Butcher
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The Butcher is a monster that appears in Silent Hill: Origins as a major antagonist towards Travis Grady.
The Butcher also appears in the spin-off game, Silent Hill: Book of Memories.
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Appearance
The Butcher is a humanoid creature much like Pyramid Head in design, behavior, and function. He is well-built with a butcher's apron which is almost completely covered in blood. He wears a series of metal plates that cover the left half of his face and left shoulder. The other half of his face is fairly empty, save for a deep hole where the ear would be on a human head, a nose, and a very mild relief on his visage that almost resembles the top of an eye socket. Overall, his quite featureless mug is quite similar to that of Valtiel. His trademark weapon is a heavily over-sized meat cleaver known as the Great Cleaver.
Character
The Butcher not only looks like Pyramid Head, but also behaves much like Pyramid Head does, with his frequent slaughtering of various monsters. However, unlike Pyramid Head, the Butcher does not emulate any sexual acts on his victims. Also, whereas Pyramid Head's movement are very jerky and almost twitchy in nature, the Butcher's movements are always fluid and controlled, giving him a much more calm and focused appearance than the other monster.
Silent Hill: Origins
Added by AlessaGillespieTravis meets the Butcher several times throughout his journey in Silent Hill, each encounter occurring in the Fog World version of town. The first encounter occurs when Travis finds him in the back hallway of the butcher shop, where he lifts a trembling Faceless Nurse by the neck before stabbing her in the belly with his cleaver, cutting downward between her legs before dropping her and skulking away.
Later on, as Travis makes his way back through the butcher shop, the nurse has been dragged out to the front of the shop and has had her large, previously incurred wound spread open. Not long after, on the way to the Artaud Theater through the Lumber Yard, the sound of the Butcher's dragging knife seems to indicate the monster is nearby. Luckily for the player, there is no encounter with him at this point.
While in the maintenance tunnel in the Riverside Motel, Travis can look through a peephole into Room 503, a room he was standing in only moments ago, and see the Butcher standing next to the bed. But if he looks again, the monster will have disappeared. Coincidentally, Room 503 is filled with both photography and anatomy artwork of the Butcher and other monsters.
In their second direct encounter, Travis meets the Butcher in the Riverside Motel's kitchen, where he is slowly slaughtering a Two-Back creature. Battle ensues, and Travis kills him in self-defense. As the Butcher bleeds out on the floor, Travis picks up the Great Cleaver, considers for a moment, and then slams it into the creature's back once, finishing it off. Travis then leaves the Cleaver.
Strategy
It is very difficult to stay close to the Butcher and live, and the area he is fought in is extremely small (much to the frustration of many players), so it is wise to keep moving at all times. One strategy is to use all the throwable items salvaged up until that point, as they can cause small to moderate damage from a safe distance. Another is to use high-power firearms, making the shotgun a great weapon thanks to the small space. A combination of these strategies may be used to conserve ammo and items.
Further increasing the danger of the Butcher is his AI, which causes him to change direction, depending on which way is closer, a factor that can prove deadly to the player. He also has massive quantities of health, making the fight generally long and tedious.
Should the Butcher grab Travis and lift him into the air, a successful Quick Time Event will allow him to escape unharmed. However, the Butcher's swipe with the Cleaver is much harder to avoid.
Symbolism
The Butcher represents cruelty and sacrifice, particularly that of the Order. His calm, emotionless torturing and slaughtering of other monsters speaks of the Order's tendency to murder and sacrifice human life for their worship. The Butcher also represents Travis's inner rage and pent-up anger, and so is involved heavily in the Bad Ending.
There are some that speculate that the Butcher may actually be Travis himself, as implied by the various voices heard during the Bad Ending, as well as by the description of the Butcher accolade. The helmet that covers half of his head could possibly symbolize a split personality. Travis is shown to be an animal lover, and would probably find a butcher repulsive; therefore it follows that his split personality would be his complete opposite, i.e. a "butcher" who kills animals.
There is another possibility that states that the Butcher represents everything Travis fears about himself and/or everything he could become. The Butcher's method of killing involves slicing through the reproductive organs of his victims, representing his anger associated with repressed sexuality, as truckers often find it difficult to sustain a steady or healthy love life.
Trivia
- Interestingly enough, Travis has no problems in holding the Great Cleaver, whereas the physically stronger Butcher had to drag it along the floor. This might symbolize Travis's surge of inner strength after the monster's defeat, or just being overlooked by the producers. Alternatively, most Silent Hill monsters suffer physical pain in one form or another, and thus the Butcher's dragging of the cleaver could be attributed to some sort of discomfort in the monster's body.
- In Silent Hill: Revelation, there is a brief scene of Heather Mason coming across a room in which a man is cutting off a large hunk of another human's torso, then throwing this flesh into a frying pan to be cooked. This is possibly a reference to the Butcher.
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