See-all Walkthrough, With Commentary: “The Little Princess” Chapter (Part 17): The Airship Salon is the Reception Room Transformed
Posted by PokerNemesis in Clues, Plot Structure & StoryPlayers who follow the cues from the Rule of Rose game as to what to do next, are going to speed through the game’s chapters missing a lot of clues that help to explain the mysterious goings-on in the game.
The cues in “The Little Princess” chapter come in the form of the player seeing children to chase after. Usually the child is Joshua (Wendy-as-Joshua), but in one case it is Xavier. In each of these cases, the player is being tempted away from fully exploring the environment… thereby missing clues.
Chasing Joshua through the mansion, the player speeds through the chapter but will fail to enter many of the rooms of the mansion, including the Reception Room. The general appearances of these rooms constitute clues for the observant player. If one has observed these rooms carefully, one may recognize, during the airship chapters of the game, that many rooms on the airship are transformations of rooms in the orphanage mansion. This transformation of rooms is very apparent when one compares the Salon of the airship with the Reception Room of the orphanage mansion.
In both the Salon and the Reception room, there is a wooden table with a vase of roses on it, flanked by green couches. In both rooms, one of the two couches has a green pillow on it and the other has a red pillow on it. Both rooms have carpeting with a paisley pattern. The main differences in these furnishings has to do with how rich they look. For example, the green of the Reception Room couches is a dull faded color, whereas the green of the Salon couches is a bright, rich-looking color.
Both the Salon and the Reception Room have inside of them a grandfather clock and Hoffman’s cabinet of fine dishes.
Unlike the Reception Room, the Salon has no windows. Replacing the windows is a gigantic map of the world on the wall. But just as the windows of the Reception Room are bordered on either side by green curtains, so also do green curtains border the Salon map. And there is a record player placed in front of the map, just as, in the Reception Room, there is a record player placed in front of the windows.
Comparing the Reception Room with the Salon, we clearly see that the airship is the orphanage transformed. The Reception Room of the orphanage mansion has been fantasized into a Salon of luxurious furnishings. This is how the orphans imagined a room of the orphanage mansion as a room of a luxury airship flying away to India.
For more on the theme of the airship as the orphanage transformed, see my blog-post “Jennifer Through the Looking-Glass (Part 1)“
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So I guess im new hear. I heard about this site from a freind and I think u have some amazing theories! But something ive been stumped on 4 some time now is what the imps stand for. Some say they stand 4 confusion,others say they stand for the part of jennifers mind that is unwilling to recall her memories, and others say they stand for the orphans. what do u think? The only thing ive found in the January chapter is the doodles on the floor and the small figures in the cell of bliss. Great job on all of this.
Welcome iKing!
I’m confident that the imps are fantasy-transformations, in Jennifer’s dream, of the orphans wearing bag-masks. Just as the airship is the orphanage transformed by imagination, so also the imps are the orphans transformed by imagination. For support of this interpretation, see my blog-posts:
Olivia Imp
The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 1)
The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 2)
The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 3)
The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 4)
~
For a complete account of Jennifer’s comments in the January chapter, and collections of documents, etc., go to my “Important Resources” page (see the Header for the link).
On the other hand, Jennifer is dreaming so everything in the dream is in her own head. The conflicts with the imps that Jennifer experiences in the game may often represent only psychological conflicts that Jennifer is experiencing in the present (such as conflicted feelings about recalling her repressed memories). Jennifer never killed any orphans, but she kills imps, so obviously such killings cannot be based on memories. Cut-scenes with imps, however, may more often represent distorted memories of actual events.
Wendy-as-Joshua in the dream seems most often to represent a part of Jennifer’s own mind that sometimes helps Jennifer recover her memories, and sometimes condemns Jennifer (embodying Jennifer’s own feelings of self-guilt).
The dual nature of the imps is also true of the orphans themselves. Sometimes when Diana, or Meg, or Eleanor speak to Jennifer, they speak as themselves (re-enacting actual memories), but at other times they speak as part of Jennifer’s own mind giving herself advice (“You should be looking for your own precious thing.”). It is similar with the imps… sometimes they represent distorted memories, other times they reflect aspects of Jennifer’s own mind.
As with many things in the game, things that we witness can work on more than one level simultaneously and have multiple meanings.
I was thinking of those lines. “You should be looking for your own precious thing.” This is what Meg says, right?
I know both Diana and Eleanor say the same thing when they are looking for something precious to them that they are going to give up… Possibly to solidify their place in the RCA. I was considering something.
Is it possible that these sayings are not so much unreal as misplaced in the timeline? I’m going to chase another rabbit…
Ok, every month/time a poster is posted, something must be hunted down. During certain months/times/weeks/ceremonies, we see specific Aristocrats who hold the object we are hunting as dear, and in fact, may have been the cause or reason the said object is being sought after. (example: Diana’s Mermaid. Also, the reason we are hunting Mary is because she is supposed to be the one who “ate Meg’s Notebook,” her precious thing.)
Now, it comes as no surprise that every other orphan seemingly knows that what the other is hunting is dear to them. In fact, during most of the ceremonies, the only one searching seems to be the one most involved… and Jennifer, as if the catching of said creature means nothing at all to the other aristocrats.
I know it’s just a dream but… if you twist the peices just right…
First of all… if the “objects” are not precious to Jennifer, why do they say she must chase them? I can think of two or three reasons…
1) They don’t know what is precious to her. If you remember, Wendy is the only one Jennifer tells about Brown; the other orphans never mention Brown directly, leading me to believe they didn’t know about him until Wendy told. (stretching? maybe… but I see no reason not to believe this)
2) Jennifer is the lowest of the low in their eyes. Even after she is promoted above Amanda, she still bears the hatred of possibly being a “chosen one” of the princess. (I’ve said before… who else gets to wear the emblem of the Princess?) So as all the others are obtaining their sacrifices and Jennifer fails one way or another again and again, it becomes a pointed reminder that “You are not better than us. In fact, you are beneath us.” They cannot harm Wendy for her annoyances, but Jennifer is another story. And more infuriatingly, she doesn’t fight back.
So when she does have to look for something precious, wouldn’t the aristocrats tease her with the line that she should be “looking for something precious to her?” Probably while pretending to look for that same thing themselves?
We could possibly tie it in with the Funeral Chapter… She’s looking for the person to take her place. I would think, if Wendy didn’t give the order for Jennifer to be sacrificed, the orphans would think she’d pick Wendy to sit in for her… or maybe they’d suspect she would anyway.
But instead… maybe as a sign of love for Wendy… she chooses to give Brown.
Well, I’ll let the rabbit go now.
Thanks PN! ive actually been reading ur posts for about a week now but ive never left a reply until now. i guess what u said about the imps makes sense,but ill read further when i have the time. i think tommorow i will look into the clara/hoffman thing some more its still bugging me in the back of my mind. i totally agree with ur theory about the orphanage transformed by fantasy into the airship amoung pretty much everything else u write.
i wonder if the creaters of the game have looked into there story as deeply as you do…
o.o
You… couldn’t possibly be saying we… maybe…
…over think?
o.o
*fetal position*
iKing wrote:
I don’t want to go beyond what the creators of the game intended, but it is probably inevitable that I will at times considering that sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be much in the way of clues to help fill in some blanks.
I was very reluctant, for instance, for quite a while, to write about the time period between when Jennifer left Gregory’s cellar and when she arrived at the orphanage, because I was worried (and still worry) that the creators of the game may not have given that matter much thought.
And, although I myself proposed possible special significances (intended by the creators of the game) for the names Wendy, Peter, and Joshua, I think that I am probably more reluctant than is Masq to look for special significances in all of the names found in the game… but, in her defense, were it not for Masq pushing far into that topic, I’m sure that I would have overlooked the very possible special significance of the name Diana. So it is a good thing that we don’t all think alike.
But isn’t that the way that you get enjoyment out of a great mystery novel? That’s kind of the way that I look at RoR, a mystery novel. Let’s face it, it has all of the earmarks of a mystery story and really, other that the fact that we are watching it and have a tad bid of control, plays out just like a book.
I kind of think that maybe the game designers intended for the fans of the game to do exactly what we have been doing, filling in the blanks in the story using the clues we are given. Does it really matter much if we go beyond what they intended? Is it really going to harm anything? No, I don’t think so unless you are such a purist that any deviation gives you a migraine.
The project that I am working on is an example of this mindset. To make things work I’ve had to make modifications that go beyond what we see in the game. Is this going to create problems? Only if someone decides to nitpick every small detail, I mean I’ve had to make changes in furniture because I can’t get exactly what we see in the game, but I don’t think that it will detract from the finished model.
The game is something different to every person who encounters it. We all see it differently and I don’t hink that the game designers would have issues with this.
Yes,of course. There is absolutley nothing wrong with extending your thinking beyond that of the game creators. I didnt mean anything offensive.
PN i found a very interesting video concerning your theory about greg being a cannibal. It was a cutscene that never made it into the game. Unfortunately, it has no sound. the interesting part is what Greg was burying. I strongly think that it was a persons entrails. Whatever it was it definetly wasnt peas.
iKing wrote:
I can see how you would take it for entrails, but most people see it as an item of clothing.
Here is a blog-post (and thread of comments) relating to that video: “The Pre-game Video and the So-Called ‘Unused Cutscene’“
…the reason I began looking was because in most Japanese modern pop culture; i.e: Manga, Anime, Stories, and Videogames; names often reflect something in the character or of it’s origin. With so many names… so many names from stories… Clara, from the Nutcracker. Wendy and Peter from Peter Pan. Diana from Mythology. As the whole game IS an interactive storybook, I figured… there was some connection…
:huggle: but thank you for your defence. ^_^-
I don’t fear looking deeper than is expected because not only does it entertain me, but I feel like when I touch on something that makes sense, I have found a very special thing, like a gem. It makes me that much happier to play the game and that much more reluctant to part with it or allow someone to say anything bad of it.
Naive? Yes… but that’s who I am.
Just thought you’d be interested, I’ve also begun delving into the symbolism of colors used in both Rule of Rose and Silent Hill. The first part of it is up if you’d like to see. I noticed you didn’t have anything up on such things so I got curious.
Diana… the only Diana I knew from a fairytale-storybook-whateveryoureadtokids is the Diana from “Greengables Annie”. She becomes the first real friend of Annie (a red-haired girl who is an orphan… orphan xDu I just noticed that, lolol) I have the storybook here, but it’s in spanish…
Other Clara I know is the one who appears on Heidi, the girl in the… ahm x_x how do you say… “wheel-chair”? x_x well, the chair that has wheels on it…
Also, in “the secret garden” there is a maid named Martha. And I can’t remember more names xD
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO MENTION “THE SECRET GARDEN” AND “A LITTLE PRINCESS!” (written by the same person)
Martha is a maid in charge of the little heroine, Mary, who is an orphan from India. She then finds and unlocks a secret garden with more roses in it than she can shake a stick at.
In “A Little Princess,” Sarah comes to an all girl’s finishing school when her father is called to go to war for England. She too is from India.
I have thought often that maybe Rule of Rose had a few cues from these books.
Neko Rheeid wrote:
There was a time, on Rule of Rose forums, when I put forward the hypothesis that the authors of Rule of Rose might have been influenced by “Anne of Green Gables”. We never see Anne when she is living in the orphanage (the story starts with her having just left the orphanage), but we know that Anne must have created elaborate fantasy worlds that she lived during her days at the orphanage, because she continues to do so after leaving, and I thought that perhaps Jennifer had done the same thing during her time in the Rose Garden orphanage… explaining why Jennifer’s memories were so distorted by fantasies.
The Japanese are very familiar with the Anne of Green Gables story because Studio Ghibli made a popular animated TV series based on it. What I’ve seen of that animated series closely followed the story in the novel. Anime sometimes have mentioned “red-haired Anne”, which is apparently one way that they refer to her… and is sufficient for people to know who is being spoken of.
~
As for “The Secret Garden”, I’ve wondered whether that story has influenced Rule of Rose in regard to the high walls that partially encircle the rose garden. Why are those walls there, I wonder? It seems odd to me.
It didn’t seem to much odd to me as old fashioned. It appears (as in I think) that a lot of older buildings and estates had those walls between courtyard and gardens. I don’t know why… but I think that’s what I’ve seen. Gardens used to be a place of gathering and socializing, made pretty by the flowers and other such things you place in the garden, unlike today where the word “garden” is associated with “plants.” It is not really considered a place of socializing but is pretty much all about the plants.
PokerNemesis wrote:
One can view that anime TV series at Crunchyroll: “Akage no Anne” at Crunchyroll.