The Cutprice Guignol

So, I truly did not intend for this little dalliance into Silent Hill articles to go on for more than a few days – but, yesterday, I realized that everything I had posted so far had been distinctly…negative. And while you might know me as a bit of a hater, Silent Hill as a series is something I truly adore, so it didn’t feel right to leave things on such a pessimistic note. With that said, let’s take a look at the Valtiel of the ball herself, Silent Hill 2, recently re-released after two decades as one of gaming’s most iconic and influential psychological horrors.

And, since I’ve done a deep-dive into the story of Angela Orosco, one of the most prominent women in Silent Hill 2, I decided it was only fair that I give some attention to the game’s main female character, Maria.

Well, to be fair, I don’t think you can really separate Maria from her other half in the story, Mary. Mary is the late wife of protagonist James Sunderland, who passed from a terminal illness some time before she apparently sent a letter to him, calling him to return to Silent Hill. Maria is her doppelganger, who James meets during his time in Silent Hill, and who accompanies him through much of his trials in the mysterious town.

Though perhaps doppelganger is not actually quite the correct term for Maria. Sure, she looks and sounds like Mary, but everything about her personality and presentation is different. The version of Mary we see in the game is either sick and dying, or demure and sweet pre-illness – Maria dresses provocatively (in clothes styled off a Christina Aguilera outfit, no less) and presents herself flirtatiously, dropping suggestive comments to James within moments of their first encounter. She’s a consistently slippery character, her connection with Mary left deliberately obscure – dying, returning, slipping straight back into seduction mode mere scenes after we’ve seen her skewered with Pyramid Head’s blade. The specifics of what and who she is are never made totally clear – but it’s what she represents that I’d like to get into.

So, we’ll start at the start for Maria, in her spin-off DLC, Born from a Wish. In this short story, she wakes up in a hotel in Silent Hill, apparently having just blinked into existence – she carries out a few tasks for a man who hides behind a door, helping him in his goal to reconnect with his daughter, only to discover that there is nobody there when she finally opens the door. It’s this man – or rather, this disembodied voice – who warns her of her purpose, and that she will soon encounter James. She is warned that James is a bad man, and he is searching for “the you who isn’t you”.

And this is a term I find really interesting, with regards to how Mary and Maria are characterized within the world of Silent Hill 2. Because, while it can be taken in a very literal sense, as James searches for Mary, of whom Maria is a version, I think it also refers to the archetypes of womanhood that both women fill out.

There’s an obvious invocation of the virgin-whore dichotomy between the two, or at least some version of it – Mary, dead, difficult, angry, in pain, suffering and sexless, and Maria, suppliant, willing, seductive, and alive (it’s no coincidence that one of her first voice lines in the main game is to ask James to touch her, to feel how warm she is). While there are plenty of interpretations to be made of the game’s dense story and design, I’ve always taken Maria to have been born from James’ desire to access an idealized version of his wife – the wish she’s born from is James’, beginning when he arrives in Silent Hill. James, who killed his wife after years of illness, faces his guilt and grief in his time in Silent Hill (well, depending on how you play the game), and his relationship with Maria is a huge part of that.

Which is a really fascinating piece of character work for James, but, for me, what it says about Maria is even more interesting. She’s quite literally brought into being in service of a man – invented to satisfy the things that he felt his wife could not. But, because she’s a manifestation of Silent Hill, those things have been twisted to an almost grotesque place – her sexuality is jarring and inappropriate given the horrific circumstances they find themselves in, her reliance on James as a protector obsessive, her deaths and rebirths to appear again to James surreal and unsettling. While she’s made for him, to fulfil the things that Mary couldn’t, the game goes to great lengths to make sure we know that she’s not some simpering, ideal vixen – the restrictive and unrealistic archetypes of womanhood that she’s been created fulfil have made her into something of a monster (and a very literal one, in the game’s third act, at that).

I also find it interesting to see the places that she overlaps with Mary, of which there are a few, beyond just her voice and physical appearance. In Born from a Wish, she briefly makes reference to Laura, a young girl who Mary intended to adopt – though she instantly questions where she knows the name from. Maria might have some piece of the main maternal relationship Mary had in her life, but the specifics of it fundamentally incompatible with the archetype Maria fulfils. When she directs James to find a video tape of the two of them together, she frames it in almost salacious terms – referring to it as a video tape the lovers made in a hotel room together – though it actually depicts James’ murder of Mary. In one of the endings, where James leaves Silent Hill with Maria, she is hinted to have the same illness that Mary had – whether he kills her monstrous form or not, it seems that her closeness to him leaves her with an inevitable sickness, like she’s poisoned by her inability to be everything he needs of her.

Maria is a fascinating character, another one of the excellent women who fill out the world of Silent Hill, and I’m so looking forward to more people becoming acquainted with her and her storyline with the new release of Silent Hill 2. While this article just covers some of my interpretations of her arc and characterisation, I would honestly love to hear your takes on her too – jump into the comments, and let me know what you make of this iconic part of Silent Hill 2.

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(header image via Siliconera)