry of
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  Speaker 1: the series, Silent Hill. So Sili Hill, Like I said,
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  Speaker 1: it's one of my very favorite franchises. I used to
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  Speaker 1: play them. Silent Hill two is one of the scariest
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  Speaker 1: games I've ever played, but I would play them all
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: this time, and we, like my brother and my friends,
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  Speaker 1: would play it, we would watch each other play it.
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  Speaker 1: We would just get so scared. Um So. Silent Hill
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  Speaker 1: is the name of this franchise of video games that
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  Speaker 1: revolve around the town called sent Hill that may or
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: not be purgatory, depending on your interpretation. They're very very
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  Speaker 1: psychological horror. They're very very interrogating you as the player
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  Speaker 1: about who you are. So especially the ending of Silent
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  Speaker 1: Hill too is I think kind of a almost a
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  Speaker 1: judgment you are based on what ending you get. Um So.
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  Speaker 1: In the first Silent Hill, this guy named Harry Mason
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  Speaker 1: accidentally crashes his car in Silent Hill, um trying to
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  Speaker 1: avoid a young girl on the road. And this young
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  Speaker 1: girl is named Alessa, And when he wakes up, he
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  Speaker 1: cannot find his daughter, Cheryl, who had also been in
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  Speaker 1: the car with him, so he goes he goes about
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  Speaker 1: this creepy, foggy town of Silent Hill looking for her,
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  Speaker 1: which is also a tourist town, which kind of blows
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  Speaker 1: my mind. And it seems that things are fluctuating between
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  Speaker 1: reality and literal hell. Like one minute it's sort of
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  Speaker 1: a foggy town, in the other minute, it's like actually
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  Speaker 1: hell perhaps um. It turns out that Alessa, a supernatural
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  Speaker 1: being of sorts, is being tortured, has been tortured by
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  Speaker 1: a cult and Silent Hill in order to impregnate her
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  Speaker 1: and rebirth a god uh from her, and that her
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  Speaker 1: nightmares are becoming reality through all of this. So basically,
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  Speaker 1: she's having these nightmares and that's what that hell escape
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  Speaker 1: world you're seeing is um. And also she lured Harry
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  Speaker 1: and Cheryl there because Cheryl is the missing part of
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  Speaker 1: her soul due to a ritual gone wrong, and by reuniting,
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  Speaker 1: she could kill herself and prevent an evil god from
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  Speaker 1: being birth from her. Yes, this is the plot of
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  Speaker 1: a video game. Depending on her actions, the actions you
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  Speaker 1: made as a player throughout the game, Alessa combines with
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  Speaker 1: Cheryl and becomes a demon or a potential demon. And
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: just I'm condensing this like so so much. If you
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  Speaker 1: ever want to talk about Silent Hill with me, I
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  Speaker 1: could go on and on and on, but for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of this episode, I'm condensing it way, way, way
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  Speaker 1: a lot. Anyway, Harry battles the gods and Alessa's mother, Dahlia,
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  Speaker 1: who's the leader of this cult, and once if he did.
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  Speaker 1: Alessa and Cheryl are refused together and reborn into a
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  Speaker 1: single soul and a single baby, and Harry names this
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  Speaker 1: baby Heather. Of course, okay, so here we go. He
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  Speaker 1: moves to Portland to raise Heather, though he debates strangling
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  Speaker 1: her um, otherwise killing her or abandoning her, but ultimately
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  Speaker 1: he decides to raise her and the two love each
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  Speaker 1: other um and doing so. In raising her, he has
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  Speaker 1: to fend off the cults of Silent Hill attempting to
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  Speaker 1: abduct her. He dyed her hair blonde from its original
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  Speaker 1: brown to conceal her identity. So seventeen years after the
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  Speaker 1: events of the first game, Heather Mason makes her debut
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  Speaker 1: as the main character and Silent Hill three. She's a
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  Speaker 1: teenager in this gray hoodie with cut off sleeves and
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  Speaker 1: army green mini skirt, and she's got these boots, and
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  Speaker 1: she's got this like short blonde hair hanging out of
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  Speaker 1: her hoodie. And she's hanging out at the mall. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: of course, malls are never good in horror movies or
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  Speaker 1: horror games, and strange things start to happen. The mall
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  Speaker 1: is all red. Suddenly there's chains everywhere, like very creepy,
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  Speaker 1: very hell scapey. There's a creepy, bloody bunny mascot Robbie
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  Speaker 1: the Rabbit um and monsters, and the building seems to
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  Speaker 1: be trying to trap her inside. Every time she tries
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  Speaker 1: to leave, she gets trapped inside. She returns home, she
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  Speaker 1: finally gets out. She returns down to find that her father, Harry,
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  Speaker 1: has been murdered by a monster that she then has
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  Speaker 1: to face. The cult has found her and is trying
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  Speaker 1: to bring her back to Silent Hill. She also confronts
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  Speaker 1: Detective Douglas Cartland, who is investigating her, and she is
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  Speaker 1: very suspicious of him. Um Nonetheless, after the murder of
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  Speaker 1: her father, she agrees to accompany him to Silent Hill,
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  Speaker 1: and what follows is a pretty horrific journey where Heather
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  Speaker 1: confronts her past and resurfaces these memories, finds out these
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  Speaker 1: truths about who she is and her her own past.
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  Speaker 1: She proves incredibly adaptable to disturbing situations. She's determined, she's
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  Speaker 1: tenacious and kind. The relationship between Cartland and Heather becomes
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: somewhat of a father daughter one, and the endings vary
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  Speaker 1: based on the decisions you make throughout the game. All
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  Speaker 1: silent Hell games are like that, or most of them
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  Speaker 1: are like that. But generally Heather decide it's to change
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  Speaker 1: her name to Cheryl Mason to honor her former self.
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  Speaker 1: And this game was pretty popular. This character has appeared
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  Speaker 1: in movies uh and also a few other games. She's
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  Speaker 1: pretty blunt, capable, quick to anger, snarky, sarcastic, a lot
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  Speaker 1: of things that are often attributed to teenagers, which I
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  Speaker 1: think was very purposeful the whole is it a monster
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  Speaker 1: adolescents trope, especially at the end, because there's one ending
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  Speaker 1: where we're like, oh god, if she's a monster, she
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  Speaker 1: just being like a teenager at Cantell. She's a big
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: fan of Glasgow literature. There's this whole there riddles in
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  Speaker 1: the game, and there you can set their difficulty and
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  Speaker 1: there's one that's all about Shakespeare and the axe in
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  Speaker 1: there and it's so difficult. Oh my gosh. Uh. She's
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  Speaker 1: anti religious and or atheist. Um. She's got a lot
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  Speaker 1: of trauma. She's very independent, she's brave. She doesn't really
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  Speaker 1: get scared. Um like the part of them all in
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  Speaker 1: the beginning. She she's just kind of like rolling with
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  Speaker 1: the punches, like okay, and she yes she does have
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  Speaker 1: so many costumes that and you can find of note,
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  Speaker 1: her main costume, while Feminum isn't really sexualized. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of these costumes are, but her main one isn't, and
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people write about that when they write
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  Speaker 1: up about her, because she is someone who comes up
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  Speaker 1: as like one of the best women in survival horror
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  Speaker 1: characters you can play. The ending is like, uh, okay,
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  Speaker 1: so she vomits up a fetus, has to kill it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so that's pretty gruesome. Her ending depends on what you
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  Speaker 1: did throughout the game, as I said, but she Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: she generally like plays a prank on Douglas and it's
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  Speaker 1: implied that they're going to be okay. Um. There's also
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  Speaker 1: the Possess ending where she kills Douglas slash Cartland um
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  Speaker 1: and the UFO ending where Harry is alive and commands
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  Speaker 1: aliens to destroy Sound Hill. So every sound Hill game
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  Speaker 1: has the ending where the aliens come in and destroy
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  Speaker 1: sound Hill pretty much or the dog did it or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: They're they're like funny ending, um dog ending yep um. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I I really liked Heather when I played her
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  Speaker 1: um because she's she's she feels to me like she's, uh,
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  Speaker 1: she's a pretty good um rendering of a teenager. She's feminine,
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  Speaker 1: but not too feminine. She doesn't look like she kind
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  Speaker 1: of looks word out and tired all the time, which
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  Speaker 1: I think they did on purpose. But she's she's funny
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  Speaker 1: and snarky and uh, she just really gets things done.
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  Speaker 1: She's like, no, I'm gonna go do this. And her
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: story is revenge based a lot of it, but then
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  Speaker 1: it becomes a almost empathetic to her past self into
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  Speaker 1: the sort of sister Claudia her past self. So I
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  Speaker 1: really like it. I think the Silent Hill games, especially
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the first three, have a lot of interesting things to say.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes they did do well and sometimes they didn't. But
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  Speaker 1: kind of this idea of being used your nightmares, being
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: used your pain, being used as a woman to birth
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  Speaker 1: a god or a demon. Of course, is there is
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  Speaker 1: throughout in these games that torturing women or using women's
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  Speaker 1: pain to benefit or to create something monstrous. So yeah,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: maybe one day we'll do a whole episode on Silent Hill.
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  Speaker 1: I would love that. Well, I've watched the first movie,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: that's what I can continue. Yeah, so you know she Erroll,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: who's a young girl from the first movie. But let's
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  Speaker 1: say that's all I got. Okay, well that's something I'm
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  Speaker 1: into it. Thank you, You're welcome. Wow. This brings us
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to the end of this edition of Fictional Women Around
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  Speaker 1: the World. As always, if you have any thoughts on
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Silent Hill of anybody we should cover in this segment,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: please let us know. You can email us that stuff
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in your mom Stuff at I Hurt me dot com.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: or an Instagram at stuff I've Never Told you Things.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: It's always to a super producer of Grouse do you know.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Stuff under
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: told his production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast
• 12:38
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• 12:39
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