This is Why the Message of Silent Hill 2 Continues to be Relevant...

Silent Hill 2 released in 2001 and is now considered to be a cult classic, widely beloved 25 years after release. The game follows James Sunderland as he looks for his wife in the town of Silent Hill. This game’s theme and messages focus heavily on abuse, grief, and death so if this makes you uncomfortable or upset, then I wouldn’t recommend reading this article. 

The main message of the game comes from James and his wife Mary. Despite the fact that the game follows James looking for Mary, she is dead during the events of the game. James knows this, but thinks she has died three years prior when she got sick with a skin disease that was slowly killing her. At the end of the game we find out that Mary died very recently, and that James killed her via suffocation with a pillow. The entire game is his own mind punishing himself for killing her, in which the town of Silent Hill manifests into reality. He began to hate his wife due to the verbal abuse he suffered from her when she was sick and grappling with the fact that she wouldn’t have long to live. 

The monsters that James faces throughout the game are meant to represent Mary in some way, whether it be nurses with bags over their heads which are hints to how Mary died and the nurses James frequently saw when visiting Mary in the hospital. Some monsters look like humans in body bags with pronounced legs, showing Jame’s repressed desires while Mary was sick. The most notable enemy is Pyramid Head, in which they are a reflection of James, his executor. Pyramid Head is based on in-game executioners within the town’s history, which had red cone headed cloths over their heads. Pyramid Head is the ultimate representation of Jame’s grief, guilt, and anger which finally dissipates when he comes to terms with the fact that Mary is dead by his hands. All of this shows how James loves and cares about Mary despite the verbal abuse he faced, or the fact that he killed her because he couldn't deal with it anymore. 

James shows how abuse can come in many different forms and how that affects someone. The verbal abuse he suffered at the hands of his wife whom he loved dearly caused him to kill her out of hatred, despite the fact that he loved her until the very end. This caused him to compartmentalise his grief and convince himself that she died years ago of the disease she was suffering from. He returns to Silent Hill at the beginning of the game to look for her despite the fact that her dead body is in the back seat of his car.

All of the monsters in the game are meant to remind him of Mary and punish himself for killing her. We see various dead bodies around the town and in specific areas, and they all look like James. Along with this James constantly puts himself in harm's way, either jumping down seemingly endless pits in the floor or putting his hand in holes in the wall despite not being able to see what is on the other side. These aspects show how James views lowly of himself and doesn’t care about self preservation, as he gave up on himself after Mary’s death. He has let his guilt consume him, which is something many victims of abuse face whether extreme cases or otherwise. 

A significantly more heartbreaking message within the game is shown with the character Angels Orosco. She is first seen within the graveyard outside Silent Hill, looking for her father and brother. We later find her in an apartment building, laying down in front of a mirror with a knife in her hand raised above her head. She shows incredibly erratic behavior when James is around, showing us early that she is afraid of him to some extent. Angela gives James the knife after the two talk and she runs from the room. We later find her after traversing a labyrinth, sitting in a room alone with a single television. The walls are flesh colored and at the top are pistons moving forward and backward repeatedly. 

This room is where we fight the entity known as “Abstract Daddy”, a representation of Angela’s father. She suffered both physical and sexual abuse from her father before eventually killing him and her brother with a kinfe. Angela’s behaviors and mannerisms within the game are very common within people who experience abuse growing up, and shines a light on this topic within an era of time when it wasn’t spoken about in the video game industry. Her story is a perfect example of how childhood abuse affects a person and makes them mistrust others. The message we are able to get from her is so important and powerful and it came from a horror game made 25 years ago in Japan. 

Much like James, Angela believes that everything was her fault. Throughout the game she constantly says she is looking for her mama, but we learn later on that her mama said she deserved everything that happened to her. Silent Hill looks different to every person, and to Angela it is always on fire. Many believe this is because the town manifests as her own personal hell, and many others speculate that it might be another representation of her father as he was a lumberjack, although it is merely speculation. Angela is riddled with grief as she believes everything was her fault and that she deserved it. 

Silent Hill 2 is such an important game to analyse and continue to remember as it shows how abuse works, how people deal with abuse, and how it changes someone. It is a very heavy game as it touches on a lot of difficult topics, but it is so important to have games like this that show these dynamics in a real way rather than something dramatic or perfect. None of the characters in this game are perfect, not even James as the protagonist, and that is the point. The game shows how anyone can be struggling, anyone can be hurting, and anyone could have gone through hell and back. It is a beautiful representation of abuse that doesn’t glorify it in any way, but shows it in a more real manner than many people can relate to regardless of gender.

I genuinely recommend playing this game as it is truly one of my favorite games of all time. It deserves to be praised and remembered for a long time, and I hope that if you check it out you’ll love it just as much as I do.