Rule of Rose Mysteries

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Tim Burton is coming out with a 3-D film of “Alice in Wonderland”.

I wonder if the actress chosen to play Alice, Mia Wasikowska, currently 19 years old, is the oldest actress ever cast as Alice? Perhaps this will give her an older-Jennifer-like quality.

I definitely am intrigued by the casting of Johnny Depp as the mad hatter (see the accompanying picture).

Here is a link to a preview on YouTube:

“Alice in Wonderland” preview
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The “Mermaid Princess” storybook continues:

Before long, she was old and decrepit.

Why should the mermaid that symbolizes Clara be spoken of as ever getting old and decrepit? Clara was only 16 years of age during the time that Jennifer is remembering in the Rule of Rose game.

Jennifer says, during the “Once Upon A Time” chapter:

I wonder if I’ll be like Clara when I’m older… Will I enjoy those days?”

Does the above question from Jennifer imply that Clara did not enjoy those days? Clara does not ever seem to me to be happy or playful in any scene of the game that we see her in. Does “old and decrepit” perhaps refer to Clara having lost her youthful outlook on life?

Why would it have been the case for Clara, that she would have lost her youthful outlook on life? I think that this is likely to relate Clara’s description in the Rule of Rose game as “the frightened princess”. I have written of some of the reasons that I think she was described that way in my blog-post: The Frightened Princess Mystery.

If Mr. Hoffman had sexual relations with Clara, this in itself might affect Clara’s mentality in an extreme way. Even more so, if the hypothesis is true that Clara had become pregnant and then had an abortion.
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In the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, “The Little Mermaid,” the mermaid-sisters of the little mermaid give her a knife and urge her to kill the prince and thereby save her own life. The little mermaid refused, and ultimately this refusal led to her own death.

None of this aspect of the fairy tale is found in the “Mermaid Princess” storybook of Rule of Rose. But “The Mermaid Princess” storybook does seem to echo “The Little Princess” fairy tale in many ways. Could it be that we are expected to consider this aspect of the fairy tale’s story as a clue to piecing together events from Jennifer’s forgotten past?

Could it be that the girls of the orphanage urged Clara to kill Mr. Hoffman? But that Clara didn’t do so?
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There is a Japanese animated movie with the title: “Andasen dôwa ningyo-hime”. This is said (at Wikipedia) to translate as “Andersen’s Story: The Mermaid Princess”. “Ningyo” is the word for mermaid or merman, and “hime” is the word for princess. This “Mermaid Princess” title matches the title used for the Rule of Rose storybook, and so I think this constitutes an additional link between the Andersen fairy tale and the Rule of Rose storybook.

You can watch an English dubbed version of the above mentioned Japanese animated movie, in 8 parts, at YouTube:
1 of 8
2 of 8
3 of 8
4 of 8
5 of 8
6 of 8
7 of 8
8 of 8
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There is no witch in the “Mermaid Princess” storybook. But there is a witch playing an important role in “The Little Mermaid” fairy tale, which the “Mermaid Princess” storybook seems to echo. And there are also some puzzling references, in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter of Rule of Rose, to the idea that Martha is a witch.

When Jennifer finds Martha’s hat in that chapter, we see the text:

The hat worn by Martha, who was accused of being a witch.

And later in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter of Rule of Rose, when Jennifer finds a dirty rag, the voice of Martha (her invisible ghost?) says:

I was a mighty witch. Yet now, I am but a powerless wretch. Rubbish and dust.

It isn’t at all clear why Martha should be depicted as a witch in the Rule of Rose game. Could it be that we are meant to associate Martha, in some manner, with the witch of “The Little Mermaid” fairytale? And if so, what might that association be meant to tell us about what happened in the orphanage during Jennifer’s forgotten past?
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The first pages of the “Mermaid Princess” storybook to give us some text, rather than only pictures, read as follows:

A long, long time ago, the Mermaid Princess fell in love with a human prince. But for years, her love went unrequited.

The two accompanying drawings both show the Clara-mermaid alone, and a sailing ship on the facing page.

This echoes the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, “The Little Mermaid” (1836). In that story, the mermaid protagonist also falls in love with a prince that she sees on a sailing ship.

How does such a situation relate to Clara?
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The cover of the “Mermaid Princess” storybook shows a lone mermaid. Her hair is parted down the middle and resembles the style and length of Clara’s hair.

As Clara is the mermaid “boss” that must be battled in order to complete the “Mermaid Princess” chapter of Rule of Rose, the mermaid on the cover of this storybook can be confidently identified as a fantasy representation of Clara.

Turning the page of the storybook, we see another depiction of a lone mermaid. This mermaid has large black spots where the eyes and mouth would be expected to be seen.

Does this second mermaid drawing also represent Clara? I think so.

As we will see later in this storybook, this second drawing depicts what the mermaid princess looks like when she is dead, when the storybook says: “all alone even on the day of her death.”

With regard to the black spots where the eyes would be expected to be seen, in this second mermaid drawing, it is relevant to compare the depiction of Clara as the mermaid “boss” as having dark empty sockets instead of eyeballs. See this short youtube video: Clara’s eyes.

Should we take the death of Clara as the mermaid princess of the storybook as providing evidence that Clara died at the orphanage during Jennifer’s forgotten past?
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I tend to think of Rule of Rose as a mystery game.

No surprise there, right? My site is, after all, called Rule of Rose Mysteries.

But the Rule of Rose story doesn’t just contain a straightforward mystery or two, as a detective novel, or a TV episode of Monk, would be expected to do. The very nature of the Rule of Rose story itself is a mystery in a very fundamental way.

What do I mean by this?

In the case if a TV series like Monk, we understand the “reality” in which the story is set. The “reality” of Monk is supposed to represent the mundane “reality” of everyday life that we all experience.

But what is the “reality” in which Rule of Rose is set? This is, in fact, one of the big mysteries of the game. And this mystery is part of what makes the plot of the game very difficult to summarize with any confidence.

Strange things happen in Rule of Rose. Why? Is it because Jennifer has come to a place where supernatural forces are in play? Is it because Jennifer is dreaming? Is it because Jennifer is the protagonist of a weird story told by Gregory Wilson? Or is it some other reason?

For example, in the Rule of Rose story, Jennifer sees dead people as if they were alive. Why? Has Jennifer come to a haunted, or cursed, location in “real life”? Or is Jennifer just dreaming about dead people she once knew? Or is it because Jennifer is the protagonist of a weird story told by a crazy Gregory Wilson?
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I don’t recall who it was who first asked about, or remarked on, the fact that we don’t see any boys at the meeting where Jennifer learns that she is the new Princess (in the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter of Rule of Rose).

Some comment-makers (again I forgot who it was) had made the claim that some boys’ clothing can be seen strewn outside, in front of the orphanage, after the massacre, so it seemed to me that the boys must have been around somewhere, even though we didn’t see them in this chapter. But I hadn’t actually checked for myself to verify the report of there being clothing from the boys to be seen. I had only placed that task on my “get around to doing this eventually” list.

Recently, I realized that the boys are also nowhere to be seen during the cut-scene where Jennifer slaps Wendy at the end of “The Funeral” chapter. I don’t recall anybody, previously, pointing out that the boys are missing in that scene; if someone did point it out I guess I didn’t think it significant at the time. But it does now seem to me to possibly be significant. The absence of the boys there means that we don’t actually ever see the boys again in the game after the daytime portion of “The Funeral” chapter (at which time we can still see Hoffman, Martha, and Clara).

The cover of the storybook, “The Funeral” only shows girls at the funeral, and the massacre scene in the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” storybook only shows girls being massacred. Is this significant? It is hard to to say, as, in fact, we never ever see any of the orphan boys of the orphanage represented in the storybooks, the only orphans ever depicted in the storybooks are the girls.

Perhaps Jennifer isn’t really interested in the boys, and so mentally removes them from some of her memories?

Perhaps.

But perhaps it is worth investigating the possibility that it IS significant that the boys seem to have disappeared from the game when we are dealing with the time near the massacre, the time after Clara, Hoffman, and Martha disappeared from the orphanage.

There are actually a few puzzling clues in the game that might become interpretable by the hypothesis that something bad happened to the boys before the massacre.
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If Eleanor had ever truly found the Bird of Happiness, might it have looked like this?

See this YouTube video.

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