In the “Bird of Happiness” chapter of Rule of Rose, if you go through the 2-leaf clover door into the 1st Passenger Corridor, and from there into Room 9 (Clara’s Cabin), you will see Martha, bound and bagged on the floor. One can tell that she is still alive because her legs are moving, but there seems to be blood on her clothing. See the picture posted.
One thing that I remember having bothered me, the first time that I played the game, was Jennifer’s lack of sympathetic response, and neglect to give aid, upon finding Martha like this.
I recall thinking something like: “Hmmm… I’ve been assuming that Jennifer is a good person. But would a good person be so indifferent to something like this? Jennifer just leaves Martha there without helping her. What does this say about Jennifer?”
We’ll return to those important issues.
But first, let’s deal with another question. Who is responsible for Martha being bound and bagged and bloody?
I think that we have a good clue to this from the “face” (of a bird?) drawn on the part of the bag that covers Martha’s head.
The face appears to be drawn onto the bag with red crayon.
Later in the game we will see, when Jennifer wakes up tied to a post in “The Funeral” chapter, that Jennifer has been scribbled on with red crayon by those that tied her to the post.
The use of red crayons in this way, I propose, is the “signature” of the Red Crayon Society. As also is the beating of bagged creatures.
And this fits with what we saw in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter when we saw imps attack Martha. I argued the case, in my posts, The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (part 1) and The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (part 2), that when we see imps, it is a fantasy-embellished representation of orphans wearing bags over their heads, bags which represent imps. Jennifer was seen to be attacked by imps at the end of “The Rag Princess Sews” chapter, which led to her being bound to the post, scribbled on with red crayon, and with red crayons stuffed into her mouth. The imps that attacked her emerged from the shadows immediately after the orphans disappeared into the shadows. I suggest that the “imp attack” on Jennifer was, underneath the fantasy embellishment of Jennifer’s memory of it, an attack on her by the other orphans… and was directed by the Red Crayon Aristocrats.
And the attack on Martha, judging by the red crayon “signature”, was also directed by the Red Crayon Aristocrats.
Could there have been a part played by Gregory in what happened to Martha? After all, it seems that the motive for attacking Martha, at least in part, probably related to Martha’s letter writing concerning Gregory (see my post: The Mystery of Martha’s Letter).
I think that we can rule out that the orphans (other than, perhaps, Wendy) worked together with Gregory in any violence, or saw him be violent, or knew that he would be violent. I say this because, in the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter, we know, from the writing on the blackboard, that the orphans came to believe: “The Stray Dog Legend / That is Just Wendy’s Lie”. So, I think that any involvement of Gregory in the “disappearance” of Martha must’ve been unknown to the other orphans.
The first scene of imps attacking Martha (in the Unlucky Clover Field” chapter) begins by showing Martha falling down stairs. We saw a similar attack on Jennifer in “The Funeral” chapter. An orphan sneaked up behind Jennifer and pushed her down the stairs. The modus operandi of the imps (make the victim fall down some stairs) matches the modus operandi known to be used by the orphans. In another scene we see an apparently dead Martha being swept away by imps. How does this square with Jennifer seeing a bound, bagged, and bloody, but alive Martha in the “Bird of Happiness” chapter? It seems to me that, if all of Jennifer’s “visions” of Martha that we’ve been discussing are built on Jennifer’s actual memories (even though distorted by fantasy), there isn’t much room for Gregory to have been involved in the actual killing of Martha and yet still be unknown by the orphans. Rather, it seems to me that the orphans were likely the ones who attacked, bagged, and later finished off Martha… judging by the evidence we have.
I think that Gregory could have been involved at the final stage of body disposal, however, when the orphans other than Wendy weren’t around. Could Wendy have decided that the best place for Martha’s body was Gregory’s back yard? Could the three holes that we see in Gregory’s yard (in the “Gingerbread House” chapter) perhaps be for Hoffman, Martha, and Clara (rather than for the three kidnapped children mentioned in the newspaper article)?
And what about Jennifer’s involvement in all of this? How did she get these memories of what happened to Martha? And why does she ignore Martha’s plight when Martha is bound and bagged?
Could it be that, in the same way that Jennifer succumbed to the peer pressure to bury Brown, she also went along with the others at this time, participating in the violence against Martha?
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Interesting… Say, is that a newspaper in front of the bag (and bound to her)? Hm… Wonder if that has any significance if it is?
Indisciplinary wrote:
—Say, is that a newspaper in front of the bag (and bound to her)? Hm… Wonder if that has any significance if it is?—
It is this newspaper headline:
~~~
July 1930
Daily Flamingo
Husband Borrows Yet Another 30 Pounds From Wife’s Bank Account
(Room 9–Clara’s Cabin, “Bird of Happiness”)
~~~
I suspect that the two Daily Flamingo newspaper headlines, found in this chapter and dated July, are what give the “Bird of Happiness” chapter its “July” designation of month. But I don’t think that they are genuine documents like the other documents in the game, and I don’t think that the month of July genuinely applies to the bagging of Martha.
Another example of a document being used to put an inappropriate date on a chapter occurs, in my opinion, with the “Little Princess” chapter. There is a Hoffman diary entry (which I do think is a genuine document) in that chapter dated March, and the chapter has “March” designated as its month. But I don’t think that the things we see in that chapter relate to the month of March. I’ll get around to posting about this soon and provide a more detailed account at that time.
Basically, I tend to think that the months designated to chapters are pretty unreliable.
In every other case, other than the Daily Flamingo headlines, I tend to think that dated documents are HIGHLY reliable. And that’s why I think the two Document-based Time-lines I’ve made are important.
“Basically, I tend to think that the months designated to chapters are pretty unreliable.”
I had a bit of difficulty with that, as well, since even when you take the three stories in chronological order events still don’t seem to line up entirely.
I recall thinking something like: “Hmmm… I’ve been assuming that Jennifer is a good person. But would a good person be so indifferent to something like this? Jennifer just leaves Martha there without helping her. What does this say about Jennifer?”
I believe that Jennifer, when she was younger, participated with the “games” of the Aristocrat Club. In the cut scene where Jennifer confronts Wendy and beats her, she mentions that she hated herself for gone along with the other girl’s games and activities (I see the cut scene not as a replaying of past events, but of the 16 year old Jennifer speaking through her younger appearance, shouting things she wished she had said the first time around). Perhaps she had a hand, or perhaps not (maybe she knew about the attack on Martha and didn’t do anything about it out of fear?)
I wrote the Anonymous post (forgot to log in! :X)
I believe the ‘Daily Flamingo’ may be the title of the newspaper in Eleanor’s Birdie Town. Which seems to indicate that her parents are the subjects of the articles.
Supporting this theory is the fact that this is hardly newsworthy, in the 30’s anyway. A husband uses his wife’s money- and? It’s his right to do so- he married her, and so has control over all her assets. [Just stating marriage law, not saying it's fair.]
Sorry for the double, but I had to reply to Sith:
Now that you mention it, it does seem likely that Jennifer’s monologue wasn’t nearly as descriptive as a child. However, I do think the essentials- that Jennifer probably hit Wendy, got mad and deposed her as Princess- happened. But I don’t know how thoughtful she was as a kid, since we never really get a chance to see her that way.
I find the “Daily Flamingo” newspaper articles intersting. I think they are the only indicators of Eleanor’s parents, we have the most information on her past when her family was alive (whereas all we know about Jennifer’s is that they died in the ariship crash)
But are they figments of Jennfifer’s dream, or written by Eleanor in her point of view? That’s what I wonder ó.o
That’s true. The rest of the people, we never really find out what happened to them. Well, okay, there was Jennifer’s supposition of a train wreck or somesuch, but I can’t remember specifically who it was- just that it was the boy who draws on stuff. So far, that’s all I’ve seen.
“maybe she knew about the attack on Martha and didn’t do anything about it out of fear?”
I agree with that. But oddly enough, the lack of emotion, shows maybe she cared little for Martha or something happened to make her nearly despise her. Maybe had a thought like “Martha was never a good lady…she was rather mean. Besides if I help wh-what will the RCA think. I can’t risk it. Besides…I don’t think….I don’t think they’d kill her….” Probably knowing they would. A thought she probably regretted. Or she knew if the orphans would do that to Martha, and that Clara & Hoffman had ‘disappeared’ without warning; She would/could be next if she interfered. I sure as all heck wouldn’t interfere, I’d just go in my room lock the door and cover my ears. Now that I think about it maybe she witnessed the beating of Martha or at least the end of it, and ran off to the room with the phonograph and played it trying to forget.
this is all speculation.
I wonder if Martha was responsible for killing Elenaor’s red bird? I don’t have much to support this, other than the red bird drawn on her bag. Or maybe the red bird was killed by the RCA, seeing how Diana and Meg had that conversation at the beginning of the chapter (Are we too mean…blablabla).
“Could there have been a part played by Gregory in what happened to Martha? After all, it seems that the motive for attacking Martha, at least in part, probably related to Martha’s letter writing concerning Gregory (see my post: The Mystery of Martha’s Letter).”
Here’s the thing. I am almost positive (although I need corroboration on this) that when you look at one of the items that leads you to Martha, it is mentioned that she was accused of being a witch. If that were the case, Wendy, since her word is gospel among the aristocrats, might have found out about the letters and told the other aristocrats that Martha was ‘a witch’ and needed to be destroyed for this reason, thus manipulating the other children into covering he tracks for her.
Aceles wrote:
—…Martha, it is mentioned that she was accused of being a witch. If that were the case, Wendy, since her word is gospel among the aristocrats, might have found out about the letters and told the other aristocrats that Martha was ‘a witch’ and needed to be destroyed for this reason, thus manipulating the other children into covering he tracks for her.—
I agree that the accusation that Martha was a witch might have been the justification given, to at least some of the orphans, for the need to attack Martha, while the need to stop Martha’s letter writing to the police was likely the truer motive.
“”"One thing that I remember having bothered me, the first time that I played the game, was Jennifer’s lack of sympathetic response, and neglect to give aid, upon finding Martha like this.
I recall thinking something like: “Hmmm… I’ve been assuming that Jennifer is a good person. But would a good person be so indifferent to something like this? Jennifer just leaves Martha there without helping her. What does this say about Jennifer?””"”"
well the way martha called jennifer filthy, if i was jennifer, i wouldn’t have helped her either.
Do you think Martha was in on the whole Child Molestation? I cannot figure out why Clara hates Martha so much? I didnt know where to post my comment, so.. sorry if it is out of place. I pretty much figured Hoffman left because everyone knew what he was doing, but why did Martha “Leave”? And what about Clara’s “leaving”?
Jessica-the-Great asks:
—why did Martha “Leave”? —
See my post “The Mystery of Martha’s Letter” Oct 30, 2007
“…Martha falling down the stairs.”
She’s not falling down them, she’s falling up them; being dragged up.
I find it difficult to believe the orphans are that strong…
“dead Martha being swept away by imps”
I missed this scene… where was it?
Masq wrote:
—“…Martha falling down the stairs.”
She’s not falling down them, she’s falling up them; being dragged up.—
~
~
Martha falls down some stairs before she is dragged up them. Watch this you tube video of it: at the 9 minute point.
Masq wrote:
—“dead Martha being swept away by imps”
I missed this scene… where was it?—
~
~
In “The Unlucky Clover Field” chapter. Watch this you tube video of it from the 8 minute point to the 8 1/2 minute point.
…I hate dial up…
a bunch of orphans together-say the older ones (diana and such) would have been able to drag martha upstairs-especially in the heat of the moment-adrenaline would have given them a boost. plus (not to sound sexist) but the could have used the boys. little boys can be really powerful when they want to be-i used to work at a summer camp and i was surprised at what they could lift or how hard they could throw given the right motivation.
I thonk Jennifer didn’t nothing because she hated Martha at the bottom of her heart, Martha is constantly, –since the first time we met her cleaning– making comments about how nuisance and filthy Jennifer -and why not, the other children- were, I can’t blame Jennifer for leaving tied and alone a woman who hurted her, at least in a verbal way
“Martha is constantly, –since the first time we met her cleaning– making comments about how nuisance and filthy Jennifer -and why not, the other children- were, I can’t blame Jennifer for leaving tied and alone a woman who hurted her, at least in a verbal way”
…everyone did that to Jennifer… Hoffman, the orphans… everyone.
earlier i was reading the post about the possible c-section on clara and how maybe both hoffman and martha were covering it up
maybe since there’s evidence that jennifer knew this, not to mention the fact that martha was very mean to J
that this was Jennifers way of getting back at marth, in more ways than one.
I don’t think so, somehow … Jennifer was very submissive, true, but I haven’t seen a shred of evidenc (yet) to show that she was a cruel person. Even if she din’t save Martha, it may have been because she din’t have the guts to face the Aristocrats wrath. If YOU were a young, frail girl being threatened with murder by a gang of seemingly unstable pre-teens, would YOU have dared to disobey their orders? Knowing that they had managed to tackle, bound up, and possibly murder someone many times older then them? And that they regularly murdered living things for sport?
And then there’s the problem of a motive for Jennifer hating Martha enough to feel pleased that she was trapped. The “getting insulted” explanation doesn’t stick, because, as Masq had said, Jennifer was treated that way by practically everbody. Yet she din’t ask the Aristocrats to jump off a cliff as their first game when she was made their new leader, did she? The helping-in-child-abuse excuse is a plausible one, but still I can’t see how Jennifer could calmly watch someone suffer that much, and think of it as being “payback”. Out of all the Aristocrats, she was the only one who was ever reluctant to dish out torture when given the chance/forced to.
Think of it, during the course of your childhood, your teachers probably scolded you plenty of times. Some of them may have called you a nuisance, a bad influence to others, a slacker, and even an “idiot boy” (Boy those is pay having a short attention span when they start ranting. xD). Would you want them to be gagged, tied up, and beaten into a bloody pulp?
Adrian wrote:
See my blog-post “Real-life Conspiracy by Children“
That was … disturbing. It makes one wonder where these children pick up these things. People often blame parents for cases like these, but I find it hard to believe any sensible parent would expose their children to anything like this …
… And I still find it hard to believe that innocent, forgiving Jennifer would really be content to watch someone getting treated like that and not free her if she had the authority to do so. Whenever she does anything “bad” in the game, its usually because she was given orders by the Aristocrats to do so, and it doesn’t seem that she particulaly liked carrying out those orders.
It seems to me that fear kept Jennifer from acting. It wouldn’t be the first time the Aristocrats threatened her with severe punishment. They made her give up Brown under the threat of death, after all. If she was willing to give up the thing she loved most for fear of her life, she’d probably be scared enough to keep quiet about Martha’s imprisonment.
By the way, can you walk up to Martha and press X to … err … “examine” her bound body? Is there any description at all?
When I found Martha, no mater how much I examined her, Jennifer wouldn’t free her! I was so mad. I thought Jennifer would care to see someone like that, having been tortured be some of the other kids herself. Maybe Martha wasn’t nice to her, so she felt she’d return the favor? I seem to remember Jennifer getting dirty looks from Martha, I think she did that to all of the kids though.
Technically… even if she freed her it wouldn’t have helped…
If you think about it that might be the symbolism in seeing her again… We, as the players, already saw her die. Maybe to Jennifer, Martha’s already dead, she just doesn’t know it yet.
Not sure if this was mentioned above, but does it occur to anyone that there’s a bird drawn on her bag? Look at the beak and the eyes, I’m sure we’ve all drawn birds like that when we were little!
The Daily Flamingo just makes it ironic
-Kara
Aya Moto wrote:
~
In the blog-post, I wrote:
…so it is good to get a response to my question and hear that you think it looks like a bird too.
Perhaps Eleanor was responsible for that artistic touch.
…or who ever took the red bird…
I think that Diana and Meg were responsible for the bird napping. It’s funny that even though they collectively torment Jennifer, they aren’t above hurting each other as well.
Funny is a strange word to use in relation to this…
I think actually that what we see as torment may not be just “directed at Jennifer” as in no other orphan experiences it…
Mostly I think it’s about proving ones self to the club. The bigger the sacrifice you make, the better your treatment.
In the opening sequence when it shows the girls coloring in red all over Jennifer, as they did to Martha, I actually thought it was lipstick. I mean, I know it’s the “Red Crayon” Aristocrat Club, but crayons don’t even color on PAPER very well, let alone fabric, they are only wax after all. Maybe pastels or something, but I doubt crayon worked so easily.
Amanda was mentioned to have stolen Martha’s lipstick, so I thought they might have used that. Jennifer had her mouth stuffed with crayons, but that doesn’t mean they used crayons to color all over her. And coloring on Martha with her own lipstick is very fitting for the girls to do.
Hi!
I finished the Rule of Rose game some weeks ago, and was left pondering at its mysteries. Your blog keeps me entertained for hours reading all the theories (both yours and the ones in the comments), so congrats on a great site.
I, too, wondered about Jennifer’s indifference to Martha’s suffering when I found her in Clara’s cabin. I must admit that the idea of the orphans killing the adults frightens me, even though it seems very possible. I guess I still think of them as mostly innocent children, despite their strange rules and punishments and whatnot.
I have a question for you, though: where do you get pieces of official artwork such as the one in this post or the one of mermaid Clara’s? I can’t find much over the internet, and I would love to have the full set.
Thanks in advance.
Welcome, Ayrell!
Thanks for the kind words of praise for this site. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.
Most of the artwork I get from
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/ruleofrose/images.html?tag=tabs;images
Some additional artwork (and exclusive wallpapers) can be found at
http://www.gamersgallery.com/gallery/index.php/cat/7948
Other downloadables can be found at
http://www.atlus.com/ruleofrose/
and
http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/ror/
Thank you so much!
“Could it be that, in the same way that Jennifer succumbed to the peer pressure to bury Brown, she also went along with the others at this time, participating in the violence against Martha?”
Maybe she didn’t directly participate, but assuming she realized it, it’s likely she didn’t speak against it.
In between two of the earlier chapters, “Joshua” asks Jennifer if she remembers now what a bad girl she had been and that this dream would go on until she fully regains step by step the memories of what she had done.
This sounds like she has more on her heart than just her weakness concerning Brown, maybe she really was involved in other stuff as well to a degree.
PokerNemesis says:
In “Jennifer as Mythic Hero”, PokerNemesis says:
It is perhaps silly in the scope of the general plot, and may not be genuine date-wise, but the information the newspaper contains is critical, as it offers the combination to one of the boxes in which the bird is “trapped” (can’t say it’s dead or alive – Schroedinger’s Cat, etc. – until you actually observe the bird)…
(For those who do not know: 365 quid minus 60 quid minus 30 quid equals 275 quid, or combination 2-7-5 [click!])
I thought for a bit that there might be some significance to the numbers (365 days in a year, perchance?). Then I thought: “not all months are covered in this game, perhaps there are three 30-day months missing, or two 31-day months and a 28-day February” (1930 wasn’t a leap year). No such luck. The missing months (at least Chapter-wise) are February and June (anyone?) which nowhere near account for the difference…
(The only significance I can place on the unaccounted months of Febraury and June is that they represent the birth months of my wife and me. I’m positive that the game designers weren’t thinking of us when they came up with that)
After reading 90% of the posts within this site, I find it difficult to believe the numbers given to us through The Daily Flamingo, and the coloured birds and numbers on the walls, are just arbitrary to solve the combination lock puzzles…
Another idea. What if the events that we see during the Cloverfield don’t actually represent the death of Martha, but Martha suffering some kind of accident that makes it harder for her to move later on? Maybe an accident caused by the children pulling an April Fools prank that went way overboard?
abisal wrote:
Martha looks very dead in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter. And Jennifer encounters Martha’s ghost (another indication that Martha is dead).
She doesn’t look very dead later on when you find her moving and “bagged”, though. Also, you don’t really see “her ghost”. You enter a dark room where you hear Martha’s voice. It is possible that, in the actual past, Martha was still in “bed” at the time due to her wounds, as Jennifer came into the room looking for the clover key.
The chapters are in a month order but the events in them don’t seem to be. It’s a dream world.
Stuff is happening doesn’t mean it’s in order. Like in Hoffman’s diary. We see Peter escape/be c aptured in “May”. If we read Hoffman’s Diary it says Peter first escaped in April. Then we read Jen’s thoughts on Wendy and she says that Wendy took care of Peter around hte time Jen took care of Brown, which if you read their letters is in June.
So what time does the rabbit escape?
See? Theres lots of clues to go through.
abisal wrote:
Later in the game doesn’t necessarily correlate with being later in Jennifer’s forgotten past, and it clearly doesn’t in this case.
Jennifer’s memories are not returning in an orderly sequence, or free of distortion. It is up to us to order those memories in the sequence that makes the most sense, if we wish to reconstruct Jennifer’s forgotten past correctly.
But the scene where the imps apparently drag Martha and break her bones is only one sequence, I believe. If they bagged her and marked her with crayons, it’d have to have happened after that scene. And when you find her like that she is still alive. Your theory is that “Martha’s death sequence” is distorted and in reality took much longer, at some point Jennifer got to see her dying (and refused to help or even joined in). And although I do think that is a possibility, what is so wrong about thinking that the scene was distorted and that was not actually Martha’s death, but a non lethal accident she had some time after Jennifer arrived? This accident leading to the kids having to do the chores, washing the clothing and other stuff that is also left unexplained. With Martha being crippled, Wendy alone could have killed her later on November.
Abisal, there’s nothing evil about it.
PN has spent nearly two years on this site working on theories, though. If you want to put one forward, we have to question if it fits with not just one or two clues. We have to go through piles and pits of clues to make sure every aspect fits.
This is like a giant puzzle. You can’t MAKE something right. But it’s hard to know if you have one aspect of the puzzle right until you see the big picture.
Problem is, the game is made in such a way you don’t see the whole big picture. Only Jennifer’s veiwpoint. Very important peices are left out. For example; why didn’t Wendy report that Gregory had Jennifer in the cellar to the police? How did Jennifer really come to live in the basement? Did Stray Dog get the Adults as well as the Orphans or not?
We don’t know for sure. Jennifer’s story seems pretty linear in comparison to what we are trying to find out.
But also a lot of clues and answers are hidden. They’re not obvious, but you can find them if you research.
We want to solve the mysteries. It’s not just, “I think this way so I”m right and you’re wrong.”
But don’t expect a theory to go unquestioned unless we simply don’t know what to ask.
abisal wrote:
The scene (in “The Unlucky Clover Field” chapter) in which Martha is attacked on the stairs is separate from the scene (in “The Unlucky Clover Field” chapter) in which Martha’s dead body is being pushed by push-brooms. The scene in which Jennifer encounters Martha bound and bagged and still alive (in the “Bird of Happiness” chapter) most reasonably fits between those two scenes when re-constructing the sequence of events for Jennifer’s forgotten past. The logical sequence is (1) attacked, (2) bound and bagged, and (3) dead.
Masq wrote:
This sounds like it would have an intimidating effect on comment-makers. I don’t want people to be afraid to post an opinion that differs from mine because they fear that they will be chided for doing so. I don’t try to set myself up as an authority whose opinion people must kow-tow to.
That wasn’t how I meant it but I’d like people to actually consider that other people have opinions and THEY are not the end all authority either.
Does my idea go directly against other clues, though? You have proven that I am using some unreliable info to construct it, that is very true. But that does not make it automatically false.
However, you can see Martha’s face during her death scene. So they bagged her, scribled on her, left her on the room for a while and then came back unbagged her face again and killed her? It is possible, but still seems unlikely.
Still, it really seems to me like the creators only gave us 1/2 the puzzle and everything else we do to try to complete the picture are just imaginary pieces we’ll have to draw ourselves.
Also, another thing I’d like to throw in for you to especulate (and I have not seen mentioned in this particular entry). bagged Martha looks a lot like one of the chicken imps.
abisal wrote:
See the “Tools” link in the header.
About the bird imp/martha’s new “face”.
PN said:
Ok. Thank you.
Masq wrote:
Yeah, but I don’t mean only her face. Her arms are bound so her torso looks like a long neck and due to her skirt, her legs look very short. Kinda like the imps’. She has a Flamingo newspaper with her, that is the newpaper from the “bird island”. And lastly, we got to fight all the other adult characters (Hoffman, Clara and Gregory).
Also, since Jennifer entered the room and didn’t help her, Martha’d have a reason to attack her if she ever got up…
I saw the bird imps long before I saw martha, though. (try going into a wrong room sometime. It’s LOADS of fun. ><;;)
But if you go into the classroom during The Funeral (Night) then there is a BIG bird imp in there that, when standing in the middle of the room, can almost reach you in any direction even if you're against the wall. (not to mention lots of little imps in there).
Thought maybe that was related to Martha's bird imp drawing.
I'm not sure why we didn't get a hand in directly slaying Martha except perhaps Jennifer doesn't feel badly for what she did to Martha. She may feel badly for the other three but Martha recieves no pity.
Let me explain that… um… Jennifer, when fighting the other three bosses, does so with a timid, afraid air. She's fighting her inner demons, you could say. She is facing what happened to them, possibly through guilty eyes.
But with Martha, she not only doesn't help, but she doesn't seem to even acknowledge that Martha is there. (I don't remember the Narrator even MENTIONING tied up Martha.) Like the orphans do in the Funeral (Day) to Jennifer.
Why do I think she ignored Martha?
I think Jennifer's involvement with Martha may have been out of protection for Gregary, who Jennifer did sort of love. She stays with him for nearly a year and he takes care of her (as best he can anyway) for that entire time. I can't imagine that she would not only stay with him but refuse to leave him in danger if she didn't feel fondness for him. It's just not something you do when someone has you "trapped" against your will. Now I don't think he wanted Jennifer to leave, but I'm sure after being separated from Joshua he wanted to protect his new child.
But Martha was writing letters to the Police to suggest that Gregary was doing something bad/wrong/suspcious. If such were the case and Wendy found out, I think she would try to use the leverage to 1) Pull Jen's attention from Brown and 2) to get Martha off the case so that Wendy herself doesn't get into trouble. (after all, if Martha's letters go out and they find out what Wendy is up to out there at Greg's house, I'm sure she would get in all sorts of trouble for "dog training" him.)
Now obviously Wendy can't go to the other Orphans for this. They would realize that there was no Stray Dog, come to terms with it and she'd lose power. And the love she wants. But if she gets rid of Martha quietly, maybe even under Stray Dog's illusion, then she doesn't have to worry about it anymore.
Although that is also true (and hurts my theory a little bit), you guys keep repeating that time is broken inside Jennifer’s head and that could explain this inconsistency too. If Jennifer found Martha bagged at some point after she is roped and before she is “killed” (which happens all in a cutscene), then it is possible that all the future and previous bird encounters (or atleast the encounters with the big chicken imps) are actually flashbacks to that time you saw Martha bagged. Also you just reminded me that all rooms in that scene were exactly like Martha’s.
I actually entered two of the rooms with bird imps as I looked for the one with the bird cage. Eventually got me killed as I did not have enough candy to battle the group of birds in the last floor and I started avoided exploring completely afterwards.
-Or maybe the red bird was killed by the RCA, seeing how Diana and Meg had that conversation at the beginning of the chapter (Are we too mean…blablabla).-
maybe they were talking about Martha, justifying her murder (if they did kill her)?
Welcome fabulouas dahling!
fabulouas dahling wrote:
I think I favor that interpretation the most. Jennifer’s memories of the killings would be among the memories that Jennifer has been most strongly suppressing (and that the authors of the game are perhaps most interested in, if this truly is a mystery game, as we are supposing). Jennifer’s memories of the killings, when they finally emerge, might well be expected to do so in a somewhat disguised way. She remembers Martha bound and bagged in this chapter, but without any context for why Martha is bound and bagged.
There is a problem with the interpretation that Diana and Meg are talking about Martha, however. Consider the what they say (copied from TheSinnerChrono’s gamescript):
“I’ll never get along with her” doesn’t sound like something that someone would say about someone that one expects (because they plan to kill her) to have no shared future with.
This MIGHT just be a translation problem, however. Perhaps the original sentiment, before translation, was actually something like: “I could never get along with her.”
Or, another possible explanation might be that Jennifer is blurring together two separate conversations that she overheard during her forgotten past.
… but what if this was not Martha’s death but a prank played by the girls earlier on. A prank that caused Old Martha to break a few bones? And then, much later in November, Martha dies off screen, in an unknown situation (perhaps one that reminded Jennifer of this “prank” the children had played on Martha). The dialogue would make sense then… wouldn’t it?
Although I’ve always thought they were talking about Jennifer, I have to admit that the writers clearly went out of their way to keep the children from saying “her” name. So much that it’d actually make sense that they were not (Amanda, Martha, Eleanor and even Wendy had had worse things done to them recently).