Rule of Rose Mysteries

In episode 12 (“Pressure”) of the Australian TV series “Dance Academy” (available for streaming on Netflix), there is a stuffed bear, with a ribbon around his neck, that the female protagonist of the series practices kissing technique on. The bear is referred to as “Sir Joshua”.

Could it possibly be…?

There is a very exciting recent addition to the Atlas Rule of Rose website that I just now discovered! Click on the link to that site http://www.atlus.com/ruleofrose/ Then click on “staff”, and then click where it says “special interview”. Then look for where it says “added March 2012″.

You’ll find a brand new article, by one of the authors of Rule of Rose, in which official explanations are given to mysteries not explained in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter!

I’m happy to learn that I had figured out some of them. But other explanations come as a big shock to me!

I need a little time to digest it all. Then I’ll give my reactions in some blog-posts as soon as possible.

—This was an April Fool’s Day post—

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
The anime series “Another” is currently being released in Japan, and I’ve seen fan-subs up to episode 8 so far.

Like Rule of Rose, “Another” combines horror with lots of mystery as to what is actually going on. I was rather reserved as to my opinion about this anime at first, but now that more explanations have been given in recent episodes I must say that I am finding the plot more and more intriguing, and I’m starting to re-watch the series from the beginning to re-examine earlier “clues” in light of later revelations.

There isn’t too much that I can say about the plot without giving spoilers.

I CAN say that it has some creepy dolls. Not necessarily supernatural dolls (will they become so?), but creepy none-the-less. And well-suited to an anime with some strange dolls, the opening song for “Another” is performed by ALI PROJECT, who did opening songs for the various Rozen Maiden anime series.

If you have a craving for more mystery horror, you might want to take a look at “Another”.

Sorry the site was in maintenance mode for so long a time. I still haven’t fixed what needs to be fixed, so the site will go back into maintenance mode sometime soon, but not before Sunday, March 4, and maybe not that soon. Hopefully it will be better than before when everything gets finally gets fixed.

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~

This writing is located on Gregory’s desktop.

I think it says “Emma Wilson” at the top of the page. Does anyone else think so? It is easier to make out the “W” of Wilson if you realize that the “W” is written with the middle lines not coming to a point at the top but rather crossing each other.

Can anyone make out any of the rest of what is written? It would be great if this provided a clue as to why Gregory’s wife is not around.

Can anyone with an emulator manage to get a clearer photo of this?

~~~
UPDATE!

Comment-maker Zen Maiton found a clearer (and shorter, and reversed) version of this writing on one of the desks of Hoffman (found in the Headmaster’s Quarters), the desk which has a phonograph and the P. A. equipment on it. The first letter of the last name can be clearly seen to be an “M”, and not a “W” as I previously thought, so the name cannot be Emma Wilson.

It is probably about a woman named Emma, not married to Gregory, who was two-timing Gregory for Mr. Hoffman!

I’m just kidding with the two-timing statement above.

It seems likely to me now that it is just a meaningless generic example of writing repeated several times in the game to minimize labor and expense for the game-makers (something seen before with wall cracks, etc.)

Thanks, Zen Maiton! Good job!!!

Woo Hoo!
Rule of Rose Mysteries has been alive for 4 years now.
Break out the champagne!

It really is amazing that I’ve kept at this for so long. It really is a tribute to all you excellent comment-makers who keep me interested and entertained with the things you have to say. Thank you all!!!

I waited for the article on Gregory M. Wilson to be revised before continuing with this critique (which will be of the revised version of the article).

The article says:

Gregory was seen as a very kind man, but after his son, Joshua, was kidnapped or mysteriously died, he fell into depression and went insane.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gregory was seen as a very kind man,

Jennifer wrote to Wendy: “He’s a nice person… but he won’t let me leave.” Is that sufficient to state that Gregory “was seen as a very kind man”? What other evidence for this statement is there? Did anyone else (in the game) see Gregory as a very kind man?

Jennifer presumably had not (and perhaps has never) faced up to, or fit together, the evidence she had found that Gregory had kidnapped and killed three local children. One might quibble that Gregory’s guilt is not technically a “fact”, but I don’t think there is a reasonable alternative explanation to all the evidence indicating his guilt, and when the GameSpot/GameFAQs Rule of Rose forum was in its heyday, the overwhelming consensus among posters there was that Gregory was clearly guilty.

I think one should only say, Jennifer called Gregory “a nice man”.

but after his son, Joshua, was kidnapped or mysteriously died, he fell into depression and went insane.

If one chooses to accept the idea that the Joshua of Gregory’s diary was Gregory’s true son Joshua, then Gregory was already kidnapping and killing children while Joshua was still alive. How does that fit in with the claim that Gregory only went insane AFTER Joshua’s death? I don’t think it does fit. If one assumes that the Joshua of Gregory’s diary was actually Wendy, and that Joshua was already dead, it might be that Joshua’s death precipitated Gregory’s madness, but there are other possibilities for the causes of Gregory’s madness. It might be that Joshua’s mother’s death (or abandonment of her family) precipitated Gregory’s madness. It might be that Gregory was mad simply because he had an an organic brain disorder. Or that Wendy, pretending to be the dead Joshua drove him mad. It might be that Gregory killed Joshua in a surge of pre-existing organically-derived madness and had been wracked with terrible guilt ever since, or that Joshua died because Gregory was too mad to take care of him properly. We don’t know.

I think that the idea that Joshua was kidnapped is extremely unlikely to be correct. Gregory is, as stated above, for the most part certain to have been the kidnapper of children mentioned in the newspaper article, not some unknown other person.

I’ve been asked a few times if I would please link to the Rule of Rose Wiki (Wikia), and this request always causes me some inner turmoil.

That wiki is kind enough to link to me, and I expect that there may be many fans of my site that contribute to the wiki. I certainly don’t like the idea of hurting the feelings of any of my fans. And I’m sure the contributors to the wiki mean well.

I will link to pretty much any Rule of Rose fan-site (with the one notable exception being any site of the person sometimes known as SyberiaWinx). But I really don’t like the idea of linking to any wiki that attempts to sum up the plot or characters of Rule of Rose, because I think that there is a grave danger of closing people’s minds to the mysteries of the game by the presentation of information as factual which actually is not. This is a big problem specific to Rule of Rose, because it has many mysteries, uncertainties, and misleading elements built into the game.

Going to the wiki yesterday, the first and only article I read was on Gregory Wilson, and I needed to go no further in order to be much dismayed. Some problems are rather minor and don’t matter much, but others are—in my opinion—quite serious.

Let me focus on the most serious problems. Quoting the wiki:

after an illness brought the death of his beloved and only son, Joshua, he fell into depression and went insane.

First of all, we don’t know that an illness brought about the death of Joshua. The idea that Joshua was ill at all came from Gregory’s journal, but we don’t know whether the “Joshua” mentioned there was actually his son or not. I personally favor the hypothesis that the “Joshua” written about by Gregory was actually Wendy and that the illness described by Gregory is Wendy’s illness (the illness of Wendy can be seen as a clue to support this hypothesis). If so, then Joshua might not have been sick, and might have died from other causes.

We don’t know that Gregory’s insanity came about because of Joshua’s death, it could have been the other way around, that Joshua’s death came about because of Gregory’s insanity. We don’t know. If Joshua wasn’t sick (see above), many possibilities open up.

But let’s assume for a moment that the “Joshua” written about by Gregory WAS his son. If so, the kidnappings mentioned in the news article occurred BEFORE Joshua’s death. If Gregory was responsible for those kidnappings and probable deaths of children (and I think it is very highly probable that he was responsible—the entire issue of the kidnappings was over-looked in the article, by the way), then wasn’t he arguably insane BEFORE Joshua’s death?

Any way you look at it, this wiki sentence is obscuring the mysteries of the game, not helping to make the mysteries clear.

Other, lesser problems are so numerous in the Gregory Wilson wiki article that it will take me two or more follow ups to deal with them all. If this article is typical (and it wouldn’t surprise me if it is, as I picked it randomly) I fear that the wiki unintentionally does more harm than good for the fans who visit it.

Sorry.

Only one more month until the fourth anniversary Of Rule of Rose Mysteries!
~
Last month’s “Rule of Rose Trade Demo Finds” comment-thread has new high def in-game pics that reveal some newly found clues/details of the game. Check it out.
~
As usual, put your general comments, that you can’t find a more appropriate comment-thread for, in this month-iversary comment-thread.

Comment-makers BrYaN55 (http://www.quebecgamers.com/) and Grandpaf have been posting links and interesting finds—relating to a Rule of Rose trade demo— in the Fortyfourth Month-iversary comment thread. Rather than have all of that good stuff lost in the depths of such a comment thread, I’ve made this blog-post in order to provide a comment-thread dedicated to this stuff.

Future comments relating to the trade demo finds should go here rather than to the Fortyfourth Month-iversary comment thread. And comments or links already placed there can be re-posted here without any worries about redundancy.

Thanks BrYaN55! Thanks Grandpaf! I look forward to exploring and discussing all the new Rule of Rose clues coming to light!

~
From a comment posted by BrYaN55:

Anyway, I was finally able to upload the actual demo on my server, so if anyone is interested in it, you can download it here:

http://www.quebecgamers.com/dossiers/rule-of-rose-trade-demo/index.html (go to the bottom of the page and click on “Download”) For whatever reason, the direct link leads to a 404 page.

Files contained in the archive:
Rule of Rose [Trade Demo] [NTSC-U] [SLUS-28063].mdf
Rule of Rose [Trade Demo] [NTSC-U] [SLUS-28063].mds

Please, feel free to upload it anywhere you want and share it too! And don’t forget to let us know if you find something interesting like a debug room or anything else!