You made a good choice in comment-posting location.

You make some excellent points about the oddities of the “Bird of Happiness” chapter. I don’t have any solid solutions to the questions raised, but I have some ideas for consideration.

On the lack of a boss battle, I wonder if—as a game-play challenge—the bird-imp-infested corridors at the top of the staircase is a sort of substitute? If Jennifer battles those bird-imps, she will surely lose. I have not managed to even come close to killing them off, even with the knight-rapier super-weapon. The only viable tactic seems to be to try one’s best to run past them, attempting to take as little damage as possible. But many players, I assume, will try to fight those bird-imps initially.

~

With respect to Jennifer’s relationship with Martha, you propose: “Should we therefore assume that, in her past, Jennifer never really had a negative altercation with Martha (i.e. didn’t participate in her murder), and this is an indication of Martha being portrayed as a victim like Jennifer, tied up by the imps/orphans?”

It seems to me that Jennifer is, at the very least, somewhat indifferent with respect to Martha’s plight when she sees her bound and bagged. Or am I reading too much into Jennifer’s lack of response? I have noticed that, in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, Jennifer has salvaged some good memories of Mr. Hoffman (his voice, among the voices of the playing children, sounds very pleasant) but why is Martha’s voice missing? Has Jennifer nothing pleasant at all to remember about Martha? In that chapter, Jennifer, at the potted fern, Main Hall (first floor), tells us of this memory: “Miss Martha used to scold Nicholas for forgetting to water the plants, and then she’d turn her wrath on me, snapping, ‘What are you laughing at, young lady!?’”

I was just wondering if you’d ever thought about the lack of boss-battle in the ‘Bird of Happiness’ chapter?
It strikes me as conspicuous that most other chapters have a sort of compulsory ‘boss’ towards the end, notably the two others that make up the set of three along with the bird chapter.
The other notable thing is that these bosses are often the adults in the story; Hoffman, Clara etc. However, Martha the cleaning-lady does not feature as a boss.
So, who should happen to get a feature in the middle of the ‘Bird of Happiness’, complete with a bird mask, and yet already tied up and disposed of…! Regardless of the fact you don’t fight her, I get the impression that Martha is one the “assigned characters” to this chapter, like Clara is in the mermaid chapter.

In terms of gameplay, it would appear odd to have this element of boss imbalance between chapters, so presumably this was a deliberate choice (though I suppose it could also be that they wanted a strategy-based riddle chapter as opposed to an action-based battle chapter…) Should we therefore assume that, in her past, Jennifer never really had a negative altercation with Martha (i.e. didn’t participate in her murder), and this is an indication of Martha being portrayed as a victim like Jennifer, tied up by the imps/orphans?

From a gameplay perspective, it would seem “obvious” for Martha to be the boss of the Bird of Happiness chapter, to the extent that the lack of any sort of boss is extra-conspicuous, and feels like it has a purpose within the plot. This chapter is already confusing, what with the abundance of newspaper articles on backstories which don’t immediately appear relevant… but perhaps everything here is subtly related to Martha, and not Eleanor. Unfortunately I can’t remember proper examples to go very deep into this, but I simply wanted to point out the boss thing…

Sorry for commenting on this ancient post, I was originally going to post in the monthiversary, but I figured this one was more relevant to what I was writing ^^ As I said, my theories aren’t going to be any good by virtue of not owning the game xD But it would be interesting to see if the veterans have any thoughts on the lack of boss…… or perhaps gameplay aspects are irrelevant xD

Thank you, and keep up the great work Hopefully I’ll be able to play this game someday

She’s a witness of sorts to Martha, why not make her just as guilty and keep her under their thumb?

Although we see Martha attacked first, in the game-plot, in Jennifer’s actual past Mr. Hoffman “disappeared” before Martha did.

In the “Once Upon a Time” chapter, Jennifer tells us: “One day, Mr. Hoffman suddenly disappeared. Clara and Miss Martha soon followed, leaving me and the other orphans alone.”

And, as just a side theory, maybe the Hoffman battle was the others making her get rid of him? She’s a witness of sorts to Martha, why not make her just as guilty and keep her under their thumb? They could have set up this mess of sorts, told Hoffman who came upon Jennifer, prompting her to kill him. After all in his cutscene the imps are speaking to him, presumably about Jennifer judging from his text. The pointer is just his “weapon” of choice. Though your earlier post about the battle could be closer.

Another theory is that she was just the distraction, giving the other kids opportunity to get him, as they brush him away in the end.

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).

fabulouas dahling wrote:

maybe they were talking about Martha, justifying her murder (if they did kill her)?

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):

Diana: You know what? You know what?

Meg : What?

Diana : I don’t like her. I’ll never get along with her. No chance!
Not ever!

Meg : She’s such a pain!

Diana : Just terrible!

* – They giggle.

Meg : I can’t stand the sight of her.

* – Diana nods in agreement.

Diana : Yes, she had it coming.

Meg : Yes, she deserved it.

Diana : Are we too cruel?

* – They both giggle.

Meg : Heavens, no!

Diana : You’re right; it’s her own fault!

“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.

maybe they were talking about Martha, justifying her murder (if they did kill her)?

I saw the bird imps long before I saw martha, though. (try going into a wrong room sometime. It’s LOADS of fun. ><;;)

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.

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.