The leave ending was always the most satisfying to me and made the most sense. After making peace with Mary's passing and reading her letter, he didn't despair and give up hope like Angela, for a in water ending, and he didn't give in to his delusions like Eddie and fall in love with a fantasy and idealized version of Mary in the Maria ending. He made peace with himself and chose to move on and start a new life with Laura who represents a adopted daughter of Mary and James. Its the Canon ending in my heart lol.
I think James was already dead when he got to town. Laura too (was in the hospital with Mary for a long time, probably also had something terminal). And they're both able to move on, out of the purgatory like state. Just my thoughts.
At 19:03 he says "it was a long three years", this means that Mary did not die 3 years ago, like James says at the beginning of the game. Mary just died very recently, but when James first learned that she was terminally ill 3 years prior, he already felt like his wife was dead. That makes sense also in the ending where Mary dead body is the car: she's not been rotting there for 3 years, she was killed by James maybe that very day. The fact that James felt like he was already speaking to a dead person for 3 years is omega sad
The cycle continues, only Maria isn't blessed with a husband who loves her and will stay by her side. James sees Maria as an escape, as a fantasy, and when she inevitably succumbs to her fate, he'll throw her aside. At least James loved Mary. Maria isn't so "lucky".
I've seen so many absolutely insane takes on this story that I feel like people are playing an entirely different game with completely different characters, and the sheer lack of ability to understand nuance and morally grey scenarios that I feel the need to throw my thoughts out into the void just to say it because its driving me nuts at how reductively people are discussing one of my favorite stories of all time. It feels like the leave ending is what the town itself is pushing James toward, the town isn't trying to outright punish James to me but more so trying to make him understand that he did a horrible thing for very complex reasons. Like his entire conversation with "Mary" where he says he did it because he hated her but then the towns apparition of Mary points out to him if that were really true he wouldn't be so torn up about it and in reality would've just left her rather than stick by her all those years. Part of him did hate and resent her, but put yourself in his shoes where you have to watch day after day the person you love most whither away in absolute agony as their body falls apart, having to hear them cry in pain as they look to you with tears in their eyes begging you for help and to make it stop while all you can do is put on a brave face, hold them and tell them its going to be okay when you know for a fact that's not true. This continues for years as your entire life revolves around trying to be there for them and as the illness progresses they start lashing out at everyone and everything including you, emotionally and verbally abusing all the while you have to sit there and take it because you know they're only acting like this because of their horrific fate and you can't really blame them regardless of how much it hurts. That's when the bad thoughts start, the bubbling resentment from the abuse and having to halt your entire life for this person, the lingering looks at potential lovers as you yearn for the physical touch and affection they can no longer give you; but these thoughts make you feel like an absolute fucking monster, how can you possibly even think like this when the person you love is slowly dying in absolute misery? You hate yourself, the guilt from even pondering those thoughts drives you further and further into self loathing that you cannot even express as how can you even think of self pity when they're in such a sorry state, how dare you feel bad for yourself and not them? So you turn to drinking to try to cope with the whirlwind of self loathing, guilt, and pain of the entire situation but it never helps only makes it worse as you begin to lose sleep, contemplate killing yourself, them, or both of you just to make this nightmare end. Part of James did hate and resent Mary as unfair as he knows that is, but he also loved her more than anything in the world and after YEARS of enduring this absolute hell consumed by hate, self loathing, grief, love, and anguish James made the selfish, straight up evil decision to kill Mary. He did it both to end their mutual suffering in an effort to selfishly take back his own life and because he couldn't bear to watch anymore as the person he loved suffered until she slowly withered away and died. James immediately completely snapped mentally under the weight of what he just did as regardless of how many times she pleaded for death she also wanted to live out her last days at home and die with the person she loved, that wasn't his choice to make and that realization broke him completely. Which is when he put Mary's body in the back of his car and drove to the town they both loved so much seemingly to kill himself both to atone for what he did and run from the guilt he couldn't bear. The leave ending shows that James took from the town what it was trying to show him that while what he did was horrific, he can't chalk it up to him being a monster who now needs to die for his sins as it was never that binary. James did a horrible thing for a multitude of nuanced reasons and suicide would simply be him running from it. James needs to live with what he has done and find some way to move on with his life the way Mary wanted then maybe at some point find some measure of happiness because then everything he and Mary went through wasn't for nothing. People somehow finding a way to reduce James and Mary's story down to James is an evil prick who wanted to murder his wife to go bang hot nurses or James is my lil pookie who loved his wife and did nothing wrong is fucking maddening and does such a disservice to what I believe to be one of the finest not just horror stories but stories in general I have ever seen in any medium.
Thanks for explaining this. I never played the OG Silent Hill 2 but already knew a lot of the lore before going into the remake. Really enjoyed the remake (got the In Water ending) and I can see how games like Signalis and Cry of Fear were heavily inspired by SH2. Your explanation of the story and what's implied is really helpful and I appreciate it.
@@GRmasterpiece I’m glad you found some use for it, I’ve just seen so many takes online that drive me insane since the remake boost in popularity that I had to just write out my thoughts regarding the James slander. There’s so much more to discuss regarding the games themes, story, characters, design, etc but I’ve seen so many people trying to make James a black and white, good or evil character when to me the part that makes it so good is that it’s impossible to pin down in such a binary manner and the moral ambiguity is what makes it so compelling.
I'm disappointed that they made the "in water" ending basically a much worse one by not showing the final dialogue between them like in the "leave" ending. I thought it was beautiful yet very tragic by the fact that having that discussion with Mary, James is able to come at peace with her and himself, but wanted to "join" her as he couldn't live without her. Here it's just a sad (and clearly, "bad") ending.
Well when you think about it. In water wouldnt make sense to come after the chat with Maria. "You're suffering for what you did to me, its enough james, it's okay" and then immediately jump to killing himself
@@chriskoloski32 bcs he still feels bad, killing your wife isnt something that just goes away with an apology, even thou he fel was the best to do it it is still something that fucks your mind
Just finished the game, got Maria's ending even though I just didn't want to miss any piece of dialogue, hence my interactions with Maria leading to this ending I guess. Kinda frustrated, it was quite abrupt and immediately followed with a metal music right after in the credits which surprised me a bit. A masterpiece though, really an amazing game. Now you'll excuse me, I have to reflect on my actions leading to Maria's ending, and how blind I was to her real goal LMFAO (Quite funny as I also got a frustrating ending in SIGNALIS, I guess I'm cursed with these games)
You might be able to reload just before the twin pyramid head fight and get the other ending. I actually got all three main endings on my first playthrough by reloading. Just use the rust egg and make sure you listen to all of Mary's lines in the hallway
So they made the popular ending of the OG (In Water) worse by James and Mary not having that convo in Leave and just have him offing himself, rather than the acceptance of what he did and wanting to join her. THEN they took that ending and decide to give it a slight tweak and addition and called it an original ending (Still)
@@lyonsrobbie999 he definitely jumped off while making the car crash into the river, hear how the door opened and the rain suddenly got louder? + why would james say "will you wait for me?" If he was just gonna off himself?
Its weirdly nice that even in a more advanced game, they still kept the awkward as fuck twitching and shifting between the models for the boss rather than an actual transformation
Man, I wonder which ending they’re going to go with for the movie. It’s be pretty cool if they filmed all (or most) of them and put the unused ones as extras on the Blu-ray like they did with the movie 1408.
I’m confused with “The Maria Ending”. What does it mean when they are walking back to the car and Maria coughs? Does that mean she gets sick, does she become the new Mary? 🤔
It's basically a loop. James never learned anything during his journey in Silent Hill so he will be doomed to repeat the pain of losing another loved one.
It means he only thinks he's moved on. He thinks he found a better woman, he thinks everything is going to be all right now, but it's going to come back on him. Basically he didn't learn his lesson, so God isn't done with him yet.
more like he got sucked into the tape to be with that version of Mary forever as a way to cope and not accept her death and go into a false reality where he is always with her.
He basically consumed poison and watched the tape for the last time, thus subconsciously living this moment all over again in the reality his mind made up where Mary isn't dead
I dont understand the bliss ending Edit: also "in water" and "still" ending are basically the same thing, still ending just eases up on the depressing part
so to get the bliss ending you gotta drink this hallucigenic drug called white claudia and during the game he's literally making shit up Tldr he never uncovers the fact he killed mary and still thinks they lived happily before her death
You aren't. The ending you get is dependent on your general actions and choices throughout the game, not any set course. If you show that you care about yourself and the people around you, you can leave. If you're infatuated with Maria and give into your emotions, you take Maria with you. If you show that you truly don't care about whether you live or die, you end up in the lake. Welcome to Silent Hill 2.
In Still it's implied that James doesn't kill himself. If you listen very carefully there's a sound effect for the car door opening. So it's like James jammed the gas pedal down and sent the car into the lake. I had to listen a couple times to pick up on it, it's hard to discern at first.
how supose get other endings? i just died 3 times whole game on standard mode & my ending was *MARIA ENDING* anyway nice game ( im not horror fan games. i scared alot finish this game :D )
The one you want to be real. I really like In Water tbh, everyone says it is the worst just because it's depressing af. But bro, if you killed your wife 3 days ago and after it you saw all that stuff in Silent Hill, wouldn't you think you're better dead?
A bit uncanny valley with the jaw. Same with Angella, their jaws were just too blocky. found a mod that made it less uncanny valley but still kept it to how it looks in remake.
I could have saved my time not watching this play though. Was very borning and the story was borning. Yeah it had a cool idea and great game details but I didn’t feel anything towards any of the characters. (I don’t need to trauma or experience in life to understand a damn fake game. Yall some sad ass people🤣)
Once you go through enough trauma in life, you will circle back to this game and connect with it. This whole game is just trauma if it manifested into reality.
