Water: Think of what it means in literature. It is a cleansing. In the Japanese creation myth, after Izanami died and shut herself in the cave, Izanagi--having seen his dead wife/sister's body--went to a stream and bathed himself, in a spiritual cleansing, because contact w/ the dead is considered a "ritual fault."

You can read about it in detail here, in my totally awesome thread about water.

Water--being submerged in water, or in rain, &c.--implies a character's "cleansing," or baptism. James, on the other hand, never experiences an actual submergence until the end of his story, when he absolves himself of his sins. The fact that there's an exorbitant amount of water in Silent Hill 2, yet James is never doused in it, suggests that he cannot be "purified" until he takes his final plunge, that he cannot be absolved of his sins until he understands why he needs to be.

And so, when he learns the truth in Lakeview Hotel, it is flooded, and dripping, and allowing him to finally be cleansed.

^ That reminded me of something... Travel over water is actually also a very symbolic bit in literature - it's generally a passage akin to a 'trial/tribulation' or a 'quest.'

Wow... just when you think you've found all of the symbolism buried in this game, something else surfaces (no pun intended).

QUOTE: If there is no light for James at the end of his journey, the indication would be, then, that he is damned for his sins-- a possible indicator of Maria, In the Water, or Rebirth being the canonical endings, as each presents a varying degree of damnation and/or torment.

I think that that's taking it a bit far. I prefer the idea that the light represents James' hope for finding Mary, and it goes out forever when that hope is erased. In any case, if those three endings are all canonical, then leave must be canonical as well: Death (W), Madness (M), and Damnation (R) are then counterbalanced by Hope (L).