Alessa Gillespie
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Alessa Gillespie is a fictional character from the video game and film Silent Hill. She is the daughter of Dahlia Gillespie. In the game Alessa was originally thought to follow in her mother's footsteps to become a spiritualistic medium for The Order, a cult prominent in the town of Silent Hill.
In the film Alessa is played by Jodelle Ferland.
[edit] Background in Game
Alessa had acquired psychic powers - powers that she had always possessed. If she had been living under normal circumstances, these powers would almost never manifest themselves. She naturally possessed some amounts of spiritual intuition and her "sixth sense" was powerful enough that she began to have premonitions.
At a certain point, Alessa's mother Dahlia came to the realization that a certain ritual, to birth the cult's god, would likely be a success using Alessa as the mother. The technique had been performed on other girls that the cult abducted and had failed.
Offering up her own daughter, Dahlia performed the technique to bring about the descent of the cult's god using Alessa in the cellar of her own house. The method Dahlia used to bring about the descent of the cult's god had nearly succeeded with Alessa as the 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. 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 of the demonic deity protecting its mother's body. Additionally, Dahlia intentionally kept Alessa in that excruciating state for years because of an incantation she had performed that counted on Alessa to be in constant pain, thereby compelling the missing part of her soul to respond to her.
That part of her soul was reborn as Cheryl. The little girl Harry found on the side of the road, and raised afterwards, for 7 years. If the soul could be unified, the ritual would be complete and the God would awaken, so Dahlia caused Alessa to suffer, which would nurture the demon within her, and compel her to call out to her "other half".
Although Cheryl was Alessa's "other self," she was not conscious of it. When she told Harry she wanted to go to Silent Hill, it was because the sensation of Alessa's suffering - "Someone help me" - had reached 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. And so based on her perception that "It's like someone (myself?) is calling me...", Cheryl came to Silent Hill with Harry Mason.[1]
Throughout the course of the first game, Harry Mason attempts to find his daughter Cheryl Mason, but keeps running into Alessa (who happens to look like Cheryl). Dahlia manipulates Harry to trap Alessa with saying that Alessa possesses the "Mark of Samael", the mark of a demon, and she is taking Cheryl as a sacrifice, she gives an object of great debate, the Flauros to Harry to use against Alessa. Alessa shows up near the end of the game as part of the final boss after merging with Cheryl. Once her soul is one again, the God is able to be born from Alessa. After Harry kills the God, a fading Alessa hands Harry a new-born baby: the reborn fused soul of herself and Cheryl .
Alessa and Cheryl's reincarnation reappears as the main heroine of Silent Hill 3, Heather, which takes place 17 years after the events of the first game.
[edit] Background in Film
Alessa was a kind, but troubled girl who was subject of constant ridicule at the hands of her classmates, who had branded her a "witch" because, presumably, she possessed strange powers like in the game. However, the film doesn't directly say Alessa had powers at all. The only real evidence of Alessa's powers before her soul split in two, was the withering of a vase of roses with her boiling hatred. At the age of nine, while hiding from her cruel classmates, Alessa was sexually abused by the school janitor, Colin. The source of this abuse was that Alessa's father was unknown to anyone, except possibly Dahlia Gillespie.
Soon afterward, Christabella ordered Dahlia to deliver Alessa to the Order's ceremonial chamber for "purification", with the intent of ritualistically sacrificing Alessa by fire, due to the Order's beliefs stated that sacrificing a witch would hold off the apocalypse. When the ritual failed, the fire raged out of control, consuming much of the town and eventually reaching the town's coal mines. Alessa's charred body was pulled out of the fire and she was sent to nearby Brookhaven hospital. After an agonizing period, an entity in the ragged and persecuted form of Alessa herself came to her and promised her revenge upon those who had done this to her. Growing hateful, she let the being throw the town and the people into endless darkness, spawning creatures symbolic of her tormentors to slay the remaining cultists trapped within the town, who referred to Alessa's visage simply as "the Demon" or the "Dark One", and feared her lair in the bowels of Brookhaven Hospital. With the town under the curse, Alessa used her power to create an infant child, a physical embodiment of her pure, uncorrupted side, and delivered her to the Toluca County Orphanage. The child would later be adopted by Chris and Rose DaSilva.
With the help of Rose, Alessa was able to penetrate the safe haven of the Order's church by possessing Rose's body, and slaughtered Christabella and her flock with ruthless fury. In the end, Alessa became one with her other self, Sharon DaSilva.
[edit] Resemblances
When the Dark One fused with Rose it gained passage into the church where it raised Alessa, still in her hospital bed scarred and disfigured. She was surrounded by moving, twisting barbed wire she could control, and she used it to get her revenge on the cult members. (Note: Alessa was the final boss of Silent Hill 1 if the bad ending was received, but looked much different. She simply wore a glowing white gown and used electricity to kill Dahlia and attack Harry rather than barbed wire to kill Christabella and the other Cult members. Her appearance in the film closely resembles the Mary/Maria end boss in Silent Hill 2.)
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