Five-Act Structure, Part One

The term ‘Climax’ has been used in connection with a story’s final act so often that the two concepts have become synonymous. In the Five-Act Structure, Climax carries a slightly different meaning, as it refers to the height of dramatic tension. For those who prefer the Three-Act Structure, the idea that a story’s climax occurs at the midpoint can be hard to accept. To help, John Yorke explains it as: “…the point at which, in the ‘Hero’s Journey’, the protagonist enters the ‘enemy cave’ and steals the ‘elixir’; it is – in our paradigm – the moment of ‘big change.’ It isn’t necessarily the most dramatic moment, but it is a point of supreme significance.”³ In other words, the midpoint is considered the Climax because it is the essential turning point: the moment where the protagonist finds what they thought they were looking for, only to learn that their quest has just begun. In Yorke’s change paradigm, he labels this moment of understanding as the transition between ‘experimenting pre-knowledge, gaining key knowledge, and experimenting post-knowledge.’⁴ Like any turning point, the Climax contains a crossing that must be crossed, and that crossing makes up Act III. 

In Silent Hill 2, the Climax centers around James’s meeting with Maria. Maria is a perfect doppelganger of Mary, James’s late wife, yet she claims not to know Mary and has little in common with her. Mary was quiet and restrained, choosing simpler clothing; Maria is brash and seductive, wearing clothing that shows her figure. The dichotomy is startling for James, given how eerie the resemblance is, but it helps James accept that Maria is not his Mary. His initial disbelief is the experimentation before knowledge; his acceptance is when he gains the key knowledge. This woman may look like Mary, but he still has searching to do. 

James resolves to continue searching Silent Hill, and allows Maria to come along when she asks to join him. Their journey together represents James’s post-knowledge experimentation, as his understanding of his relationships with both Maria and Mary are continually challenged. When Laura reappears, claiming to have seen Mary less than a year ago, James begins to doubt his own recollection of Mary’s death. His perceptions of reality are further distorted when he loses track of Maria and finds himself in distorted parallel world. Reuniting with Maria in this new world brings him little comfort, as she’s furious that he abandoned her and seems to be getting ill. Although they’re able to talk things out, their reunion is short-lived, as Pyramid Head reappears and kills Maria in front of a helpless James. By experimenting with the knowledge of ‘new’ Mary, James has come to learn a harsh truth: she can be taken from him, just as the ‘old’ Mary was. With this knowledge, he is ready to enter Act IV: Falling Action.