Heather Mason

Heather Mason is the main protagonist and player character of Silent Hill 3, a 2003 survival horror video game by Konami's Team Silent. As the reincarnation of Alessa Gillespie and Cheryl Mason from the first Silent Hill game, Heather is instrumental in the game's main antagonist Claudia Wolf's efforts to bring about the rebirth of "God". She is also the main character in the film adaptation, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, where her real name is Sharon Da Silva. Her alternative self as Cheryl Heather Mason is also the true protagonist in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Appearances
Heather is also a downloadable content character in Silent Hill: Book of Memories. In addition, she makes cameo appearances in some of the endings in Book of Memories and in Silent Hill: Downpour, as well as in an unrelated Konami game Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, "Heather" is a middle name of the character Cheryl, who was also born in 1983.Also at the end of Silent Hill 3 She renamed herself as Cheryl as previously before.

Character design
Heather was modeled after French actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Vanessa Paradis in several rough sketches. The sketches portrayed her as an "innocent" type of character. The development team realized that she seemed too "nice" and Heather was inspired by Sophie Marceau and Gainsbourg to give her an attitude. At this point, Heather was a clash of masculinity and femininity. The character designer Shingo Yuri imagined Heather as wearing jeans, but the female team members of Team Silent thought that Heather should show her legs to look more feminine and convinced Yuri. Heather's hair was initially more natural and less elaborate, but the female team members thought that curly hair would be more suitable for a young girl. Heather was given shorter hair for the convenience of video games: it would have taken more processing power of the PlayStation 2 to animate longer realistic hair and the game designers used the processing power towards increasing monster numbers instead. Heather's original design was later used with Elle Holloway, a character in Silent Hill: Homecoming.

The character's name and model were inspired by her original voice actress, Heather Morris. The creators originally named Heather "Helen", but after talking with Morris they realized that name was old-fashioned and changed it.

Reception
Game Revolution's Chris Hudak preferred Heather over the prior protagonists of the series, Silent Hills Harry Mason and Silent Hill 2s James Sunderland, whom he felt were "bland"; he praised her "attitude, some vulnerability and even some snarky teenaged wit".

Joystick Division praised Heather for how she "show[ed] the world that whiny teenage girls can become incredible badasses," putting her on the tenth place of their 2010 list of the top ten "badass ladies" in video game history. UGO Networks placed the character second on its 2011 list of the best kids in video games, calling her an "another hyper-sexualized teen girl," also featuing her on their list of the "most stylin'" alternate costumes for her "Sailor Moon-esque character" 'Princess Heather' costume. In 2013, Complex ranked Heather as the 36th greatest heroine in video game history. GameDaily listed Heather in their "Babe of the Week: Chicks with Baggage", and GamesRadar cited her as one of best game "babes" in the decade of 2000, highlighting the fact that she is "just a normal girl". CNET shared the sentiments, adding she "may not have the toughness of some of the other protagonists here, but Heather Mason is absolutely human and eminently relatable." Bernard Perron wrote that Heather's "temper" and "sharp tongue" served to distinguish her from the female protagonists of the survival-horor games Rule of Rose (2006), Clock Tower 3 (2002), and Fatal Frame (2001), whom he described as being characterized as "more frail or innocent".