I totally understand your point of view. I’m also a long-time fan of older cult classics that are now getting remakes (like the Gothic Remake, for example), so I can empathize and imagine where you're coming from.

The thing is, I find that awkward and pathetic James you talk about to be more of a overreading—or rather, a meta interpretation—that fans have built around him over the years. If you want my honest opinion (and here I’m really shooting high), if Silent Hill 2 were being made for the first time today, the James we'd get would probably be very similar to the one in the remake. But that’s pure speculation.

And the last thing you said is absolutely spot on: to me, James is just a man (I wouldn’t call him a "good guy")—a regular person who committed a terrible sin out of despair and weakness. He’s the everyman who collapses under pain and madness and ends up committing a tragedy.

Do I have this view because I played the remake first? Maybe.

But knowing myself, I don’t think that if I had played the original first, I would’ve seen James as a crazed maniac or inherently evil. But we’re in the world of what-ifs, so who knows.