[...]Rule of Rose Mysteries » Did Wendy Commit Suicide By Hanging Herself? (Part 1)[...]…

[...]Rule of Rose Mysteries » Did Wendy Commit Suicide By Hanging Herself? (Part 1)[...]…

You make a good point about Wendy apparently not needing to dress as Joshua in order to train Gregory.

Considering that we know that Wendy took Gregory’s gun when she helped Jennifer escape from Gregory’s basement room, and that Gregory somehow later came into possession of that gun—by which he apparently committed suicide (if we can trust the newspaper to have gotten THAT part right)—we can ask ourselves: how did Gregory get the gun back that he shot himself with? If (as I have speculated in my blog-posts analyzing the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter) Jennifer has shown us falsehoods in that chapter and may have actually hidden herself throughout the actual, historical massacre, we need not stick to the odd idea that Jennifer gave the gun to Gregory. The most straightforward explanation, it seems to me, would be that Gregory got the gun from Wendy. Could it be that Wendy actually threatened Gregory with the gun when she saw that he was out of her control and a danger to the orphans? If so, it might be that Gregory killed Wendy in response to her actions against him with the gun, and recovered the gun in that way.

Anyways, I guess this is kinda off topic, however, I think this is something important that could relate to Wendy's death.

So, we all know Wendy was the one that brough Gregory to the orphanage. However, we've all speculated that Wendy dressed up as Joshua in order to get Gregory to obey her. And when he found out Wendy wasn't really his son, he killed her as well. But, there was one thing pointing out that Wendy probably didn't dress up as Joshua at all, she just did it in Jennifer's memories.

In Marthas letter she says:
"Yesterday, I saw them together again… Mr. Wilson and Wendy,

A child at our orphanage. I am very concerned for her safety.

The two of them have been acting quite strangely. Oh, it’s terribly

odd. By strangely, I mean… Mr. Wilson walking on all fours and

nodding… and Wendy appears to be scolding him…"

The fact that Martha recognized Wendy must have meant that she was in fact NOT dressed up as Joshua during that time. That means that Gregory obeyed her, even though she wasn't looking like his son at all. And this also makes Wendy's death in Rule of Role something of a 'fake' so to say.

Since, in the game, after she reveales to Jennifer that it is her, she is pulled into the mansion by Gregory and is then presumed to be killed by him. I don't think that is the reason OR how Wendy was killed. Since Gregory must've known very well that it was Wendy, even before the massacre. We've never been 100% sure about Wendy's death, however, I think this might be a clue to speculate about other death reasons for Wendy.

Sorry for my bad english, I hope it's understandable D:

I want to be dead
– When I am, “I’m in debt”
I can be so mean
You can beat me
I would like to shame you
I would like to blame you
Just because of my love to you

i search it on the youtube..
in there…the debt?is bed?
well..obviously i’m confuse…

The reference to Wendy’s illness could be another misdirection. I think I remember reading somewhere that someone who is depressed may seclude themselves from the outside world, closeting themselves in their rooms and hardly interacting with anybody. Maybe Wendy told the others that she was sick so they would leave her alone. Her staying in the sick room would have added to this tale. Maybe she pretended to be sick, or even made herself sick through bad habits, such as not eating? And she would have appeared to be ill in Jennifer’s memory because that was how Wendy had acted. I don’t think someone who was as frequently sick as Wendy seemed to be would be out traipsing through the woods at night, either, which she seemed to have done, if the diary entries are anything to go by.

Some theorise that people with BPD cannot get along without a high level of emotional arousal (or physical–and no, I don’t necessarily mean it in a sexual way, bug off). They may behave in extreme ways that pull people into participating in the dramatic fantasies they have. This includes suicidal ideation (thinking about, planning, and even unsuccessfully attempting, suicide) or actually killing themselves. The Wiki article gives us the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for BPD, and it’s starting to sound familiar…

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [Not including suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5]
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). [Again, not including suicidal or self-injuring behavior covered in Criterion 5]
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself.
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms

Although we never seem to really know exactly how mental disorders arise (current fashion seems to be to throw up your hands, and say, ‘It’s any and all of the above!’), many seem to be associated with traumatic experiences. It disappoints me that we don’t seem to find out much about the past of the other orphans, although I suppose they can only cram so much information into one game. At any rate, it seems unlikely to me that the children have reached the orphanage because happy fairies and kittens took them away on a candy cloud of joy. I think it’s possible they could have experienced trauma, and (shockingly!) not be coping with it very well. It was only a stray thought that led me to BPD, but the more I look at the description, the more it sounds like Wendy’s behaviour.

And as far as children not experiencing mental illness, it’s hard to say. My mother is very short-sighted, such that without her glasses, anyone even a little far away is essentially a colourful person-shaped blob. Although she has seen this poorly all her life, she was at least ten before she told anyone, and got glasses. Why? Because it never occurred to her that other people could see better than her. Part of what happens as we grow up (at least in theory) is we develop the capacity to understand that others experience the world differently than we do. Children may not realise that their perception of the world is different from everyone else’s, so they can’t see that it’s unusual and talk to someone about it like an adult could. Even if a child is talking to a counselor or somesuch, what someone else might identify as ’symptoms’ and worth mention, the child may not consider important information for the counselor. Additionally, part of the problem comes because diagnosis often seems to go hand in hand with medication in the western world, and many psychologists are reluctant to recommend prescribing psychoactive drugs to people whose brains are still developing.

(Following another slightly OT thought, but everyone seems to assume Wendy is straight-up sick. I don’t know much about medicine, but could her coughing be caused by injury to the lungs? Certainly, it could be caused by a single exposure to certain harmful substances. Probably not important to anything, but…)

[/end essay]