Where did mary die? (spoilers in thread, not title)

[AuraTwilight]

yea, but having her upright makes for a zanier inevitable parody video.

[Oddish]

I think that the fact that James came to SH to kill himself pretty much verifies that he knew that his actions wer eillegal and wrong. I would guess that he wrapped Mary in a sheet and put her in the trunk of his car to drive to SH. Upon arrival, he intended to prop her up in the front seat and drive his car into the water, killing himself. "Now we can be together".

However, grief, exhaustion, and frustration had already put him dangerously near the edge, and Mary's death put him over it. His mind snapped, and he generated the fantasy that she was dead for three years as a defense mechanism.

It's open to interpretation, but that seems like the most logical assumption.

[alone in the town]

I think that the fact that James came to SH to kill himself pretty much verifies that he knew that his actions wer eillegal and wrong.

I think that his suicidal mindset verifies that issues of morals and laws were the furthest thing from his mind. I don't think, for a second, that he was suicidal because he killed Mary. In fact, I believe the exact opposite might be true.

[WelcomeToNowhere]

^Right, he doesn't really seem all that suicidal at the beginning of the game--maybe he was closer to "despondent"? At the end, it doesn't seem like he wants to kill himself, exactly. It's one of those "I'm out of options" things--he killed his wife and has nowhere to go, he might very well be imprisoned for manslaughter or second-degree murder, and he has no ways to revive Mary, either, if the In Water ending is to be assumed as canon. So, being in a place where there are no choices that can end with a happy ending for him, he decides to go join her, but out of love and...longing, perhaps? In the end, I'll bet it was definitely the fear of legal repercussions and maybe some self-admonishment that gave him his motive, not really guilt and loathing.

[alone in the town]

He doesn't seem suicidal at the beginning of the game because he has wrapped himself in a delusion. The act of self-destruction in a place of memories was why he came to town in the first place.

It is vital to understanding everything James does that, no matter what ending he ends up with, before the game begins, it was his intent to die in the lake with Mary next to him. He does not become suicidal as the result of of killing Mary, or because of anything he sees in Silent Hill. He is suicidal because, before any of this even happens, he has lost all reason for living, and any hope things could get better.

It is worth noting that James himself is never seen to address either the ethics or the legality of killing. In some of the endings, in conversation with Mary, he struggles with whether he can justify the act to himself and to her, but what bothers him is not that he killed Mary--she was near to death anyway--but the emotions and feelings which impelled him to kill her. While it was certainly against the law, this is never a factor which arises to James, as far as we can tell. If he considered himself a dead man walking, ready to end his own life very soon after ending Mary's, what the law has to say could probably not matter less to him. He never expresses a fear of the law or a desire to avoid its reach.

He does say, in one ending, that he wanted his life back, which may indicate that suicide was not certain in his mind before the act, but it sounds weak. There was no way killing her would have helped him in any way in this regard, and he must have known it. I feel that when he says this to Mary in the Leave ending, there's not a shred of truth in it, but because after pretending for the entire game that her death was natural and avoiding the responsibility of it, he compensates for trying to make his motives sound worse than they really were. Of course, Mary understands this perfectly and gently negates his assertion as soon as he makes it.

[PoemOfTheLastMoment]

[mikefile]

In some of the endings, in conversation with Mary, he struggles with whether he can justify the act to himself and to her, but what bothers him is not that he killed Mary--she was near to death anyway--but the emotions and feelings which impelled him to kill her.

I think I get what you're saying. I also always thought that such an otherworld would not form just because he killed his wife out of mercy, as it is even a good deed if one thinks about it.

However, what I believe too, that James didn't go through all that hell just because he felt 'bad' for having to kill his dying wife. I think what really bothered him was the feelings that he held inside of him, and by that I refer to sexual frustration. I think that all of that long period of nurturing he had to go through was something that made consumated and confused him so much and made him believe that he actually hated his wife's guts. That's what made him feel guilty and what triggered the otherworld.

[WelcomeToNowhere]

^Uhh, umm... umm, it's actually "consumed," not "consummated." The first means "to be devoured or eaten," while the second means "to validate a marriage through having sex." Sorry for the grammar nazi-ism.

Isn't the deciding factor between all the endings, except for rebirth, the hindsight justification of what he did to Mary, opposed to his actual feelings? Cause no matter the ending, he seems to be feeling about the same stuff: sad, a little angry, and a lot depressed. Maybe a little guilty.

[Oddish]

I guess my take on the topic is that Mary might have died in one of three places: home, a hospital, or the hotel. James would not have been able to secure the body if she died in a hospital, and her body wasn't in the hotel (which burned down some time ago anyway). I'd say she died at home.

As for the other: the penalty James might have faced (or expected to face) isn't really relevant. I think that James's plan was to see Mary out of it, then kill himself, at which point he would be beyond the reach of (earthly) justice. The "In-Water" ending strongly implies that James remembers what he did and what he came to do, and carries out the plan. In "Maria", he chooses to embrace delusion instead of reality, one form of escape. In "Rebirth", he trifles with forces he cannot comprehend in an effort to bring Mary back, another form of escape. In "Leave", he accepts the reality of Mary's death and his part in it, but chooses to move on with his life.

That is why the "In-Water" ending has the following it does: it makes sense to a lot of people because it has James finishing what he started, following a relatively linerar path.

[mikefile]

That is why the "In-Water" ending has the following it does: it makes sense to a lot of people because it has James finishing what he started, following a relatively linerar path.

Well, not really. James' path is not linear because the whole point of the otherworld is to make him realize about every part of himself. If it wasn't for the otherworld that triggered the first manifestation (Mary's letter), James would rush straight into the lake.

So, the InWater ending would be somehow a negative ending, as James didn't learn anything from his journey.

Sorry for the grammar nazi-ism.

No problem. I appreciate yer criticism because me also sumtimes have been made some grammer meastkes even although I thoughted I spoken vary good.

[WelcomeToNowhere]

^Esta bien, pero por favor, lee lo que has escrito antes de envia usted? Gracias, mi amigo del sur.

Or, another way of looking at the In Water ending is that he feels overwhelmed by his guilt and loneliness, and compelled by the letter she gave him at the end, all those feelings combined together to make him go into the deep end. Literally.

Besides, nothing in Silent Hill is linear. Except maybe Homecoming.

[alone in the town]

Loneliness, yes. Guilt? Probably not so much. He explains himself in the In Water ending.

[Aerith Gainsborough]

I'd like to take the time to remind everyone that we do not allow members to call other members here 'Nazi', 'Grammar Nazi' or any of the sort, as is said in the forum guidelines. It's an offensive term in general, and should be avoided entirely.

[WelcomeToNowhere]

He says that he killed her because part of him hated Mary for taking his life away, but that he also wanted her forgiveness for taking what was left of her life away. Why ask for forgiveness if you don't feel remorse or guilt?

Having taken a second look at the room, it looks like a very basic room, like a very low-end hotel room or a disused guest room. The pictures on the wall make me think that if it IS a hotel room, it's somewhere she's stayed for quite a while. Makes me think she's really at a private care facility for the invalid.

^Does self-deprecation count?

[alone in the town]

No doubt he does feel guilt, and remorse, I'm just saying that it probably isn't the major ingredient. He doesn't talk like a man who is killing himself out of remorse. He talks like a man who has nothing left to live for.

"Without you, I have nothing".

[The Adversary]

This might be a nine-year-old thread, but I think I have the answer, and it's really not far from what I've always thought: An undisclosed location not far from Silent Hill.

A conversation about the cell in which Maria is killed was initiated by Droo today, regarding that room's door being marked 208, a conversation I'd remembered having in the past but couldn't quite recall the specifics. So I did some digging on the forum for that thread—apparently "room" and "208" are too basic of terms for the search engine—and came up with nothing. However, after looking into it more, which is probably why I came up with that "undisclosed location" bit years ago, I stumbled upon a couple things.

First off: The beds. There are two distinct beds in SILENT HILL 2. The first is the bed Maria dies on in the prison cell—or, room 208. This bed is also seen in the cloudy memory that James experiences in Lakeview Hotel's reading room, during which he listens to the audio tape of Mary's doctor discussing her prognosis. This is where James gets the whole three years or three days thing that practically leads to the foundation of his own delusion.

Taking this into account, it strongly implies Mary was hospitalized in a room #208 . . . somewhere at some time. We know she was at St. Jerome's, but St. Jerome's doesn't really have room numbers, far as I can see in walkthroughs. (If someone could go check it and see what room the wilted flowers are in, that would be a good sign that that's the room she was in at some point.)

The second bed is also seen twice: In the final stage/rooftop where James fights Mary/ia, and again in the small room in which Mary is ultimately killed.

Something that's never really been discussed, that I can recall, is what the rooftop room actually is. What is its significance?

Well, judging by the busted windows, the shitty decor, the rusty staircase, all that—I think it's an abandoned building. A manifestation of the abandoned building James took Mary so he could kill her.

So to add insult to injury to murder, James took his dying wife from their home to an abandoned building in or near Silent Hill, put her in a random bed, hung some photos of them on the wall, probably told her "I promised to bring you here again someday," and then killed her.

He loaded her body into the car—an abandoned building isn't going to draw much attention from outsiders, after all—and drove her to the lake, where he stopped to wash his face. This is where the delusion comes to life and now he's stuck.

[Lifetolifeless]

This is the room where Henry finds the dried flowers. No indication I can find of a room number, beyond what can be inferred from its position in the array, and being on the second floor.

[The Adversary]

Yeah, that’s kinda what I figured—not indicative or anything. If anything that’s room 209 or 210.

The bed on which James was told of Mary’s condition could be anywhere. I don’t think it’s as important to this conversation.

But I definitely believe the final stage is supposed to represent where Mary lost her life, and that may well just be an abandoned building with a bed somewhere in town.

At least he fulfilled his promise.

[TheEyeofNight]

To me it's just much simpler to think James did the deed at their home, rather than setting up an elaborate scene in some abandoned building.

I always felt like the final boss area probably represented James' manufactured reality falling apart, much like the hotel being in shambles after he watches the video tape. I could be wrong, but I really don't see any evidence that he took her anywhere other than home to kill her.

[Droo]

Could he have killed her in the slaughterhouse or wherever it is you fight Eddie and then emerge from the Labyrinth?