How Silent Hill 2 Remake “fans” who are fat shaming Angela have completely missed Eddie’s parable

The new Angela Orosco design (on the left, modified to appear fatter) in Silent Hill 2 Remake has led to criticism and irony towards who wanted a comeback of the older looking original (on the right)

This article is part of the Silent Hill 2 Remake Cycle — Don’t miss out Silent Hill 2 Remake’s Maria is Now Less Sexualized, and it’s a Problem

The Premise

After years of silence in the Silent Hill community, there’s been a turmoil caused by the approaching release of Silent Hill 2 Remake (8th October).

Less than 24 hours after the gameplay trailer, there are numerous opinions ranging from encouraging to disappointed regarding Bloober Team’s reinterpretation of the Konami classic. Among these, some stood out (negatively) for comments related to Angela Orosco, a 19-year-old girl who, in the original, looked like she could be her own mother.

For those who aren’t familiar with Silent Hill 2 (it’s never too late!) Angela is a tormented girl who arrives in Silent Hill after fleeing from a spiral of abuse and abandon perpetrated by her father and brother. She’s intended to show the scars of these abuses on her skin by appearing way more “mature” than her age.

Angela’s face is now that of a teenager

Having said that, the new design is debatable. On one side, it’s understandable the desire of the fans that wanted something more resemblant of the original game -that applies to all the charachters shown until now- but on the other side let’s put nostalgia apart for a moment and appreciate the pro of this choice:

Angela finally looks like a teenager, embodying a new awareness and tragedy about the character.

The old, mature looking, Angela of the 2001 classic Silent Hill 2 was already a very tense and dramatic figure bearing themes like suicide and abuse, but this new iteration promise to shed a new light on her story turning it into an explicitly child abuse story. Let’s consider the fact that many players of the original have just learned about Angela’s true age.

The “Agenda” strikes again

The Fat Shaming/Woke Agenda

On top of these legitimate discussions among purists who would like a 1:1 port of the original and those who understand the urge to modernize it into something new, there are the usual comments regarding “Agendas” and body shaming. A lot of them can be found in this Reddit post.

One of the most touching moments of Silent Hill 2 — Fat shaming edition

We can’t deny it’s a general trend of the industry to be more (too much?) inclusive towards all kinds of races, genders, confessions etc. That’s not a negative thing per se but many people still considers this annihilation of the differences a problem.

That’s not the debate here (nor the fact that Bloober is working with Hit Detection, a videogame consulting firm which role is to help the developer with all the possible controversy regarding inclusivity) but the mocking of the new, more “realistic”, Angela’s model.

That’s relevant in a world where the self-proclaimed Silent Hill 2 “fans” pontificate about fidelity to the original model, but then proceed to ignore one of the best lessons Silent Hill 2 teaches us through Eddie Dombrowski.

From the first encounter with Eddie, emphasis is placed on his relationship with food

Can’t Pretend to Be a Silent Hill 2 Fan and then Act like Eddie Dombrowski’s Tormentors

Everyone can complain about anything, that’s for sure. The problem arises when we’re unable to understand what the original material was talking about, what Silent Hill 2 and his figures narrates and how we cannot pretend to be fans of the game and then act like Eddie Dombrowski’s tormentors.

Eddie is slightly older than Angela, he’s 23, and like her he is escaping from something lured by Silent Hill. He has a background of bullying due to its weight that ultimately led him to frustration. So Eddie shoots the bully and runaway.

The Eddie that James meets in Silent Hill is a person deeply affected by the harassment endured, unable to trust others. He’s afflicted by a deep paranoia that drives him crazy to the point he starts killing people because he convinces himself that anyone wants to mock him and his weight.

No need to be pessimistic

Why we shouldn’t be so light-heartedly judgmental

Applying the same treatment endured by Eddie to Angela is a strange way to manifest a sentiment of love towards Silent Hill 2 Remake and all the thematics that the game carries.

Not that fans should care for a game character per se, but they should embody that sentiment of human compassion that Team Silent tried to transmit in the original through Eddie’s story.

Angela’s new model is perfectly fine not only because it’s faithfuil to the original -adding even more layers that PS1 couldn’t give- but most of all because it’s the embodiment of a victim of abuse and mistreatment. She has all the rights to be imperfect, to be human.

And we all Silent Hill 2 fans should understand that and leave all in the hands of Bloober Team, Masahiro Ito and Akira Yamaoka.

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