I am in line with your reasoning, actually. I don't believe James' 'sin' is killing Mary, not in his own eyes, at least. I think his real 'sin' was that he was too weak to be with Mary as the illness advanced, he could not deal with the changes, and stayed away (probably drinking) instead of being the support she desperately needed, which would naturally make a depressing situation much worse for her. His killing can be justified easily, and only the strictest moralist would not be swayed. She was going to die, and her dying would be hard. It's hard to argue that he didn't do her a huge favor. It is much more difficult to justify his cowardice and his violation of marriage vows, as he was not there in sickness as he was in health.Reckless Judgement wrote:But is that truly a sin to James? After all, Silent Hill has taken on the forms of his delusions and mentality. In the Maria ending, he says, "I couldn't watch you suffer."KingCrimson wrote: Well, other than his lust and desire, there was that little part of the story where he murdered his ailing wife by suffocating her.
While I don't believe any particular ending is more canonical than the other, I do believe that they all have their own merit. Perhaps at the time of doing it, he really did want to end her suffering. Due to his reasoning, it wasn't considered a 'sin' to him, seeing as he was doing it for his beloved wife, so that she wouldn't have to hurt, any longer. If there was no hope for your significant other, and they were sitting in a bed, withering away, and they truly wished for you to do it, TRULY wished for it. Would you not do it? Would you consider your actions justified?
After all, the law ruled in favor of a person performing a mercy-killing by pulling the person's life-support after every other action had been taken. They found that since they had done everything they could, there was nothing else that could be done, and that it was a justifiable action. Perhaps in James' mind, it was the same thing?
That's not to say the death doesn't affect him--a person of normal morals will not find killing easy just because it is justified (or even beneficial), but to focus on it as the nexus of James' mental circus is, I think, I missing the point.
I do have to even things out by disagreeing with the idea that the Pyramid Heads have different appearances. There is only one model in the game data.