Name: Liz Personal Journal:steinette Contact Info: effinscience @AIM // effinscience Other Characters Played: N/A Preferred Housing: N/A
Character Name: James Sunderland Character Series: Silent Hill Character Age: 29 Background:Here’s a wiki Personality: James has a very complex relationship with himself. In a word, James has a lot of issues. And I mean a lot. But we’ll get to those in a bit.
James is very much a character with a duality theme to him: He ultimately ends up fighting two Pyramid Heads, he has two women he’s interested in (wife Mary and replacement goldfish Maria), and originally, the writers intended for him to have two distinct personalities. Some of that original idea still carries over, as James usually ends up acting one of two ways: Purely on instinct, which usually results in him acting like an asshole, and when he thinks a bit more, which usually results in him looking stupid. Usually the “switch” is very brief, and when he reflexively does something involving reaction #1 (usually when talking to Laura or Eddie), he almost immediately changes back to his alternate personality. Similarly, Maria and Mary describe him a bit differently, Maria says he’s kind, while Mary says he’s surly and enigmatic, but once you get past that, he’s not a total dick, which indicates that his “real” personality is the one reactionary one, and the kinder, gentler James shown throughout most of the game is a personality he created for himself after Mary’s death.
After his wife fell ill, possibly going along with the creation of this new personality, James became really subservient, especially to women. He rarely raises his voice, only doing it once with Eddie when he calls him crazy, when he yells at Laura for being a brat, and after he faces the pair of Pyramid Heads and accepts what he did. Even when he’s trying to take a bloody knife away from Angela, he’s not at all forceful about it, which isn’t exactly a bad thing to be honest, and later when she yells at him about never loving his wife and finding someone new and being a sex crazed maniac, he doesn’t stand up for himself, instead just standing there and taking it, possibly because part of him knows that it’s at least partially true, or perhaps just because after Mary’s death he lost his ability to respect himself. On a slightly related note, he has a lot of pauses when he speaks, and most of his dialogue exists in a magical land where ellipses are the only punctuation marks available indicating that he trails off when he talks, which goes along with a few of the stupider things he does, like leaving his car door wide open before walking off, keeping his flashlight on while hiding from Pyramid Head in a slatted closet, and sticking his hand into a hole in the wall immediately after being bitten. Perhaps all these things are less because he’s simply an idiot, and more because after blocking out Mary’s death, he simply became really spacey and lost some of his ability to remember things.
Now let’s talk about those issues I warned you about. Most of the monsters wandering around Silent Hill are manifestations of James’ psyche. And they’re pretty fucked up. While hideous, most of the monsters have an odd sort of sexual symbolism; most of them have pouty lips or pretty attractive legs as part of their design, and you could argue that Maria counts as another monster, considering she was born out of James’ desire for his wife to come back and… Well, look at her. Only a few of them break this sexual repression motif, one of them being the Lying Figure who is a representation of James’ suffering according to the Book of Lost Memories, but it also has a resemblance to a person in a straitjacket, which indicates from very early on that James might not be all there in the head; another of the creatures that doesn’t have anything to do with sex are the gigantic bugs, however because those show up in every Silent Hill game, it’s very possible those are simply fauna of the town and have no real significance to anyone; the Abstract Daddy, while it does have to do with sex, it’s actually summoned by Angela’s mind, rather than James. Of course, this was the first game that had the Big Daddy of Silent Hill monsters: Pyramid Head. He looks like the executioner from a painting in the Historical Society depicting Silent Hill’s cult’s beliefs, and he represents James’ guilt and his desire to be punished, and in a lot of ways, he represents James himself; the pyramid on his head hides his face, if he even actually has one otherwise, much like James’ “nice” personality masks the fact that he murdered someone; and, of course, Pyramid Head soaks up the full brunt of James’ sexual repression, as I’m sure everyone with an internet connection and the bare minimum of Silent Hill knowledge has been made aware of by now. Interestingly enough for someone who’s dealing with the rather deranged state of his own mind, he never shows any fear. James will willingly jump down bottomless pits, reach his hand in holes in walls, and other such things. His initial dialogue with Angela reinforces this, considering he says “I guess I really don’t care if it’s dangerous or not,” when she attempts to warn him about the monsters in town. However, the one creature he actively seems afraid of is Pyramid Head - the thing that is supposed to punish him for his deeds - until the final boss fight with both of them when he finally accepts his actions. Though this could partially be because originally he was planning to come to Silent Hill to kill himself, and while he repressed that too, it could have something to do with why he isn’t afraid of getting killed by anything in Silent Hill. He is also very obsessive, mostly seen from the In Water and Rebirth endings, but it also slightly shows throughout the game. He’s infatuated with Mary to the point that his mind invented Maria and that his mind completely covered up how tense their marriage was during Mary’s illness and that he killed her. During the In Water ending, he puts Mary’s dead body in his car and drives it into the lake so that they can be together in death. During the Rebirth ending, he carries out a forbidden ritual to try and resurrect Mary with unknown results.
While it’s obvious that he has issues of his own, James is far more actively worried about other people, especially those who seem mentally imbalanced. He never stops being concerned about Angela when she’s having one of her suicidal fits and he tries to reason with Eddie before he is attacked. He’s always very polite to them when he’s first interacting with them, and he’s actually horrified when he has to kill Eddie, because now he finally killed a human. …Or at least, the first thing he kills that he sees as a human. Considering that if you later go back to where you kill the first monster in the game, you see the area surrounded by police tape… There’s the implication that perhaps James is crazy enough that he simply sees normal humans as monsters. Konami, of course, are clever bastards and refuse to say anything about this, so. Abilities: Absolutely nothin’ unless you count dull surprise, protagonist cutscene stupidity, and the worst memory of any fictional character ever as abilities. Though he does have some cool swag to earn back, such as a radio that makes noises when one of the manifestations of James’ fucked up psyche is about to try and kill him. Sample Entry: Sob, I hope you guys don’t mind me linking to a pair of posts that are really old and really on Livejournal on a journal that LJ deleted for shits and giggles.
If you guys do mind, I will gladly write you an actual sample for this instead, but for now: A B
James Sunderland | Silent Hill | Reserved
Personal Journal:
Contact Info: effinscience @AIM //
Other Characters Played: N/A
Preferred Housing: N/A
Character Name: James Sunderland
Character Series: Silent Hill
Character Age: 29
Background: Here’s a wiki
Personality: James has a very complex relationship with himself. In a word, James has a lot of issues. And I mean a lot. But we’ll get to those in a bit.
James is very much a character with a duality theme to him: He ultimately ends up fighting two Pyramid Heads, he has two women he’s interested in (wife Mary and replacement goldfish Maria), and originally, the writers intended for him to have two distinct personalities. Some of that original idea still carries over, as James usually ends up acting one of two ways: Purely on instinct, which usually results in him acting like an asshole, and when he thinks a bit more, which usually results in him looking stupid. Usually the “switch” is very brief, and when he reflexively does something involving reaction #1 (usually when talking to Laura or Eddie), he almost immediately changes back to his alternate personality. Similarly, Maria and Mary describe him a bit differently, Maria says he’s kind, while Mary says he’s surly and enigmatic, but once you get past that, he’s not a total dick, which indicates that his “real” personality is the one reactionary one, and the kinder, gentler James shown throughout most of the game is a personality he created for himself after Mary’s death.
After his wife fell ill, possibly going along with the creation of this new personality, James became really subservient, especially to women. He rarely raises his voice, only doing it once with Eddie when he calls him crazy, when he yells at Laura for being a brat, and after he faces the pair of Pyramid Heads and accepts what he did. Even when he’s trying to take a bloody knife away from Angela, he’s not at all forceful about it, which isn’t exactly a bad thing to be honest, and later when she yells at him about never loving his wife and finding someone new and being a sex crazed maniac, he doesn’t stand up for himself, instead just standing there and taking it, possibly because part of him knows that it’s at least partially true, or perhaps just because after Mary’s death he lost his ability to respect himself. On a slightly related note, he has a lot of pauses when he speaks, and most of his dialogue exists in a magical land where ellipses are the only punctuation marks available indicating that he trails off when he talks, which goes along with a few of the stupider things he does, like leaving his car door wide open before walking off, keeping his flashlight on while hiding from Pyramid Head in a slatted closet, and sticking his hand into a hole in the wall immediately after being bitten. Perhaps all these things are less because he’s simply an idiot, and more because after blocking out Mary’s death, he simply became really spacey and lost some of his ability to remember things.
Now let’s talk about those issues I warned you about. Most of the monsters wandering around Silent Hill are manifestations of James’ psyche. And they’re pretty fucked up. While hideous, most of the monsters have an odd sort of sexual symbolism; most of them have pouty lips or pretty attractive legs as part of their design, and you could argue that Maria counts as another monster, considering she was born out of James’ desire for his wife to come back and… Well, look at her. Only a few of them break this sexual repression motif, one of them being the Lying Figure who is a representation of James’ suffering according to the Book of Lost Memories, but it also has a resemblance to a person in a straitjacket, which indicates from very early on that James might not be all there in the head; another of the creatures that doesn’t have anything to do with sex are the gigantic bugs, however because those show up in every Silent Hill game, it’s very possible those are simply fauna of the town and have no real significance to anyone; the Abstract Daddy, while it does have to do with sex, it’s actually summoned by Angela’s mind, rather than James. Of course, this was the first game that had the Big Daddy of Silent Hill monsters: Pyramid Head. He looks like the executioner from a painting in the Historical Society depicting Silent Hill’s cult’s beliefs, and he represents James’ guilt and his desire to be punished, and in a lot of ways, he represents James himself; the pyramid on his head hides his face, if he even actually has one otherwise, much like James’ “nice” personality masks the fact that he murdered someone; and, of course, Pyramid Head soaks up the full brunt of James’ sexual repression, as I’m sure everyone with an internet connection and the bare minimum of Silent Hill knowledge has been made aware of by now. Interestingly enough for someone who’s dealing with the rather deranged state of his own mind, he never shows any fear. James will willingly jump down bottomless pits, reach his hand in holes in walls, and other such things. His initial dialogue with Angela reinforces this, considering he says “I guess I really don’t care if it’s dangerous or not,” when she attempts to warn him about the monsters in town. However, the one creature he actively seems afraid of is Pyramid Head - the thing that is supposed to punish him for his deeds - until the final boss fight with both of them when he finally accepts his actions. Though this could partially be because originally he was planning to come to Silent Hill to kill himself, and while he repressed that too, it could have something to do with why he isn’t afraid of getting killed by anything in Silent Hill. He is also very obsessive, mostly seen from the In Water and Rebirth endings, but it also slightly shows throughout the game. He’s infatuated with Mary to the point that his mind invented Maria and that his mind completely covered up how tense their marriage was during Mary’s illness and that he killed her. During the In Water ending, he puts Mary’s dead body in his car and drives it into the lake so that they can be together in death. During the Rebirth ending, he carries out a forbidden ritual to try and resurrect Mary with unknown results.
While it’s obvious that he has issues of his own, James is far more actively worried about other people, especially those who seem mentally imbalanced. He never stops being concerned about Angela when she’s having one of her suicidal fits and he tries to reason with Eddie before he is attacked. He’s always very polite to them when he’s first interacting with them, and he’s actually horrified when he has to kill Eddie, because now he finally killed a human. …Or at least, the first thing he kills that he sees as a human. Considering that if you later go back to where you kill the first monster in the game, you see the area surrounded by police tape… There’s the implication that perhaps James is crazy enough that he simply sees normal humans as monsters. Konami, of course, are clever bastards and refuse to say anything about this, so.
Abilities: Absolutely nothin’ unless you count dull surprise, protagonist cutscene stupidity, and the worst memory of any fictional character ever as abilities. Though he does have some cool swag to earn back, such as a radio that makes noises when one of the manifestations of James’ fucked up psyche is about to try and kill him.
Sample Entry: Sob, I hope you guys don’t mind me linking to a pair of posts that are really old and really on Livejournal on a journal that LJ deleted for shits and giggles.
If you guys do mind, I will gladly write you an actual sample for this instead, but for now:
A
B