The chick who played Heather was really cute, and totally in my wheelhouse. Even if she looks like she’s half my age.
But the movie itself sucked, and it wasn’t a surprise, and I am disappointed that it cost me $16 to see in 3D.
The end.
Okay, now that the thoughts on Silent Hill: Revelations are over, don’t click the jump unless you want to hear spoilers; not that they’re really “spoilers-“spoilers, but if you’re sensitive to being told something that happens before you find out, don’t read on.
The real topic of this post is really where Pyramid Head’s face turn ranks in the history of face turns. And I’m not going to lie, I’m going to be pulling some random instances of face turns out of my ass, so I don’t want to hear about how limited they are, and that my opinions are bullshit, not that I imagine the four people who read my brog regularly are actually going to contest me.
But yeah, in SH:R, Pyramid Head turns face, which is wrestling-speak for “became a good guy.” Long seen as an icon of terror, a symbol of fear epitomized, and a rapist of mannequin monsters, Pyramid Head has always been some sort of cult anti-hero. For whatever reason, nerds on the internet all love Pyramid Head, despite the fact that in the video games, he’s almost always portrayed as an antagonist.
His origins is that he was a manifestation of James Sunderland, the protagonist of Silent Hill 2, to be a tormentor to him for all his sins, guilt and the fact that he well, killed his own wife. Throughout the game, Pyramid Head is trying to kill you. He is a bad guy. A heel.
But still, internet nerds love him, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure they would hate it if Pyramid Heads were real, and were always trying to kill them with giant blunt and stabby swords. Regardless, it’s no secret that these aforementioned nerds would have loved it if for whatever reason, Pyramid Head were suddenly a good guy; and in SH:R, they delivered.
It really didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but for whatever reason, Pyramid Head fights Trinity’s final form instead of Heather and Harry. It’s a shitty fight scene too, mired in crappy 3D CGI, but the point remains, suddenly Pyramid Head is fighting for the side of good, and not trying to kill and rape everything Heather and Harry love.
So where does Pyramid Head’s face turn rank in comparison to some randomly cherry picked instances of face turns?
The Rock’s face turn, sometime in 1999. The Rock was distancing himself from the Nation of Domination, and was discreetly working his way up the card throughout the year. By not having any goofy storylines or prominent roles in anyone else’s storylines, the Rock was quietly flourishing. By not being the foil to Steve Austin, and beating everyone up, people were beginning to see the merits of The Rock, other than the guy that jobs to Steve Austin.
And then on one night, The Rock was announced as a tag-team partner to Mick Foley and Ken Shamrock in an handicap match against the Undertaker and Kane. The crowd went ballistic, in a good way, as finally, The Rock were put on the side of good, against the side of evil. And when The Rock was the one who nailed the Rock Bottom on the Undertaker that night, and got the pinfall, the crowd went bonkers again.
Sabertooth becomes an X-Man. With Wolverine gone on one of his many emo sabbaticals, the X-Men were without a resident animalistic head-case with a healing factor. No biggie, the guy that was supposedly Wolverine’s greatest enemy just so happened to be in the neighborhood, and happened to be addicted to a mindfuck that only telepaths were capable of giving hm. I didn’t even know who Birdie was, and where the hell she was, but this Birdie chick was the one who had given him his high for a long time, and now she was out of the picture. So the details are murky for me, but Sabrerooth ends up at the X-Mansion, because Jean Grey is only one present who knows how to give him what he wants, and much like Wolverine, there’s a whole lot of sexual tension between Jean and Sabertooth, but she kind of breaks him, due to his dependency on “the glow.”
Somewhere along the line, Sabertooth becomes a temporary X-Man; it doesn’t last long, but long enough to when Fleer still made comic book cards, Sabertooth’s card was listed as “Superhero.” Ultimately, Wolverine came back and stabbed his brain, turning him into a retard, and the same old song and dance. The X-Men are pretty lame these days, but regardless, that Sabertooth face turn was an instance of the writers caving into fan demands, which should almost never happen.
Kain has joined your party. Twice. Final Fantasy II/IV. Kain is a bad guy for most of FFIV, because he’s jealous of Cecil since Rosa is in love with him and not Kain. So when Kain joins your party, it’s a monumental joyous occasion, because frankly throughout the game, Yang and Edge were shitty secondary fighters. Yang’s gloves did ridiculous damage, and Edge’s dual swords were cool, as were his ability to throw ninja stars, but neither of them had the slightest bit of magic resistance. Enemies would occasionally cast hit-all spells, and Cecil, Rydia and Rosa would take like 400 damage, but Yang/Edge would be like 1,400+ insta-killed. So when Kain joins the team, you have a second awesome fighter who not only can take a fucking hit, but if timed correctly, won’t take any damage, because you’re spamming the Dragoon jump all the time, and he’s not even on screen.
And then he turns bad again, but then joins you again in the end. You get the joyous face turn feeling, twice in this game.
John Cena turns face for Survivor Series. Today’s wrestling fans wouldn’t believe it, but there was a time when the WWE universe was completely unanimously bonkers over John Cena. He was at the tail end of his evil-rapper persona, and a combination of good promos, lots of hard work, and a handful of decent matches, the fans were beginning to get behind John Cena, despite the fact that his character was still technically a bad guy.
And then a storyline came up where Brock Lesnar was accumulating all of the big hoss wrestlers he could wrangle together for his Survivor Series team. Opposing him was Kurt Angle who was stuffing his team full of super faces; and Kurt had a hard time finding a fifth guy until it came out that there was a guy that was kind of on nobody’s side at the moment, but had a beef with the Big Show, who was on Team Lesnar. John Cena was announced as the fifth guy on Team Angle, and the crowd went bonkers. The funny thing was that when the match happened, both captains were eliminated in the middle of the match, which was always kind of odd. But John Cena and Chris Benoit became the survivors of the match when they doubled up on Big Show, leading to more fan adulation and justification. John Cena hasn’t been a heel since.
Every Single Time Magneto fights along side Xavier. To be fair, Magneto is not really a bad guy. He’s a little more extremist than Xavier is, but he’s not a bad guy. But because Magneto’s schemes usually have human casualties, he’s forced to be a Supervillain. But whenever a badder villain arises and Magneto ends up joining forces with the X-Men, it’s always something the fans mark out for. There’s always a mutual respect between Magneto and the good guys, because they too realize that Magneto’s intentions are good, but his methods just aren’t.
Bowser joins Mario in Super Mario RPG. When this game came out, the tension between Bowser and Mario was already waning. After all, they had spent many years go-karting together in Super Mario Kart. But with the evil robot empire threatening the Mushroom Kingdom, even Bowser knew that he couldn’t reclaim his castle on his own. And Mario knew that he needed all the help he could get if he wanted to have any shot at saving the Mushroom Kingdom from something other than Bowser.
So in one of gaming’s finest moments, Bowser joins your team, and utilizes some sweet Chomp-throwing techniques to be the brute tank for Team Mario.
Every time Joker turns on anyone who tries to kill Batman. It’s questionable to whether or not these can be called face turns, but I have to admit, there’s something inherently romantic about how emotional Joker gets whenever someone other than him makes an attempt at Batman’s life. And it’s also debatable on whether or not Joker wants to even kill Batman himself either; it’s like he’s perfectly content trolling Batman, but doesn’t necessarily want to kill him, despite the fact that killing, or attempting to kill those around him is completely fair game. But at this point, anyone who reads Batman comics has to know that once anyone makes an attempt at Batman’s life doesn’t necessarily have to watch out for retribution from Batman, Robin or Nightwing, but also Joker.
The impending face turn for The Miz. Although I don’t like this idea very much, the fans really do dictate a star’s brightness in wrestling. And despite having fairly mediocre in-ring ability, there’s no denying how entertaining The Miz is. A bad guy is what his character is best at, but frankly, he hasn’t really had any opportunities to be a good guy either, so we don’t know how it’s going to pan out. But it’s clear that the fans are getting behind The Miz, and the storyline is currently steering him in the same direction as John Cena’s face turn, complete with the incorporation into the face’s team for Survivor Series. It’s a different era now, but the point remains, The Miz is ultimately going to end up as a fan favorite until he’s eventually saddled with Vicki Guererro to kill his momentum, or the fans tire of a baby face and want the bad guy Miz back.
So where does Pyramid Head’s face turn compare amidst these examples? Somewhere in between John Cena’s and The Rock, but easily over Magneto, and probably anything comic book related, because they just never stick.
But this shouldn’t stick, nor should it even be considered canonical. Pyramid Head is evil incarnate, and needs to stick to his guns.
