Not long ago, I brought up the idea, on the GameSpot/GameFAQs forum, that Jennifer might be dead as she is dreaming her dream (if a dream is what the game is supposed to be). This idea was not originated by me, but dates back to some of the earliest forum postings on the Rule of Rose game. The inspiration for the idea is the scene in which Jennifer and Brown go into the light to make the transition from the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter to the “Once Upon a Time” chapter. See “The Heavenly Light Mystery” for more discussion of this scene.
The idea that one might dream after death can be found in the famous “To be, or not to be…” soliloquy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
To die, to sleep–
To sleep–perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
But I’ve tended towards the notion that, if Jennifer IS dead, the inspiration of the RoR game-authors for placing her in an after-death dreamworld may have come from something like the Tibetan Buddhist idea of “bardo”.
Let me say, up front, that I have only a very limited and superficial knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism.
As I understand it, bardo is a dream-like, after-death state-of-consciousness in which one may have terrifying hallucinations based on one’s unresolved karma (issues relating to one’s previous life/lives), but it is also a state-of-consciousness during which one may achieve “liberation” from this unresolved karma. Can you see how this might relate both to Jennifer’s struggles to come to terms with her traumatic past and to her fantasy battles with spooky things, Hoffman (boss-battle), etc., in Rule of Rose?
Bardo is so related to dreaming that Tibetan Buddhists practice “dream yoga” to develop skills that they can use after their death while in bardo.
But one can have both terrifying hallucinations and resolutions of karma in the regular dream-state, so can we be sure from any of this that Jennifer is not just having a normal sort of dream/nightmare while she is alive?
When I thought that the “heavenly light” transition between chapters had no in-game explanation, I thought there was a lot of pressure to use the “heavenly light” as evidence that Jennifer was dead outside of the game/dream. But after finding the in-game explanation that I have described in “The Heavenly Light Mystery,” that pressure has, in my opinion, been relieved.
On the other hand, Rule of Rose has demonstrated in other ways that its story can work on multiple levels simultaneously: finding an in-game explanation for the heavenly light does not automatically rule out that it is also evidence that Jennifer is dead.
But the theory that Jennifer is dead definitely has some troublesome statements by Jennifer in the “Once Upon a Time” that it needs to account for in order to be viable.
Evidence that Jennifer didn’t die during the orphanage massacre:
Front gate:
–At the orphanage sign to the left of the gate:
“…That day, I was escorted from the scene by Officer Doolittle. At first, it was reported that there were no survivors… Then, word got out that, miraculously, I had escaped the tragedy…”
Evidence that Jennifer doesn’t think that she is dead:
Inside the rickety shed:
(Spoken to Brown) “My dear friend… I never want to lose you again. I’ll protect you… forever and ever until I die.”
Sick Bay:
–At the drawers:
“…I wonder if I’ll be like Clara when I’m older… Will I enjoy those days?”
Classroom:
–At the blackboard:
“…I finally came to understand myself. My beliefs and the will to stand up for them… I don’t want to lose those ever again.”
–At the schedule of classes on the wall:
“…But what does it really mean to be a grown-up? Will I ever become one?”
Inner Court:
–Site of Brown’s burial:
“…I’ll never break a promise again.”
Filth Room:
–At the central pillar:
“Tied to this pillar, unable to move, I was all alone. It took a while, but I finally freed myself. I was always the slow poke… But, that won’t happen again. I’ll never let myself be tied up again.”
One can always argue that Jennifer died sometime after the orphanage massacre. And that she is now dead, but doesn’t realize it.
But do you think that the game-authors would construct the story that way? With all of these misleading statements by Jennifer? Giving Jennifer new understanding of herself, strong resolve of will, and bright hopes for the future, but making it all sad and ironic because she is dead?
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Hey I was reading the GameScript on GameFAQs and at the end it said this:
#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#
#$#$#$#$#$#$#$ $#$#$#$#$#$#$#
#$# [02'06] — “Game Over” Scene — [02'06] #$#
#$#$#$#$#$#$#$ $#$#$#$#$#$#$#
#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#$#
Little princess, little princess,
precious little princess.
The little girl was as beautiful as a princess,
But she was always all alone.
The girl found her grave.
Today is the day of her funeral.
…And everyone lived happily ever after…
End
Jennifer’s funeral?
Once again, you’ve found a thought provoking connection.
It seems, at first glance, like it might support the “Jennifer is dead” hypothesis. But if it does, I don’t see it.
If YOU see how it does, please explain it to me.
My feeling is that it is either:
a) irrelevant, or
b) supportive of the hypothesis that Jennifer is alive and dreaming.
Explaining the “a) irrelevant” answer is challenging, but worth the effort I suppose. I’ll probably make a post entitled something like “Things NOT To Think About” to address an aspect of the game that I don’t think I’ve ever seen written about before.
For the “b)” answer, I might suggest that one could possibly think of the game as a series of recurrent dreams that plague Jennifer, rather than a single dream. The dreams are recurrent because she doesn’t respond correctly in them, and this terminates her dreams again and again (coming across as dreaming about her own death). But when she finally responds correctly in the dream, she gets resolution (the “good” ending). Thus the game-over scene would be a dream death only. It is just how she terminates her recurrent dreams before she “gets it right.”
Jennifer is the subject of this portion of the story, so I assume when it says “Today is the day of her funeral” that we can take that quite literally. Another idea is that there are two sides to Jennifer. One is the grownup Jennifer that we see in the park at the intro video. The other side is the child in Jennifer that cannot let go of her past and the horrors that she saw (The Princess, if you will). Maybe the Princess side of Jennifer is dying (Jennifer coming to terms with her past and accepting it) and everyone lived happily ever after because it is all over and she is at peace with herself.
cmwilso3 says:
–Jennifer is the subject of this portion of the story, so I assume when it says “Today is the day of her funeral” that we can take that quite literally.–
This is a game over message, which would just mark the ending of Jennifer’s dream if she is dreaming. This doesn’t need to mean more, it seems to me, than just that she has dreamed of dying. But does dreaming of dying need to relate to one’s actual death? I don’t see why it should. You might well dream of your own death but wake up in fine health, although perhaps a bit shaken by the experience.
–Another idea is that there are two sides to Jennifer. One is the grownup Jennifer that we see in the park at the intro video. The other side is the child in Jennifer that cannot let go of her past and the horrors that she saw (The Princess, if you will). Maybe the Princess side of Jennifer is dying (Jennifer coming to terms with her past and accepting it) and everyone lived happily ever after because it is all over and she is at peace with herself.–
It seems to me that Jennifer only comes to terms with her past if she achieves the good ending, and she fails in coming to terms with her past if she doesn’t get the good ending.
Okay, this is waht I personally think, and you’re perfectly at liberty to do whatever you wish with my theory.
I think Jennifer probably had a trauma-induced memory loss concerning her past, all including the orphanage and all. She was probably hosptalized for a time, and eventually became somewhat better. Upon the beginning of the game, she passes her old orphanage in a bus for whatever reason, or perhaps somewhere that just looks like the entrance, and remembers something, or gets a feeling, and gets off. The rest of the game seems to be consistent with a complete psychotic breakdown on Jennifer’s part, perhaps as she wanders the ruins of her orphanage. It would explain the dreamlike state that the whole game takes place in, for one.
If so, aya, it seems to me that Jennifer’s psychosis must be already flaring on the bus with her hallucination of Joshua.
That’s probably true, though. I mean, the whole incident would have been frighteningly similar to how she got to the orphanage the first time around, adn probably would have stirred up some memories.
I just (blindly) thought of something.
Would it be crazy to suggest that, by the start of the game Jennifer is already dead? That she, along with her new parents, died in the car accident that supposedly took them? She does start the game asleep in a bus, perhaps she was asleep in her parents car before the crash.
SithLibrarian wrote:
—I just (blindly) thought of something.
Would it be crazy to suggest that, by the start of the game Jennifer is already dead?—
Actually, that is the topic that this post concerns itself with.
—That she, along with her new parents, died in the car accident that supposedly took them?—
Her parents died in an airship crash in 1929. And Jennifer was still alive at the time of the massacre in December 1930.
IF Jennifer is dead, her death happened sometime after the events at the orphanage, and Jennifer is now just “re-playing” events from her past. And we don’t know how long she lived, or what her life turned out to be like, after the events of the massacre… the game doesn’t deal with any of that.
It occured to me that Jennifer might already be dead. But actually, I think she is having an experience like Alice in American McGee’s rendition of the story. She may not be in an insane asylum, however, it’s that same sort of halucination. Living your regrets and experiencing your fears as a child.
What I think is, now that Jennifer is older she has become more desensitized to her experiences as a child. Things that were incredibly scary to you as a little girl, are usually not as horrifying as they seem. So Jennifers mind fabricated and twisted the memories of her past to a way that made it as terrifying to her adult self as the original experience. Because she had forgotten, and her mind needed to punish her for breaking her promises. As you can replay the game over and over again though, it may be that she can not let herself forget. Or perhaps she truely is dead. Dreaming. However, each time you play you gain more weapons and find more truth. Sifting through her psyche until there is nothing left to be found. I wish you could play the game until everything became clear, even if it took many times to play. I would’t mind. But it’s not truely clear to her. If she doesn’t know something, then we can not know it, because we are in her mind.
I like Audra’s explanation, but I prefer to believe that Jennifer’s still among the living.
How about this idea? She’s just in a coma.
The good ending is when she finally awakens, with her memories intact, and she’s able to move on with her life.
The bad ending, where she’s all alone is her staying within the coma.
The game over endings where they mention the funeral is that she died. Although they let you try again, they are basically saying that you, the player, failed her, and now she’s dead.
“Little princess, little princess,
precious little princess.
The little girl was as beautiful as a princess,
But she was always all alone.
The girl found her grave.
Today is the day of her funeral.
…And everyone lived happily ever after…
End”
I believe that shoes up on the screen when Jennifer dies in the game, Gregory says the “And everyone lived happily ever after part”.
I think she may have actually have been in an accident while possibly trying to remember or piece together her past and is in a coma. And possibly the dream, if it is a dream, is a way to torture herself for breaking her promise, and she feels guilt for the orphans deaths. At the end of the dream she promises to always remember the orphanage for the good memories not the bad and to keep Brown in her heart where she can protect him then she either, dies and comes to some sort of resolution and/or going to some sort of heaven where she can be with Brown but does not know she’s dead. Or she goes into that “light” does some sort of literal soul searching (kind of like in Baldur’s gate, if you’ve ever played) and the last chapter is a reflection in her own soul and she resolves the situation, as I said keeping Brown and her memories of the Orphanage in her heart while also promising to never lose herself to lies and nativity(Wendy) again.
I hope I made myself make sense. I’ve looked up the story and watched one of my friends play through, I played a bit of it. ^_^
Welcome Darla!
thank you kindly
Not to offend anyone but it seems more like to me that it is like this: [quote] ‘those who stay out after dark are eaten by Stray Dog, those who are eaten by Stray Dog are confined to the ship in the sky [or something similar to that!] and can never leave’. I think Jennifer was living in the present time, normal self. Just haunted by her past, memories locked away. And the whole point of the game is to make Jennifer remember what happened, isn’t it? Wendy was also dead, she just wanted Jennifer to remember what had happened, and maybe to fix it? Which is why she goes through the time passage when Stray Dog kills himself.
Grr…the game needs an additional 10-second CG clip of Jennifer’s reality at the end to explain everything, or perhaps it was intentionally left open so the player could decide what happened.
There needs to be a dictionary for this game. Theres to much left for interpretation and its confusing as heck
I just went back and did a replay of the game.
Something interested me. I don’t know for sure it has something to do with this but indulge me.
During the introductory Imp battle with the Olivia Imp, you get a sort of tutorial. I read through it this last time thinking of the massacre and everything I’d defeated before and I noticed something that could be waved off as trivial but interesting none the less.
“If Jennifer is hurt too badly she’ll collapse and the game is over.”
It says collapse… but according the the “Game Over” screen… shouldn’t that be “die?”
Could be considered a typo, but it seems a pretty big error to me if it is. There is a huge difference between collapsing and dying. And the error bothers me because this is the time when we’re learning the basic/rules of the game. Like Joshua/Wendy is explaining how to play by her rules as she said we would have to.
But wouldn’t that mean that “Little Princess Little Princess” would have to be someone else, then? If Jennifer only collapses?
“Little princess, little princess,
precious little princess.”
Well, we know of two princesses in the game…
“The little girl was as beautiful as a princess,
But she was always all alone.”
There were two lonely girls in the game who were both always all alone, both became princess.
“The girl found her grave.”
If you read the Little Princess storybook, Jennifer is “the girl”. Finding the Orphanage could be interperetted as finding Wendy’s grave… (where she died). But there’s the “Brown in a box in Jennifer’s Grave” to consider too…
“Today is the day of her funeral.”
What happened to “the girl” on the day of her fruneral? Her best friend took her place.
“…And everyone lived happily ever after…”
A statement of guilt..?
Hello, I’ve just found these… boards (blog?) and I already put them in favorites
I did beat the game quite a while ago, but I still enjoy reading about the game – especially the understanding/speculation part.
To what I’ve come to realize is that Jennifer isn’t actually alive or dead; not to us at least. This might be a bit hard to comprehend, but bear with me.
You see, Jennifer isn’t really alive or dead, she’s kind of a narrator in this story and the main character. An appearance of herself in a story you’re reading as you play the game.
Some of her memories are from when she was young, some are from when she was already mentally affected by Gregory’s treatment and some are to be told to us after she’s been through her story countless times again. What she’s telling us (the gameplay itself) is her story.
How to back this up…? I don’t think the problem is “Did she survive? Is she alive? Where is she now if she’s alive?” or anything of a sort. She’s a story itself and “she” just rolls on as you play it. Let me separate this in 3 phrases of the Jennifer (storyline):
Phrase 1.
At the very beginning of the game, few steps into the unknown, she’s frightened (she’s reliving everything over again in a dark, gruesome world where no-one cares about her – later we find out she really got along with everyone, from her statements at the ending of the game). Dark world she’s in is happening after the “plane” crash, her loss of memories, her being in Gregory’s hands.
Phase 2.
When she stands up to Wendy at the very end and starts beating on her, she utters her feelings in a very childish, but also hurt and angry manner:
“Jennifer: Liar! Go away! Just go away!!”
“Jennifer: I’ll never forgive you; not ever!”
“Jennifer: And as for the rest of you, how could you believe all those lies?!
“Aristocrats”?! You’re just the opposite!!
I hate you! And I hate you! And you!!
And I hate myself the very most, for playing YOUR stupid games and
not having the strength to stand up to you!
It’s all just hideous!
(From this POV, we can see she’s a little girl who obviously doesn’t like what’s going on around here and wants to change it desperately)
Phrase 3.
At the very end, she’s looking at her old stuff – unlikely that she’d come back to the place of her memories and find everything intact. She’s commenting everything in a clear, sharp tone. A kind of clarity she’s probably always wanted to have. She’s the most of an adult she would hope to be here.
If you have read this carefully, you’d notice there’s no space for her being alive or dead. She’s the storyline itself so I think.
Thank you for your time to read this ^^
Like a state of comatose..?
That makes sense, actually… it would explain the dreamlike quality of her “wonderland”.
If that’s not what you meant, feel free to correct.
Hello Masq.
I meant something quite different actually… You’re right about wonderland part, surely.
Her whole “adventure” is a wonderland of emotions, discoveries about herself and others and real happenings from the past – marinated and retold to us.
Let me try to explain what I meant in a different approach. Here’s an example:
You know the time when you wake up and you still remember bits of your dream. You’re stunned that you have just dreamt about your parents killing you. You know that this wouldn’t happen in real world (hopefully lol). What you dreamt was your own past experience. You actually dreamed of:
1) Your parents
2) Their physical appearance (their natural movement or words are usually not there, since you wouldn’t probably think of them killing you, ever)
3) “Them” trying to hurt you
When all of this comes together in dream, it may seem ridiculous; “why would my parents try to kill me?”. Dreams are past recollection of events and various emotions put up together in a whole. This “whole” isn’t logical or possible (most of the times), it’s a bit of this, a bit of that and another bit of that there, all coming from your senses (experiences) that you encountered while being awake .
So in this dream, your parents could be anyone, their physical beings you see in your dream are just avatars and them trying to hurt you could likely just be your fear of being hurt. Or reliving being hurt (like in real life) once again in a dream.
Reading all of this, you could sum up: “Ok, she’s dreaming all of this then”. That would support “coma” theory, “dream” theory and finally “death” theory.
That’s exactly the point. It’s not even one of these.
Her story we’re playing through is just a recollection of feelings, thoughts and appearances put in a whole. Jennifer is the narrator and storyline itself (quite like in a dream).
Thank you for reading this
Interesting…
so you’re saying we may not be following Jennifer at all but going through her mind in a way that seems like a journey through the proverbial rabbit hole?
…That’s intriguing…
That would be the right equation I was trying to make, yes
You put it just right!
Kyou
^_^- Hope you do continue posting, Kyou.
This seems a little off topic, but I thought I’d ask anyway.
I quote the original message:
————————————————————————————————-
Sick Bay:
–At the drawers:
“…I wonder if I’ll be like Clara when I’m older… Will I enjoy those days?”
————————————————————————————————-
This is misleading, since Jennifer is described in almost all the game websites I visited to be a “19 year old girl”. Wherelse Clara is thought to be 16. If “when I’m older” is taken to mean when she is Clara’s age, then she would have to be younger than Clara. When Jennifer is in the “Once upon a time …” chapter she is indeed younger than Clara physically, but if you were already having a 19 year old mindset, would you ponder on the troubles of adolescence?
If she was indeed younger then Clara “in real life”, and we choose to accept the theory that Jennifer is dead, it would mean she died only a few short years after the orphanage massacre.
I suppose she could also be pondering her future when she poses herself that question. Since Clara was mighty unhappy (even for a teenager), she could simply have been wondering if she, too, would ever be that depressed all the time.
Clara was forced to deal with things of an adult, sexual nature, and they seemed to have broken her. Even though Jennifer is older now and had to deal with some pretty horrible things, we don’t know for sure if there was anything along the same lines as Clara. Also, because Clara disappeared, in Jennifer’s mind, she’s probably forever frozen in time as someone older than Jennifer, no matter how long time goes on for her.
But I do agree, that line is very misleading. I wonder if the creators maybe had a hard time coming up with, forgive the pun, rose coloured memories of Clara to fit in with the theme of this chapter, since everything we know about Clara has to do with her abuse. Of course, they seemed to manage with the other orphans, so I don’t know. Maybe Clara just presented a certain challenge? *Shrugs*
In the dream, at this moment, Jennifer is a child. Right now, she’s not trying to put up the sheilds of adulthood but is experiencing everything openly, no longer putting herself above everything.
Clara, we’ve seen, had to deal with even more adult things than Jennifer did during her stay at the orphanage. (we don’t hear of Jennifer being molested by Hoffman) It is obvious Clara holds a place above Jennifer, as Jennifer has no problem listing her with the adults. She’s probably considered a more maternal figure than even Martha, and Jennifer knows she deals with a lot of adult things. However, it’s also obvious she’s in pain, be it physical or emotional.
I believe Jennifer’s musings cause a picture in one’s mind that is similar to one comparing themselves to a dead elder sibling. Technically they will always be your elder sibling, even if you surpass them in age, in your memory.
My mother has lost two older siblings, so I’ve seen her do this often. She keeps up with how old they are on their birthdays in fact… to her, they will always be older than her; and as she loved them very much, worthy of respect and being people to measure herself against.
For all the different ideas that Jennifer is this age or that age… I really feel that she has this sort of “taking them with you” syndrome, now that she remembers them, because she doesn’t admit that Clara died in the OUAT chapter, even though it’s known that no survivors were left after the massacre.
Man! I think that all these guys from this game are all dead meat, we say that if someone is slaughtered or something,his soul will be trapped in a place that is between heaven and hell until someone relieve the trapped soul ,do you remember a movie called (the haunting) this is a similar situation
Welcome, bad game!
hi PN ,I`m new here,with REALY bad english so please forgive me
could you outline your blog for me, I played the game and I couldn`t stop thinking about it , just like you I have so many questions ,I also intend to contribute to your blog.
Sorry, bad game, but an outline would be too tough to do.
I know this site is probably less search friendly than one would hope for. There is a search function, and there are tags, but they have limited usefulness.
If you want to scan over a list of just the titles of all of the blog-posts, if you can use the search function for the word “Jennifer” and that probably brings up nearly all the blog-posts pretty much just by title. That is probably the easiest way to scan titles.
thanks for the input PN
I think that if we accept the theory of Jennifer being dead OR having nightmares
{we know that people experience nightmares after they have suffered a traumatic event like THE LOSS OF LOVED ONES, an assault or a severe accident} , then we can explain most of the things that puzzled us in the game and did not have an explanation that we can relate to rationality, the most important one
could be:
-THE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THE AIRSHIP AND THE ORPHANAGE:
I have a crazy theory says that the airship (which has been almost the main playground of the game) including design , rooms and decoration HAS NEVER BEEN the same one that has been built by the british designers in real life
(I mean why would a luxurious and national airship be similar to a secluded, forgotten and almost no one knows about orphanage) ,
if we say that she is dead, then we might also be able to say that she is a trapped soul that has not yet reached its redemption (which is heaven)roaming places she spent her life in, especialy the airship which is related to the worst memory of hers ,the loss of her parents , I think that`s why we saw and played most of “JENNIFER`S TALE OF MISFORTUNE” in the airship,
I mean she even remembered what happened to her in the orphanage through the airship process
(at the end of every chapter , Jennifer flashes back to the orphanage and sees what happened there , see “bird of happiness” ending scene as an example)
personaly after I realized these things , I named the airship “THE REALM OF MEMORIES”
I may have a proof that supports my theory
3RD corridor passage
MEN`S LAVATORY Jennifer comment on the mirror “… Could it be because it`s cracked ? , for a moment ,
the reflection in the mirror looked like the old orphanage”
WOMEN`S LAVATORY Jennifer comment on the mirror “… It must be because of the crack in the mirror ,
but you see the illusion of a strange man(refering to Gregory) in the reflection
And how Jennifer saw the orphans in the airship since there is absolutly no proof that they went aboard the airship??
Considering my aforementioned theory , the symmetry between the airship and the orphanage is a combination of Jennifer`s shattered memories , I mean since she lost her memories after the airship accident , she won`t be able to remember the what REAL airship looks like because it is buried deep inside of her lost memories (and that might prove my ” FALSE RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THE AIRSHIP AND THE ORPHANAGE” theory) , it also means that we will never be able to see the REAL airship … such a drag ha ?
**My ” fan fiction ” tells me that the author of the game could have created another “once upon a time ” chapter that we can explore the REAL airship through it.
bad game wrote:
~
Jennifer tells us, during the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, in the classroom:
I think that the resemblances between the orphanage and the airship-of-Jennifer’s-dream arise from the airship-play done by the orphans. Jennifer may not have been able to bear joining in, but I think that she nonetheless got pulled into the fantasies of the others enough to influence the appearance of her dream. I think that this airship play was an extremely intense fantasy after the adults “disappeared” from the orphanage because I think that the orphans may have felt that their situation was too unthinkable without being able to lose themselves in the fantasy of flying away to India. The flight to India was their escape plan. And it had to be an intense fantasy in order to give them hope.
The same feelings that made Jennifer unable to bear joining in with the airship-play of the others, the feelings evoked by her buried memories of the real airship and its crash, are the feelings that help make the airship a nightmare world (or a hell) for Jennifer in her dream. And those feelings would also have served to isolate Jennifer from the others during that critical time (after the adults “disappeared”) when the other orphans would have strongly wanted unanimous involvement with the airship-play.
bad game wrote:
A related (somewhat), but also quite variant, take on this idea can be found in my blog-post:
Jennifer and the Jesus-mythos
~
I don’t think Jen’s dead. The reason being is the months. Now we all know that each month of the game doesn’t correspond directly to the events that happen in the month in question. I’d like to put forth the idea (if it hasn’t already and sorry if it has all credit due is given) that Jen is in a prone state due to hypnosis. Jen seems to wake up at the start of each chapter which could symbolise the departure from the consious to the sebconsious.
As was mentioned in comment number 21. by Kyou, that dreams are illogical. Now the psuedo-scientific (it’s fringe-science because it doesn’t hold mathamatical proof) explaination of hypnosis is that the high mind (cosnsiousness, sensory perception, self-image etc.) is turned down to the barest minimum so the subconsious (latent mind) can reigh free but there’s some activity from the high mind to relay what’s being viewed. So this would explain the exaggerated evrionments and characters (imps, mermaid, disciplinarian (Hoffman boss))
So maybe the month actually coincided with each therapy session where the latent mind was delved into and ergo, the game. The light (maybe I should have mentioned this on the thread that delt with that but when I was reading it I dodn’t have my thoughts on it completley straight) may be that she’s waking up from the final session and her high mind puts all the peices together and so she can see them in a logical way (OUAT).
Although this doesn’t really work with my “Wendy’s the narator” theory, as mentioned in another thread, but I think I can fix it:
Jen, while “under” takes on the persona of Wendy based on the Aspect she sees Wendy as. This is her mind’s way of defining the Jen/narrator from the Jen/protagonist.
Actually the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. From what we usually see on TV (fictional and non-fictional) that usually the hypno-therapist usually says “what do you see”, “listen” or “go there” maybe the Josh we follow is actually Jen’s high mind trying to direct the path if the latent mind under the instruction of the hypno-therapist. I dunno why the high mind deems it fit to drop imps all the time but…… Wait (sorry big revelation and I always type “live-feed” style) what if the imps are the latent mind’s way of protecting Jen’s persoanl well being. As if the latent mind knows that the truth will upset the high mind and tires to impede the flow of understanding. Which is why whenever we see a new imp-form we see a “bag-child” (more remenisant of the costumes) than an “imp” imp. Itt’s if tho show that logic’s there it just doesn’t want to be known.
As for the soliliqouy about the little princess, it’s glarinly obvious
“little princess” – the child Jen
“grave” – the death of the child and rise of the adult
“they all lived happily ever after” – because other orphans were finaly remembered again
G-c@t wrote:
I agree with you that Wendy is a driving force in Jennifer’s dream (hypnotic or otherwise), and I agree with you that at times she represents an aspect of Jennifer’s own mind.
But I disagree that Wendy is the narrator. Before Wendy-as-Joshua’s voice is heard reading the beginning of “The Little Princess” storybook, in the first moments of the opening scene, it is Gregory’s voice that is heard reading and starting up the story of Rule of Rose. I think that Jennifer’s dream occurs in the guise of one of Gregory’s stories. See my blog-post: Opening Scene, Part 1
A further suggestion that this is the case comes from Jennifer’s meeting with Gregory at the bus stop at the end of the “Once Upon A Time” chapter. See my blogpost: What Gregory Says at the Bus Stop
Ultimately, Jennifer herself is the narrator, because it is her dream. But in her dream, she a character is in one of Gregory’s stories and he is the narrator of that story. There are many different levels to Rule of Rose—it is quite complex.
To PN:
I see what you’re getting at but I stiill think that Wendy’s a narrator. (Or, at least that aspect of Jen’s mind)
My main proof is seen in the “bad” ending. The laugh from Josh/Wendy along with the callous peice of text. After that point for me, all of the narration in the game switched to that tone for me and I think the term “unlucky girl” was a insult to Jen because she keeps on making things worse for herself (in the eyes of Wendy).
But, for the good ending here’s what I propose, that Greg RE-writes history, as it were, for Jen to make the story more happy. So, depending on your actions, either one of them couldbe the narrtor. I could go deeper and state that Jen’s sceptisism is the last dying burst of the Wendy voice. Your (highly anticipated) thoughts please.
I think that Wendy-as-Joshua represents, at times, a self-condemnatory aspect of Jennifer’s mind (“Jennifer, you know you’ve been a bad, bad girl”), but I tend to think that the term “unlucky girl” comes from the part of Jennifer’s mind that is devoted to feeling sorry for herself and excusing herself. Rather than the term, “unlucky girl”, being an insult, or a self-condemnation, I think the term “unlucky” is an excuse against blame, as if to say: “I’m not to blame for all this, I’m not a bad bad girl, it was all just my bad bad luck.”
Good pint, children are always trying to fob off blame……. But still, if J/W is just the judge in this game, why does he also play “lawyor” in such that s/he drives the “case” along and continueing with this analogy, it’s the lawyor that gives his/her client’s view of events, that tthe other lawyor must counter-act for the sake of their client’s intrests. I think the whole “can you remember what you did?” Can be viewed in the same vein as “where were you on the night of _____?” And, because Jen can’t give a detail explaination yet, J/W must tell her another story (peice of evidence in line with this analogy) that leads to the damning events in “the Funeral”
Wendy-as-Joshua as a prosecutor still isn’t really entirely right (but neither was my statement entirely right that characterized Wendy-as-Joshua as sometimes a self-condemnatory aspect of Jennifer’s mind). So let me start again.
What is the prime objective of the Wendy-as-Joshua part of Jennifer’s mind? I believe it is to get Jennifer to recover her repressed memories so that Wendy and the others can be “saved”—saved in Jennifer’s accessible memory.
Why did Jennifer repress her memories? I think it was not just that the memories were painful, I think that it was mainly because the memories were tied to feelings of self-guilt.
So, the Wendy-as-Joshua part of Jennifer’s mind needs to make Jennifer face her self-guilt, so that she can recover her memories. The need to make Jennifer face her guilt is motivation for why Wendy-as-Joshua comes off as being like a prosecuting attorney (but the motive of Wendy-as-Joshua is different from what the motive of a prosecuting attorney would be).
Wendy-as-Joshua is a driving force in the dream, Wendy-as-Joshua offers Jennifer the storybook (on the bus) and begs her to read, and then leads her to and through the orphanage. But I do not think she is the narrator. The narrator has a gentler attitude toward Jennifer. The narrator is Gregory, or more precisely, Jennifer’s-mind-as-Gregory. Jennifer is dreaming that she is a character in one of Gregory’s storybooks.
Ok, I conceid lol sorry for being an annooying prick about it. I Just thought it was such a good point that I didn’t want to let go lol
There’s nothing annoying about you making me clarify my thoughts.
I believe that Jennifer may be in a somewhat comatoste state trapped in her own subconscious much like Alice from American Mcgee’s Alice videogame. Her journey through the game is her acceptance of she felt she did right or wrong in her past and what it means to be mature and to do what is considered the adult thing. Then again, just my opinion.
Welcome, Katwowzaz!
I don’t really know if Jen is dead or in coma,i belive that like most of you have already stated, she has shattered memories and is trying to fix them,like when you have brain damage or something that hurts your mind in that way,you your self repairs it.but then again it could be the alice factor at play,go figure.
*de-lurks*
Hello. I came across Rule of Rose by sheer chance. It’s intriguing story caught my attention and…well, before you know it, I want to contribute my thoughts.
In March 1930, we are given the fact that Jennifer is around 8/9 Years old. Assuming that the interpretation that this is her 19 year self running through her memories, this allows us to add 11/10 years to the year. What is the time period we get then?
1940 or 1941. And what significant event took place? The Blitz of London (and various other cities) by German Bombers, as well as the Battle for Britain (where German bombers attacked various RAF airfields).
From my personal point of view (as a history enthusiast), I suspect it is highly likely that Jennifer is caught in a bomb blast, thus knocking her either (a) outright dead or (b) comatose, thus allowing this ‘journey of the mind’ to take place. However, my analysis below will show that I believe (b) is more likely.
On another note unrelated to history, I think it is also useful to look at media equivalents. In PN’s see all walk through, it is mentioned that if Jennifer attempts to leave the bus station, she ends up being there again. (I.e. running off to the left of the screen only to emerge on the right). We see a similar thing in the Matrix with Neo being stuck in Mobil Avenue, where it is some sort of ‘transition zone’. With this similarity then, it may seem to be that Jennifer is stuck in the same transition zone as such.
This ‘transition zone’ interpretation is reinforced by the fact that we also see Gregory sitting at the station and the other children still at the orphanage (in the good ending). Gregory, having apologized to Joshua and coming to terms with his own failures, is sitting at the station ready to move on to death (If we are to assume that the direction Jennifer came from is life/consciousness). The other children (and adults), on the other hand, never really got to terms with what had happened, thus are still ‘transitioning’ and barred into the orphanage. (This may be the case with Brown, only repeated at the shed).
Taken this way, it may even explain the ‘bad’ ending of the game where Jennifer does kill Gregory. That would point towards her failing to come to terms with her past-thus trapping her at the orphanage as well, forever lonely, unable to save anyone in her memories. Thus it actually fades out INSIDE the orphanage grounds. Contrast this to the good ending, where Jennifer actually leaves the orphanage.
As to whether she is alive or not, the optimist in me would say that she emerges ‘alive’ in both good/bad endings…in the ‘bad’ ending she is possibly stuck in a vegetative state with her body still functioning, and the good ending…probably hints at waking. See below for why.
The only time Jennifer when you get game over.
Little princess, little princess,
precious little princess.
The little girl was as beautiful as a princess,
But she was always all alone.
The girl found her grave.
Today is the day of her funeral.
…And everyone lived happily ever after…
Taken what I have said above, I think this hints that if Jennifer dies in her memories, she loses the will to fight-thus ‘collapsing’ as mentioned in said tutorial. In an even more nightmarish interpretation, this ‘collapse’ could mean that she loses all sense of ’self’ in that unstable transitional area of memories. The brain and heart in the real world may shut down as a result, leaving her real body an empty, dead husk.
The line “And everybody lived happily ever after” was spoken by Gregory, in the same tone as he appeared in orphanage on all fours. This suggests that the orphanage massacre was forever forgotten, ‘everybody’ referring to those who did not know of the massacre. And given what I have proposed about the ‘bad’ ending and the fact that a game over is the opposite of what people normally achieve, it would seem to make sense that in the ‘good’ ending Jennifer not only survives said bomb blast, but also has the courage to tell everyone about what actually happened.
Finally, as to why Jennifer may be repressing her thoughts-maybe it is a double dose of survivor’s guilt that never got resolved (from both airship crash and orphanage massacre).
Anyways, those are my thoughts. I hope somebody finds them useful.
Well, I really think that jen is dead.
cause in the end Stray Dog says: Sorry Joshua. (And we all remember, that he dressed jen as JOSHUA).
So I think he shot her. She rans into the light with Brown (who IS dead!) so she just could be dead…
But in the beginning, she sleeps…and brown lives…thats the only thing that annoys me and makes me think Im false…mhhh
so my my first theory: both are dead
second: both are alive and jen is remembers everything in a dream.
maybe u can help me out…
i agree with InsaneInquis, the way he/she tells it makers a lot of sence.
Well all that does make sense. So when Gregory says ‘Sorry Joshua’ is it possible he actually did kill Jennifer, then himself so that’s why he asks for forgivness? Maybe? I dunno.
I do think that the story is out of sequence. It stars when Jen is little, then she lives with Greg, then gets older and goes to the bus stop to look from Brown after he dies ’cause she forgot. Thats where we meet her.
Gabe asks:
No. If Jennifer is dead as she re-lives these memories, it isn’t because she died during the massacre with the others. Her death would have to be something that occurred at some later time.
Jennifer tells us, in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, at the orphanage sign to the left of the front gate:
~
Many theories people put up are really helping me with understanding the storyline much better. I took a break when I first got the game when it came out. I stopped at the ‘Mermaid’ lvl, because it was so irritating. I came back about a year later in ‘07 and I eventually beat the game. After I beat it, I was just too annoyed with it to even think about playing it again…but just a few days ago I decided ‘Ehh what the hell I’ll replay it.’ and I am. But this time I have been thinking of all of these theories and one links to another and another. I really do hope they have a sequel or possibly a remake or something that can help explain all of these events in order to help…All of the theories I thought about before reading this had been said and answered and that really DOES help me with the interpretation of the games story. Sure, it makes my brain twitch a little but at least everyone is trying to figure these things out. Who knows? Maybe they will make another game due to us thinking of it and trying to decipher it?
Welcome, Fiona Belli !
I don’t know how I missed this seeing as I’ve played this game about a million times already, but Hoffman molested Clara?See because they don’t really tell much about the other characters(Clara,Nicholas,Olivia,Susan,and the other two boys,ect) and their problems I have don’t know as much.And at the end of the game where were the little boys anyway,I don’t remember if their clothes were out in the entrance of RGO(Rose Garden Orphanage)? but like I said when do they mention the Clara and Hoffman thing,because wasn’t Clara related to Hoffman or something?
Welcome Jilly Bean “Valentine”!
I’ve wondered myself about whether there is a “mystery” about the disappearance of the boys.
I don’t know of any evidence to suggest that Clara and Hoffman were related.
I believe she actually died at the massacre. I recently read a book named “Ubik”, where (sorry, this is a huge, mega, spoiler, read at own risk)
a group of people dies in a spaceship without realizing. The only survivor is their boss who, in their “after death dream” is dead. They return to earth to make a funeral for him and only realise their predicament by the end of the book.
Jennifer could as well have died alight back then, and her ‘being the only survivor’ is justifiable as a delusion, she thinks she survived because she thinks she is alive. She could not have it in her memory to be dead. Her mind just created a mechanism to justify the happenings.
Sorry if this was already mentioned (probably was..) in the above comments. I was to tired to read them…
@scab,
You could be right. We never see outside of Jennifer’s dream, so, how can we know for sure what the outside is like? Is Jennifer asleep in bed? Or is she a corpse in the ground, her ghost haunting the orphanage? Can we ever prove one or the other so that the issue is settled? I don’t see how.