Silent Hill 2 Remake successfully improved what was already good. With the launch of the remake, players got to experience one of the most peak psychological horror games once again. And some for the first time.
Silent Hill 2’s heartbreaking and emotionally deep storyline shows people with traumatizing pasts. Also, how they deal with it in their own way. While some try to justify it, some deny it and some accept it as a lifelong burden.
Here’s how Silent Hill 2 turns real traumas and fears into a beautifully well-crafted game.
The main narrative of the game
The story of Silent Hill 2 revolves around our main character, James. After he gets a letter from his dead wife, Mary, asking him to come to their special place. The special place happens to be the town of Silent Hill.
Silent Hill is a place that calls people with strong emotional feelings and shapes the town according to their psyche. James starts looking for his wife. As the story progresses, we get to realise that it was James who killed Mary.
The creatures of Silent Hill
Each one of Silent Hill’s creatures are manifestations from the mind of the person who’s facing them. The game introduces us to multiple monsters. They represent the emotions of James’s subconscious in the face of his wife’s sickness and death.
James had created everything we knew about him in his own mind. Throughout the game we meet other characters with similar stories. And all of them suffer from their own version of guilt, trauma and past horrors.
The Pyramid Head or the scariest enemy in the game
One of the scariest enemies of Silent Hill 2. Pyramid Head is the physical manifestation of James’s desire to be punished and tormented. He is found hurting another monster in the first encounter, which can represent James overpowering his dying wife.
Pyramid head kills Maria a total of 3 times. Mostly to show James that he killed Mary. As Maria is Silent Hill’s version of Mary and acts as a distraction for James. Ever time she dies he comes closer to accepting his reality.
When Maria is killed for the last time James accepts his crime. And being fulfilled their purpose of showing him the truth, the two Pyramid heads impale themselves on their own spears.
Lying figures that look like a failed experiment
Found very early in the game, lying figures represent his ill wife in her hospital bed. And its main attack is an acid spit that can be a representation of vomit, which further shows just how sick Mary was. And with no hands and pale skin, it mainly shows how Mary was during her last days.
The lying figures don’t have any arms which can be related to how James was unable to touch or hold Mary during her illness. As the game progress the lying figures eventually start crawling on the ground and screeching like it’s in pain. This can indicate James’s growing disgust towards Mary.
The Mannequins of pure horror
The Mannequins are a representation of James’s natural human urges and tendency as he gets more and more frustrated with his wife’s illness. With just 2 pairs of legs for a body, they can also be looked upon as an attempt by James to forget his wife’s sick torso.
On our first encounter with Pyramid head is seen physically abusing two Mannequins to death. This can be symbolism to James’s killing marry by force by using his bare hands with no hesitation.
The Mandarin with its underground spikes
Hanging by a metal grate with a bottomless pit below them, the mandarins represent James’s suppression of reality in his mind. The endless abyss can represent the dark and scary guilt he might feel in case he accepts the truth.
Mandarins might represent James’s helplessness and how he’s only holding on to the last shreds of humanity in him. If he lets go and accepts his faith he’s scared the he too might call into a deep dark abyss and never return i.e die.
By the time we get to see the mandarins’ true form, James is starting to accept his reality and thus letting the emotions he suppressed resurface.
Other twisted and gruesome-looking enemies
Enemies like the flesh lips and both final bosses represent Mary’s dying state and her constantly lying in the hospital bed. Using the bed frame to attack and a weirdly shaped structure show James’s mixed emotions towards his wife in her last days.
The bubblehead nurses with their masked faces and weird movements are suggestive of James’s frustration and desire towards his wife, Mary.
They can also signify James’ constant connection with hospitals. This could’ve also led him to feel confined and resentful towards Mary’s sickness.
Other victims of Silent Hill
The self-loathing of Angela Orosco
In Silent Hill 2, along with James, we meet other people who carry their version of shame and guilt. Very early in the game, we meet Angela, a young woman who’s come to look for her mother.
Angela is seen spiralling towards more depression and sorrow throughout the game. Eventually, we get to know that she was abused by her father, and the boss, Abstract Daddy, was a physical manifestation of her hatred and fear towards him.
The abstract daddy’s design looks like two people lying on a bed frame, with the smaller one below the bigger one. This is enough to show how horribly her father abused her and scarred her for life.
Angela, as a child who was abused by her father, thinks she deserved what happened, as said by her own mother. This leads her to believe that she doesn’t deserve the help or pity that James offered her.
Angela’s version of the otherworld is a place on fire, suggesting a constant feeling of constant pain and agony. Even by the end, she is unable to let go of her past and leaves with the same feelings of guilt she came with.
The coldness of Eddie Dombroski
Another character we meet in Silent Hill 2 is Eddie. On our first encounter, there’s a dead body in the room with him. James never implies that Eddie killed him but he still tries to refuse it.
As we get deeper into the game, we get to know that Eddie was bullied for his physical appearance, and the man he’s always killing is supposedly one of his bullies.
Eddie seems to believe everyone in the world is trying to make fun of him, and with this, he justifies his action of killing his bully. His version of the otherworld the opposite of Angela’s otherworlds. Encompassing a freezing, cold, and dark meat locker, which represents how he feels no remorse towards his murders.
Eddie is seen killing the same man over and over again, which can suggest that for him, it’s just everyone who’s ever bullied or made fun of him. And eventually, due to his paranoia and delusions, he thinks James is making fun of him, too, and attempts to kill him.
During the fight, Eddie admits to killing a dog and the bully. He says how he enjoyed killing the bully even more than the dog. In his dying breaths, he says to James that they’re not so different. As the town called upon both of them.
How did Silent Hill affect James?
For James, Silent Hill is like a foggy and dark ghost town. Filled with creatures that represent the manifestations of his subconscious mind. From the beginning, James shows signs of deep sorrow and regret.
For James, his greatest fear was accepting his reality. And the tormenting forces of Silent Hill use exactly this to haunt him with his own thoughts. The strong feeling of guilt, shame, resentment, and fear of the truth made him the perfect person for Silent Hills to call upon.
