Henry Townshend
From Silent Hill Wiki
| “ | I don't... I don't know where to start. There was this strange hole in my room. I saw people getting killed... all these weird other worlds... and I saw you get attacked, too.
- Henry explains his situation to Eileen Galvin | ” |
Henry Townshend is the main protagonist of the video game Silent Hill 4: The Room by Konami.
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Personality
Henry Townshend is somewhat of a quiet soul, shy and introverted in personality. This is emphasized as he doesn't speak a lot, and is rather a listener than a speaker. Henry's shyness and occasionally awkward behavior may indicate that he is a Hikikomori--a term describing a person who has withdrawn from social life entirely. No mention is made of any friends or family throughout the game, and even his neighbors only know him in passing. Henry's confrontation with Walter forces him into a situation where he must change (and leave the apartment), or die.
He is a keen and adept photographer, proved by the many scenic pictures that hang on the walls which he himself shot. He has an eye for natural beauty that goes beyond the superficial as he once remarks, "This is a photo of the church I ran across while I was visiting Silent Hill. For some reason I was really attracted by the way it looked, so I took the picture." Also, his desk has several books, a sketchbook and a pen, which may show his interest into writing.
Judging from the pictures Henry has in his possession, it is apparent that he has visited Old Silent Hill before. The photos serve as reminders of past Silent Hill games. Two in particular depict the Balkan Church and the old lighthouse, both landmarks of Silent Hill 1. Henry even makes a comment about the lighthouse picture saying that "There was even a rumor that a UFO came flying right by the lighthouse." This is a subtle reference to the UFO endings of the three previous games.
He may be looking to purchase a car, shown by the magazine that is on his coffee table, entitled 'Bikkuri Cars'. He is a collector of books, yet for the two years he has been living in South Ashfield he hasn't read any of them or even touched them.
Henry shows remarkable altruism throughout the game: he is constantly trying to help the people he meets, regardless of his own situation. When meeting Joseph Schreiber, he instinctively keeps Eileen behind him until the man leaves.
Silent Hill 4: The Room
At the beginning of the game, Henry is locked up in his own apartment room, Room 302. He has gone mostly unnoticed in his building for the past two years; he passes his next door neighbor Eileen Galvin occasionally and they give each other nodding glances of acknowledgment and courtesy, yet no further relationship develops. He is equally distant from his other neighbors, most of which he seems not to know by name and vice versa (Richard Braintree calls Henry just "That guy that lives across from me").
Henry, unlike earlier Silent Hill protagonists, enters the nightmare world without a lot of obvious traumas or emotional problems to work through. It is notable that while the monsters of the previous two games were seemingly inspired by the fears and guilt of those games' protagonists, the monsters of Silent Hill 4 seem to spring from the twisted mind of the game's primary antagonist like how they did in the first game, and in this case from Walter Sullivan.
Ingame
In the first world of the game, Henry meets Cynthia Velasquez, a woman who believes she is dreaming. Cynthia flirts with Henry and promises him a "special favor" if he helps her find a way out of the subway station. At the end of the subway world, Henry stays with Cynthia as she dies. He tells her that it's just a dream before he wakes up in the real world. Henry visits other worlds, where he watches Jasper Gein, Andrew DeSalvo and Richard Braintree's deaths. In the apartment world, Henry questions himself if Eileen Galvin or Walter Sullivan is the next victim (having not known what Walter looked like as an adult yet). When Henry enters Eileen's room, he watches her as she dies and he falls to the floor in grief. While exploring St. Jerome's Hospital, Henry sees photographs and x-rays of Eileen and wonders if Eileen is still alive. Henry soon finds Eileen and they reunite to find the "ultimate truth". It's around this time Henry finds out only he can use the holes that transport him back to his apartment. Using a key given to him that unlocks a spiraling staircase that he uses to re-visit the first four of Walter's Otherworlds. All the doors that were previously locked (Marked with Halos of the Sun) can now be opened in the worlds. At the end of the staircase, Henry and Eileen find a diary in front of Room 302 of the past, where he meets the ghost of Joseph Schreiber and obtains the Pickaxe of Hope. Here Joseph explains what he's learned to Henry so far and how him telling Henry this completes his role as the 'Receiver of Wisdom'. Going back into the current Room 302, Henry uses the Pickaxe to discover a secret room in between his bedroom and bathroom. Here he discovers the corpse of Walter Sullivan nailed to a cross and finds the Keys of Liberation in the corpse's coat pocket. Using this, Henry escapes Room 302 to find he is in the apartment world again where he reunites with Eileen. They then retrieve the umbilical cord from the Superintendent's room. Afterwards he returns to the room with Walter's corpse to find out that it has disappeared. Jumping down the hole below the cross, he finds himself in a final confrontation with Walter and his "true form".
If the '21 Sacraments' ending is achieved, Henry will be killed with the 'Wisdom' theme of murder.
Quotes
"Five days ago... That's when I first had the nightmare. I haven't been able to get out of my room since then."
"My whole world has suddenly turned insane"
"What the hell...? (and variations)"
"So you think this is a dream, huh?"
"Eileen... Are you still alive...?"
"(when Eileen asks where they are) I don't know either... But I do know that if you get killed here... Then you die in the real world, too..."
Gallery
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Trivia
- Unlike all other protagonists of the Silent Hill series, Henry finds himself entangled in the terrors of the Silent Hill not due to any past sin or an unknown supernatural affair, but merely due to having chosen a 'bad apartment.'
- In Silent Hill: The Arcade, there is a character by the name of Tina Townshend, however, it is unknown if they are related.
| Walter Sullivan Victims | |
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