Silent Hill 2, like the rest of the series, features no shortage of tragic characters. In these games, even an antagonist can have a background that garners sympathy, but it might not be enough to absolve them of their actions. It does, however, create a world that's morally gray, and the way that it mirrors the human experience adds to the horror and unsettling elements that make this franchise so memorable. At times, a character can end up feeling too relatable in that nightmare of a universe.

Content Warning: the following article contains mentions of sexual abuse and trauma.

While Silent Hill 2 follows the story of James returning to the town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his deceased wife, he's not the only character wandering around in the fog. Because Silent Hill is a town that works in mysterious ways, and has a way to draw in people who are troubled or traumatized by their past, it's not surprising that Silent Hill 2 includes several tragic characters. While James is at the center of the game, he might not be the most tragic character hanging around Silent Hill.

6 Eddie Adds To His Own Tragedy

Eddie Dombrowski Is A Boss Fight

Eddie Dombrowski is a side character James comes across a few times during his journey in Silent Hill, first meeting him in an apartment building where Eddie is puking and insisting that he didn't kill the woman whose body is in the apartment. James and Eddie part with each one telling the other to be careful, understanding that they're in a place full of monsters. However, Eddie's experience in Silent Hill is the result of both tragedy and his choices of how to handle what happened to him in the past.

Throughout his life, Eddie has been bullied because of his appearance, and that caused him to snap at some point, turning violent towards those who laugh at him. He believes that if he kills somebody who laughed at him, it was a fate they deserved. However, he doesn't show any hostility towards Laura, and they seem to be generally friendly to each other, to the point that Eddie simply asks Laura not to call him certain names if she says something he doesn't like, making her possibly the only exception.

It's not clear why Eddie ended up in Silent Hill, but the town has a way of attracting troubled souls, and he fits that description. Aside from that, it's possible to guess what sort of manifestations he might encounter while there, especially as he grows more violent and agitated each time James comes across him. Eddie probably faces countless monstrous replications of the bullies he's dealt with in the past until he can't handle them anymore.

5 Laura Has Nowhere Else To Go For Now

Laura Is Known By Both Mary And James

Compared to the rest of the cast, Laura is relatively lucky in Silent Hill, and the tragic circumstances of her life don't torment her the same way they would for other characters, because she doesn't hold any darkness the way others in the town do. Having befriended Mary while they were in the hospital together as patients, Laura became attached to Mary, starting to view her as her mother, as Laura was an orphan by the time she met Mary. After receiving a letter from Mary prior to her death, Laura heads to Silent Hill to look for her.

Mary's letter has her describing the beautiful place she's in now, and Laura takes that to mean that Mary is in Silent Hill, considering Mary told her about her love of the place. However, Mary actually meant Heaven, and Laura doesn't know that Mary is dead, leading her to look for her like James does. While it's tragic that Laura is wandering around this town looking for somebody who's dead, she at least isn't tormented by monsters or the nightmare world. She can't even see Maria in Silent Hill.

4 James Adds To His Own Tragedy

The Main Character Of Silent Hill 2

Like Laura, James heads to Silent Hill in search of Mary, his wife who died three years prior to the beginning of the game. This might seem like the actions of a loving husband, at least until Silent Hill 2 reveals that James killed Mary. Because of this, James' journey in Silent Hill revolves around coming to with his role in Mary's death, and his inner desire to be punished for what he did, as he now feels guilty about the situation.

James' guilt is shown through the monsters he encounters in both the fog and nightmare worlds, and by Maria's presence in Silent Hill. Aside from the iconic Pyramid Head, who shows James' desire to be punished for his actions, many monsters in his version of the town have appearances that are sexualized to some extent, showing his repressed desires from Mary's time as a patient, and eventually her death. Then, Maria shows an idealized version of Mary created by James.

While the start of James' tragedy was outside his control, he made it worse through his actions. People respond to grief and stress differently, and James turned to drinking when Mary was sick. At the same time, Mary's personality changed, and she was reasonably angry and difficult during her sickness, especially as it progressed. This combination led to James' decision to smother her, although the way that Silent Hill torments him shows his regret for doing so.

3 Mary Had An Unlucky Fate

Mary Is The Driving Factor Behind The Narrative

Shortly after or during her visit to Silent Hill with James, Mary contracts an unnamed terminal illness. Because this illness left her bedridden, Mary had to stay in the hospital during the three years that the doctor said she had left to live. The combination of knowing the illness would kill her and seeing the physical effects of it left Mary upset, and she lashed out at others, including James, who didn't visit her at the hospital often as the disease left them both upset and frustrated.

Of course, Mary's life was cut even shorter than the three years the doctor gave her. As they started to grow more irritated with each other and Mary's sickness, James snapped and smothered her. Depending on how believable some fan theories are, one adds another layer of tragedy to Mary's story, speculating that James has her body in his car's trunk. Even without that fan theory being true, Mary was unlucky to not only contract a terminal illness, but to also be killed by her own husband.

2 Maria Can Never Be Her Own Person

A Cycle, Repeating

Maria hasn't changed in Silent Hill 2 in significant ways in the remake, but that means that she's still a very tragic character. In most endings, she's the last boss that James defeats. Then, in the one ending where Mary is the boss instead and Maria gets to live, she's shown coughing, which implies that she'll contract the same illness as Mary and die in a matter of years. No matter what, Maria is doomed to die because James created her from a wish revolving around his dead wife.

With the time she has to be alive, Maria is put in the role of antagonist, and she never really gets to experience the world outside of Silent Hill, short of one ending that implies she'll die anyway. The scene that has her behind bars is incredibly fitting, because she's trapped by James and Silent Hill. She's made to resemble a dead woman, and at most she's a replacement for her, never able to decide who she wants to be and always limited by the people around her.

1 Angela Spent Her Life Being Abused

SH2's Most Tragic Character

When James first meets Angela in Silent Hill, she seems like a normal teenager aside from being a bit quiet. She's at the graveyard outside Silent Hill, and she gives James directions to reach the town, saying that she's there to search for her mom. However, as James encounters her more throughout the game, the true extent of how tragic her life has been is revealed, even to the point that one of the most horrifying monsters in Silent Hill, Abstract Daddy, is created from her experiences.

Angela was born into a family that abused her. Specifically, her dad and brother would abuse her while her mother was complicit in their actions, even telling Angela that she deserved the treatment she received from her dad and brother. This results in her having a complicated mental state, and she's contemplated suicide multiple times. She also holds a lot of hatred towards herself, believing that she's ugly, and she's distrustful of James and others.

Although she's searching for her mom in Silent Hill, Angela has some complicated feelings towards her mom. She has negative feelings about her mom leaving her behind, even though her mom didn't help her as she suffered abuse. She also thinks that her dad and brother might be in the town, but she sounds less certain about that information when she tells James. It's revealed later that she killed her dad, and possibly her brother, and she eventually decides that suicide is her only option, leaving James behind on a burning staircase.

Silent Hill as a franchise explores a lot of heavy topics and poses questions that don't have easy answers. In order to do this, the games include a host of characters who each deal with various tragedies in their own ways, which is the reason they end up being called to Silent Hill. Like the rest of the franchise, it can seem impossible for characters to find a truly happy ending in Silent Hill 2.

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