I'm a little surprised you didn't discuss trauma more. A lot of us therapists believe that trauma "stops" a person's clock (hence the grandfather clock). Thus, the characters exist outside of time because they're not growing or changing like they were before the trauma.
I’ve heard a theory that all the corpses in the game look like James.People say that It isn’t the first time James has tried to travel through Silent Hill and he has died and started over multiple times in his quest.
That would work well with what would've been Silent Hills by Kojima. The idea that there are multiple realities layered on each other, yet branching off to their own conclusions.
And that any ending, including the hypothetical ideas imposed by the game outside of any end game scenarios (like seeing James dead in certain spots while traversing the game world) in a sense is "real."
the hole in that bar thats supposedly "gone" is actually a reference to the Stephen King film The Langoliers. which basically mean he cant go back and fix anything
What an incredible research, Muse! It's fantastic how, after all those years, the community can still found new aspects of the game. A prove that all the great works of art are more than just the original production of its creators. Keep doing great stuff!
I wonder why no one ever mentions the warning signs at the construction site. They are all over the place, literally telling James to stop and turn back...
The "Coin Puzzle" is a reference to the "In Water" ending, isn't it ? You know, because like Adam, James is encouraged to learn the truth (knowlodge), and in the end, he pays the price for learning it.
Huh, I didn’t even about the hand wave thing as James checking if he’s even real. I always thought that gesture was like something someone would do to close the eyes on a dead body, possibly foreshadowing him killing Mary.
I remember when I first played this game all those years ago. The atmosphere alone was enough to make me hesitant to progress from the beginning area. What a fantastic game.
They don't make games this risky anymore, the fact its very open for player interpretation, how deep the psychological elements are, the creative ways of representing isolation, mental decent and obviously the representation of guilt and fears through monsters. This reason this game has done so well and is a classic masterpiece is coz of the care, love and eye for detail the devs had for it, a true passion project. I'm currently playing through silent hill 2 for the first time and with every minute I play I love it more and more but dam I keep getting stuck ahah
I saw that in the essay you pointed out Angela's red pants as a possible visual metaphor for the pain she had to endure during her life with her father. Could the white top possibly mean that her heart remained innocent?
@@thegamingmuse It was a really interesting read, at first I thought I'd only read a little to see what it was about but before I knew it I'd read it in its entirety. :D I really love your perspectives and the work you put into it.
Silent Hill is really just a tribute to Twin Peaks, Eraserhead and Jacob's Ladder. There are very few ideas in SH that aren't also found in the works of Lynch or in Jacob's Ladder.
I would have loved a side story about Eddie, Angela and Laura. Like how they got to Silent Hill and such. I would love to play a game where you play as Laura! That would be fun!
@@grim_2000 When you go into the bowling alley, stop at the piles of bottles in the hallway and look at them. He'll have an internal text monologue about how he developed an alcohol problem while Mary was hospitalized.
I had wondered if maybe the mirror and gesture were a bit of a holdover from when James was going to be one of two personalities, the other called Joseph, in an earlier concept.
Pretty cool to hear a woman talk about really dark things that goes thru a man's mind without being condescing or judgmental. I was with a Mary in 2001 ... I played the game later, when she was gone (just gone, not dead, i mean). That was pretty weird. Maybe it helped, but not at first. I was still a kid living an adult life in some ways. The lies, the thing you make up, the things you want, what you remember and what you delete knowingly. ... Yea. This game, man.
Fantastic video. Silent Hill 2 is my favorite in the series because it really hits deep. Would be amazing if it got a remake or even an official HD remake, so more people can experience this game.
I spent years replaying Silent Hill 2, trying to talk all my friends into playing it so I'd have people with which to discuss it, watched videos on its interpretation (yours are the best and by far the most comprehensive) and it seemed like I found something new with each playthrough or breakdown but somehow I missed that in one of the endings Mary tells James that it wasn't murder at all because she asked him to kill her out of mercy. I got every ending in the game, even the ones that take forever, and it's not that I didn't see it, I guess I just mistook it as her forgiving him and saying she knew it wasn't a malicious thing. It can be argued that James isn't really speaking to the true Mary at all, anyway, but either way James is not so bad in this ending and I think the rest of the game still fits because if you euthanized somebody you loved it would feel like murder, even if she wanted it, and you would form doubts as to whether it was truly for her sake or the right thing to do. Even though it's a "good" ending, I don't know if any of them are exclusively canonical... the alien and dog endings are especially not but in most of the endings James killed her in cold blood, and the best he can hope for is to try and get over it by honoring her enough to live with himself, ignoring her for Maria (dissociating from reality, from what happened and living out a fantasy that presumably would prevent him from leaving Silent Hill), killing himself, etc. Or just driving around town in an ambulance for no reason in a fake fan video. It sort of makes sense to me, the feature of player choice aside, that his view of Mary could be perverted or swayed and altogether nebulous until the conclusion, when the town reunites them and either condemns or vindicates him. My first love and long time girlfriend from ages 13-15 and 19-20 was killed, and while someone else took her life I still feel guilty because she called me crying a week or less before it happened, begging for me to pick her up and let her stay the night and I told her no, for many reasons but the primary one being she'd dumped me, I'd just found a new girlfriend who wouldn't appreciate a girl I had so much history and feelings for spending the night and if she did I wouldn't have been able to resist being unfaithful. Anyway, I could have prevented her leaving in the first place, could have let her come over and she wouldn't have gone back to the place where I knew she was unsafe, it's long and complicated but aside from my guilt I sort of twisted some memories without realizing it. I recently found a binder with all the notes she'd ever written me in middle school, high school and early college before her demise and I read all of them to find that the past wasn't exactly how I remembered it: some things I'd blocked out because they were painful or made me feel guiltier, some things I over or underexaggerated to fit my retrospective perception and in some cases I remembered things that hadn't really occurred, or at least didn't fit exactly. I'm schizophrenic, but that can't explain all of it. I dream about her all the time, usually just seeing her die or rot or haunt me, but the last one was extremely lifelike and lucid and I took a train/bus/plane/TARDIS (the vessel kept changing) and was with different friends but arrived alone at a house surrounded by dense fog as if it were the only thing there and my late gf was there. She said she'd been trying to arrange a meeting forever and we talked for a while, I asked when I could return and she just gave me a sad look and walked away, as if to use the bathroom and never returned. I waited a long time, then returned to the train outside the house and woke up. I don't believe in an afterlife: I think my mind produced all of that. Still, it felt very real and I remember the exact house layout (I don't think I ever saw such a house either) and I remember her every word and movement. I have a hard time making up my mind as to whether James was really talking to Mary's ghost, but it's too perfect how no matter how he killed her or how he accepts, ignores or punishes himself for it, the story still makes just as much sense. It's almost like American Psycho, where in the book it's unclear if he really killed anyone (the movie makes it clear that he didn't, a bad choice) but SH2 does it far better because instead of both interpretations contradicting paradoxically, the result fits every way instead.
I was thinking this just now whilst watching the video. What if perhaps the dead James’ throughout the start of the game, symbolise how James’ psyche is conflicting. And the bodies are previous attempts of James trying to admit to the murder he committed but bottled it and remained silent. Hence why they’re at the start of the game, as immediately after the murder he may have been remorseful and debated telling the police, but then devised a way to keep it quiet. So ultimately he has failed in the redemption and has been called to Silent Hill. What do you think?
A musing, RE: James fighting Pyramid Head The late Robert Moore - a Jungian psychoanalyst and spiritualist - likened the inner force of Grandiosity in a person's life to a dragon, in his book appropriately titled "Facing the Dragon". However, while he used the term 'Dragon' to personify this unconscious force of Grandiosity, Moore pointedly did not call his book "Slaying the Dragon". Because he considered man's struggle with his internal dragon to be one that involved recognizing it as a force, apart from the person's ego. Symbolic of the need for a person to reconcile the emotional and spiritual force inside them, and become self-aware of how their grandiosity can affect their behavior. The first step in getting away from self-deception and malignant narcissism is to look inward. To face the dragon, and acknowledge it as a force, through self-reflection. In Silent Hill 2, Pyramid Head is James's dragon. It represents his grandiosity. His power, potency, and frustration. The force that is stymied by failure and wishes to lash out. And James can no more kill Pyramid Head than Moore's knight can slay the dragon. Because the dragon both IS and IS NOT the Knight. There can be no killing it. Only reconciling with it, and understanding its effects on the self. James does not settle accounts with Pyramid Head until he exercises the requisite level of self-reflection. It's also worth understanding that Robert Moore's vision of grandiosity is one tied to older interpretations of evil (though it is not, itself, without its positive sides, too). That of evil that is insidious, alluring, and deceitful. An evil that has an agency of its own, and fosters delusion in the subject. When the dragon has not been identified and reconciled, it fosters a malignant narcissism. A self-deception that accepts no possibility of death or culpability in wrong-doing. Grandiosity is harmful when one is not conscious of its presence, but instead believes that the dragon within is merely oneself. Part of James's journey is tearing away the fog of self-deception, and coming to terms with the terrible gravity of his actions. Even in realizing that any justification for his murder - "I did it for you, honey" - is merely a lie meant to make himself feel better. He must acknowledge that he was not acting in a rational manner, clouded as he was by bitterness, frustration, and a desire to be rid of Mary. Robert Moore was aware of the grim picture he often painted of the human condition. Of how we as a species seemed often in thrall to narcissism and self-deception, and subject to the innumerable ills that arise from this. But he saw in this model two parts of healing and becoming better. The first, we've already discussed: self-awareness. Facing the Dragon, and acknowledging its power. The second part, for Moore, was in taking strength from other people. The cure for malignant narcissism - this deceptive and grandiose fixation on self - is to know it and then connect with others. To ground oneself in objective truth, which requires the help of our inmates in the house of humanity. In the "good" ending of Silent Hill 2, after facing his dragon and acknowledging his sins, James has a heart to heart with Mary, before leaving with Laura. Not being alone, but letting others help him become better.
Hey! Just wanted to say that I found your channel yesterday and already watched almost all of your symbolism videos, you put so much thought into your work and it's great, I love it! I finished understanding SH4 pretty much only thanks to you lol Very excited for the next parts of this project!
Oh no, thanks for pointing that out, I'll get to fixing it. The essay should be here: ajtraleigh.wixsite.com/the4thfloor/home/i-got-a-letter-the-symbolism-of-silent-hill-2
James wasn't looking at himself ... He was looking at the player . If u brighten the image too much you'll actually see his eyes staring at u in a creepy way... My view of the start has changed ever since
just replaying this piece of fine art and wanted some moody symbolism stuff videos. Really well done editing and the delivery of the lines fits well with the theme of the game. looking forward to part 2 of this video
Carol Thank you Carol they see their different versions of hell and obstacles which is why james sees he's letter from mary only at the end the letter disappears
I watched these two videos. I'm afraid you, like most people, never noticed the central theme of this entire game and how it defines what I see as the actual story: JAMES. Starting in a graveyard, confused, in a fog, in a surreal town, surrounded by the tortured (similar to James) and unable to think properly. This isn't reality--it's either an inward world or part of HELL (the Dante's Inferno quote, anyone?). James killed his ailing wife because he was sexually greedy and weak, self-centered, and lacked empathy for her and filled with desire for his own needs. EVERY character in this game is actually a part of James(or his self image), or James' view of women. LOOK AT THEM: they all look like James or his dead wife! All of them. Same facial structures and hair, etc. He has a side that is weak, indulgent, murderous, and disheveled(Eddie); James confronts this side of himself and kills it. Pyramid head is James' unbridled lust and wrath--sexual desire so strong that it is mindless, violent, needy, physical, and frightening; Pyramid head even has a symbolic and bloody vagina on his head, as if he wants to get his entire essence up into vagine, his head and mind submerged within the vagina. Angela is the angelic or "clean" version of women unhindered by sex, but also repressed and damaged at the same time; she is cold and distant, but generally pleasant. Mary/Maria are James' self-centered versions of his wife, turning into a fantasy of Maria where he wishes to fulfill his needs and find sexual release, belonging, and satiation. Laura is the innocent and playful child, the female not seen sexually and not desired, but playful, noisy and invasive. Essentially, James is in hell/purgatory and tormented by his own actions and mind as he copes with death.... because he might have committed suicide.
Hey muse I’m a big fan can you do symbolism of these games: resident evil, halo, bayonetta devil may cry and gears of war I know it’s a lot but these have meanings to them but if you don’t that is fine. Keep up the good work sis 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Silent Hill 2. A game about a man pushed to do awful, heinous things by a tragic situation. And his horrific journey to make peace with what he's done.
It's so weird that I didnt comment anithing on this section after watching this beautiful video when it was released. sz Maybe I was too amazed at the time to remember to comment haha '^^p
I actually ended up pulling all this research together into a book! I may one day make a part two to this, but if you want to read more on it, you can find the book on my website: thegamingmuse.net
