Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but the search came up blank.

Those who have seen the movie Blue Velvet most likely know that the scene where Jeff Beaumont hides in Dorthy's closet was the inspiration for the Pyramid Head closet scene. After rewatching this movie last night, I thought ya know, Angela and Dorthy Vallens are similar in many ways. Here are a few....

Both have black hair
Both have a male abuser
Both have been sexually abused
Both want to die
Both have other family members in the ordeal
We see both characters in a run down apartment complex

I'm sure you could find more.

They have resemblences, but I don't think Angela is inspired by Dorothy.
And did Dorothy want to die?

I'm not excluding the possibility that you could be right, but I think it's a tad too vague to be called a reference.

There are other references to that movie (and other work of David Lynch's) in SH2 (and SH1), though.

Yes. The only reason she doesn't kill herself is because Fank has her husband and child.

"Stay alive, do it for Van Gough"

Which of course is referring to Dorthy's one eared husband.

Maybe a little bit, but Dorothy (even if she has to) dresses in a way that Angela doesn't dress at all. She also reacts to the abuse differently than Angela may have. Angela retaliated to the abuse and murdered her father. Angela also wears heavy clothes and covers up all the way, she doesn't dress at all sexy... Dorothy begs for help and takes a lover, someone to rescue her...then she asks to be abused by her rescuer "hit me"...Whereas Angela seems to already be disillusioned and doesn't believe in being rescued. ...And she has no problem dressing slatternly. (Staircase conversation)

Both are fucked up in their own ways...

But they both are abused brunettes, etc and they have short hair...And I remember watching Blue Velvet again after playing SH2 and realizing just how much influence that movie had over the game.

>Angela retaliated to the abuse and murdered her father. Angela also wears heavy clothes and covers up all the way, she doesn't dress at all sexy... Dorothy begs for help and takes a lover, someone to rescue her...then she asks to be abused by her rescuer "hit me"...Whereas Angela seems to already be disillusioned and doesn't believe in being rescued. ...And she has no problem dressing slatternly. (Staircase conversation)

Well that's something that I neglected to mention in my original post. An idea that I recently formed is that Dorthy could be to Angela as Maria is to Mary. A sexier, clingy, Angela.

Well, I can see that I guess. Good point. They do seem to be polar opposites in that spectrum...Another thing to add is that Dorothy is much older than Angela, is a mother, and her motivation for taking the abuse is to protect her husband and child...Whereas Angela wasn't abused for that purpose, on the contrary, she was abused by a parent who was supposed to protect her, and her mother condoned it.