Rule of Rose Mysteries

Now enter into the Headmaster’s Room by exiting the Reception Room via the other door (i.e. not the door by which we entered the Reception Room).

To Jennifer’s right is an aquarium. Pressing “x” while Jennifer stands near the aquarium we get subtitles and a close up view of the aquarium. The subtitles say:

There’s a small model of a mansion inside the tank, but no fish.

The fact that the koi is not in the aquarium is a strong indication that we are present in the orphanage some time after the time that the koi was surreptitiously removed from the aquarium by an orphan. We know the date of that event because of an entry in Hoffman’s diary that we will find in a later chapter:

24 August 1930

This is inexcusable!
My precious koi is gone.
The children must be responsible.
I won’t stand for this.
Where is Diana?
What’s she been up to?
My opinion of her will suffer because of this.
(Headmaster’s Room, Hoffman’s diary, “Once Upon a Time”)

The model of a mansion in the aquarium matches the general appearance of the orphanage mansion. Both have a central courtyard and are built up the same number of stories above ground level.

Back when the koi was still present in the tank, the orphans would have had an opportunity to witness it swimming above the mansion model, and one can easily imagine that some of the orphans would have let the vision of this aquarium scene fuel their fantasies. The fantasy of the koi seeming to fly above the orphanage (in the aquarium) was no doubt the inspiration for Wendy’s drawing of a fish-airship giving the orphans a joyous ride, and fantasies which translated into the pre-game video images of a giant koi flying above the orphanage mansion and the airship flying above the orphanage mansion.

~

To view the giant flying koi, and the airship, flying above the orphanage in the pre-game (E3) video, see it on youtube at this link: E3 video. The scene of the airship flying above the orphanage can be seen at about 1.00 to 1.08 minutes into the video, and the scene of the koi flying above the orphanage can be seen at about 5.20-5.30 minutes into the video.

For more on Wendy’s drawing of the koi airship, see my blog-post: “Wendy’s Drawings (Part 2): The Koi Airship“.

~

Later addition to the post:

If you look at the orphanage mansion in the two illustrations that accompany this post, you will notice that the setting looks different from what we see associated with the orphanage mansion in the game.

In particular, there are no walls around the orphanage yard (as we see when we are outside of the mansion during the game). Nor is the orphanage mansion on top of a wooded hill (“Strange Hill”) as it is during the game.

I recall people, in the past, on Rule of Rose forums, hypothesizing that these images were made early on in the development of the Rule of Rose game, before the game creators had fully formed their vision of the setting.

But it just occurred to me the REAL reason that the setting is so different.

This orphanage mansion has no walls around it because the mansion model in the aquarium has no walls around it.

This orphanage mansion is not on a hill because the mansion model in the aquarium is not on a hill.

Because we are viewing the flying koi, and the airship, over the mansion, it is a fantasy elaboration of the mansion model in the aquarium that we are being shown. Thus, the setting we see is more in keeping with the aquarium setting rather than the setting on “Strange Hill”.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Clues, Plot Structure & Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.