Silent Hill 2/Characters

• Main
• Analysis
• Characters
• YMMV
• Fridge
• Headscratchers
• WMG
• Crowners
  • Awesome
  • Funny
  • Heartwarming
  • Nightmare Fuel
  • Tear Jerker
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

James Sunderland

Voiced by: Guy Cihi (original), Troy Baker (HD)

A store clerk who comes to Silent Hill after getting a letter from his deceased wife, Mary. The plot kicks off when he arrives in town to solve the mystery behind said letter.

• Covert Pervert: The town is using it against him by combining it with his guilt.
• Determinator: He will find where his wife's letter came from, monsters and common sense be damned.
• Despair Event Horizon: The Video Tape.
• Driven to Suicide: One possible ending, and the Book of Lost Memories suggests that it's the real reason he came to Toluca Lake, before the town's influence kicked in.
• Dull Surprise: From time to time, though he mostly manages the right reactions.
• Mercy Kill: To Mary, though whether or not the town believes him depends on your actions throughout the game.
• The Everyman
• Green Eyes
• Only Sane Man: While the supporting cast appears mostly-there at first glance, James is the one who manages to keep a grip on himself for the longest.
• Sympathetic Murderer
• Tragic Hero
• Unreliable Narrator

Angela Orosco

Voiced by: Donna Burke (original), Laura Bailey (HD)

A disturbed young woman with suicidal tendencies. Gradually, you come to find out that she was sexually abused by her father, and eventually stabbed him to death and burnt down their home in a fire.

• Abusive Parents: Her mother and father. Her father sexually assaulted her on a regular basis. Her mother knew and did nothing to stop it, going so far as to tell Angela she deserved to be abused.
• Broken Bird
• Curtains Match the Window: She has brown eyes to match her brown hair.
• Does Not Like Men
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!
• Driven to Suicide
• Evil Is Burning Hot: This is Angela's Otherworld - everything consumed in fire (and extremely disturbing pictures on the walls). Her dialogue suggests she believes she "deserves" hell and thus the town shapes itself to what she imagines hell to be.
• Harmful to Minors Her past is an example of this.
• Knife Nut: In her first cutscene, she's admiring a kitchen knife that she later hands to James. The usual subtext of Knife Nuttery is absent, however; Angela doesn't wish violence against others any more, only herself. Examining the knife often enough in James' inventory will see him Driven to Suicide as well.
• Manslaughter Provocation
• Rape as Backstory: Hoo boy.
• Sympathetic Murderer: She killed her father and brother after years of being abused by them.
• Tsundere: Like most of the characters, Angela has two distinct modes of behavior. In her case, she shifts back and forth from timid young woman to angry, snarky cynicism, sometimes in mid-sentence.

Laura

Voiced by: Jakey Breckenridge (original)

An annoying little girl who seems to have a special hatred for James.

• Blue Eyes
• Bratty Half-Pint: She acts rudely to both James and Eddie.
• Conveniently an Orphan: The game never mentions what happened to her parents.
• Hair Decorations: She uses a pink scrunchie to hold her hair up.
• Hair of Gold
• Invisible to Normals: She's the only one who doesn't see Silent Hill as a monster-infested hellhole.
• Skip of Innocence
• Mouthy Kid

Maria

Voiced by: Monica Horgan (original), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (HD)

A beautiful woman who bears a striking resemblance to James's late wife.

In reality, she's a manifestation of an idealized Mary in James' psyche. She's repeatedly killed by Pyramid Head to show James the weight of his sin - killing his wife. In one ending, James chooses to leave with her, and she begins to cough... perhaps because James didn't quite learn his lesson, and he'll have to learn it all over again, starting with his wife's illness. For the other endings, James tells Maria that he "doesn't need her any more", and she explodes into a nasty inverted demon in a cage that becomes the final boss.

• Blue Eyes
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: She has one tattooed on her hip. Possibly a symbol of her being Mary's "replacement".
• Death Is Cheap: She dies many times throughout the game, but reappears later quite alive and usually without so much as a Hand Wave. This is, of course, exactly what she is intended to do.
• Fate Worse Than Death: Her very existence.
• Final Boss: She can be this in three out of four endings.
• Multicolored Hair: She has blonde hair with pink highlights.
• Mood Swinger: She frequently switches moods between nice, mean, or clingy and fearful.
• Tragic Monster: The Born from a Dream bonus prequel scenario reveals that when she was first "created", Maria was actually a pretty nice person, just like Mary. However, her experiences in Silent Hill eventually turn her into a willing minion of the town's forces, with the goal of seducing and tormenting James.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: She keeps a key there, along with one in her boot and one in her skirt.
• Replacement Goldfish: She becomes one in the "Maria" Ending, complete with Incurable Cough of Death.

Eddie Dombrowski

Voiced by: David Schaufele (original), Liam O'Brien (HD)

A seemingly harmless young man whose many, many issues only serve to remind the player that James isn't exactly the epitome of sainthood, either.

• Adult Child
• All There in the Manual: The game's never entirely clear about Eddy's crimes, but the Book of Lost Memories reveals that the "he" who "had it coming" was a bully. Eddy shot and killed the bully's dog in a fit of rage, and then shot the bully in the leg before fleeing.
• Ax Crazy: He gets there eventually.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Eddie starts off as the friendliest character in the game. It Got Worse. This also happened before the game even started, but, like James and Angela, he didn't remember it at first.
• Berserk Button: Once he's gone crazy, do not ask him if he's gone crazy.
• Blond Guys Are Evil: He becomes one of these eventually.^[context?]
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: Eddie's Otherworld resembles a frozen meat locker.
• Fat Bastard: He is one of these, he just doesn't remember yet.
• From Nobody to Nightmare
• Hazel Eyes
• Motive Rant: He gives one to James once he's gone completely over the edge.
• Nice Hat: A silly-looking baseball cap.
• Not So Different: Invoked during his Motive Rant.

Eddie: Don't get all holy on me, James. This town called you too. You and me are the same. We're not like other people.

• Revolvers Are Just Better
• Sanity Slippage: It happens throughout the game and before he came to Silent Hill.

Mary Shepherd-Sunderland

Voiced by: Monica Horgan (original), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (HD)

James' beautiful wife, who tragically died three years ago of a terminal illness. Didn't she?

• Anti-Villain: In the Maria Ending.
• Final Boss: In one of the endings, at least.
• Hazel Eyes
• Ill Woman: She died of a terminal illness years before the game.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Though this isn't the only sign of her illness - she also developed a very unpleasant-looking rash and became too weak to stand up.
• The Lost Lenore
• Parental Substitute: To Laura.
• Tsundere: In some of her flashbacks, and in such equal measure it's hard to say which type, though being afraid to die and in constant pain can do that. James later says that, though his killing her at her request was an act of mercy, there was an element of anger in it that he's ashamed of, and that the town's feeding on.

Pyramid Head

A strange man-like figure with a giant headpiece that hounds James and Maria.

• Advancing Boss of Doom: The encounter with him in the basement of the hospital.
• BFS: Despite being called the "Great Knife" it's more than large enough to be considered a sword.
  • The weapon which, interestingly, can be picked up by James.
• Blade on a Stick: He also carries a spear, which is more light-weight (and subsequently less iconic).
• Blindfolded Vision: The helmet does not have eyeholes, but he can see just fine.
• Blood Is the New Black: Positively sticky with the blood of the things he's maimed.
• Breakout Villain: His popularity has made him something of a "mascot" for the franchise, appearing in multiple games and the movie, something the developers never intended.
• Buffy-Speak: James call him Red Pyramid Thing.
• Chained by Fashion: Occasionally seen struggling with his oblong helmet, such as when James unloads his pistol at him in a cutscene, though PH's reaction is more irritation at being thrown off-balance than pain.
• Combat Tentacles: If he manages to grab you, he'll lift you up and stab you with his "tongue" that'll come out from a small hole on his helmet.
• Cool Mask: His pyramid shaped helmet. Though not exactly a pyramid per se, since it has 7 sides.
• The Dreaded: Even other monsters are afraid of him! If James equips the Great Knife and switches off his flashlight, any monster will flee from the scraping noise.
• Dual Boss: Before the final boss fight. One wears a red helmet, the other brown.
• Enemy Without: Subtle, but he shares the same general size and build as James.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Great Knife which, as the name implies, is an oversized knife.
  • Also his name, Pyramid Head, which refers to the large rusty pyramid shaped metal helmet that he wears on his head, or that possibly is his head.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first encounter and the final encounter with him end when they end, not when you kill him.
• Humanoid Abomination: Humanoid, certainly - arms, legs, torso, head - but he is an aspect of Silent Hill and James' mind, not an independent being.
• Iconic Item: Do you have to ask?
• Immune to Bullets: The helmet gets in the way.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: A favored attack when he uses a spear. Also a favorite method of suicide.
• Institutional Apparel: Wears a grimy white smock. In later incarnations, he is shirtless.
• The Juggernaut: Win, lose, or draw, it's because he wishes it.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's positively cat-like when the story calls for it, even capable of moving fast while underwater.
• One-Hit Kill: He has a number of moves and attacks that could kill you in one hit. The most prominent is his overhead slash using his Great Knife.
  • The player can do the overhead slash as well when he acquires the weapon. It does massive damage to anything it hits but it won't always guarantee a death blow especially towards bosses. Hitting Pyramid Head with his own weapon would only stun him for a while.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Arguably a personification of the concept - not rape, but rape as a crime with no possible absolution deserving of specific and extremely harsh punishment.
• Series Mascot: He has become the franchise's mascot. Appearing in many game instalments, spin-offs, and cameos and guest appearances in other games and even from other source materials like comics and the movies. He also has a number of knockoffs like Origin's Butcher and Downpour's Bogeyman.
• Sinister Geometry; Check the name and guess.
• Sinister Scraping Sound: The sound of the Great Knife scraping across the Otherworld's rusty metal floors is a sign that Pyramid Head is coming.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Gloves aren't, though.
• Sword Drag: Pyramid Head often drags his Great Knife behind him when he walks. The damn thing is huge and heavy.
• Threshold Guardians: It's the job of the Pyramid Heads to lead James toward the truth.
• The Unexpected: One of the most infamous rapists in gaming history paired with many child-friendly mascots in Konami Krazy Racers, that's how popular ol' Pyramid Head is for you.
• The Voiceless: He never speaks. He only makes muffled noises.
• Weapon of Choice: Most often his signature weapon, the Great Knife, though he does carry a simple spear from time to time.
  • Especially when you steal the Great Knife from him. You can acquire his weapon in a room later in the game. Getting it will make Pyramid Head resort to the spear instead the next time you meet him which makes him faster and gain a longer attack reach. Oops.
    • At least you won't have to worry about getting killed by its instant kill death slash of doom, though he does have other methods of killing you with one blow.

Ernest Baldwin

Voiced by: Ward E. Sexton (original)

An enigmatic shut-in that Maria encounters in the "Born From a Wish" sub-scenario. He refuses to see her directly, only communicating through doorways.

• Dead All Along
• The Ghost
• The Voice