List of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 characters

The survival horror video games Silent Hill installments, respectively, in the Silent Hill video game series, feature a cast of characters. The games' player characters are "everymen", in contrast to action-oriented survival horror video game series featuring combat-trained player characters, such as Resident Evil. The games are set in the series' eponymous fictional American town.

The design of the games' characters shifted varying conceptual phases prior to the settle on their depictions in the installments they first appeared in. For the creation of Silent Hill 3 characters' physical appearances, the game's development team used actors as models.

Design
The characters of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 were designed by character designer Takayoshi Sato. Team Silent, a production group within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, oversaw the process. Team Silent designed the character Maria to have physical flaws and did not base her on any particular model. The developers toned down her character design after being unhappy with it and the technical problems her low neckline caused. To better capture her facial movements, Sato Takayoshi would practice her expressions in front of a mirror at work and drew her facial expressions instead of using motion capture. Maria and Mary share the same facial structure, polygon count and voice actor; only the muscle structure differs. Takayoshi designed Angela to appear older than her intended age of sixteen or seventeen and the developers chosen an older voice actor for her. Fifty to sixty Japanese and American voice actors auditioned for Silent Hill 2, with five ultimately chosen: Guy Cihi, Donna Burke, David Schaufele, Jakey Breckenridge, and Monica Horgan. Motion capture of the voice actors was used to model their characters' action.

The design of Silent Hill 3's characters passed through different stages. The game's development team initially saw Heather as "innocent", something that was reflected by original sketches of her, but they found this motif to be too "nice", so the game's supervising illustrator, character designer Shingo Yuri, sought another source of inspiration, modelling Heather after French actresses Sophie Marceau and Charlotte Gainsbourg, with Vanessa Paradis having served as a model for concept art of the protagonist. The character's leg-revealing outfit and slightly curly hair had been the subject of debate among Yuri and two young female members of the development team: while Yuri firstly envisioned her wearing jeans, these members dissented on the addition of this element because they believed that Heather should discreetly be instilled sex appeal—a property which they insisted that it should be possessed by her—by having her legs divulged as they considered that exposure of them would bestow femininity and prettiness on Heather; he was ultimately convinced by the females that their own proposal should be followed. Trusting these members' sense of fashion, Yuri also accepted their judgement on the character's hairstyle, which was that curly hair would be more suitable for a young girl. Heather's hair was "more natural" and "less elaborate" in earlier design stages, according to him. The character's name was taken from Heather Morris, who provided Heather's voice and motion capture. The name "Helen" was firstly planned to be used for the character, but was later discarded as it was considered to be old-fashioned.

The design of priestess Claudia Wolf was the most difficult of the game's character designs for the development team. Her creation was based on the concept of making her look strange but conventional and evoke to the player a feeling of being endangered. Desiring to show her evil side, the development team initially imagined her with a shaved head and tattoos all over her body, though this idea was finally rejected as the team deemed that giving her this physical appearance was a very obvious way of achieving this goal. Other dropped ideas included portraying her as a "holy woman" as well as dressed in a long robe that trailed along the ground. After seeing a fashion magazine cover depicting a human face without eyebrows and believing that the pictured person's feelings were unrecognizable due to this trait, the team opted to integrate lack of eyebrows in Claudia to impart her the same perceived property of having feelings unable to be defined by other people, also esteeming this feature to trigger a subtle and solicitous emotion to the player. Hollywood actress Julianne Moore had been used as a model for concept art of the character. Claudia's name originates from Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, having substituted the original "Christie" because the latter was viewed as too "cute".

Silent Hill 3's male characters were delineated by the development team as possessing flaws and complexes in order to appear as realistic humans, an example being character Douglas Cartland's combing of his hair to his head's back part to conceal his baldness. In early design stages, the image of a quotidian middle-aged detective was attributed to him. A priest from the film The Fifth Element was the basis for the generation of Douglas; actors such as Ian Holm and Giancarlo Giannini were models for some of the character's concept art. The name of Douglas was taken from actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and according to one of the game's creators, this name was selected because it "just seemed to suit him", with the character not being connected to his namesake. The foundation of character Vincent's design was the idea of a character of a hypocritic nature which is disguised by their "nice" clothes and neat appearance, as the game's animator wished the hierocracy of Vincent to be manifested through the way he acts. An incorporation of hints aiming at unveiling Vincent's nature occurred, though, according to Yuri: the character constantly laughs "like he is hiding something nasty" and during his speech, "one of his eyes is not looking at the observer." Yuri underlined that the latter hint is subtle.

James Sunderland
Portrayed by Guy Cihi in the original version and by Troy Baker in the game's 2011 remastering, James Sunderland is the main protagonist and primary player character of Silent Hill 2. After receiving a letter from his deceased wife Mary, James comes to the misty town of Silent Hill to find her. James knew Mary's illness would eventually kill her, and often read medical textbooks, searching for something to help her. The knowledge of her terminal illness caused her to become angry and hurt her loved ones, particularly James, and it pained him to visit her in the hospital. She had been suffering for three years, and died the week preceding the game's events.

In his search, he eventually meets Maria, who strongly resembles her except for more provocative clothes and behavior, and allows her to accompany him. Over the course of the game, he repeatedly witnesses her death at the hands of the monster Pyramid Head, while the letter from Mary gradually fades, suggesting that he only imagined it. Near the conclusion of the game, he watches a videotape that shows him smothering his wife, and realizes that he killed Mary. Returning to see Maria killed again by two Pyramid Heads, he concludes that he needed the monster to punish him for Mary's murder. The Pyramid Heads commit suicide after pursuing him for a while, and James meets either Mary or Maria on the hotel rooftop, depending on which of the six possible endings the player has triggered based on his or her actions throughout the game; all endings are presented as equally valid. Maria or Mary transforms into a monster, and James kills her. In "Leave", James has one last meeting with Mary, reads her full letter and leaves the town with Laura, while "In Water" sees James commit suicide by driving his car into the lake; in "Rebirth", James plans to revive Mary using occult objects collected throughout the game. In "Maria", after Mary's defeat, James dismisses her as a hallucination and then leaves the town with the inexplicably resurrected Maria, who starts coughing. The other two are "joke" endings available on replay games: in "Dog", James discovers that, beyond a normally locked door, a Shiba Inu has apparently been controlling all the events of the game from a vision mixer, and the second is a continuation of the UFO ending of the first game, in which James is abducted by aliens with the help of the first game's protagonist, Harry Mason.

Subsequent installments in the series have made references to James. If the player has saved data from Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3's protagonist can investigate a clogged toilet in the Otherworld, and the player can prompt her to remove the blockage—much like the optional decision in Silent Hill 2. Additionally James makes cameo appearances in the joke endings of Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and Silent Hill: Downpour.

Maria
Maria is a sexualized manifestation of Mary based on an exotic dancer. She was created in James' mind subsequent to his duress after killing his wife. She first appears in "Born from a Wish", a sub-scenario prior to the events in the main game which appeared in the expanded versions of Silent Hill 2. In it, Maria awakens in Heaven's Night club, wondering if she should continue to live and fight, or to let herself be killed by the monsters, and decides to search for someone alive. Her search takes her to a mansion, where she hears the voice of Ernest Baldwin from behind a locked door. She eventually learns about the death of his young daughter, and Ernest tasks her with obtaining an item in a nearby apartment, unable to retrieve it himself. After completing her task, she discovers his plan to resurrect his daughter, and he warns her about James. Opening the door, she finds no one in the room. At the conclusion of the scenario, Maria contemplates suicide, but ultimately tosses the gun away, resolving instead to find James.

James first meets her in Rosewater Park, his first suspect for the "special place" Mary claims to be in. Maria accompanies James after this point, seeking protection from the monsters in Silent Hill, and after reaching the bowling alley she leads James on an attempt to find Laura ending in Brookhaven Hospital. Maria is killed by Pyramid Head before she can escape the hospital. She reappears again, inexplicably alive and with no memories of her apparent death, in the Labyrinth in a jail cell, seductively beckoning James to rescue her. Before he can reach her, however, she is killed again. She appears a third time in the Lakeview Hotel, where she is killed by two Pyramid Heads promptly after James finds her.

In the "Leave", "In Water" and "Rebirth" endings, James confronts Maria a final time, dressed as Mary and trying to get James to take her. James conclusively rejects her, and she transforms into the final boss with intent on killing him but is instead killed for good by James. In the "Maria" ending, Maria returns alive again after James has killed Mary and James decides to leave Silent Hill with her. As they leave she begins visibly coughing, a hint that she has the same disease Mary had and that the events of the game may repeat themselves.

Maria is portrayed by Monica Horgan.

Angela Orosco
Angela is drawn to the town after taking a life. She is a disturbed, unstable teenage girl who is ostensibly on a search for her mother. It is strongly implied in the game that Angela was abused and raped by her father, with her mother turning a blind eye. Backstory material provided by Konami states that Angela had run away from home prior to the game's events, and after being brought back kills her father, leading to her being drawn to Silent Hill.

James first meets Angela in a cemetery, where she warns him that there's "something wrong" with Silent Hill. She is next seen in the apartment complex area with a blood-covered knife, contemplating suicide. James takes the knife from her at her request, and she flees in panic after he initially tries to take it out of her hand. In a later area, James fights a monstrous version of Angela's father who is about to attack the girl. After the creature's defeat, Angela acts with disdain and general hatred toward men, and accuses James of abandoning Mary for another woman. She is last seen on a burning staircase in the Lakeview Hotel. Angela, now in a state of delusion, mistakes James for her mother. After realizing her error, she asks for her knife back, not before wishing James had left her to die in the labyrinth. She believes that she deserved what her father did to her, and hints at suicide. When James refuses to return her knife, Angela walks into the flames of a burning staircase and is not seen again. As she does so she claims that these burning surroundings are how she always sees the town - one more suggestion that each person drawn to the town perceives it in a different way. Angela is voiced in the game by Donna Burke. Her appearance in the game and the choice of her portrayer were made by Team Silent with the intention of making her appear unnaturally aged.

Mary Shepherd-Sunderland
Mary is the late wife of protagonist James Sunderland. The player first sees Mary in a photograph James has with him and spends much of the game searching for her. In the game, she is said to have died from a mysterious illness three years ago. James goes to Silent Hill, where the couple shared many memories, after receiving a letter from Mary that says she is waiting for him there. Over the course of the game, James is haunted by memories of his wife, including Maria, who strongly resembles her, seems to have some of her memories at times, and repeatedly dies. James is eventually forced to remember that Mary died recently and that he killed her, suffocating her with a pillow after she was released from the hospital. In her last days alive, she believed she had become physically repulsive, acting "self-centered and difficult, even abusive towards James". Mary does not appear in person until the end of the game: in the "Leave" and "In Water" endings she is shown forgiving James for killing her after the final bossfight, while in the "Maria" ending she fights James as the final boss (instead of Maria) in revenge for her murder. James is quick to dismiss the latter scenario as being a hallucination.

Mary was portrayed by Monica Horgan, who also portrayed Maria. The producers acknowledged that Mary and Maria were designed to be almost completely identical.

Eddie Dombrowski
Eddie is the third murderous character in Silent Hill during the game. He is an obese young man with an apparent connection to the character Laura. His dialogue during the game reveals that he had suffered verbal abuse for much of his life prior to his arrival in Silent Hill, and his arrival was preceded by him finally snapping, killing a dog, shooting a football player and going on the run from the police. Backstory material provided by Konami describes Eddie as being usually calm but with "another side that he cannot control when angered" and listing his former occupation as being a gas station attendant. Eddie also wears a baseball cap, small shorts, and a white and teal striped shirt, clothes that one would see a child wearing.

James first meets Eddie in an apartment complex vomiting into a toilet and aggressively denying any involvement with the death of a man stuffed in a refrigerator in the same apartment. If the player returns to the apartment after the cutscene, they can investigate further, finding posters of football players with apparently meaningless graffiti and bumper stickers on the walls. One bumper sticker clearly says "Illusions The Water Margin." He is next seen talking to Laura in a bowling alley, ignoring insults and comments from Laura and James while doubting that his then-unspecified crimes will be forgiven. His final appearances are in the prison/labyrinth area, where he confesses to killing the man in the apartment and another victim on the grounds that they were mocking him, and apparently has no moral issues with killing. By the end of the level he is dangerously unstable and threatening to kill anyone whom he perceives as mocking him, leading to a fight to the death with James after a poorly received comment from the latter. In the final cutscene before his death Eddie concludes correctly that James too was a murderer, telling him that they were both "called" to Silent Hill as they're "not like other people". The final encounter with Eddie takes place in a large meat freezer, a counterpoint to the burning staircase on which Angela stands during her final meeting with James.

Eddie is voiced by David Schaufele in the original game and Liam O'Brien in the HD Collection.

Laura
Laura is an eight-year-old girl wandering the town. She is apparently the only "innocent" human character in the town, in contrast to James, Angela and Eddie, and consequently does not see any monsters or serious abnormalities in the town. This has two consequences in the game: firstly, Laura can apparently move around the town safe from supernatural danger, and secondly Laura occasionally places James in danger due to the fact that she isn't aware of the supernatural threats he faces.

Laura is an orphan who befriended Mary during her last year alive, having been a patient at the same hospital as her, and like James appears to be searching for Mary in the town as well (unaware of her death). She acts rudely towards James and Eddie, the two characters she encounters, motivated with the former by a belief that he did not really love Mary.

James first encounters Laura in the apartment complex, where she kicks a key out of his reach and stomps on his hand. He confronts her in frustration after the level is cleared, where her connection with Mary is revealed, but she runs away before James can get more out of her. She is next seen at the bowling alley with Eddie, and after she leaves James pursues her at Maria's request. He finally finds her at the hospital, where James accuses her of lying when she details her connection to Mary. Laura then asks him to pick up a (nonexistent) letter from Mary inside a hospital room. When James enters it, she slams the door behind him, locking James in with several dangerous monsters. Laura is seen again at the Lakeview Hotel with a letter confirming her friendship to Mary, and she becomes furious with James when he tells her he has discovered he killed Mary. In the "Leave" ending, James leaves Silent Hill with Laura, possibly intending to carry out Mary's wishes to adopt the girl.

Early promotional articles incorrectly named the character as "Lauren."

Laura is portrayed by Jackie Breckenridge.

Pyramid Head
Pyramid Head, also known as "Red Pyramid Thing", "Red Pyramid", or "Bogeyman", and "Triangle Head" (三角頭) in Japan, stalks James, representing his wish to be punished for Mary's death. Masahiro Ito, the designer of Silent Hill 2's monsters, created Pyramid Head because he wanted "a monster with a hidden face". Known for his large triangular head, Pyramid Head lacks a voice, and his appearance stems from the "distorted memory of the executioners" and the town's past as a place of execution, according to Takayoshi Sato, the character designer for Silent Hill 2.

Pyramid Head has since appeared in the 2006 film Silent Hill as "Red Pyramid", in the 2007 first-person shooter video game Silent Hill: The Arcade as a "boss" (a computer-controlled opponent), and in the sixth installment of the Silent Hill series, Silent Hill Homecoming, as the "Bogeyman". He has also made an appearance outside of the Silent Hill series as a player character in the 2008 Nintendo DS video game New International Track & Field. Positively received in Silent Hill 2 for his role as an element of James' psyche, he has been cited by reviewers as an iconic villain of the series and part of Silent Hill 2's appeal.

Claudia Wolf
Claudia Wolf (voiced by Donna Burke ) is a priestess of the town's cult, and the main antagonist of the game. It is said during the game that she was abused as a child. She used to be a friend of Alessa in their childhood. Claudia is attempting to carry on where Dahlia Gillespie failed in Silent Hill and use Alessa Gillespie (through her reincarnation as Heather) to birth "the god". Contrary to Dahlia, her intention in resurrecting the god is to "save" mankind, though she believes she is a sinner and will not be saved. She speaks in riddles and is always barefoot. At the end of the game, she tries to give birth to the deity herself and dies.

She is portrayed by Carrie-Anne Moss in the film series.

Douglas Cartland
Douglas Cartland (voiced by Richard Grosse) is a private investigator hired by Claudia Wolf to locate Heather. When this results in the death of Heather's adoptive father, Harry, he feels guilty and accompanies Heather into Silent Hill as an ally. In the "Normal" ending, which is the only ending available on the first play-through of the game, Heather and Douglas survive. If the player gets the "Possessed" ending, Heather kills Douglas, implying she herself has been "possessed". Douglas is mentioned in one of The Order's books in Silent Hill Homecoming, which states Douglas successfully exposed the Silent Hill cult to the authorities after the events of Silent Hill 3. He is portrayed by Martin Donovan in the film series.

Vincent
Vincent (voiced by Clifford Rippel) is a priest of the cult. Vincent is less dogmatic than Claudia and opposes her actions. Vincent appears to be on Heather's side during the game. With his finances, he built the church where the final battle is staged in and is killed by Claudia when Heather enters. He is portrayed by actor Kit Harington in the film series.

Valtiel
Valtiel is an angel in the religion followed by the cult. A saintly being who attends to and watches over the religion's chief deity, he has the duties of safeguarding the mother until she gives birth to the deity, in order to ensure the protection and restoration of the latter to the world, and resurrecting the mother if she dies. He is a guide to the Otherworld, as he appears before Heather whenever the environment changes.

Critical reception
Critics enjoyed the level of realistic detail given to the characters of Silent Hill 2 and Konami's ability to transition between CG and in-game scenes. Game Revolution liked that James was an everyman character instead of a highly trained professional. GameZone praised James' sympathetic character, and found the voice acting improved, though not flawless, as compared to Silent Hill 2's predecessor. Another reviewer considered the voice acting and script superior to the survival horror video game series Resident Evil, while GameSpot criticized the script for hampering the voice acting. IGN's Emma Boyes praised the relationship between James and Mary, listing it as one of "The Greatest Video Game Couples".

The character of Heather received both praise and criticism by reviewers of the game. GameSpot's Scott Osborne found her "interesting" and liked the fact that although she seems to be an average girl in his opinion, she remains non-intimidated upon witnessing sights considered by him frightening, stating that "even Rambo would run like hell from that." Chris Hudak of Game Revolution regarded her as "believable" and "more likeable" than the protagonists of the two previous games in the series, because he esteemed her as having "some attitude", "vulnerability", and "snarky teenaged wit".