Line #13 Fridge/SilentHill2


1	'''As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
2	----
3
4	!! Fridge Brilliance
5	* When James first enters town and arrives at Sanders St. for the first time, across the street is a "Flower Shop". Near the end of the game, we overhear one of James' final conversations with Mary rejecting his gift of flowers which is presumably one of the most painful episodes in James' memories of Mary.
6	* One of the key landmarks is Neely's Bar which alludes to James turning to alcohol to cope with his depression. Notably, the bar is mostly empty and run down which leaves much to the viewer's imagination. The message "There was a HOLE here. It's gone now." can also be interpreted in multiple ways, one of them being James [[DrowningMySorrows drinking to fill]] the hole left in his life, in addition to James's sexual frustration. Note that this isn't entirely speculation; checking the stacks of liquor bottles in the strip club will have James confirm that he's taken to drinking heavily to numb his pain and loneliness, which corresponds with Neely's Bar being among the few buildings James may enter.
7	* In the room where you rescue Angela from the Abstract Daddy, the walls have this weird kind of decoration up near the ceiling. There are these holes up there, and they have some kind of piston-like mechanism going in and out of them as with engine cylinders. After you defeat the Abstract Daddy, Angela reveals to James that her father raped her. .
8	** Eyes (peeping in on her), penises (she was raped), or sperm (WordOfGod says the room represents her womb and there's a fun little fan theory going around that says Angela was pregnant [[{{Squick}} from her dad]]). Take your pick.
9	* James' delusional fantasy takes shape at the moment the game begins, as he is gazing at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. In the ''Born From a Wish'' scenario, Maria, a manifestation from James' mind, comes into existence at this exact moment some distance away, and she, too, is introduced to the player as a reflection in a mirror. Expanding on this, James originally comes to town intending to commit suicide, an urge which (possibly, temporarily) is suppressed by the invention of his quest to find Mary. When Maria is introduced, she is openly contemplating suicide herself.
10	* James' version of Silent Hill often shows buildings decrepit with water damage, and water is a constant motif for him, from the flooding damage in every building, at the end of the apartment segment with Pyramid Head, the floors of the prison (which is under a lake), and the final sections of the hotel. Along with this, distorted breathing sounds are constantly used throughout the game in the soundtrack and as ambience. These both reference:
11	** Mary's death by suffocation. Water is used as a motif due to the claustrophobia of drowning and being suffocated. The breathing sounds are obvious. Both also reference the weakening state of her body as she slowly succumbs to sickness. But for the most part, the water represents suffocation.
12	** James' desire to commit suicide via the lake. Water and flooding there to constantly remind him that he came here to end his life.
13	* It's both implied and outright shown that each character's perception of the town bleeds over into the others' whenever their paths cross. Those "weird-lookin' monsters" that scared Eddie in the apartments? Probably Lying Figures or Mannequins that he came across when James happened to be exploring nearby, perhaps with their appearance altered to better mesh with Eddie's own delusions (like the "Abstract Daddy", which is strongly hinted to look ''quite'' different to Angela than it does to James/the player). Same thing with the human corpses James usually finds whenever Eddie is in the area, pretty much all of which appear to have been dispatched via gunshots.
14	* The voice acting may seem terrible, but it starts to make sense for some of it to seem so forced and artificial once you learn how screwed up almost everyone in the cast is and just how normal they are trying to seem out of denial of their traumas and sins. They have all had specific traumas that make it difficult for them to adjust socially, and almost everyone has some dark, terrible secret to hide.
15	** [[https://www.inverse.com/article/22511-silent-hill-2-voice-acting-defense This article]] focuses on this, also pointing out that it fits the surreal. dream-like nature of the game, similar to David Lynch.
16	* When James is using the Great Knife, the attacks James performs with it are almost exactly the same as when Pyramid Head uses them. Considering what Pyramid Head represents, there's a very good reason for this.
17	** James always sees Silent Hill as being a waterlogged, collapsing mess, Angela sees it constantly on fire, Eddie sees it as a freezer-temperature meat locker. It makes sense for a lot of reasons (James is "drowning" in guilt, Angela is "burning" with anger, Eddie has become numbed and cold from bullying) but considering the more Freudian motifs at work in the story, it carries another meaning. James has the capacity to be a rapist, driven by sexual frustration (as evidenced by Pyramid Head's behavior), and Angela is a rape victim, driven by shame and anger. James also has the capacity to rationalize away his killing of Mary as IDidWhatIHadToDo and start cultivating a LackOfEmpathy and/or hiding the problem behind Maria.
18	** While Pyramid Head being a representation of James' guilt is made explicit by him declaring he doesn't need him any more, the seemingly encaged form Maria/Mary takes during the finale is eerily reminiscent of the earlier [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/Pyramid_Head.jpg painting]] of Pyramid Head and his victims, making the parallels even more explicit, as Mary was James' victim, regardless of the reasons he did it.
19	** The painting that depicts Pyramid Head is called "Misty day, remains of the Judgment", which is a subtle clue that Pyramid Head is one to carry out judgment against sinners. Once you learn that James killed Mary, it's not hard to put two and two together...
20	* Angela's behavior in the first scene in the graveyard is weird and somewhat childlike; she calls her mother "mama" and then immediately corrects herself, and she mentions she's looking for her father even though, as we find out later on, that he raped her. It clicks when you realize that Silent Hill screws with its victims' ''memories''. Angela is physically a young adult, but in her mind, she's probably regressed back to the age when her father started abusing her, but doesn't actually remember it the same way James doesn't remember killing Mary. More importantly, she insists she isn't lying when James doesn't take her warning about the town to heart; many, many sexual abuse survivors are accused of lying about their experiences. It's a very early clue as to what Silent Hill really does to the people it summons.
21	* James reaching into things to get items. It's gross and awful and not something a normal person would do, to the point that Heather comments on it in Silent Hill 3. But of course ''James'' has no problem sticking his hand into various holes to get what he wants.
22	* James' behavior for most of the game is near borderline suicidal and many of a ViolationOfCommonSense; he sticks in hand into a toilet and holes without even thinking about what dangers lurk beyond them, jumps into holes in the floor without a second thought, hides in the closet with see-through doors from Pyramid Head while leaving the flashlight on, asks a clearly mentally unstable person with a gun if he has gone nuts, and from the beginning of the game, tells Angela that he doesn't care whether or not Silent Hill is dangerous. While first time players may assume he is doing all this just to find his wife, James is actually trying to hide the fact that he killed Mary and his suicidal tendencies is his way of trying to punish himself. This can reach its natural conclusion in the Water ending where James commits suicide via drowning.
23	** In fact, the way to get the In Water ending is by acting suicidal. Examining Angela's bloody knife and remaining in low health are a few of the conditions towards achieving it.
24	** The game itself seems to be constantly teasing this notion. Many bodies laying around are dressed unnervingly like James himself. As mentioned above, flooding and water damage in buildings seem to be a poignant part of James's Otherworld. The other people James encounters seem to have a similar disregard for life in general, between Angela's desire to die and Eddie's lashing out due to hating how his life is being tormented by others. And later on, there's the descent into the open grave that is actually James's in the prison. Silent Hill is evidently aware of James's desire to die, and appears to be constantly teasing him with it, regardless of what he says to anyone else.
25	* When the game begins, James is looking in the mirror. He then spends the rest of the game searching for his true self.
26	** Pyramid Head is later introduced simply staring at James on the other side of prison bars. Given [[EnemyWithout what Pyramid Head is revealed to be later on]], this takes a symbolic continuation of the opening scene.
27	* The other characters James meets all seem representative of a particular aspect of James himself. Angela is consumed with self-hatred while Eddie is lashing out at abuse from others. James, depending on your interpretation of him, lashed out at Mary from her abuse to get his life back and serves as one of his reasons for killing her, yet the action has left him with intense self-loathing and a feeling of deserving the punishment and hell he's going through. That only leaves Laura. Laura however is unable to perceive the monsters and thus the horror of the town, and therefore could represent ignorance. For about 85% of the game, James seems to be ignorant of the true cause of Mary's demise and thus doesn't understand the horror of what is happening, possibly out of shock.
28	* Noted on the Nightmare Fuel page, but when James leaves Brookhaven after Maria's brutal death, he starts thinking of Mary and begins to wonder: "Are you...really waiting somewhere for me? Or is this your way of taking...?" It's implied here that James thinks that everything he's going through in Silent Hill is Mary's vengeance against him. But then that begs the question of why Mary would be pissed off enough at James, who up to this point has seemed to be little more than a fairly awkward and a little rough but reasonably gentle guy, that she'd want to cause him hell. That's because this small, seemingly throw-away line is the player's first clue [[spoiler: that James murdered Mary and is desiring punishment]].
29	* The Endings. To a first-time player, it may be a little confusing how to get them. However, though difficult to decipher, several of them are actually hinted at in game:
30	** Maria: After the Abstract Daddy boss battle, Angela asks James if Mary had died, but immediately calls him a liar and accuses him of replacing her with someone else. Sticking by Maria and essentially transferring his "love" onto her by protecting her from all harm and listening to her directions allows you to get this ending.
31	** In-Water: During James's last encounter with Angela, she demands he give her back her kitchen knife. When he refuses, she somewhat sarcastically asks him if he's saving it for himself. Repeatedly examining the knife and acting overly suicidal by remaining in low health triggers the In-Water ending where James commits suicide.
32	** Leave: Despite his inner monologue showing his true thoughts on whatever matter is at hand, James is almost always discussing Mary and hoping someone has seen her when he encounters them. To get this ending, you have to role-play him as if that was completely and honestly true -- examine Mary's photograph and letter often, listen to the monologue within the Otherworld hotel's long hallway to hear her last words, and avoid acting like Maria is a replacement.
33	* Dog ending. Lighthearted as it may seem , it also makes it absolutely clear that the town is under Mira (the dog)'s control, everyone inside included. No one is free anymore.
34	* The graffiti in the bar ('There was a HOLE' here but it's gone now') is actually a reference to James' sexual frustration. He was able to have sex with his wife, and then she got sick and couldn't or wouldn't have sex with him; there ''was'' a hole, now it's gone...
35	* There is a very interesting subtle difference in James' final conversation with Mary in respectively the "In Water" and the "Leave" ending. The end of the conversations starts off the same:
36	-->'''Mary:''' I told you I wanted to die, James. I wanted the pain to end.\
37	'''James:''' That's why I did it, honey. I just couldn't watch you suffer.
38	: But then the wording of the dialogue chances depending on the ending. In the "In Water" ending the conversation goes like this:
39	-->'''James:''' No, that's not the whole truth. You also said that you didn't want to die. The truth is... part of me hated you. For taking away my life...\
40	'''Mary:''' You killed me and you're suffering for it. It's enough, James.
41	: But in the "Leave" ending, it goes like this:
42	-->'''James:''' No. That's not true... You also said that you didn't want to die. The truth is I hated you. I wanted you out of the way. I wanted my life back...\
43	'''Mary:''' James... if that were true, then why do you look so sad?
44	: The difference between the two is in how strongly James' expresses the more selfish part of his motive for killing Mary. In the "In Water" ending, James comes across as afraid to entirely commit to the idea, and slightly downplays his culpability ("not the whole truth", "part of me"), like he doesn't want to fully confront it. In the "Leave", however, James fully commits to acknowledging that he had a selfish motive. He admits that his actions were inexcusable, and he doesn't try to downplay or sugar-coat the anger and frustration he felt in the moment. It also casts a new light on why James in the "In Water" ending proceeds to commit suicide, while in the "Leave" ending he lives. In the former, he wasn't strong enough to fully confront his own worst sides, and as such he wasn't strong enough to let go of Mary either, choosing a last desperate attempt to reunite with her in death. In the later, he shows greater inner fortitude by choosing to confront his own darkest impulses head-on, and it is implied that this also what ends up giving him the emotional strength to let go of Mary and his guilt. Mary's responses also say something[=:=] In the former, her response implies frustration and even disappointment at James' inability to let go, while in the latter, her response is gentler and more forgiving, essentially telling him that YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre.:
45	* The credits roll song "Overdose Delusion" for the Leave ending stands out from the other ending songs in that it has a sad chorus while the other songs are more upbeat in general. This might seems like a case of SoundtrackDissonance, but it fits the idea of James stopping his delusions and moving on as a happier person while healthily admitting that he's still sad about Mary's death.
46	* Two of the more overt signs that James is starting to remember the ''true'' details of Mary's death occur directly after James kills Eddie in self-defense (namely, the letter starting to disappear and James wondering if Mary really died three years ago). There are all sorts of reasons why this could be, but how much of it was because James killed someone and realized that ''it felt familiar''...?
47	* The "Free the innocent man" puzzle requires you to read a riddle and pull the noose corresponding to the one hanged convict who was falsely accused. In all four variants of the puzzle (Easy, Normal, Hard and Extra), the murderer is always guilty. Yet another way of Silent Hill reminding James of his sins.
48
49	!! Fridge Horror
50	* Laura was somehow ''dragged to Silent Hill'' even though she literally has not committed any crimes or punishments presumably through the same means that James had with the letter. She had no way to go there except hitchhiking with Eddie (which, thankfully, he was ''sane'' at the time...) and there's also the fact that she has no parents on her or any relatives to care for her. We don't know what happens to her in any of the other endings (and Leave makes it ambiguous as to whether or not James actually adopts her). The fact that Silent Hill can lure an innocent child into this mess makes you wonder how big of a pull it has.
51	** To mitigate this somewhat, she doesn't perceive any of the horrors in the game and seems to not even be aware of the monsters so she might be free to leave at any point (she did get pulled in with Eddie after all). Alternatively, the town may have pulled her in as part of James's trials in the town or even as a chance of salvation for all three of the trapped people.
52	** Could be misremembering here, but wasn't that letter given to Laura while Mary was still alive? If that's the case, then the town probably didn't do anything to summon her; she went to Silent Hill because Mary spoke fondly of the place while they were at the hospital together, so Laura figured she might be able to find her there.
53	*** Also, at one point, Laura mentions a ''second'' letter from Mary, but can't find it when she searches her pockets for it. It's implied that this could well be the full letter that Mary (or Maria) gives James in the three non-secret endings. This letter specifically mentions Silent Hill, and that Mary was "waiting for you..." there, which Laura may well have taken literally, even with the rest of the letter there to provide context and make it clear to someone like James that she was speaking metaphorically.
54	* Speaking of Laura's apparent exemption from the horrors plaguing Silent Hill: yes, she doesn't seem to be aware of the monsters or endangered by its hazards, and even ''Eddie's'' way-too-fragile ego doesn't seem to get riled by the teasing of a little girl. However, the ''Born From A Wish'' prequel scenario does indicate that a very real danger to the child '''did''' lie directly in Laura's path, that only sheer luck seems to have protected her from: the still-loaded ''revolver'' that Maria tosses over the graffiti-covered wall, in the [=DLC=]'s closing scene. We know Laura is curious and likes messing with items she chances upon in Silent Hill's hidden crannies, so even if she never encountered anything supernatural herself, the girl could potentially have shot herself accidentally, and fatally, if she'd picked it up after hopping off that very same wall, following her conversation with James.
55	** That's assuming it was even there at all when Laura happened by. It's strongly suggested that James is the only one who can perceive Maria, so there's no reason to think anything that belonged to her would be available for Laura to find.
56	* Laura may have entered with no sins or guilt at the beginning, but after she learns about Mary's fate, her heart would be filled with grief, anger and denial...which would perk Silent Hill to, perhaps, make a construct of Mary and trap her in the town forever...
57	** This gets even worse if you consider "In Water" as canon. The novelization has her sitting at the edge of the lake and she could have been in full view of James driving his car into it. What type of thoughts would go into her head if she thinks that it's ''her'' fault that James killed himself?
58	* More horror involving Laura but if she does get adopted by James, let's hope she doesn't learn how James had to kill Eddie or learn how Eddie was mentally troubled and went as far as to kill a dog. Or better yet, does she ever realize that Eddie died?

Context Fridge / SilentHill2