Dahlia Gillespie

Dahlia Gillespie is the main villain in the video game Silent Hill. She is the leader of the cult known as The Order in the Notheastern town of Silent Hill. For the bulk of the game, she appears to be a helpful character, helping Harry Mason, the game's protagonist, fight Alessa, the apparent villain.

Cult Activities
At some point in her life, Dahlia became the leader of Silent Hill's cult. She may have been involved in the mysterious deaths of several people involved in developing Silent Hill into a resort town. She also started a drug trade, selling a hallucinogen to the tourists, made from a local plant named White Claudia, that was also used in the cult's rituals. she was assisted in this by Dr. Michael Kaufman, who was unaware of the cult connection and only wanted the drug money. But Dahlia's driving goal was to bring her god into this world and bring paradise on Earth, but her interest was in gaining personal power. She attempted to impregnate several young girls with the god, but none of them had the power or mental capacity necessary to survive the process.

Alessa
Dahlia then found out that her seven year old daughter Alessa had vast mental powers. Dahlia and the cult proceeded to perform the impregnation ritual on Alessa, which involved setting the girl on fire, in an upstairs room in the Gillespie house. Alessa was more powerful than even Dahlia knew, and managed to resist the ritual, splitting her soul in half and putting it in an infant's body, putting it on the side of the road where the childless Harry Mason and his dying wife found her and named her Cheryl, raising her as their own. Although the god was successfully impregnated in Alessa, the half of her soul left was not powerful enough to give birth to it. Dahlia cast a spell, keeping Alessa alive and in extreme pain, not allowing her burns to heal, thus serving to draw back the other half of the soul, now Cheryl Mason.

The Otherworld
Dahlia's spell had unexpected repercussions for herself, the cult, and the town of Silent Hill. Alessa's intense suffering caused her to slip into a coma, but a dream version of herself was still semi conscious, and created a dark Otherworld, a manifestation of her mental state, filled with monsters that personified her fears. Dahlia tried to enter this world and reign in Alessa, but Alessa created a foggy, abandoned world asa a buffer zone. Dahlia was prevented from entering the otherworld, but she could leave and enter the foggy world at will using her own powers. Both worlds mirrored the actual town.

Harry and Cheryl Arrive
Seven years after the ritual, Alessa's suffering causes Cheryl to subconsciously choose Silent Hill as her's and Harry's summer vacation destination. On the road to Silent Hill, while Cheryl is asleep, the dream Alessa runs into the road, causing Harry to crash the car, knocking himself out. When he awakes, Cheryl has disappeared and they are in the fog world. In fact being in Silent Hill has made Cheryl aware of her identity and what is going on. She begins rapidly maturing to Alessa's current physical age of fourteen. Using her powers, Cheryl/Alessa trys to limit the Otherworld by placing magical crests, known as the Seal of Metatron, at key places around town: the school, the hospital, the lighthouse, and the amusement park. Upon sensing Cheryl's return, Dahlia attempted to capture her with a spell, but Cheryl/Alessa was far more powerful than Dahlia had expected. Dahlia needed someone else to help her, and ultimately settles on Harry, whom she proceeds to trick into assisting in her scheme.

Dahlia's Mechinations
Searching for a way to trick Harry she ultimately decided to convince Harry that Alessa was a demon posessing Cheryl and trying to cement the Otherworld's presence by using the crests. She feeds Harry this false information piece by piece in several brief encounters. In the first, at Balkan Church, she gives Harry a magical device called the Flauros, whic she told him had the power to contain evil. Harry fails to stop Alessa/Cheryl from completing the first three crests, but arrives at the amusment park ahead of her, and starts a confrontation. When he appears to lose, the Flauros activates itself and traps Alessa/Cheryl. Dahlia arrives and takes Alessa away as the Otherworld collapses in on itself and forms a place called Nowhere, where Dahlia begins to rejoin both halves of the soul.

The Birth of the God and the Death of Dahlia
[Note:the game has 4 alternate endings, 2 "good" and 2 "bad." Both are discussed here.] Harry arrives just as the soul is reunited, and confronts Dahlia, about whom hes had suspicions since they first met. She then proceeds to explain most, but not all, of what has been going on. The two halves of the soul reunite, one from Cheryl, and one from Alessa's charred, bandaged body. They form into a new body, in shining robes, prepared to give birth to Samael. Here is where things diverge. In the case of a "bad" ending, Alessa kills Dahlia with blue lightning, and is then killed by Harry, whom she thanks. Nowhere begins to fall apart, and Harry lets himself be consumed, destroyed by the loss of his only daughter. In the case of a "good" ending, Kaufman walks in after Alessa's reconstitution. Angry at having been used by the cult, he wounds Dahlia with a pistol and hurls a vial of aglaophitis, a substance that removes monsters from their parasitized hosts, at Alessa. This has an unexpected consequence when it causes the god to prematurely emerge from Alessa in a demonic form. The god destroys Dahlia with orange lightning and fights with Harry, who destroys him. The dying Alessa, grateful for Harry's help and finally ending her pain, splits her soul once more and shapes it into an infant, giving it to Harry. She then uses the last bit of her strength to show Harry the way out. Kaufman dies when another victim of Dahlia's schemes holds him back from escape.