While we’ve covered some of the horror stalwarts in gaming, from the mighty Resident Evil, to the underrated Parasite Eve to the frankly impossible Dino Crisis, there is one series that is head and shoulders above the rest – the indomitable Silent Hill. The psychological, small-town horror series has provided some of the most fiendishly difficult and terrifying experiences to be found in gaming over the years, with the older installments, naturally, being the highlights. One could write about any of the many aspects of the mythos of the games, from the character design, to the set construction, to the narrative devices at length and only really cover one avenue of what Silent Hill has to offer. But while it is inviting to make this a thesis on why my interpretation of the first three games is, in fact, the correct one, that’s not what this column is for. No, this column is about the demons that 
plague our gaming experiences so much that we can never forget the trauma that was our encounters with them, and the feverish ecstasy that was our survival. And few grant a greater feeling of survival than Silent Hill 2’s great executioner; Pyramid Head.
Introduced in a horrifying scene involving two mannequins (a monster made of two lower female halves), Pyramid Head is shown to be not only a threat, but also a commanding figure in the purgatorial cage that is Silent Hill. Standing tall, thin, topless and muscular, Pyramid Head’s head is obscured by a, well, a metal pyramid, while he wields a large blade which he drags around in terrifyingly grinding fashion. Outside of his initial showing, almost every other time the executioner rears his ugly non-face, something dies by his hand. Both fantastical creatures and in-games characters fall by his mighty blade, and all the time its right before your very eyes. His sudden appearance is unpredictable, and the methods of surviving the encounter come down to just that; survival. You can pump your bullets into the creature if you want, but they won’t necessarily help your case. For the most part, its avoiding death and trying to make some sort of sense of the faceless beast – a sense that is largely based on theories stemming from the roots of the game, because to understand Pyramid Head, one must first understand the basic facets of Silent Hill 2’s delivery.
At its core, Silent Hill 2 is psychological horror at its purest. Everything, and I mean everything, within the game is tied to the psyche of lead character James, as he attempts to find his deceased wife, who mysteriously sent him an invitation to the mining town of the games’ title. While exploring the town and trying to find his wife, or why he received a letter in her name, James encounters Maria, a woman starkly similar to Mary, but who acts and dresses in a distinctly more provocative fashion. At this point, it bears pointing out that Mary died due to a long battle with a terminal illness, and that James is dealing with a severe form of guilt-ridden grief, causing a psychosis which manifests itself in Silent Hill as severe, 
disgustingly real delusions. Many of the stages of grief and the unrequited emotional and physical desires of James are represented in-game with the enemy designs, character encounters and situation layout. You are as much exploring a desolate township built on nightmare as you are a deeply disturbed man’s subconscious, and this is crucial to much of the game’s contents. Of these delusions, Pyramid Head is, of the monsters, at least, among the most directly human.
As we learn through-out the game, James is riddled with guilt and anger over not only having to watch his wife die, but also having to live with a wife who couldn’t fulfill his needs and desires. From this, it becomes evident that Maria is the manifestation of his want for a readily fit and able wife, and Pyramid Head the manifestation of his want for redemption against himself for being so selfish and cruel-minded towards Mary. The game does tell you directly, in a Silent Hill sort of way, that these two are intrinsically linked, as several times through-out Silent Hill 2 James is forced to watch Maria die by Pyramid Head’s hands – a cold reminder of his previous crimes. It comes to light later in the game that Pyramid Head is actually James’ desire to be punished, and suddenly the gameplay that follows each encounter becomes brilliant. Each battle is timed, with only you, your wits and impending doom that is the sword-dragging flesh behemoth. What makes this ACTUALLY genius instead of a cheap ploy to play you for supplies in the game is how well it plays on an emotionally-emulative level.
Think about how you feel an extreme, temporary emotion. Sadness, fear, anger – whatever. Each time you have a bout of that emotion, it comes on like a tidal wave. It crushes into your world for a time, and everything seems tainted with the colors of that emotion. This is until eventually, the emotion passes and you either accept your situation as it shows no sign of improving and your conscious, rational mind focuses on how to begin improving or at least making sense of your immediate dilemma, or things have been rectified. This being a Silent Hill game, unless you’re seeing ‘The End’ or ‘Game Over’, nothing’s been rectified at all, so what we’re talking here is exclusively the former. Each time you face Pyramid Head, it’s timed, and it’s following a horrific event, so your emotions, both in-game and out, are at a high. Thus the fight is tense; you’re scrambling to avoid possible attack, you’re searching your inventory for a weapon that will visibly phase him – you’re stressed out. That is 
until you realize that no weapons really hurt him and you’re just avoiding his swings until he decides he’s got better things to be doing and leaves.
Taking the previous meaning and adding it to this, the game is literally making you confront anger and forcing you to accept that it will not go away until you calm down. The encounters being timed means you can’t just ‘act’ calm in-game, obviously, but these stages end after such a time as you’ve found a rhythm and the tension has worn off. You’ve stopped trying to beat him with brute force and accepted the situation isn’t going to change and shows no sign of improving. Then, he leaves, ready and waiting to re-appear again later to initiate the horrendous ouroboros with Maria and move one step closer to forcing James to face and accept himself and what he’s done.
Pyramid Head is one of the greats of horror gaming, and an icon of the genre overall. His appearances are few, but his impressions lasting. If you haven’t played Silent Hill 2, then I cannot feasibly recommend it more at this time of year.
