Rule of Rose Mysteries

In one month it will be this third anniversary of Rule of Rose Mysteries.

Wow!

I should do something special over the next thirty days to pep things up before then. I’ll have to start thinking about that.

As usual, the comment-thread of the latest month-iversary post is the place to put any off-topic remarks, or on-topic comments that you don’t know a better place for.

You don’t have to download anything to play “The House 1″ or “The House 2″. You just need to be able to play Flash applications.

The House 1 is only about 10 minutes long. The House 2 is also short.

If you like creepy and scary, I think you’ll have fun. I did.

I changed my original post to include The House 2, and so that the links are to the game-maker’s site (Sinthai Studio). I didn’t know about these until Lussh pointed them out to me. Now you don’t need to watch a 30 second ad, as you did before this change, and you also get to see a little introduction added too.

Here are the links:
The House 1: http://www.sinthaistudio.com/thehouse1/
The House 2: http://www.sinthaistudio.com/thehouse2/

In Part 1 of this series of blog-posts, I wrote:

So imagine that you are the game-maker and have just completed the making of this intentionally mysterious game. Here is the problem: How do you advertise it?

The norm in advertising a game is to give a description of what the game is about. To give the concept of the game, the setting, the set up of the plot, etc. There is a whole industry of reviewers, and such, set up to disseminate such information about a new game.

Uh, oh…

That information is precisely what we want to keep a mysterious secret for the player to unravel for herself/himself!!!
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So we have the problem of advertising. How do you advertise such a game without major spoilers? How do you promote the game without explaining away the mysteries that you want to keep mysterious?

It is my hypothesis that the game-maker’s solution to this problem involved misrepresenting the game so as to avoid giving away spoilers.

In subsequent blog-posts of (or related to) this series, I want to examine some of the ways that I think that promotional misrepresentation of the game has created confusion for the interpretation of the game’s legitimate mysteries. In particular, I want to address the question: Is there bogus information from the advertising that is not really relevant to the mysteries of the genuine game-plot?

In that light, let’s consider this paragraph from the “Story” section of Atlus’s official Rule of Rose website:

Jennifer pretends to abide by the “Rule of Rose,” a class system established by the children, but meanwhile, she’s desperately searching for a way out of this world.

Does this paragraph misrepresent the game? I think so.
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In my previous blog-post, Some Thoughts About Aristocratic Rank in Rule of Rose (Part 1), I wrote that Wendy’s position as the Princess seemed to stand apart from the other rankings with respect to the “expected” values of children dominating each other by way of age, or height, or strength. Diana is older, taller, and stronger than Wendy. Diana seems to have a more dominating personality. How did Diana ever allow/accept Wendy outranking her?

I don’t think that there are many clues to find in the Rule of Rose game that address this question. But I think there are at least SOME clues for us to consider.

Clue #1:

Eleanor : Greetings, Princess Jennifer. From now on, you’ll be our new Princess.

Meg : Now, Princess… Please think up a new game.

Eleanor : Please lead us.

Diana : We are yours to command, Princess.

Amanda kneels on the ground.

Amanda : Princess, go ahead! Guide us! We need you! We don’t know what to do!

What is NOT made absolutely clear, in this scene, is exactly what the old game was (or what the old games were, if multiple), why the old game no longer serves, and exactly why it is important that there be someone to lead in “a new game”. If we knew more about the function(s) of the game(s), we would know more about the functions of the Princess. And that would help us to understand why Wendy was the Princess.
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Aynelle asked:

I mean to say that, is the hierarchy ranks important? o_O;;
like, how is it important for that person to have that rank— what does it do, and how it benefits her?

There isn’t much evidence, that I can think of, upon which to base speculation about this.

If we consider the hierarchy that we see in the game before we discover that Wendy must be placed into it, the ranking seems quite understandable. Diana (Duchess) outranks Eleanor (Countess). Both outrank Meg (Baroness). Diana is the tallest, and seems to be the oldest (she is the only one of the three girls with obvious post-puberty physical features). And Eleanor is taller than Meg. Age and height are rather common factors of dominance among children, I think, so this “pecking order” isn’t surprising. The older and taller girls will generally tend to dominate the shorter and younger girls, all other factors being equal.

Amanda, although heavy and broad of girth, appears to be shorter than Meg (see the scene by the coffin in “The Little Princess” chapter), although Amanda’s hunched-over posture is a factor that lowers her height below what it would be if she stood up straight. And whatever Amanda’s age actually may be, she acts far more immaturely than Diana, Eleanor, or Meg. Also, it may be that her awkwardness and lack of beauty may be important factors working against Amanda with regard to gaining respect from other girls. Perhaps some of my female readers will have more insight than I to share about how social dominance arises among young girls.

If the Prince and Princess were only figureheads, only dolls (Joshua-the-bear and the Little Princess doll), then it would be Diana who was truly at the top of the hierarchy. And this seems to be the position that one would expect of Diana.

So far, I am suggesting that the Aristocrat Club hierarchy just seems to reflect the natural factors of social dominance among girls.

The effect of this ranking upon the day-to-day lives of the girls, upon their duties and privileges, is not something, however, that I’ve found the game to show us. [edit: I now think that there is something about this that is shown to us in the game, and will address this in Part 2 of this series of blog-posts]

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When we factor in Wendy as Princess, the hierarchical order is harder to understand.
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I apologize for not writing any theory-oriented blog-posts last month. I did write some lengthy theory-oriented comments, one of which will probably get turned into a controversial blog-post at a later date. But for now, I’m setting my focus on getting my video-making capacity restored, and then laying the groundwork via videos for some future blog-posts I intend to write. If the best-case scenario plays out, I’ll have a video out (on the topic of Martha’s murder) in the next few days.

In the meantime, why don’t you check out an article at Chris’s Survival Horror Quest called “Interestingness Increasing” which not only talks some about Rule of Rose, but was also gracious enough to refer to my humble blog as a “high quality fan site” and link from there to here in that article. Chris’s site is a must for people interested in survival-horror, in my humble opinion. Have you visited there yet?

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Madisson provided this link (http://tinyurl.com/37vuusy)
to a Japanese Rule of Rose fan-art page at pixiv.net. There is some very nice art there!

Madisson said one must have a pixiv account in order to see the art in full-size. So I decided to see if I could manage to get an account.

I succeeded!

Here are the steps I followed:
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It’s nearing the point where I’ll be announcing that comments have reached the quantity of 10,000.

Although I’ve read them all, at one time or another, I certainly don’t remember them all… even clever comments that deserve to be remembered.

Those reading through the comments may do a service for the rest of us by quoting, in the comment-thread here, any of the clever quips that you find and like.

All of the comments in a thread are numbered, so please include the comment-number with the blog-post title, and of course don’t forget to tell us the name of the commenter who made the quip. See my first comment, in the thread for this post, for an example of what I have in mind.

As usual, month-iversary comment threads are places where you’re invited to write your off-topic remarks, or deal with the RoR topics for which you can’t find a more appropriate comment-thread.
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In the up-coming month, I intend to discuss: Jennifer’s first day at Gregory’s house.

And, I intend to advocate for what I now think is the best answer to the question: “Was Wendy the Joshua of Gregory’s Diary?”.
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Here’s a link to Poor Translation? (Part 1).

Another text for which, it seems to me, that verification of the accuracy of the translation might be extremely important is the line that Wendy writes in her first letter to Jennifer: “I always watch you from the sky.” It is the word “always” that that particularly interests me.
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