---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: **As of Spring 2012: Mary has been confirmed as having not stayed at Brookhaven by former Team Silent member, Masahiro Ito (nsfw image background)
Take it as you will. Personally that's some awesome validation after 7 years of debating. But overall I enjoyed it, thanks to those who stayed reasonably civil throughout, it was fun and really interesting**
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I do not think that Mary stayed at Brookhaven Hospital. I think it is an interesting theory, but it is NOT provable a this time, and the actual game evidence leans heavily towards the contrary, so much so that it is taken for granted and forgotten when this theory comes up. But I will give you some reasons as to why this theory cannot be proven as fact, because I am tired of reading about people saying that "I am right, you are wrong, this is a fact etc. etc."
Anyway, here are many reasons why:
A: The story that Laura gives about obtaining Mary's Letters suggests that Mary wrote both letters before she left to go "home." These things suggest that Mary and Laura were hospitalized outside of Silent Hill/South Vale. In addition, if she had written those letters before she supposedly went to Brookhaven, then the context of the rooftop diary written in Brookhaven doesn't make sense. By that supposed time, Mary had already written the letter, accepted her death, and wished James well and all of that wonderful and emotional stuff. Since it was written in that hospital (given to nurse Rachel and put in her locker, until Laura swiped it), Mary's mental state seemed like that of a healthy terminally ill person, who finally found the power to come to terms with their life and death, not of someone who needed to go to Brookhaven. And in the letter, Mary said she was going home, not to Brookhaven.
In Mary's letter to James, she wishes him to lead his own life again after she's gone. She makes peace between herself and her illness, her fate to die. Although she is sad that her life is ending, she is happy that she shared it with her someone special. The diary in Brookhaven on the other hand gives a sense that the person writing the diary has given up on life rather than accepting the inevitability that they will die. Although these two comments seem similar, they are very different when you consider a terminally ill person's emotional state. Giving up on life is a response when you feel that there is no hope in life to continue to live. Accepting that you will die means that you value life and the purpose of living, but that you know that it is part of the nature of things, that life begins and life ends.
B. There has been research on the process people go through when they are terminally ill:
From playing the game, Mary, for the three years she was ill, seemed to have been caught in a cycle between denial and grieving, never finally moving on to acceptance, that is until she wrote the letter when she was finally released to go home, to "put her house in order" to to speak.Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist did landmark work with the terminally ill patient in the 1960's which resulted in the establishment of a "cycle" that she found each patient went through upon learning of their imminent death.
The first reaction was shock. The universal first reaction to hearing the news was, "No."
The second stage that quickly followed was denial. "This can't be happening to me."
The third stage was anger. This anger was usually directed at God, nature, or luck, but needed to be understood by the family because it usually became directed at them at some point.
The fourth stage was bargaining. The patient typically hoped that God would extend their life or cure them in exchange for promised behavior.
The fifth stage was grieving. This is usually the longest lasting stage of the cycle and is marked by deep depression and mood changes.
The final stage was acceptance. Once this stage is reached, the patient usually used whatever time remaining to "put their house in order." There was a marked peace in the patient's mood. Death was not a feared event.
C: Personally, I think many of you are trying to paint Mary into a psychological corner (and any terminally ill person) where what I thought were deep and psychologically complex characters from my play of Silent Hill 2, are being given simple feelings and explanations. Mary, while coping with the fact that she's going to die, may have thought about suicide at times, there is no denying this from the remark about the doctors in her letter, but that does not make her SUICIDAL, and comparing that remark to all of the REST of the letter, I don't think she was the type of person to end her life in suicide. (Even besides the obviousness of her not ending it for three years) She was no danger to herself. When she thought of suicide, she thought of it in a bitter tone "if they just killed me", she didn't say "kill myself", she didn't see suicide as an escape, which is common among suicidal people. She thought about it with bitterness, and said that line with a slighly ironic and satirical tone...Overall, I think the way Mary coped was more along the lines of something like this:
1. SHE WANTED TO LIVE, it's evident that she wanted to live from the letter, and that she hated how unfair it all was.
2. She became bitter about everything, about the doctor's bills and about how meaningless it all was because of the (seemingly) immediate inevitability of her fate. She felt robbed and cut short, and seeing the faces of people she knew and could have lived out her life with (especially James) probably made her feel worse.
3. And so she lashed out at others around her, especially James, out of anger and also most likely out of a desperate cry to know that the people around her still cared.
4. This probably led her to hate herself, and feel guilty about what her illness caused, like a burden.
5. Which may have led to suicidal thoughts, because of the inevitability of her death, maybe she thought "Why not?"
6. But I think she held on for three entire years because she was still partially in a state of denial/hope. Thinking about what could happen if she got better.
7. And so she wanted people to know that she cared about them, she didn't want to sever all ties to the ones she loved, she still wanted to build relationships (like how she did with Laura, even being as ill as she was). She still had some small hopes for the future (wanting to adopt Laura) And even if she still didn't get better, she thought about her life and she appreciated what time she had. But then...
This leads back to #1, and is probably what she and James went through for three long years, to the point where:
a: James stopped visiting Mary for a while, and Mary develops a relationship with Laura. While James is not around, Mary finally starts to accept her death, and the presence of Laura probably started to help Mary heal. So by the time Mary goes home, she is no longer the angry person she was, the person who drove James away.
b: When Mary was told she could go home "the doctor came today", she felt overcome with a need to write those two emotional letters, in which she finally let go of all of her feelings, (therein, the letter expresses a summary of 1-7, as if to show the psychological process of accepting death, except this time, she finally stopped at #7 without a rinse and repeat, wherein she totally accepted her fate and wished her loved ones well.) Then she went home to die.
c: James, who had been trying to keep Mary from his mind, who had kept all of his urges and emotions under wraps for three years, finally snapped, and euthanized his wife when she finally came home. He then put her in his trunk, drove to Silent Hill, where he promised he take her again (but never did), and then probably decided to commit suicide with her in his car, until his mania/delusions/denial/the powers that be in SH came along.
D: To me, this makes more sense, in terms of continuity. There is no reason for Mary to have gone to Brookhaven. You don't send termnially ill people to a mental hospital, you send them to a hospice, where professionals who deal with terminally ill patients are. You don't put them in a place with padded cells or around people with mental problems. That's not the kind of environment a terminally ill patient should be in, for their sanity. You surround them with the good things in life, not with other people who can't cope. That would be cruel, because the people in mental hospitals would be viewed as wasting their lives, in comparison to someone like Mary, who is doomed. And Brookhaven does not have the look of a regular hospital/mental hospital. Remember, there already IS a regular hospital in Silent Hill ((Alchemilla))
In all of the from a to b to c's that some of you have come up with, piecing together all of this "evidence", I think you're missing the big picture about the game, which deeply shows the vast complexity of the human emotional spectrum, of how humans cope with pain and suffering. Why insist that Mary wrote the rooftop diary? It's practicaly an insult to her, to imply that she was that simple, that mental. She wasn't.
E: The Japanese original translation, according to Adversary, may not say "I have a family to feed" ((and even that is debatable because we have seen no real evidence on what the original really meant, and in what context)) on the rooftop diary. - but that still doesn't prove that it was Mary who wrote it, because the diary itself still implies that Mary had to be suicidal to the point of hurting herself (because the handwriting trails off, and is on a rooftop, and implies suicide, even if the person is told they ((are healed and)) have to go). Mary being a harm to herself enough to be sent to Brookhaven is never mentioned in the game, nor is it implied that she's mentally ill. There is also mention of ANOTHER patient that could have written that diary, and it seems more likely that he did as well. Anyway, it's natural for a terminally ill person to feel suicidal at times, but those kinds of thoughts are on a different level from someone who has "someone special" or "family to feed" waiting for them at home, depending on them; as someone would who DID have their lives before them would. If Mary needed to be sent anywhere, it would have been a hospice that had trained people to deal with "that" kind of suicidal behavior. But once again, it is never mentioned that Mary attempted suicide or left her original hospital. So it should be assumed that Mary didn't go anywhere. But if she HAD, it would not have been Brookhaven. Brookhaven is no place for a terminally ill patient.
F: The rooftop diary implies that whoever wrote it had someone waiting for them at home, someone who they somewhat resented for their dependency at least. James didn't/couldn't depend on Mary in that kind of way either, he was most likely trying to find ways NOT to depend on her, because it hurt him too much. (Which is why he stopped visiting her) THAT was partially why Mary was so angry as well, she felt like a burden because she depended on him, especially since she could give nothing in return. Because of that dependence, she hated herself, and she lashed out at him. i.e. He brings her flowers, she has nothing to give him/it reminds her of what she's losing, she lashes out, but as he leaves, she cries out because she needs him.
G: But by the time she wrote the letter, she had finally come to terms with her death, and so was somewhat exicited (even if it was bittersweet) to be home one last time. She did have her fears and doubts about his acceptance of her, but it was overwhelmed by her wanting to make things right the best she could. She had finally moved on to the last stage in the terminal illness cycle. Mary didn't have to go home, she knew her coming home would be painful for James, but she did anyway, and he killed her. The tone of the rooftop diary is totally different. The person who wrote it didn't want to go home because they had one or more persons who depended on them. They didn't want the life they had.
H: Maria lying down on the bed in Brookhaven doesn't have to imply that Mary may have been familiar with that specific place or that specific hospital, but it absolutely does at least speak as a metaphor for all the time Mary had to lay on a hospital bed, and the pills around are an obvious companion to this when you revisit the room later.
I: In the letter, Mary states "The doctor came today" The tone of this is hopeful, and yet sad. She is sad because it means that she is going to die soon, but it is also hopeful and happy, because she gets to die in peace, somewhere familiar. She gets to be with James. (and this is partially why she wrote the letter)
The writer of the rooftop diary though seems to not be very happy at all, especially about the doctor releasing him/her. This person seems to dread going home and facing responsibility. The entire tone is different (the handwriting too people, James didn't recognize it, and yet he recognizes the original letter from Mary, even stating that it's her writing...Wouldn't he say something if he saw her handwriting in a diary, and be surprised that she stayed at Brookhaven? That would have been a huge revalation.) Plus, they just don't look that similar from looking at them both.
J: Finally, I quote this: "In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised you'd take me there again someday, but you never did. Well, I'm alone there now, in our special place, waiting for you. Waiting for you to come to see me, but you never do..."
Instead of the way you have been interpreting it, try to put yourself in Mary's shoes as she writes it...Or James' as he reads it...Silent Hill has a special meaning to them.
Mary starts out saying that she sees Silent Hill in her restless dreams, that town. The tone of this is both actual and metaphorical. She probably sometimes does see Silent Hill in her dreams...But she also sees the peace that she felt, and she wants to experience it again with James. This is a metaphorical statement, a letter opening. Then suddenly it switches back to an actual statement of something in their lives. "You promised you'd take me there again someday" Before she got sick, James promised he'd take her there again someday, but with the illness, they never got the chance. And now, she's alone there, in their special place. By the time she gets to the line "I'm alone there now, in our special place", the tone is again metaphorical. It could mean anything, it could mean that she's died and her version of heaven would be to experience the peace she felt, with James along side her again. It could mean that she's dwelling on her memories before she dies, but she's sad to be dwelling there alone...And then it turns back into a factual statement "Waiting for you to come see me, but you never do". She's lamenting about the separation between them because of her illness. And that's why this game was so incredible, because the letter written was so real and packed with emotion. In letters like this, people often switch between metaphors and then suddenly back to the point of what is actually happening, as a way to tie the visuals provided and the feelings they bring up with the reality around them. "You never do, you never did", it's just how people write. And this isn't just in letters, it's just a natural form of human communication. Mary was trying to bridge the gap between her and James by reminding him of the time they spent together when they were happy. Happiness was their special place, and ultimately, she wanted him to be happy too. That's why James didn't know where exactly their "special place" was in Silent Hill...Silent Hill just signified a happy time before the last three bitter years. It was good memories. And this is also why Silent Hill is such a great game...Because something so special to them became so warped to James by the end. It became the only place where he would receive his death or redemption.
