What is your favorite thing about Maria? What made you want to muse her?
@barbed-cudgel || unprompted.
you fool. you FOOL. you have asked me this and now you will get an ESSAY FROM ME.
As someone that played the original game before the remake, I will admit a fun fact: Going into the game I had no opinions or feelings about Maria! I already knew about the games story, so Maria wasn't a surprise to me. I cared more about James at that point and was going for the Leave ending. So, I tried my best to ignore Maria and focus on getting to Mary and the truth. However, I'm a weak man and Maria is... Maria. It's no surprise that my first attachment to her began when he entered Heaven's Night and she does her little moment where she unlocks the door and James is incredibly eager to see where she's keeping those keys. It was in the hospital where I really got attached to her and them by time I reached the end and got the Leave ending is when my love for her was sort of finalized. Born from a Wish only made it worse and completely secured my love for her.
Because the thing about Maria?
She's not a villain. She's not evil. She's not cruel.
She's a victim.
She's confused. She's scared. She's alone. And nothing, no matter what she does, will ever, ever change that.
At her core, in a meta sense, Maria is... a plot device. She is a plot device for James to work off of, to fight, to fall to. Whatever he does doesn't matter. Maria is there for James to find his redemption. To find the truth. She is there both as a source of comfort, a guide, and a temptress. The thing though? This is not something she chose. This is not something she wants. She makes it clear in Born from a Wish she isn't even fully aware of who is. She has vague memories, feelings, etc. but she almost exists in this uncertain, fugue state until, eventually, she realizes what she is. This uncertainty of who she is comes into play later, but I'll get to that in a little bit.
The main thing about Maria is that she knows she isn't real. She knows she's some combination of James' - AND Mary's - wants and desires. She knows this and it hurts her. It hurts her so much to know she can never be someone, something. Anything. Anyone.
She knows this and she can not escape from it. In Born from a Wish (A title that describes her very existence) she even puts a gun to her head and contemplates killing herself but, of course, she drops it. What's horrible about this is for anyone else, literally anyone else this would be a sign of triumph and victory. To keep living. It would be a victory for Angela. It would be a victory for James. For her? It's a death sentence regardless. She will walk into Silent Hill and she will fight and she will die, regardless. A monster will find her - a monster wearing a green jacket, holding a photograph, will come to kill her. Her victory would be to kill herself, to end her very existence before it could truly begin. But she can't. Because she's so scared of being alone. She's scared of pain. She's scared of dying. She'd rather brave monster-infested streets than be alone. She'd rather find James, the man who will kill her, than be alone. All she wants is to not be alone. She wants to live. More than anything she wants to just live.
But she can't. She is not allowed to. No matter what, she will always be at the mercy of James and his monsters. She will always be forced to bear his burdens. She will always be the sacrificial lamb on his journey of redemption. She can never have a happy ending because she is never, ever meant to.
She is so desperate to live that she will do anything for it. Which, as I said, plays into her inability to have her own sense of self. She is needs James more than James will ever need her. He is quite, literally, the only reason she can exist. She needs James to want her, not just as a role to play, but because she wants to live. She can love James - she does love James in her own way - She can be good. She can be a good wife. A good mother, even. She can be anything James wants, just please love her and please don't make her be Mary. She is so desperate by time she's in the Labyrinth, by time she's at the hotel, she will literally be Mary if only so James will finally want her.
There is so much I could say about her, but it's this complexity that I love about her as a character. Because Maria isn't a villain. She is kind, she is caring. She is brave and she is strong. She helped ghosts, caught in their own loop. She wanted to protect Laura, find her and keep her safe. She just wanted to live. I wanted to muse her because I wanted to explore this complexity, much of which we can not see in the game. I wanted to explore her outside of just her connection to James. And honestly, I just wanted to find a way for her to be happy.
I could say more about her as a character, but I'll end this there since then it's going into very rambly territory, lol.
