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Silent Hill 2is a very isolated game. While it exists within the grander tale of the Silent Hill series, it stands mostly independent of every other entry. Silent Hill 2 is squarely James' story, as well as the brief glimpses he gets into the lives of others. And then Maria appears.
Maria is core to every feeling and experience that James goes through in Silent Hill 2, yet who she is as a person is never really explored, only alluded to. The Silent Hill 2 Remake doesn’t include it, but the Director’s Cut of the original game features a scenario focused just on Maria that makes her existence all the more complicated.
This article will include spoilers for the entirety of the original Silent Hill 2 and its extra scenario, Born From A Wish.
Where Did Maria Come From?
That’s a question that’s a bit more straightforward than you might think. While the base game of Silent Hill 2 and its remake offer no explanation, the Born From A Wish scenario included in the Director’s Cut of the original does. This is a short playable campaign featuring Maria as the sole protagonist.
aIt details Maria’s time in Silent Hill just prior to her meeting with James. While not explicitly said, it can be assumed that Born From A Wish is concurrent with the events of James' arrival in Silent Hill due to the short length of Maria’s adventure before meeting him.
This leads to where she came from - Silent Hill. No other humans exist in Silent Hill that seem to actually know the town save for Maria. Angela and Eddie are both searching for others, while Laura is just a child aimlessly running around. Maria, however, seems to have intimate awareness of the town.
Silent Hill is a town with a power of its own, one that isn’t ever fully elaborated upon, Clearly, it has the power to make your fears turn into something tangible, something we see for all others who have sinner before being led to town. For Maria though? She sees what James sees, nothing more and nothing else. Based on this and the beginning of Born From A Wish, a simple explanation exists.
Maria came into existence the moment James entered Silent Hill. We never see her before this, even from her own perspective, yet no one else exists in Silent Hill that is actually from the town. The only explanation is that the town manifested her into existence as a trial for James.
Is Maria A Real Person Of Her Own?
This is where things become more complicated. From the moment James meets Maria, he sees his wife, Mary, in her. A remarkable similarity by his own admission. This furthers the theory that Maria came into existence for James, though doesn’t quite answer some other questions, ones that Born From A Wish asks.
Near the beginning of this scenario, Maria meets a man behind the door of the Baldwin Mansion called Ernest. This man, never seen, makes frequent mention of James and his sin, and even remarks that Maria is not a real individual, but just a being made in James' image of Mary. Maria is quick to reject this to assert her own individuality.
This implies that to Maria, the circumstances of her existence are not known even to her. She came into existence as a fully formed being, memories and all. Memories enough to make her think she’s a real person of her own, not some amalgamation of others. Regardless of all this, Ernest asks Maria to help him in finding mementos of his dead daughter.
This may be the reason that Maria feels such a strong urge to help Laura, after Ernest’s desire to remember his own daughter imprinted onto her.
Yet following this conversation, Maria’s mannerisms change. She becomes more like the Maria that James sees, despite having a more neutral manner before this. As you near the very end of Silent Hill 2 with the Leave or In Water ending, you meet Mary. Except this isn’t Mary at all, but Maria designed to look like her. Accepting that James truly does love Mary, she takes on her very image to tempt him further, yet it fails.
At this point, Maria truly is dead, James having passed his trial and accepted his sin. So is Maria her own person? In a sense, she was born without external influences. She was herself, even if she didn’t know it herself. Yet her exposure to others, both James and Ernest, caused her to take on personality traits independent of herself. She became others. But she is not them, and she is not just a figment of James' imagination either. She is flesh and blood, even if she slowly becomes those around her.
How Does Maria Keep Coming Back To Life?
Silent Hill is punishment for James, a means to test him to see if he can acknowledge his own guilt at having killed his wife, Mary. Maria is another part of that test, a piece of him that focuses on his preferred version of Mary. One that is more fashionable, more sensual. One that is willing to please him and never drag him down. A Maria that will forgive him his selfish nature.
So Maria dies. She dies again and again because of James. All as a means to tell James that is is his fault. He killed his wife in the first place, and now even his perfect version of Mary, Maria, is dying because of his own punishment. And each time she comes back. She gives a little bit more hope to James that maybe she’s back for good this time.
She never died, she tells James when he finds her alive and well in the Labyrinth. Relax and spend some time with her, she knows he wants to. He is confused, but the allure is there. And then she dies again, this time by some damned disease. Another flash of the real Mary in Maria.
Once again she returns, this time to be punished by Pyramid Head, James' very own judge, jury, and executioner. He understands at this point why she must die, what it means for him. It is atonement, a suffering he must endure to accept that he killed Mary, that he killed Maria, and no one else. It was all his fault.
So how does Maria keep coming back? She seems to be a genuine human, yet she comes back unharmed from each and every death she suffers. Really, it is in the same way that she came into existence in the first place. She was born from James desire. And with his desire for her growing with each death, Maria could come back as the same person that she was each time.
In the Maria ending, you meet James' memory of Mary at the end and kill her once and for all, putting the Mary that James grew to hate to rest for good. Maria is the girl he really wanted. And in this ending, he finds Maria healthy and well once again, and plans to leave Silent Hill with her in tow. Until she coughs, with him heartlessly telling her to get that looked at. He failed the trial.
In the Maria ending, James finds Maria freshly awoken and unharmed in the Heaven’s Night club. This is the same place that the Born From A Wish scenario begins.
Can Maria Exist Outside Of Silent Hill?
Maria was born in Silent Hill, her existence is tied to James' punishment, and she is an extension of those around her. So is it even possible for her to physically leave Silent Hill? While we never see it, the Maria ending of Silent Hill 2 seems to imply that indeed, Maria can leave. She is a physical person after all, not a figment of James' tortured mind.
Yet when we do see her on the Observation Deck of Silent Hill getting ready to climb into James' car, she coughs. James doesn’t even look at her as he tells her to get that checked out. We could look at this purely metaphorically, that with Maria attempting to become this perfect version of a dead woman, she must suffer the same fate. She too will get that same damned disease, and die.
We could also look at it in the sense that, since Maria is a creation of Silent Hill, she can’t physically leave it without her life becoming forfeit, her ability to live slowly drained from her. Of course, the end result is the same - Maria will die, and James will live in denial that it was his fault whatsoever.
