Frozen nightmare //world

In Shattered Memories we experience something different from previous games. We have a completely different world, one that isn't influenced by the tortured Alessa at all. It's another hurting person controlling everything -- Cheryl. And that is the biggest difference here: who controls this world.

Previous titles showed us a world filled with grief and pain, a rotten, rusted and twisted world. This doesn't apply here. The world created by Cheryl is different and has nothing to do with pain. It's actually the absolute opposite of that -- Cheryl creates a world free of pain and anguish, and that is why this manifestation isn't shown with bloody walls and treacherous creatures. Everything is cold and dreamily instead. It doesn't try to make others understand her pain, it tries to soothe and silence this pain. And it does so by conserving and reviving all of the perfect memories Cheryl had of her father. A fridge freezes what's in it in order to conserve it, and the same does this fantasy world; it takes all of those good memories and conserves them, keeps them alive.

But when Dr. Kaufmann starts testing Cheryl, starts making her understand, a shield is prompted, a defensive mechanism. It's like an alarm that is activated every time Cheryl -- by the means of Harry and Kaufmann -- gets nearer to the truth. This defense mechanism is physically manifested in the beings known as Raw Shocks, monsters that try to stop Harry from going deeper. But notice that they don't mean to harm Harry -- he is the perfect father to whom Cheryl clings to and wants to conserve; killing him would not be beneficial. The Raw Shocks only immobilize Harry, but preserving him. They aren't "evil," but a part of this completely, is some ways, benign world.