Those ppl in the screen "huhuhh relateable James, sick wives won't shut up amirite"

The corridor walk to the final boss in Silent Hill 2, when you listen to Mary's emotional breakdown is one of the few things that reliably brings me to tears in any video game. She was only 25. She was choked with guilt for getting sick. The trauma on display in that game.

Those people are assholes and morons, and I wonder what sort of situation they'd have to go through to develop the type of empathy for people in shitty circumstances that game uses as it's main horror.

A lot of these losers hardly ever play the games they rage about, it's all about the performative outrage for them, once SHF comes out, they'll just argue about it for a few weeks before moving on to their next target. Pretty much definition of insanity.

Even Eddy whose shitty circumstance is mostly his own damn fault, was failed by the adults in his life who never pushed him to really grow beyond being a man-child. That game is a masterclass in horror as empathy.

And yet still expected too much of the average male gamer in that regard. I think Born From A Wish was in particular an attempt to course correct on that, a response to men interpreting Maria as some kind of manipulative villain.

Ok I didnt know about Born From a Wish and looked it up. Its just weird. Maria is manifested due to James desires. It's why in a certain ending she starts coughing. Because he didnt resolve his issues.

Yeah, Downpour plays into this with one of its concepts "Full Circle" Silent Hill is a tharapist, and if you don't get the lesson it's trying to teach you progress past the trauma it's exposing you to, you come back and try again And again And again And again.

Silent Hill is not a therapist, not any more than a spider is an ecologist. It's an amoral entity that consumes guilt by mirroring one's own psychological hangups at them, and you either come to terms with your trauma or you die and become part of the town. Lisa from SH1 is the prime example.

But Lisa was dead before the events of the first game, and she was killed in a way that didn't mirror any of her own traumas or psychological issues. The main reason she's still around is Alessa's desire to keep her ghost around as comfort, and her own inability to recognise her trauma.

Masahiro Ito of course claims otherwise, that she's being tortured in Silent Hill hell and that the woman that's a model repurposed from an old project of his that looks nothing like her that's behind a ladder in SH3 is supposed to be her. That's less bc canon and more because Ito is a hack though.

Yeah, like I said, either you get over it or you die. Like Lisa did. And you become a part of the town for eternity. Like Lisa did, even after Alessa got reincarnated. The place's amorality is precisely why it's so useful for the cult. If it were trying to help people, you'd think it'd fight back.

People dont get that silent hill, at least in 2, manifests your personal issues. Maria wasn't a villain as she only exists due to James own problems.

Born from a Wish actually indicates it's likely that she existed as a real person first, and James's fucked up misogynist perception of Maria was imprinted into her. She's another victim of him, not an illusion.

I've never actually played Born From a Wish but I guess that checks out. Since she starts coughing like Mary in the one of the endings I always thought she was just an illusion brought to life by his desires. Oh Silent Hill 2... brings me back to literature class.

Are you suggesting that misogynist men see women as interchangeable and disposable and freely project their own issues onto the women they interact with? I am shocked!

💯So many people never seem to realize that James murdered two women, not just "mercy killed" one. Maria was a dancer at Heaven's Night, a woman who sells sexual fantasy for survival, and thus some people (and not just James or even men generally) easily assume the fantasy is all she ever was.

Either way i love discussing SH2. Still crazy how much symbolism they crammed in that old game from the spitting monsters to the bobble head nurses. Granted they forgot that the nurses were there because of James in later games. Dude was horny

You mean a previous Maria or the SH2 Maria? As in game shes identical to Mary for a variety of reasons. Also haven't heard that before. I always figured she was a monster created by silent hill to show what he really wanted. To show his true self

I actually assumed from Born from a Wish that she was created by the town based on his perception, but that didn't make her any less of a victim of it