Seeing as James has had Pyramid Head and Maria to punish him, I was wondering if Angela *or Eddie had the same thing.

There are body portraits of people on the wall with the staircase. To me, this has always said to me that the portraits on the wall was her form of judgment. From the scene with Angela's point of view, we see that there is no other exit to Angela except going upstairs to a certain door....which leads us to another question. What is behind the door?

If you examine the first time where we meet her, she states that she "thought her father and brother were here too". Of course, she is blocking off her murder just as James is. Who says that Angela doesn't have a sort of executioner or form of judgment than James?

We see her guilt very clearly. "Don't pity me, I deserved what happened." However, regarding Eddie, I don't remember him blocking off any aspects of his crimes either. So is it possible that Angela has had other forms of punishment? What is behind the staircase?*

As well as Eddie, did he have anything to punish him?

*-edited

.

>To me, this has always said to me that the portraits on the wall was her form of judgment.<
Why?

>we see that there is no other exit to Angela except going upstairs to a certain door<
There isn't a door. The stairs don't end.

@simeonalo-Nice thread idea, but maybe we should keep it to a "did ANY of the supporting characters have a punisher?" because I didn't pay enough attention to Eddie
@Yoshata-I thought Angela said "for me, it's always like this." That always made me think that the 'fire' wasn't hot or damaging to her.
@The Advesary-1.because she didn't have any other form of judgment in the game. I think that's what he's saying.
2. Why do the stairs not end, exactly?

Is Angela not the punisher herself?

She is looking for the rest of her family members to kill them off to ease her mind, and she has thoughts of taking her own life. I think she is her own punishment and the flames in the staircase are just a physical manifestation of what her mind is like.

>because she didn't have any other form of judgment in the game.<
Fire? The Ideal Father? . . .

>Why do the stairs not end, exactly?<
There's no end in sight, maybe.

I think that was what he meant. I dunno.



There's a small hallway in the game hack, but that's unreliable. I thought that was just a part of the game where you could finally see Angela's otherworld and couldn't get past her fire.

Her fire? Meh...you know what I meant.

>I think that was what he meant. I dunno.<
That's what I meant: Both of those nouns follow Angela around.

>There's a small hallway in the game hack<
In the game itself, we're only allowed to see Angela continue walking up the stairs. I don't think the developers intended us to see what actually goes on at the "top."

^That's why I said the gamehack was unreliable *childishly sticks out tongue*
But yeah, I don't suppose we were supposed to see the "top."

I think a lot of people assumed she died up there, because the staircase was on fire and all, but she told James that (for her) it was always that way.

James commented on the heat of the fire, but Angela commented on seeing the fire, so I guess that was one of those 'overlap in otherworlds' moments. She seemed unaffected by the heat of the fire (she was walking through it) so I don't think she died.

But I don't recall her fate being mentioned in any other games, and I don't know what any of the supplementary material says about her ultimate fate--so I've got nothing else to argue on that. <3

I think she would have had a punisher. She might not have felt guilty about murdering her father, but she did feel guilt about what happened to her.

As people have already mentioned, Abstract Daddy would've been her punisher. But I wonder what he looked like to her. I recall mention in a thread here somewhere that she may have seen him/it differently to what James saw. Got to admit, a walking bed frame isn't all that scary, and doesn't move all that fast. Just run past it and close the door. It's not like it could reach the door handle.

She's basically forced to walk up the stair case and "admire" her work, you know, it's basically forcing her to own up.


Well, the staircase does end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqTNf2IZ7Yg. Sorry when I said there was a door, there is just a dark hole.



As you wish.



That's what I said.

She's looking for her father's grave in the cemetery. She's examing headstones when you come across her, remember? I think it's safe to assume she knows he's dead. The fact that she's also looking for her brother there suggests that her brother is also dead. For the record, you've misquoted Angela; she never said "too," implying that her father, mother and brother are together. Here's the actual dialog:

(bracketed text added by me)

A later statement by Angela strongly suggests that her mother is the only living member of her immediate family:



James needed to be reminded of what he did so he could move forward, Angela did not. She knew what she'd done, she just had to decide how to deal with it. If you haven't read alone in the town's theory regarding the roles of Pyramid Head and Maria, I highly recommend checking it out. It makes a metric fuckton of sense to me.

In a nutshell, I disagree with two major parts of your theory: (A) that Angela has mentally blocked her father's murder, and (B) that James actually has a "punisher" figure to judge his crimes at all.

Well they all have their own punishments i think, but im pretty sure james is the only one who has an executioner. I'm pretty sure Eddy's punishment is that he sees people always laughing at him or pointing out his flaws and picking on him, maybe.

I wouldn't call them punishments, just manifestations of their respective subconscious minds. The town is not a sentient, objective judge that strokes its beard and says "By Jove, it would be awfully fitting for that tubby fellow to be continuously mocked as punishment for the crime of violent retaliation to perceived contempt!" Yes, Eddie sees people laughing at him, but by the end of the game, that's not such a terrible thing to him. He's found the freedom (within his delusion) to kill them all, rising above them and putting them down with a bullet to the face.

So the mockery of Eddie is not a final punishment, but a situation that he can respond to in multiple ways. It's a test, perhaps. Eddie fails, feeding his hatred and going on a violent rampage that ends in his getting killed by James. You might say James is Eddie's punisher.

The events of SH2 are also a test of James' character, and depending on his success or failure, he might be punished by reliving the loss of a loved one to illness (Maria ending), suicide (In Water), or any number of potential hazards from invoking the local gods (Rebirth).

^True, but the manifestations of their subconscious minds do seem to punish them which is why i referred to them as punishments. The town isn't really a judge, but it causes the their subconscious thoughts to come to life.

The manifestations can certainly cause varying degrees of pain, but choosing the correct responses to them can actually help a character survive his or her ordeal with sanity intact. If James accepts what he's done and achieves the "Leave" ending, he's actually leaving Silent Hill with a healthier mind than when he arrived. The Silent Hill "treatment," as one thread around here puts it, is more therapy than punishment. It hurts, but so does disinfecting a nasty wound. That doesn't make it a punishment.

This. I see Silent Hill as a therapist, albeit rather twisted. It seems to cause people to go through their problems and either accept them and move on ("Leave" ending) or die.

I don't know about others having punishers. It could always be possible, but Silent Hill 2 is really about James, so that's something that makes him unique from the other characters. It would probably also be too much to create punishers for the others, too.

It's not just about James. We are given exclusive access to his story. It doesn't mean the others are less important.

If one considers Maria as a part of the equation, then my answer is yes. Daddy and the Laughing People are Angela's and Eddie's equivalent of James' Maria. I do not believe they have their own unstoppable Pyramid Head-like monsters, however. Considering what I believe Pyramid Head really represents, perhaps their lack of a suitable equivalent indicates that they were doomed to never come to terms with what they had done.

I need clarification on this.

You're saying that Angela and Eddie had the same trial as James, but not the same choice-(understanding/fortification-or-madness/death)

So, the town just draws in people with secrets/darkness in their hearts, puts them thru their therapy, but knows in advance who will succumb to fantasy over reality? I'm not following.