Silent Hill 2/WMG

Silent Hill 2 is based on The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix.
No, it's not just confirmation bias.
 * This troper once fell asleep while listening to this song, and suddenly, the dream he had about this song makes much more sense.

Silent Hill 2 is actually based on Blue Velvet and Lost Highway.
In Blue Velvet, Kyle Mc Lachlan ducks in a closet and watches Dennis Hopper rape Isabella Rossellini. He's then drawn into a sordid world of sex and violence, and Dennis Hopper (who, in his own words, will "f*** anything that moves") beats him half to death and possibly rapes him. In Lost Highway, Bill Pullman finds a video tape on his doorstep that shows him killing his wife. To escape what he's done, he uses the infinite magics from beyond time and night to transform himself into Balthazar Getty. Once he becomes Balthazar Getty, he meets a woman who looks just like his dead wife and starts sleeping with her. Silent Hill 2 is probably the closest thing to a video game written and directed by David Lynch you'll ever play.
 * This troper find this theory interesting, but disagrees with that last sentence.

Alessa and Mira the Dog are the same person!
Think about it. Alessa created the Otherworld, and Mira is shown to have total control over it. How can this be unless they're connected? Eddie killed a dog that belonged to one of his tormenters, and Mira is implied in SH 2's Dog Ending to be the very same dog he killed, meaning that Mira is a ghost haunting and controlling Silent Hill. Seeing the dots connect yet? Only one thing could've allowed this to happen: If Mira was a psychic like Alessa, whom the Otherworld accepted as its master.

You see, when Alessa's soul was split, it actually divided into three fragments: Alessa, Cheryl, and her furry side, Mira. Just look at his best friend: Claudia WOLF? Ahem? She clearly drew her fursona and everything, judging by the "wolf" drawing in Midwich Elementary. This is indeed the very reason Dahlia burned her.

The "furry" fragment incarnated as Mira, whom lived a normal dog life until Eddie's torment caused her to take over the Otherworld and exact revenge; however, she cannot target those protected by the Cat, whom Laura draws all over town in a manner reminiscent of the Virun VII Crest.

As my final piece of evidence, consider this: In the UFO ending of Shattered Memories, CHERYL AND MIRA ARE THE SAME PERSON!

Alessa is afraid of dogs because of Mira (the god of Silent Hill).
Mira really screwed her over, kicking her out of the afterlife, giving her all sorts of powers, and making a new realm alongside Silent Hill out of her worst nightmares. She would have gotten over being bitten were it not for that shiba inu who kept making demons and trying to kill people.

Pyramid Head doesn't just represent James' latent guilt, he is James, post the "In Water" ending via the Timey Wimey Ball.

 * And the second Pyramid Head is Eddie, right?
 * No. Trick mirrors.
 * Nice knowing that I'm not the only one who believes this.
 * How about more of an in-depth explanation? If you notice that whenever you fight Pyramid Head in the game and he thrusts his big sword or spear at you, he will make the same grunt that James makes whenever he gets hit by a monster. Perhaps it's just laziness on Konami's part and they couldn't find a random person to provide vocals for PH so they recycled James' voice actor's grunts and used them, but even that too would be a bit of a stretch. Why bother making PH sound like James? Everyone seems to agree that Pyramid Head is a part of the protagonist of SH 2. IF the In Water ending happens then James doesn't get a chance to really 'go on' with his life as Mary had wished and he's doomed himself to Silent Hill purgatory for a while. Pyramid Head walks as if he's carrying a heavy burden and it's his job to deal out sentences to the guilty. It's only fitting that this is what James becomes if he fails to see the point of his whole trip and selfishly takes his life instead. Like James, Pyramid Head is not a villain, but merely a misunderstood character whose actions are not entirely laden with ill intent after the whole story is revealed. It seems his intentions throughout the game were ultimately good in the end. He had to break James' delusion and make him see the truth before it is too late. Maria was a distraction for James and the one thing preventing him from being able to own up to what he did to his wife. So one can conclude: James, although he smothered his sick wife with a pillow, is still at the core of his being a good man who is a victim of circumstance caused by not being able to handle the pain and the stress from seeing his wife deteriorate before his eyes. His need to find his wife and concern for the other characters indicate he is not an entirely bad person. And Pyramid Head was born from James' need to correct his wrong and the only part of James that knows the truth. James is also able to wield the Great Knife after finding it. Perhaps this is PH's way of reminding James of what he could become. But back to the In Water ending if it's the ending you want to believe. It would actually explain a lot as to why Pyramid Head seems bigger in size in the Arcade game and Silent Hill Homecoming. He is James Sunderland with all of the guilt of his actions realized and now a permanent apparatus of Silent Hill as opposed to being a tool from his own mind that the town exploited to "help" him.
 * Interesting, and certainly plausible, but in all seriousness, what about the second Pyramid Head?


 * Not the OP, but I have an idea. The second Pyramid Head is also James, but from a different ending. This is possible since the "Leave" ending is the only one where he actually moves on with his life.

Maria is the God of Silent Hill's cult, or at least a piece of her she uses to interact with humans.
From repeated viewings (and ignoring the Born from a Wish scenario), it's obvious that Maria is the "Big Bad", for lack of a more appropriate term, of Silent Hill 2. She uses the letter to direct James towards his and Mary's "special place", which James assumes to be Rosewater Park, where she is waiting for him. She controls the Pyramid Heads, instructing them to cause James the most suffering while keeping him alive (remember when it left after the Hopeless Boss Fight? Maria called it away). She is the most prominent and influential facet of James' delusions, exerting more control than any other. She can appear anywhere in the town regardless of circumstances, and unlike Laura she isn't an innocent who doesn't see the town as a nightmare. She is the one that James confronts on the roof of the Hotel and has to defeat in order to be free of his guilt and pain, Mary being the one that gives him absolution afterwards (for two of the Multiple Endings, at least). But why would she do these things?

From the first and third game it's obvious that the cult's God feeds on suffering and misery, either to sustain herself or merely as part of her summoning ritual. However, while Alessa had to live in misery for seven years before she could birth God and a further seven years in unending agony for God to regain her power after Alessa's soul was split, Heather only had to nurture God for a day at most with her hatred for Claudia until God was born. This is because after being defeated by Harry and returning to a dormant state within the newly-born Heather, a piece of God remained in Silent Hill. Unable to either leave the town or exercise much influence over it, she spent the seventeen years between her two summoning attempts attracting people "with darkness in their hearts" towards Silent Hill in order to gain power from them, employing whatever form and methods necessary to draw the most (the Maria ending being the ending where she wins, ensuring James will repeat his actions and provide her with power for years to come), guaranteeing that when Heather returned with her other piece she could be summoned far more promptly (also explaining why she was far larger than in the first game).

Laura CAN See Monsters
It is established Laura is very brave and determined...even if she can't see the monsters very few girls would be willing to run around an empty hospital and play. We know that she resents James for the role that she feels that James treated Mary, and her own jealousy of James for competing with her for Mary's attention and affection. We know that Silent Hill somehow brought her there, and that she is intending to find Mary. So, taking that all together, Laura could very well be seeing the monsters and avoiding them instead of fighting them...her monsters may not be as severe as James' because her torment is built around her fear of abandonment and loneliness rather than guilt for murder. She is going through the obstacles in moving through the town and is angling toward the hotel just like James, explaining why she keeps running into him. She does not tell him about what she is seeing, however, because she refuses to show weakness to him. She tries so hard to stop him because she sees him as part of the town's obstacles, which makes sense considering that James is trying, in the hospital, to stop her from moving forward.
 * I agree with this, but for a different reason. The Book of Lost Memories only states that to Laura, "the town appears to be normal". Now think about it - Laura is an eight-(or so)-year-old girl. What would be "normal" to someone that young? It's quite possible that Laura considers monsters "normal", and therefore still can see the monsters, but they don't pose a threat to her since they don't attack her. This could lead her to believe that the monsters aren't dangerous, hence why she locks James in a room with one - she knows it's there, but she doesn't think she's putting James's life in danger.

Pyramid head is someone who didn't overcome Silent Hill's torture.
He didn't make it, so he wears a mask to hide his shame, drags around a giant knife as a symbol of his failure, is trapped in the otherworld forever, rapes other monsters to deal with it, and occasionally helps the protagonist so they don't share his fate.

In contrast to Maria, Laura is a figment of James imagination to represent the other side of Mary.
Laura is the non sexual, innocent side that hates James for smothering Mary.

Everyone in the town is high out of their minds on White Claudia.
Maybe all of the White Claudia plants growing nearby have been releasing pollen spores into the air ensuring complete global saturation, or some crazy cultist sabotaged the town's water supply, or what-have-you, but thanks to the blessings of White Claudia, nothing that's ever allegedly happened in the games reflects what happened in real life. In reality, Silent Hill's population simply lost their minds a long time ago, the protagonists included, and they've been running around the town smashing windows and shooting at each other in between smearing blood and graffiti all over the walls. The alleged Dark World we've seen in the games is nothing more than an incredibly vivid hallucination- a fever dream of a town gone mad.

Nobody except James in Silent Hill 2 was real.
Eddie and Angela represent the two different conflicting sides of James' personality: the idea of fleeing from guilt vs the idea of being consumed by it. Eddie is only concerned about himself, and doesn't really care about the violence he caused, in the end, accepting the idea that it actually made his life better. This is directly relational to the fact that his crime was the least motivated, and thus, James sees Eddie as being unsympathetic, much like he is unwilling to forgive himself (this troper takes the In Water ending as canon) for the perceived selfish nature of his crime. Notably, Eddie isn't looking for anyone. He's just trying to get away from his crime, much like James repressed the memory of what he did to himself, effectively "getting away from his crime." Angela, on the other hand, was arguably the most justified in what she did, killing her father, who abused her (before she died, Mary verbally abused James). This ties in to the sympathetic nature of the act that James did, performing a mercy killing on Mary. Yet Angela clearly is consumed by guilt, and is trying to find her mother, perhaps to find some for of forgiveness. James, likewise, is also subconsciously seeking forgiveness for what could be perceived as a sympathetic act. Maria and Laura are a bit more clear cut, with Maria obviously representing the idealized sexual form of Mary, and Laura representing the idea of a Mary that is sexually unavailable to James, is openly antagonistic to him, and that he doesn't really care for.

The Pyramid Heads are the direct servants of Silent Hill's power.
Every single other monster in the game functions as a metaphor for James' sorrow/guilt/sexuality/whatever in their form but not their actions (with the exception of the Doorman, but that's for another folder), all of them attacking James indiscriminately. The Pyramid Heads however function as a metaphor in their actions but not their form, raping other monsters and killing Maria but appearing as something James wouldnâ€™t recognise. As all the games more than heavily suggest that the appearance of Silent Hill and its denizens is influenced by whomever is currently the focus of the town, this is an anomaly.

The Historical Society offers the main clue, that executioners, "the punishers of the guilty" in the town's past, most likely related to its ubiquitous cult, wore almost identical outfits, which were either inspired by the Pyramid Heads or were used as inspiration themselves. This means that the Pyramid Heads are a manifestation of the town's power directly instead of a manifestation of another's mind, perhaps possessing only the role of a punisher or perhaps fulfilling different roles required by different people, but always retaining the same appearance.

This also has some implications for Maria, who functions as a metaphor in both form and actions, suggesting that like the Pyramid Heads she is a direct manifestation of the town but is capable of altering her appearance (which brings new meaning to when James asks her "Aren't you Maria?" and she replies with "I am... if you want me to be").

Angela represents Mary as victim.
If Maria is the sexualized version of Mary, and Laura is the innocent, nonsexual ideal, and Eddie is James as murderer, then Angela represents Mary as the victimized female. Angela is the victim of a violent abusive male who was a member of her own family and supposed to be her protector, just as James failed to fulfill his duty to his wife as her protector and was eventually her killer. There's also the imagery of sexual violence that surrounds Angela, and the fact that she accuses James of being like her father because she says that all men are alike and only want one thing. This is an abstraction of James' unfulfilled sexual desire and thoughts of infidelity as his wife was bedridden and no longer attractive to him, which he felt guilty for, and his tortured mind conflated this as the motivation for her murder. This is why Angela alternately appears as the victimized female in need of James' assistance, and someone who is antagonistic and directing blame towards him.

James Sunderland is Harry Mason, even if Word of God says otherwise.
After escaping Silent Hill with his daughter, Harry got remarried and legally changed his name to avoid the Order. For a time, however, he repressed his memories of what Silent Hill was truly like, or he thought that if he went to a different part of the town, he could avoid the Order. After the events of Silent Hill 2, he came back home to raise Cheryl/Heather. The Order was able to track him down due to the second he came to Silent Hill, and kill him.
 * age discrepancies there man, James was 29 at Silent Hill 2 while Harry was 32 in the Original Silent Hill
 * This troper is guilty of not factoring in age for this WMG.

The Good+ Ending is canon.
James escaped, adopted Laura, got back into his job as a store clerk, got over Mary and moved on with his life.

Silent Hill 5 is going to be about Laura coming back to Silent Hill...
 * Jossed; Silent Hill 5 has nothing at all to do with Silent Hill 2 -- not counting the appearance of Pyramid Head, since he was based off of the movie version this time around -- unless Alex and Mary are somehow related. Then again, they do have the same last name (Shepherd, Mary's maiden name), so you never know.

Laura is dead.
Laura keeps saying that she knew Mary and is looking for her, and eventually reveals that she met her in a hospital. She also keeps saying that Silent Hill is "her world" and seems to only exist in the "normal" Silent Hill (well, as normal as it gets) - she is never present in the "dark world". Also note that Laura is most often seen in the hospital, and most of the events concerning her (such as when she locks James in a room with a monster) happen there. She is often said to have wanted a world without adults, which Silent Hill manifests as for her (she does interact with Eddie, but she doesn't think much of him, and she doesn't seem to be aware of Maria - also note that she acts hostile to James, who is also an adult). It is entirely possible that Laura died in the hospital, and Silent Hill is "heaven" for her - an empty town void of adults in which she can play and do whatever she wants.

Pyramid Head is an authoritative figure in Silent Hill.
This is mainly a Just for Fun theory, since it's pretty much already been confirmed that Pyramid Head is the manifestation of James's repressed guilt brought to life by the town, but let's go with it. James killed Mary, meaning that he committed murder (even if it was a mercy kill, it was still murder). That's why Pyramid Head is coming after James - he wants to punish him for his crime. Also note that Pyramid Head doesn't appear in any other games (Silent Hill V doesn't count, since it was made in America and that game's Pyramid Head was based on the movie version). When it stabbed Maria, it was trying to stab James but missed (it probably can't see very well with that helmet).

James is a burgeoning serial killer, and Silent Hill (2) is a reflection of his psychosis.
Major unmasked spoilers ahead.

The major supposition of this WMG is that the Silent Hill presented in the second game is unrelated to the town in the other games, and is instead a product of James's mind. You can (if you like this theory, which I do) find a lot of evidence and interpretation to support this.

First of all, the biggest jumping-off point is the highly sexualized nature of the violence and monsters in the game. A lot of players seem to assume that this is a product of James's repression due to not having had a sexual relationship since Mary's death. I believe, however, that it indicates, instead, a sexually sadistic streak in James--put simply, he's a misogynist who gets off on hurting and killing women. Look at the mannequins, for example: they're composed solely of the lower half of the female body, which can easily be interpreted as a tendency toward objectification of women. The nurses are similar, nurse outfits and sexy female nurses being a common fetish or fantasy. The abstract daddy monsters are symbols of sexual violence and exploitation against a female character, who later simply gives up and dies.

In fact, almost all the female characters in this game represent misogynistic ideation. Angela is sexually abused by her father, kills him, and then gives in to her own despair and disappears (we can assume that she dies, or maybe was Dead All Along), which makes her a sort of archetype of the woman as victim. Her mother was an uncaring woman who not only knew about the abuse but told Angela that she deserved it! Woman as villain. Maria represents a number of things in the game, but her overtly and inappropriately sexual behavior can be seen as woman as tempter/seducer and her multiple violent deaths, usually incorporating or shortly following a sexually suggestive theme show James's disdain for women and possibly even a disgust or fear of female sexuality (at least as relates to his interactions with women). This image is taken further during the fight with the 'lustful lips' after Laura locks you into the office in the hospital--the monsters in question are, essentially, female genitalia encased in a bed frame. This suggests a character who feels threatened by female sexuality.

Speaking of Laura, she is only female in the game not portrayed in an overtly negative fashion, and even she's shown as annoying and often provokes James to irritation or hampers his progress, interesting since she's also the only female in the game who is even vaguely capable or surviving without his interference or protection. The lack of negativity could be tied into the fact that Laura is not viewed as a sexual object--she's a child, not yet having achieved puberty, and therefore not threatening in the same way that a grown woman would be. However, her relationship with Mary brings to mind the idea that eventually, Laura too will grow up and become just another woman, which makes James react somewhat more negatively to her.

Pyramid Head, likewise, is manifestation of James (this is played pretty overtly in the game). James says towards the end of the game that he created Pyramid Head as a means of punishment. Specifically, Pyramid Head is presumed to be a manifestation of James's guilt over killing Mary, who is now punishing James for his crimes. However, Pyramid Head can also be read as a personification of James's misogyny, because he/it is often shown raping and killing other (female) monsters as well as killing Maria (the sexual temptress) in a VERY sexually suggestive way by "penetrating" her body with his spear. Thus, Pyramid Head punishes females for their perceived sins or weaknesses, just as James, in a sense, punished Mary for her weakness (her illness) which he says took over his life (because he had to take care of her). James being able to later acquire and use Pyramid Head's great knife is also an interesting connection between the two. It's not until James is able to somewhat recognize these tendencies that Pyramid Head is defeated and James can move on to his final confrontation.

All well and good, but where do I get "serial killer" out of this, you ask. Well, aside from the fact that violent misogyny is a hallmark of many, many real-life serial killers, there's the fact of James's relationship with and--more importantly--preoccupation with Mary and her death. Many serial killers' first victim is someone close to them, and often that first murder will take place early in life, with subsequent killings happening years later and usually more frequently. Many such killers also follow a pattern of killing victims who have some perceived or symbolic similarity to that first victim.

In James's case, killing Mary would be his first murder. His preoccupation with her and her death, combined with the misogynist tendencies discussed above, would lead to the subsequent killings. Maria represents his victim archetype: a woman who is visually reminiscent of Mary, whom he had grown to hate, and who is blatantly and inappropriately seductive. (It's worth noting that James reacts with anger and sometimes disgust to her innuendos, while at the same time trying to sneak a peek down her blouse when her back is turned.) This is particularly evident if you believe that Mary was actually created by Silent Hill as an amalgamation of James's feelings about women. She dresses and acts provocatively, is implied to be a stripper or involved with the strip club (given that she has keys to the locks on the club's door), and is physically fragile and weak, needing James to protect her from monsters and being unable to keep up with him because she tires easily. She's also shown coughing and taking medicine, similar to the way we see Mary in flashbacks, which indicates that illness is also an aspect of James's victim profile.

During the cutscene that precedes the final boss fight (which is also with a female entity), the boss can be either Mary or Maria, depending on the player's actions during the game. Mary in that scene represents James's guilt over and preoccupation with his proto-victim, while Maria symbolizes his hatred of women in general. The boss fight is James's struggle to overcome his murderous urges.

The various endings indicate the various possible outcomes of that struggle. James can become consumed by his obsession with Mary, neither able to forgive himself (and her) and move on, nor willing to wholly give in to his hatred, leading to the In Water ending where he kills himself to end the conflict. In the Leave ending, James is able to come to terms with his past crimes and the darker side of himself and to move beyond it, with raising Laura as a chance at redemption. In the Maria ending, however, James is unable to overcome his misogyny, feels himself justified in killing Mary, and is likely to repeat the same sequence of events, with Maria representing his future victims.

There's also some tangential evidence that suggests that this version of Silent Hill is most a symbolic representation of James's mental landscape, with many of the newspaper clippings and other scraps of paper you encounter dealing with other murderers and mental patients, as well as the odd little detail in which, if/when you return to the area where you killed your first monster, it's surrounded by police tape. Eddie is also clearly well on the way to becoming a sociopath, and he's one of the first characters James encounters, as well as the only fully-human character James actually kills.

Overall, this WMG seems to make a lot of sense, especially if you're not too concerned about tying SH 2 in with the other games in the series. I think the game works better as a standalone story set in the same universe as the other games but with a plot that's not actually related to them.
 * I think you've hit on a lot of good points with the misogyny and fear of sexuality that seems to be present in the game, but I don't think that it's a fear of female sexuality, I think it's a fear of male heterosexuality...specifically, James' fear of his own sexuality. James is wracked with guilt and self-loathing after Mary's death. He can't get past the fact that he is a murderer, he's murdered his beloved wife. He sees himself as a predator, as something loathsome and disgusting. Therefore I think that all of the imagery of violence against women and sexual violence is a manifestation of his self-hatred and guilt being thrown back at him, saying "this is what you are" because he feels that he needs to be punished for what he did, continually reminded that he is a monster. I also think that he is dealing with the sexual frustration of having a recently departed wife. It seemed to me that Mary's illness was quite long, and, I think it was stated in the game, physically debilitating. We can safely assume that in the time that James was taking care of Mary, he wasn't getting any sex, and, considering the way that Mary treated him during that time, it isn't that much of a stretch to imagine that he might have entertained the thought of cheating on her. I think that at one point in the game Angela accuses James of wanting to be rid of Mary because he "wanted someone new" or something like that. He may have had these feelings, but would not act on them, and perhaps felt deeply ashamed of them. This I think is part of what Maria represents, as she is both appealing and repulsive to James. He might have, in his guilt and shame, seen his own sexual desire as dirty and a betrayal to Mary, who he also betrayed by killing. In conclusion, I don't think James is a budding serial killer, he just has issues.

Angela's story is worse than you think.
While Silent Hill 2 was in development "Repressed Memory Syndrome" was being debunked. Women had been convinced by their therapists that their fathers had molested them as children, but they had "repressed" the memory. The resulting false accusations were frequently believed, resulting in trials and incarceration. If this is what happened to Angela, if she murdered her father due to a false memory implanted by a therapist, then her killing him wasn't justified. Which would explain why she remained in Silent Hill.

Eddie stays because his killings weren't justified. James can leave after working through his guilt. Angela staying makes no sense if she had just cause for her action.

This would also explain her obsessive need to find her mother, who knows the truth, and be absolved by her.

Note that while the town itself passes judgement on Eddie, leading James into conflict with him that results in Eddie's death. Putting James into the Executioner role of Pyramid Head!
 * You misunderstand a key point of Silent Hill's nature; it doesn't do any judging or punishing, and it has no moral compass. Everything that happens to the characters is something they're doing to themselves. James and Angela both crave punishment, feeling guilty for their actions (regardless of whether or not it was justified). Otherwise cool theory.

The In Water ending is canon.
Unfortunately, this may be more true than I want to think it is. In Silent Hill 4, James is briefly mentioned to have disappeared after having left to Silent Hill. Not only that, but in the novelization of Silent Hill 2, the In Water ending is used. James is officially dead. Dammit.
 * Yeaaa...the novels aren't canon. At all. They depart from the events of the games at multiple parts.
 * Douglas makes a similar comment regarding James disappearing in Silent Hill 3, but I don't think that necessarily means James is canonically dead. He could have just as easily dropped off the grid with Laura after the "Leave" ending.

The Abstract Daddys become easier after the boss fight because...
James' feelings that spawned the Abstract Daddys weren't as powerful as Angela's.

When you first see the Abstract Daddy, it's terrorizing Angela. It's Angela's monster. She created it in her mind, and it had a huge signifigance for her. The Abstract Daddy represents Angela's father as he allegedly raped her. The trauma from the memory was displaced into the monster, making it powerful. In the Boss fight, the Abstract Daddy was Angela's monster, and James just killed it for her.

After that scene, Angela accuses James of only wanting Sex from his wife Mary, and he denies it... but perhaps a small part of his mind wonders if it isn't true. Thus James's psyche--and own verison of Silent Hill--adopts the Abstract Daddy.

But the Abstract Daddy represents rape. James's feelings about rape--sex and power--are only a fantasy, while Angela experienced it firsthand. So, the monsters are stronger for Angela than they are for James.
 * I like this theory, and I wouldn't be suprised to hear the developers use the same explanation. It's nice and self-contained, and doesn't conflict with established information. Of course, since its never said in-game, it'll always be just fan analysis and all, but it does offer some interesting backstory to what is otherwise just an example of Degraded Boss.

Angela Orosco's mom was severely jealous of her.
It makes perfect sense when one just thinks on it for a while. Angela's unnamed mother hated her because her husband actually thought she was more attractive than her hence him having sex with her a whole lot or as Angela would have it "sexually abusing her" which is true. Instead of even lamenting the assault on her daughter's innocence like a normal mother would Angela's mom was jealous that her husband thought another woman was attactive. In her twisted perspective Angela's mom percieved her husband having sex with Angela as her husband sleeping with any other regular woman, she was too blinded by jealousy to see that her husband was violating her daughter. When Angela cried to her mother, her mother's warped perspective took it as "He's all over me, he thinks I'm so hot can you just calm him down a little" instead of a desperate plea for assistance. She could also see that Angela wanted help from her sex fiend brother and father but was too overwhelmed with jealousy rather than sloth to do anything. Angela's mom saw her as competition rather than her submissive daughter; and since she was clearly getting more attention than her own mother she couldn't try to talk down on her appearance so instead she makes an assault on Angela's emotions and her character with false criticisms. She as stated earlier noticed her husband thought Angela was very attractive and knew her husband and very likely her own son would be very angry if Angela's appearance was damaged in any way so she at least reframed from physically assualting her. As time went by Angela's mom was no longer able to deal with her overwhelming jealousy so she forsakes her family(an unfaithful husband, she really didn't care about the son her feelings towards him were neutral, and a so called "good for nothing bitch that took my man").
 * That makes a lot of sense. It's not uncommon in cases where a daughter is being sexually abused by her father that the mother feels jealousy towards her own victimized, child. Even going so far as claiming it's the child that's tearing the family apart.

The true ending to Silent Hill 2 is the UFO ending.
Mostly supported in Silent Hill 4. In Henry's apartment, when he looks at one picture depicted a location in original Silent hill he says that there have been rumored spottings of UFO's in there(a location in Silent Hill). To add to that James Sunderlands's whereabouts aren't hinted at one whit. Judging by the info we get James is still in Silent Hill but nobody know's anything about his wellbeing, as if he disappeared perhaps?

James is the only one who can cross into other people's visions of Silent Hill because James is exactly what the other people in Silent Hill want.
James' memory is faulty; he thinks Mary died years ago because, although even he's not absolutely certain of his motives, he killed his wife and then blocked the trauma. Silent Hill calls him because he subconsciously needs punishment and, with it, absolution. What he does with the grief is his own business, Silent Hill only responds to his guilt. But! At the core of it, he really is there for healthy reasons: he's going there to confront his deeds and his perceptions and take responsibility (he's just doing it in the most effed-up way possible).

Eddie, clearly, doesn't really see monsters. He sees people. He says that they're "laughing at him with their eyes", which is either paranoia, or what Eddie subconsciously wants: carte blanche to kill whoever he pleases. He first feels guilt (vomiting over his first human victim), but rather than coming to Silent Hill to confront the shame and guilt of being a repeat victim of bullying, he's really there to indulge himself. The guilt he feels eventually passes as the feelings of power grow, and Silent Hill (giving only what its visitors really want) presents him with as many victims as he could want. Eventually, Silent Hill gives him James. Think about it: James is strong, married, good-looking, and wanders into his life looking like ... well, the protagonist of a survival horror game: armed with a gun and a flashlight and looking like a Badass, too hardcore to think Eddie is anything but a pizza-eating turd. Exactly the kind of person Eddie wants to kill most. It just didn't work out because James is every bit as bad ass as he looks, and Eddie is basically just a very angry coward.

Laura also doesn't see monsters: she wants Mary, so to her, the town has only herself, Mary (somewhere), and James in it. James is the only means she has of finding Mary, but she hates him, so whenever Silent Hill directs their paths to cross, ultimately she shuns him and dismisses him as useless until he finally gives her the truth. The "Leave" ending is the only ending Laura can really have, because she doesn't specifically want just Mary, she wants the life that Mary wanted to promise in her letter: a family and a home. Without James, she'll never get it.

And then, Angela. Oh, Angela.

Angela's case is probably the most tragic, because her problem is very simple. She wants what many abuse victims want: a chance at escape. She envisions her escape in the form of a man: someone who will love her and take care of her. But since the first man in her life who was supposed to love her and take care of her was the father who beat and raped her since she was a child, she views James (who is actually in a very good position to help her, and does, whenever he can) as just another broken promise waiting to happen, and rejects him to protect herself. Silent Hill repeatedly hands her James as a means of escape when things are at their worst (when she's contemplating suicide, when the Abstract Daddy comes to.. do something awful to her, when the stairs are burning down), but she just can't accept him, and so the only escape she can find is her own death.
 * I agree with parts of this, but not all of it. For one thing, James hardly looks or acts outwardly badass, though you could argue he becomes so. What's more likely is that Eddie hates and sees James not as a badass, but as a smarmy, whimpering, condescending hypocrite ("Don't get all holy on me, James!") who lacks the balls to take what he wants, and looks down on him. As for Angela, James himself doesn't seem to think he's the best fit for her; notice his complete silence when she sarcastically asks him to "heal all her pain". By that point James is quite conscious of his moral track record, and the other characters seem to at least have a feeling about it.

Angela did find her Mama.
The same way James found Mary. That Mama told Angela she deserved what happened, and was speaking as a mouthpiece for Angela's guilt as a rape survivor: Angela's real mother is either dead, or missing.

Eddie is representative of James' lost innocence.
I figure James was an innocent, sweet man before Mary's illness, and is desperately trying to cling to his image as an unsullied innocent (Ugly fat bloke wearing kid's clothing?)


 * It sounds nice but it is very unlikely. Eddie is also a mindless killing machine who will go on a homicidal oragies when ever he "gets in a bad mood". Does he sound like the buxom of innocence now?
 * I should elaborate. He's James' paper thin facade of innocence hence the fact he's wearing poorly-fitted kid's clothing to try to fool people into believing he's still a kid.


 * Well in that case James a very sucky good side.
 * He's not James' good side, he's James' guilt and frustration over having to pretend he's happy when his wife was acting up.

Maria planned to kill James and Laura.
She realized that she was an apparation of Mary, but became more controlled over it. She acted on Mary's desires to have a family. The only way she could keep them in Silent Hill was if they died there. Although Laura couldn't see the monsters they could still hurt her. Why else was she so desperate to find Laura?

The Silent hill in this game is not heaven or surprisingly not hell, it's purgatory.
It's a purgatory that was created by the sinister Dahlia Gillespie. It call those or is "conviently found by those who seek punishment for something even if they don't really don't deserve such as Angela Orosco. Even though the Mother Sect that gave Silent Hill(Other World) is a blasphemous lie, it still had an affect on Silent Hill. Everyone in Silent Hill(Hell) clearly sees it differently and if affected by it differently judging by their comments during their ordealous journeys. Eddie and Angela definitely didn't go through the same chain of events in Silent Hill as James because they were searching for something different.