James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

James got a letter. From a dead person. Oh dear.

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R08813
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by R08813 »

Ryantology wrote:I think her struggling was due to two factors: he took her by surprise, and the body instinctively struggles against suffocation, hence why you can't do it simply by holding your breath.
Ryantology wrote:Ah, but we do not know when James enters the fog world, do we? Nor do we know when he invents his new version of events.

I agree with R08813 and I believe that the power of the town is what galvanizes him to both sequester his memories away from conscious recall and to invent the 'three years ago' lie. I believe he enters the otherworld, and has his feat of mental whitewashing, the moment we first see him. We know that his original purpose in coming to town was to end his own life, which would not require him to forget what he did or make up lies about it.
We are in complete agreement this time. Honestly, you worded it better than I could.

By the way, I see you are a Mod now. Congratulations. Having a debate with the Mod was a risky move. God knows what would happen to me if I pissed you off =P
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by Rev »

R08813 wrote:Having a debate with the Mod was a risky move. God knows what would happen to me if I pissed you off =P
Man, don't remind me of the other SHF...
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by JuriDawn »

We try not to get too petty when people disagree with us. As long as you show proper RESPECK.
:wink:

R08813: I don't think Angela has forgotten what she did, since she's looking for her father and brother in a cemetery.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by AuraTwilight »

JuriDawn wrote:RESPECK.
yo dawg its spelled respect omg plz dont ban me

I concur. Angela definitely has her memories in that scene; but we also know she's been in Silent Hill longer; James is basically coming to town possibly after she already had her revelation. It's entirely possible she was in a similar denial, say, 10 hours ago.
[quote="BlackFire2"]I thought he meant the special powers of her vagina.[/quote]
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by R08813 »

JuriDawn wrote:We try not to get too petty when people disagree with us. As long as you show proper RESPECK.
:wink:

R08813: I don't think Angela has forgotten what she did, since she's looking for her father and brother in a cemetery.
WITH ALL DUE RESPECT ;), I always assumed that, when Angela says she thought her father and brother were here, she means she thought they were in this town? Or maybe I was wrong?
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by Silent Fantasy »

Well, she is looking through grave stones when she mentions looking for them.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by Glenn »

I said that he had a "possible" drinking problem since he admitted to drinking a fair bit.

First, a lot of people that drink excessively say they only had one or two. They hardly ever admit to drinking 10 beers. Now I'm not saying James was an alcoholic, but drinking alcohol to suppress your crumbling relationship with your wife is a problem no matter how much is consumed.

Second, I thought he was only checking to see if she was sleeping. I've looked at the tape again, and can see why people think he kissed her. I can't see how anyone could suffocate someone in their sleep and continue to do so against resistance without losing some sort of control.

She said she wanted to die, but she didn't want to that day at that time.

And no I'm not offended by people disagreeing. I used to view James more sympathetically, but each time I play the game I begin to see more and more flaws with James.

He said something along the lines of "I'm not crazy" to Angela in one of the scenes. They say if you ever think you are losing it, you haven't lost it yet. However if you are in complete denial then yeah...
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by R08813 »

I don't remember Mary specifically saying she didn't want to die that day at that time...

I believe Mary had a very confused state of mind at that time. She wanted to die because she wanted her pain to end. But at the same time she didn't want to die because she was scared. She was struggling with these contradictory thoughts. Put it another way, she wanted to die but didn't have the courage to do it.

Given Angela was a victim of persumably sexual abuse and was alone in a room with a male stranger, she was understandably frightened. I believe James said that line just to comfort her. That's why he said 'don't worry' before he went on saying he's not crazy.

I don't see major flaws with James except that he doesn't visit Mary often after she repeatedly pushes him away. Sure, he loses his temper a couple of times. But everyone loses their temper at some point in their life. I do. You do. I find James to be just as flawed as many people I know in real life.

What I am about to say belongs to a different subject but I will have to put them into one post since this forum doesn't allow double posting.

Assuming Angela was looking for her father and brother's graves in the cemetery. She says she couldn't find them. That would mean the tombstone in front of her doesn't belong to either one of them. We know that she's still looking for her mother so that couldn't be her mother's either. So who was she mourning for when James was there?

Seeing how focused she was on one particular tombstone, to the extent that as a victim of presumably sexual abuse, she didn't even notice there's a male stranger approaching her right from behind in such a quiet place (James' words), and how she was still staring at the same grave after their conversation and not intending to even look at other graves, I find it very difficult to believe she was just randomly browsing for her father and brother's names at that time.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by The Adversary »

>I believe Mary had a very confused state of mind at that time.<
Mary experiences the Kübler-Ross model practically to a T.

>So who was she mourning for when James was there?<
I'm guessing the developers just didn't want to program Angela to wander around the cemetery.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by mikefile »

The Adversary wrote:Mary experiences the Kübler-Ross model practically to a T.
That's a nice thought. I considered it before in the context of SM (Cheryl's five stages that lead to acceptance, thus the ending song that lead me to come up with this), but never really came to the conclusion that it might as well be applied to Mary's state.

And if we apply, for instance, the Kübler-Ross to James' potential drinking problem we get a negative result, as we haven't got any concrete proof that deals with any of James' emotional stage directly linked to drinking.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by Glenn »

R08813 wrote:I don't remember Mary specifically saying she didn't want to die that day at that time...

.
She might not have said that, but her resistance to it and the fact that she was sleeping implies that she didn't plan on getting an assisted suicide at that time.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by phantomess »

R08813, it really didn't seem to me like Angela was mourning a particular grave in that cutscene. She left one grave and squatted down at the next grave literally only a second or two before James walked up. It did look like she was scanning the stones.
As for her going back to the same stone after the cutscene, how can you tell? They kind of wander between stones during the conversation (a couple of steps at a time), and she steps back to one afterward. They probably didn't have her wandering around in the gameplay after the scene because it was simpler to keep her in place.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by R08813 »

phantomess wrote:She left one grave and squatted down at the next grave
She kind of wanders around during the conversation like you said but she never left the grave.
phantomess wrote:As for her going back to the same stone after the cutscene, how can you tell?
This picture was taken before James speaks to Angela:
http://i.imgur.com/Zn2os.jpg

This was taken after their conversation:
http://i.imgur.com/42ffp.jpg
phantomess wrote:They probably didn't have her wandering around in the gameplay after the scene because it was simpler to keep her in place.
It could be a matter of programming as The Adversary suggested OR what happened to James also happened to Angela.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by phantomess »

^Yeah, I meant the same thing Adversary did. Not sure what you mean by what happened to James happening to Angela.
R08813 wrote:
phantomess wrote:She left one grave and squatted down at the next grave
She kind of wanders around during the conversation like you said but she never left the grave.
I'm talking about at the very beginning of the cutscene (before James walked up, as I said). Watch the first few seconds again. She was squatting down further back, then got up, cast a glance back (presumably to the first gravestone), wandered to the gravestone in the foreground, and squatted to look at that one. She hadn't been meditating on one grave. She even looks like she starts to shake her head after reading the new stone, just before James walks up.

You can believe what you want. That's fine. I just don't think she was mourning at anyone's grave.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by Silent Fantasy »

^ That's how i'v always seen it and took it, even during my first play through. I'm honestly not sure what her mourning over a grave stone would mean anyway, but I think it's obvious enough that she wasn't.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by R08813 »

phantomess wrote:Not sure what you mean by what happened to James happening to Angela.
James drives to Silent Hill intending to killl himself. His memory is somehow altered/repressed upon arrival. He forgets the real reason to go there. His delusional mind makes him think he received a letter from Mary and starts to search for her in town.
phantomess wrote:I'm talking about at the very beginning of the cutscene (before James walked up, as I said). Watch the first few seconds again. She was squatting down further back, then got up, cast a glance back (presumably to the first gravestone), wandered to the gravestone in the foreground, and squatted to look at that one. She hadn't been meditating on one grave. She even looks like she starts to shake her head after reading the new stone, just before James walks up.
I honestly don't see how Angela was looking at another gravestone. She's squatting down for a gravestone before James approaches her as shown in the first picture. At the beginning of the cutscene she's still squatting down for the same stone. She then gets up and leaves the scene for a second or so and returns to the same stone just before James speaks to her. She returns to the same stone after the conversation as shown in the second picture. You can make James speak to Angela for as many times as you like and she always returns to the same stone. You can even make James leave the cemetery and return and guess what. Angela's still facing the same stone.
phantomess wrote:I just don't think she was mourning at anyone's grave.
If you reread my post (the one just above The Adversary), I was saying that, based on the assumption of Angela looking for her father's and brother's graves, I have no idea who she was mourning for since the gravestone in front of her doesn't belong to her father, mother or brother. It doesn't seem like Angela was searching around either seeing how the developers make her return to the exact same stone after the conversation. In short, she doesn't seem to be mourning or searching around which is why I found it difficult to understand the assumption.
phantomess wrote:You can believe what you want. That's fine.
Look. You're the one who questioned me in the first place. I was only answering your question. The fact is Angela returns to the exact same stone after the cutscene. If you don't agree, that's fine. If you think it's a programming flaw, that's fine. Just don't get upset when my answer isn't what you wanted.
Silent Fantasy wrote:I'm honestly not sure what her mourning over a grave stone would mean anyway
I'm honestly not sure why Angela would even bother looking for her father's stone.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by phantomess »

...I'm not upset, dude. But I never had a question... I was just correcting something that seemed pretty clearly incorrect to me. All I've been trying to say is that Angela wasn't focusing on one grave (in the beginning. She stays in place after the scene, but I take the cutscene as having more significance than gameplay mechanics).
R08813 wrote: I honestly don't see how Angela was looking at another gravestone. She's squatting down for a gravestone before James approaches her as shown in the first picture. At the beginning of the cutscene she's still squatting down for the same stone. She then gets up and leaves the scene for a second or so and returns to the same stone just before James speaks to her.
I really disagree with this. When she is squatting at first, we don't even see her until she stands up, so she is clearly farther back. After she gets up, she squats at the closer gravestone, and she is big and clear to us then. If she'd been that close the first time, there's no way the gravestone would have blocked her from our view. She was examining a stone in another row before moving to the one in the foreground.

But this is pretty silly, not to mention off-topic, so I'm just going to stop. :D
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by R08813 »

phantomess wrote:But I never had a question...
phantomess wrote:As for her going back to the same stone after the cutscene, how can you tell?
You did have a question.
phantomess wrote:If she'd been that close the first time, there's no way the gravestone would have blocked her from our view.
We don't see Angela at first because the camera is fixed to a particular spot. She's looking at the stone from an angle which is outside the focus of the camera. She then gets up and goes to another position (which is closer to the camera) to take another look at the same stone. This also explains why in those two pictures Angela is looking at the same stone in different positions.

If Angela was looking at another stone, why would it be necessary to hide the other stone from the cutscene?
phantomess wrote:She was examining a stone in another row before moving to the one in the foreground.
That's nothing more than your wishful thinking because:
phantomess wrote:When she is squatting at first, we don't even see her until she stands up
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by phantomess »

My thinking is no more wishful than yours (less-so, since Angela says what she's doing). I could argue your points again, but you're not going to change what I think and I'm not going to change what you think, and I meant it when I said I was done. No hard feelings.
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Re: James a Drunk? (Unmarked Spoiler)

Post by Squarehead »

The screen looks kind of fuzzy with the filters on, as if you'd been drinking for a long time straight. There is no definitive answer but i like to think James has an empty bottle of whiskey and another of some anti-anxiety or anti-depression pills next to the driver's seat of the car because he's so mellowed out and i don't want to be drunk alone every time i play SH2.
I can't believe i earned 10 Silent Hill cash for this.
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