Analyse des personnages de Silent Hill 2 et leur symbolisme en relation avec le héros du jeu – Partie 2

We continue our article:

After talking about Mary, now might be a good time to move on to discussing Maria.

Maria seems to be completely different from Mary in almost everything: she wears provocative, social, vivacious clothes, but she can also be sarcastic and harsh at times. As mentioned earlier, Maria is not a real person, but a creation of the town, born from James’s personal desires but has turned into something harsh.

While the game does not necessarily present Maria as a good character, most game versions contain a sub-scenario called « Born From A Wish » which portrays Maria in a slightly better light. This scenario begins with Maria in front of a mirror in a strip club called Heaven’s Night, wondering what she should do. In the end, she decides that facing the monsters outside is better than staying there, and sets off.

In this scenario, Maria encounters an old mansion and meets its reclusive owner, Ernest Baldwin. Through exploring the mansion and talking to Ernest, she discovers that he had a little daughter who died 10 years ago after falling from an upper window. One of the last things Maria does is get a bottle of White Chrism (which plays a role in the ending of the main game Rebirth) and gives it to Ernest. One of the last things Ernest does is warn her about James, whom she seems to know at this point even though she has not met him yet. Maria opens the door Ernest was trapped in to find that he has disappeared.

Then we move on to Maria walking towards Rosewater Park. She pauses for a moment, contemplating shooting herself, but ultimately throws the gun over the wall and continues walking.

What is interesting is her expression after she has tossed the gun: she seems to show complete resignation, as if she does not want any of this, but realizes there is no escape from her fate.

Another intriguing aspect is how Mary’s character seeps into Maria. One example is Maria’s concern for protecting Laura. Most adults would be concerned seeing a little girl alone in a dangerous place, but Maria appears to be extremely anxious about her, as if she already knows Laura. Another example is in her cell in the Labyrinth, where Maria starts talking about the video James recorded for Mary at the hotel, something she should not know about.

And now, since we have discussed Laura, let’s move on to talking about her.

Laura is an orphaned girl who was in the same hospital Mary was at for some time. During that time, they became very close, to the point where Mary said she would have adopted her if it were possible. They talked a lot about Mary and James’s vacation to Silent Hill, to the extent that Laura assumed the « beautiful quiet place » Mary mentioned in her last letter was Silent Hill. This is what led her to go there, accompanied by Eddie.

Laura initially appears somewhat bratty, and she really does not like James, believing he was harsh on Mary at the end of her life. This is evident in her behavior when she stepped on his hand as he tried to reach a key, and her attempt to deceive him with a prank in the hospital. And although her prank turned deadly in the end, she was unaware of that.

In fact, Laura seems unable to see the monsters that James deals with, as shown when she wonders why he is surprised she did not get hurt. It also seems she has avenues open to her closed to James, as evidenced by her arrival at the hotel before him. The reason for this is that she is a child, and since she is innocent, there is nothing in the town that could torment her.

In fact, it seems that Laura was summoned to the town primarily to put James on the path to truth. Through her conversations with him, James begins to realize that his memories of events may not be reliable.

There is a theory among some fans that Laura, like Maria, is part of the town’s creation and represents another part of Mary’s spirit. But I do not believe this is true. Firstly, we know much more about Laura than we do about Maria. Moreover, the game’s introduction clarifies that Laura came to town with Eddie and interacted with him, whereas Maria only interacted with James.

He has very valid reasons to be angry. But Eddie expresses his anger in extremely unhealthy ways, essentially by killing everything he encounters.

As for Eddie’s reasons for anger, they stem from years of repeated abuse from people around him, which largely focused on his weight and general appearance. Eddie also seems to suffer from some form of neurodiversity, making him a target of constant mockery from his peers. One day, Eddie loses control of himself, grabs his father’s gun, and shoots and kills a local dog.

(Interesting fact: Killing and torturing animals are early signs of serial killers).

After that, Eddie shoots one of those who were tormenting him in the knee, resulting in severe injuries but without killing him. Once Eddie realizes what he has done and its consequences, he flees and leaves the town, finding himself in Silent Hill.

We see glimpses of Eddie’s « otherworld » during the game. This world is full of bodies, which Eddie initially insists he has no relation to. Later, the conversations suggest that the town recreates people who made his life a living hell, all of them laughing at him. In the end, Eddie confesses to killing all the bodies James sees.

There is also the room where the boss battle against Eddie takes place: a large freezing room filled with meat suspended on hooks, which looks somewhat eerie. This meat may symbolize his tangled relationship with food, which may be the cause of his weight issues.

He is the only character in the game, aside from Mary and perhaps Maria, whose life ends at the hands of James. After James tries and fails to persuade Eddie that he is wrong in his actions, Eddie attacks him, ultimately killing him in self-defense. This moment, like his conversation with Laura, prompts James to question his purpose in this place.

And finally, last but certainly not least, we come to Angela.

Angela has one of the most horrifying backstories in the game, and perhaps the worst, even compared to a seven-year-old girl being burned. While the game does not explicitly mention what happened to her, the hints are very strong. Angela suffered ongoing physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her father, and in the narrative, she also suffered abuse from her brother. And the worst part is that her mother did not intervene, but clearly told her that she deserved it.

In the end, this abuse drove Angela to repeatedly stab her father with a butcher knife while he slept, before fleeing to Silent Hill. It is not clear what happened to her mother and brother, but the fact that she was searching for them in the graveyard at the beginning of the game indicates that things did not end well.

When the player first meets Angela, she appears anxious and scared. She constantly apologizes, a common behavior among abuse victims trying to avoid further harm. But she also sarcastically attacks James when he tries to help her, simply because she believes she does not deserve help. She expresses this clearly in her final conversation with him.

There are two moments in the game where Angela’s « otherworld » intersects with James’s world. The first is in the Labyrinth maze, when James saves her from the monster known as Abstract Daddy. The room where the battle takes place is covered in flesh-like substance, with presses moving in holes on the walls.

It does not take much thought to understand what that symbolizes.

The second moment occurs in the « otherworld » hotel, before the final battle with Pyramid Head. Here, James finds Angela on a burning staircase, surrounded by two figures hanging on the wall, covered in a cloth that seems to have blood in their genital areas. This reiterates the abuse Angela suffered and the hell she went through.

Unlike Eddie, Angela chooses to end her own life. She asks James to return the knife she gave him earlier, but he refuses. She then ascends the stairs, where it is implied she has found a way to end her life without needing the knife.

Honestly, Angela is probably the most empathetic character in the game, thanks to her tragic story.