This has been a great read, I'm glad you posted this adamblue. I love symbolism but I'm terribly unobservant. ^_^'
Now I must replay SH2 and pay closer attention to the mirrors...

(I hope I won't get spanked for replying to an "old" thread)

Mirrors AND water in the more traditional symbolism are passages into the afterlife.
The most apparent example of this is when you encounter Angela the second time - when she's in front of a mirror and holding a quite reflective knife - it's easy to understand that she's having suicidal thoughts. Especially notice the vast size of the mirror... And the moment and Angela's feelings when she turns to James and moves away from the mirror.

9 savepoints = 9 different areas of Silent Hill??? im gonna count!

1. Normal Silent Hill
2. Bluecreek Apartments and such
3. That other apartment (i wanna cut myself b/c i forgot the name)
4. Hospital
5. Alternate Silent Hill
6. Historical society
7. Prison
8. Labrynth thing
9. Hotel

I dunno, its highly unlikely, but im having fun so dont rain on my parade

^^That "other" apartment building is West Side.

You left out the graveyard, Rosewater Park, Pete's Bowl-O-Rama', Heaven's Night, rowing across Toluca Lake- there's never going to be concensus as to where some "areas" start and others finish, or which locations are relevant enough to even be classified as such. So y'know, I can't agree with ya there.

I'm still unswayed that the 9-Points symbolizes anything, though.

>That "other" apartment building is West Side.
That "other" apartment building is Woodside.

Why yes, yes it is..*makes note to hang self*

Makes me wonder what other ridiculously stupid errors I've made during my forum-posting career, ty for the correction.

im talking about the very LARGE ROAMING areas, that are of large and complete importance to the plot, the bowl-o-rama is of little importance, so is the graveyard, heavens night, rowing. all of that is PART of it too keep the player in the game, but the other areas are basically the different "levels" of the game. sorry for the confusion

You didn't mention Rosewater Park, and it's pretty vital. Regardless, I just said that there's no way to achieve uniformity of opinion as to which areas constitute "levels"; how about where James first encounters the Lying Figure AND finds the radio? Does that place not matter in relation to the plot?

[spoiler]Especially considering he hears Mary's voice coming out of the frickin radio, asking "why did you kill me?" amidst the broken static [/spoiler]

I get what you're saying and I don't want to be all pedantic about it, but your criteria for this seems pretty nebulous to me.

We also cover mirrors in Russia.

I never heard of this custom before. It's very interesting, especially in terms of the game. Oh, so much symbolism...!


What the fuck does any of that have to do with covered mirrors?

I think it's him being ashamed to look at himself, maybe.

The Jewish tradition sounds likely though.

Death hovers over SH2 like the mist over the town, so the covered mirror is probably another aspect of that. Covering mirrors is probably a tradition shared between many cultures and religions, and having the mirror covered would imply that Mary had died, and recently.

Or, maybe the darn thing was just cracked.

*Agrees with Oddish*

In Born from a Wish, Maria's room has a large dresser with a mirror. I guess that could symbolize how Maria is Mary's "vanity" in a sense?