Harry Mason
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Harry Mason is the playable protagonist of the PlayStation video game Silent Hill.
| Harry Mason | |
|---|---|
 Harry Mason Awaking from his wrecked jeep to find his daughter missing in |
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| Game series | Silent Hill series |
| First game | Silent Hill (video game) |
| Voiced by | Michael Gough (voice actor) |
| Information | |
| Occupation | Writer |
[edit] Role
"This may sound really off the wall, but listen to me. You've got to believe me. I haven't gone crazy, and I'm not fooling around. At first I thought I was losing my mind. But now I know I'm not. It's not me. This whole town. It's being invaded by the other world. By a world of someone's nightmarish delusions come to life. Little by little the invasion is spreading. Trying to swallow up everything in darkness." - Harry Mason
Harry is a 32 year old writer. His wife, who still remains unnamed, died four years before the first game. Three years before she died, they found a child on the side of the road outside of Silent Hill, took the child home and named her Cheryl. For the next 7 years, Harry takes care of Cheryl up until the events of the first game. Harry and Cheryl then decide to take a vacation to Silent Hill. While Harry is driving towards the town late at night with Cheryl in the front seat, he sees a young woman walk into the path of his vehicle. He tries to avoid her but loses control of his Jeep and crashes into a ditch. A few hours later in the morning, he awakens to find Cheryl missing. This is where the game starts off.
Harry Mason is the archetypal Silent Hill protagonist. As such he deviates substantially from other classic video game protagonists. He is clumsy, and it is obvious he has never received training in survival or the use of firearms, a deficit which serves both the realism of the game and the horror it attempts to induce in the player. Harry is the father of Heather (the main character of Silent Hill 3). He was brutally murdered in Silent Hill 3 by the Missionary under Claudia Wolf's order.
Harry's radio and pocket clip flashlight serve as the template for all future Silent Hill protagonists, save for the sole exception of Henry Townshend from Silent Hill 4: The Room, who possesses neither.
[edit] Harry's role in other games
Even though Harry can be encountered elsewhere, he is only a playable character in the first installment of the Silent Hill series. The story of Silent Hill 3 is a continuation of that of the first game. In this installment, Heather returns home to find that her father has been brutally murdered by the Missionary. Heather moves her father's body into the bedroom and covers it with a sheet. The storyline reveals that Heather is actually Cheryl/Alessa, and that her father was Harry Mason. Upon returning to Silent Hill, Heather encounters a facsimile of her father's bedroom while traversing the Otherworld; There, Harry's corpse is missing from the bed, which is stripped of its coverings, and a trail of bloody footprints leads to the door.
It remains unexplained how Harry acquired the Aglaophotis and hid it in his daughter's locket, though in theory, he may have acquired it in Silent Hill, but did not use it on Cybil, implying that the Good ending may be the most cannocial.
Harry is also found in the "UFO" ending of Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, and the "Revenge" ending of Silent Hill 3. In Silent Hill 2 he descends from a space ship and asks James Sunderland (the protagonist of the sequel), if he has seen Cheryl; James in turn asks if Harry has seen Mary. James is then zapped by a ray gun and dragged onto the ship. In Silent Hill 3's Revenge ending, Heather returns home to find that Harry is not in fact dead, and tells him about her hardships. Infuriated, Harry obliterates the town of Silent Hill with the help of UFOs. James can also be seen in this ending hiding behind a curtain, and holding a block of wood which Harry karate-kicks to prove how serious he is.
Harry is briefly heard at the end of Silent Hill Origins, he and his unnamed wife find a baby and decide to call her Cheryl.
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