Character Analysis: James Sunderland and Silent Hill 2

“I know. But…I don’t really care if it’s dangerous or not.”

As pointed out by TheGamingBritShow: “How is a guy who follows the instructions of a letter sent by his dead wife supposed to sound?”

The uncanny I believe, more so than the Jungian and Freudian elements, or the presence of gore and fright really makes Silent Hill 2 (and the series) as horrifying and relevant as it is. It’s not about panic, or visual discomfort, or even the common theme present in most horror of the death or endurance of humanity confronted with the inhuman or supernatural. The difference is observing a man we slowly realise is mad and a murderer, speaking to others lost, tormented and so firmly attached to sexuality and their own bodily revulsion that we cannot escape it. Implication and abstract art, much like the voice acting are if anything the advantage of this story more than it is a crutch for old hardware or weaknesses in the writing.

When James interacts with the other questing denizens, like watching a girl clutching a knife, and then he morbidly picks up, turns keeps it when he leaves has such power because every audience member is aware of their own body. We understand nausea, lust, fear, compassion. And the blend of each, to say nothing of the vast, vastly more complicated domain of exploration and punishment layer possibly new contemplation in the audience member every time they see it. Like the delivery, it’s not strictly about the words. Not even about the intention. It’s simple the throw in disgusting monsters, much as it is to think of compassion as an indicator of good. But with the understanding whom James is, his attempts to help, much like his protestations of being more sane are sadly hollow.

This is a story where no matter what, James will fail and suffer repeatedly, the audience will be made to feel confused, dejected and likely contemplate their own feelings and instinctive sensations of pity, horror and melancholy. The endings are something else to account for, which the designers did as much to experiment with the nature of player choice and perception as to create entertaining player experiences. I’ll not give priority to one or the other, or discuss them in detail: but I will argue that each are deliberate and reflect something intentional about human emotion and part of the ‘reward’ of the unique experience. Even the Dog ending. Because, if nothing else: didn’t you repeatedly go through Team Silent’s story, and isn’t confusion and humour an emotion as spontaneous and deep and despair?

Returning to Guy Cihi’s delivery of James’s voice, this is a man at a precipice coming to form someone without us even really being aware we dictate that change. The man saying “I wanted you out of the way!” could be the one to Leave, or meet his final fate In Water. He could take the Maria ending, which I find to be one of the most subtly horrifying endings, for that matter even ideas in fiction. James could be a cyclical monster who either learned absolutely nothing, or internalised all of the predatory sickness of every monster and simply goes on, all of that evil being within the head of the seemingly mild-mannered creature gratifying himself at the cost of a second sickly partner.

Like a man drowning psychologically, with stagnant water being a recurring element in his personal Otherworld, the delivery and uncanny movements reflect a man struggling to breathe or weighted down is presented over and over, a far more original and less repeated visual idea alongside James’s symbolic action reaching or jumping into peculiar or nauseating holes, while either exploring or finding quest items in walls or a toilet. We see this struggle in his speech, as we do with him creepily trying to compose his face and suck in breath among the urinals in his first scene. The setting alone is graphic, evocative in a balanced way. The hospital and its nurses create the association of the body as much as a toilet, and the tying of genitalia to excretion as much as sex, sex being something denied or twisted, causing the psychological muck and decay that spreads ludonarratively into the horror world and creature-feature of this game involving fighting monsters.

This man lacks lucidity, and is either struggling, or possibly entirely lacking the will to keep his own self-preservation. Trying to aid or encourage others is simply not possible, socially he fails in a way I find echoed by his physical weakness in a scene where he requires Maria’s help. For the vast majority of this story, it is a matter or treading water, doing what he just doesn’t have the capacity to do. It’s arguably not about his feelings about the matter, James lacks the assumed empowerment to overcome that characters derive from the moral right in most film protagonists, protagonists or a power fantasy common in games. In a way, the game is an intentional inversion. You don’t come to the game to be strong, dominant, informed or sympathetic, but the exact opposite.

To be repelled, confused is where the strength and beauty of the story comes in. There are very, very few stories depicting mental illness and despair that does not either callously discard, or attempt to turn it into some form of empowerment. People being disjointed and abstract to us because we cannot entirely understand them is an abstraction, like the performance and the environmental and monster design. It’s easy to watch or make an advert about mental health, or compassion and feel ourselves right. To be around a sick person who pushes your sanctimonious attitude and personal failings in your face, or scream or fight you instinctively is part of the real horror in life and why we so rarely ever talk about or depict anything like it artistically. Stories like this can be lifechanging, but they’re hardly bearable repeatedly, just as the growing swathe of mental health marketing adverts do not and have no intention of touching these issues beyond asking for monetary donations.

There is a rarely explored, but probably unconsciously constant part of the psyche that knows and feels, fearing miscommunication as much in others as ourselves, understanding that our lust drive persists even when we wish they would not. I wonder if this kind of thinking is what informed the motifs and key themes of this story, flowing into the game design and script.

All of these ideas, of distortion, a creeping sense of the supernatural being spawned by the minds of the tormented are present in this scene. Not in a case of pretentiousness, or as a critic’s overimagination. Every one of the conversations may differ in content or feature other characters; but as a story that’s entirely within the seemingly living monster of Silent Hill itself, there is no detracting from the focus just as the game is a completely linear journey through a labyrinth.

The game’s horror elements, as well as why it’s been discussed since 2001 come from employing the formula of encouraging speculation about what might be. Switching a light to see a room crawling with bugs. Knocking on a stall a few times, and after a pause and going to leave have something bang back. The Red Pyramid is a goddamn awful monster mostly for a few very short flash scenes of it doing something that has nothing to do with attacking you or communicating. And James is the strange mixture of player vessel, protagonist, character and monster that he is because each of his weird lines beg the question and confusion this story will pull you through so well.

Reference:

Silent Hill 2. Team Silent. 2001.