Eddie and Angela are both living proof that while going through Silent Hill can be good for you, it also might not. Whatever spiritual power exists in the town, it's only a mirror. Mirrors don't care about you one way or another.
In their cases, Silent Hill simply ended up reinforcing their inner demons. The same thing can happen to James too of course.
Disgusted, but not surprisedAnd while I say he is the bad guy, in truth this isn't a game with a hero or an antagonist.
The best ending is even achieved by James admitting that he's the bad guy in a way. Note that in the final dialogue leading up to the Leave Ending, he admits that killing Mary wasn't done out of mercy. He was angry at her, he hated what she had become, and he wanted his life back. He doesn't sugarcoat his selfish motives. Though "Mary" also points out he's being a little too hard on himself.
Edited by M84 on Oct 23rd 2024 at 9:05:58 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedMary *wanted* to adopt Laura and escape the hospital. But wanting and *intended* are different things. Mary knows she will die at that point. Not might. Will. Much as Mary doesn't want to, she knows she will.
I think "James is the bad guy" feeds into the self-flagellation exercise that Silent Hill is. That Pyramid Head is. James isn't "the bad guy" and the game goes out of it's way to express that; Mary herself states that she wanted the pain to end as a counter point to James expressing disgust at his own actions.
Even when James acknowledges that but says "That wasn't the reason I did it", Mary again counters him that "Then why do you look so sad?". I think James had multiple reasons he euthanized his wife and he's beating himself up over some very conflicting emotions he had about the situation.
Mary says "I wanted the pain to end" and I think there are two interpretations of this; I think James interprets it as ending Mary's pain but he "benefits" (note the quotations here) from her death and believes that he is being inherently selfish in doing so or even having any "benefit" at all from the outcome, thus the guilt and pain Silent Hill puts him through. Meanwhile, I think Mary meant I want both of our pain to end. That they both can be free.
I never really loved the whole conversation about "James needs to not white-knight women" or that his desire to save his wife is bad. In a more typical video game power fantasy commentary? Sure. But when we're dealing with a more grounded real emotion here- James sat there and could only watch his beloved wife very slowly and painfully suffer and die over god knows how many years... Why is he the bad guy for having guilt over not being able to do anything for her?
He needs to accept his wife's death. He doesn't need to not try save her. Those are different things.
Especially as Mary became a very... (understandably as she's in her own pain) difficult person to be around. We hear this in the conversation in that last Hotel Hallway- James brought her flowers and she really threw it in his face. What this tells me is that, up until the very end, James kept trying to do anything no matter how small to help his wife and I think he never felt like he was doing the right thing. He wracked with Survivor's Guilt. Hence where a lot of his guilt stems from.
As for Angela... I feel like the original has more of a point with the white knighting *maybe*, but less so in the remake. James is not wrong to be saying "Hey, this town is fucking crazy and full of monsters and maybe walking around alone is a really bad idea". I don't really see how that's "White Knighting". I see the remake as instead portraying James as empathetic to those around him, if just unsure of himself or quite how to help. That empathy is the source of a lot of his pain.
If these were situations and circumstances or even characters that were far more capable of handling everything and James was still insistent on "protection", sure. But this is a complete horror town. No one is really capable of handling this place. Period. Angela and Maria aren't exactly swinging shotguns around themselves and the game even orchestrates small moments where we explicitly do have to save them from a monster and they'll call you out for not doing anything. Can't have your cake and eat it too here...
If James walked into the Abstract Daddy room and did nothing, he'd be a fucking dick. If he just let the elevator door close on Maria and didn't try to save her, he would also be a fucking dick. There are certain situations that, when presented with them, you really ought to intervene and especially if you're the only person around.
As soon as Angela doesn't respond well to him post-Abstract Daddy, he takes a pause and backs off. I think Angela reading ill-intent into James dialogue speaks more toward her pain and suffering than it does anything he actually said. The game is telling us about Angela, not James.
Or, let's look at that Mirror Room scene with Angela. I think a lot of people read into James getting the Knife away from Angela as him "disarming" her, or that's what I've seen in some places. I think some seem to ignore her confused and disassociative remarks in the scene and that getting the knife away from this woman is probably a pretty normal and rational idea here. If irl someone described to me how Angela was acting, one of my first questions would be "And you didn't try to get the knife away from her?". Same as Eddie's behavior at the start of the Prison when he holds a gun to his head- hey, let's maybe put that down for a bit...
A point a lot of fans and even later Silent Hills seem to forget, whatever power haunts the town isn't about "punishment", it's just bringing personal demons to life, the trauma and guilt of those called to it, whether they deserve it or not.
Angela cannot possibly be blamed for murdering her monstrous father, but she feels she deserves to suffer anyway, and thus her Silent Hill is a fire-and-brimstone Hell.
Edited by Proglottid on Oct 24th 2024 at 1:22:15 AM
It's just the Cave from Dagobah.
Mind you, the Cult has torn what was a Native American site of spiritual power to the horrible thing it is now.
There's no "good" side to Silent Hill because they warped it by torturing a little girl and their sick rites. Silent Hill 2 can confuse players into thinking it can be a kind of Purgatory or neutral place but it's not remotely that.
It's a toxic river completely now.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Even before the cult showed up, the region's spiritual power was being corrupted by a whole lot of bad shit happening such as multiple epidemics. The USA Civil War breaking out didn't help either.
But when the Order showed up...hoo boy did things get worse fast.
That's probably why the power of the place reacts mostly to fucked up people even without the Order's direct interference.
Edited by M84 on Oct 24th 2024 at 10:04:37 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedAnd with Silent Hill f on the horizon (assuming Konami doesn't cancel it for whatever reason), it's clear now that whatever happened to Silent Hill itself wasn't uniquely tied to just that one town; other places all over the world could potentially become just as supernaturally-corrupted as it. Perhaps the corruption could even spread to the entire world.
Edited by TrashJack on Oct 24th 2024 at 4:33:28 AM
"Cynic, n. β A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary[quoteblock]There's no "good" side to Silent Hill because they warped it by torturing a little girl and their sick rites. Silent Hill 2 can confuse players into thinking it can be a kind of Purgatory or neutral place but it's not remotely that.[/quoteblock]
Well, a lot of that can kinda be attributed to how disconnected SH 2 was from the rest of the series. Silent Hill 2 doesn't try to over explain the reasons for the town becoming this personal demon hellscape. And it's all the better for it. It doesn't play into the dumb hokey cult plotline.
Going into deep explanations on "Native American Burial Grounds" and "Evil cults summoning a demon" kinda... they're kinda dumb. And the first one is lowkey pretty racist. I know SH 2 is the sequel here, but it also proved that we really didn't need much of an explanation to buy into the concept the game was selling of an abandoned town giving life to people's personal demons.

Angela calls James out for trying to white-knight her in his Hero fantasy, and I wish the remake had kept the first person view of that scene, because it ends up calling out the players as well. You sympathize with Angela, you want her to get better, you want to save her. But Angela's ultimate salvation depends on herself, the players cannot provide the help she needs, and James is most definitely NOT that person.
But he can be there for Laura, and they can give each other the help they need, going forward
Edited by Proglottid on Oct 23rd 2024 at 1:54:32 AM