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thought that I had the other day: Silent Hill 2 is almost unique among games in that over time, the narrative gradually estranges the player from the viewpoint character, instead of the usual of the player gradually finding the viewpoint character more relatable: thread
obviously this thread is about to contain SH2 spoilers so consider yourself warned!
at the beginning of the game, the premise you're given is immediately sympathetic to James. his wife died, presumably he's been grieving her, and suddenly he gets a letter from her, dredging his pain and loss back up. so off he goes in search of closure.
and that's a deeply human motivation. we don't even question it, we just identify with it and off we go, trying to find this poor guy some kind of answers. things turn bizarre almost instantly, but at first we chalk it up to setting: Silent Hill has something WRONG with it.
and it does, that's true. if you've played the first game and have that backstory you're probably expecting this to be the case, and you aren't even incorrect. the town is a character in its own story in SH2, and the narrative lets you think it's the villain.
it certainly seems that way. there are monsters, and obstacles, and it feels like the place itself is both baffling James's progress and pushing him (and by extension, you) in some kind of terrible direction from go. but you start to find hints of something more along the way.
I don't think this is starker anywhere than talking to Eddie. he sees Silent Hill as full of people who hate him, and justify his killing them...pretty constantly. and you (and James) both think, what kind of a monster of a man could this guy be? that's a lot of murder!
obviously the player cannot sympathize with a murderer. this, ironically, necessitates murdering him. welp
and where does that leave James? a little further from the player, emotionally, but video games are like that, right? we can rationalize it still. it's one guy, who could just keep killing everything he saw without hesitation, and that's terrible. he had to go.
*looks directly into the fourth wall*
as you progress, the setting continues to teach you its rules. it's safe for Laura; she's an innocent. it's continual hellfire for Angela; she blames herself for her abuse. it's deadly, repeatedly, for Maria...hmm. and it's waterlogged and full of twisted monsters for James.
James, meanwhile, just gets deader inside, and you really start to wonder what this guy's deal is. he's here because he cares...right? because he wants to see Mary again? except he mostly gets Maria killed, and barely even reacts...?
this is already pretty far from the widower at the start that you could easily identify with, who misses his wife and just wants to know what's going on with this letter from beyond the grave. this is Weird Mental Shit territory, and the narrative has deftly moved you into it.
instead of wanting to find this guy's closure, the player is now trying also to figure out what the HELL is going on with this weird-ass place and how this relates to James, who you're increasingly beginning to wonder about, and Mary, and Maria also because how is she not Mary?
the more you learn and decipher the less you identify with James at all.
and then you watch the video.
and then you watch the video.
James has always been the villain. the town is the antagonist, but not the bad guy, and it has been showing you this all along. of course Maria dies so much. James is just reliving his sins, and Silent Hill is a very thorough stage, judge, jury...and, ultimately, executioner.
and by the end of the game you're probably totally fine with this. and that's wild, narratively speaking. video games almost never give you an unreliable, actually monstrous viewpoint character. you're meant to feel about them like a vehicle through which to view their world.
even among Silent Hill games, 2 stands out for this really radical inversion of the trope. the ostensibly evil setting is neutral, just giving an actually evil man what he deserves, and in the end you are a willing party to getting him there.
the player is fundamentally part of the jury, and by extension, part of the setting. a very real argument can be made in Silent Hill 2 that you are in fact playing more as the town itself by the end than you are James, a character with which you likely no longer emphasize.
he and you both suspect he won't survive the end, and you're kinda okay with it. like Silent Hill itself has been doing throughout the story, you drive him on to the conclusion anyway.
anyway that's why it's still one of my Forever Favorites. the narrative reversal that it uses is still pretty fresh and different from other games, years and years after it came out. I could basically sit here and write a full dissertation on why it's so cool but I kinda just did
