Rule of Rose Mysteries

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The pictures above show (top to bottom): real-life person Juliet Hulme, Rule of Rose character Wendy, and Kate Winslet in the role of Juliet Hulme in the film “Heavenly Creatures”.

Was the Rule of Rose character Wendy modeled, to any extent, on Juliet Hulme? Was the relationship between Wendy and Jennifer modeled, to any extent, upon the relationship between Juliet Hulme and her friend Pauline Parker? Did the Rule of Rose game deliberately use any elements from the film “Heavenly Creatures”, a film that tells the story of Hulme and Parker? Let’s do some comparisons.
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Years ago, people would periodically post on the Rule of Rose forum at GameSpot/GameFAQs something like, “Did you know that the Rule of Rose game is based on the film ‘Heavenly Creatures’?” or “Did you know that the Rule of Rose game was inspired by the Parker-Hulme Murder case?”

This was because there had been, in those days, something to that effect written in the Wikipedia article for Rule of Rose.

“Heavenly Creatures” (1994) is a movie made by Peter Jackson, who went on to later make the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy of films.

Kate Winslet, star of “Titanic”, made her film-acting debut in “Heavenly Creatures”.

The movie attempted to stay very close to the facts of a real-life murder case, a murder for which two young girls were convicted: Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme.

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During the airship chapters, after the “Unlucky Clover Field”, one can find this ominous newspaper article in the Smoking Room:

20 December 1930

A tragic multiple homicide has occurred at an orphanage in Cardington
resulting in the deaths of all the children housed there.
Among the dead was one adult, Gregory M. Wilson, a local resident.
Analysis of the crime scene suggests that Wilson shot himself with a pistol.
Police have identified him as their prime suspect in the murders of the children.

Later in the game, at the front gate of the orphanage during the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, Jennifer tells us:

That day, I was escorted from the scene by Officer Doolittle. At first, it was reported that there were no survivors… Then, word got out that, miraculously, I had escaped the tragedy…

The authors of the game had set us up—if we had been diligent about finding all documents during the first playthrough—to expect Jennifer’s death. Then they surprised us by producing a way in which Jennifer could still survive. But what was the reason for the mistaken report? It would be better writing on the part of the authors of Rule of Rose—especially in a mystery game—if there is something that we can figure out to explain this. So let’s see if we can.

The following is a scenario that I think makes sense.

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As I mentioned in Part 1, I don’t think that the scene in the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter of Rule of Rose, in which we see Gregory’s scars, is an accurate representation of of Jennifer’s forgotten past. In fact I think that most of that entire chapter is a falsehood that Jennifer has told herself. See my “Stray Dog Boss-Battle Mystery” blog-posts, linked to at the end of this blog-post, for more on that topic.

So, could it be that the scars that we see on Gregory were also a falsehood that Jennifer told herself about the massacre? And, if so, what sort of inner motivations might have led Jennifer to make up the falsehood that Gregory was scarred like that?

I propose that Jennifer loved Gregory (as a sort of father-substitute).

Jennifer surely must have kept it a secret that she had been kept in Gregory’s cellar all of those months, or he would have gotten in trouble for it. Jennifer wanted to protect Gregory.

Jennifer even declined Wendy’s offer to help her escape from the cellar, at first, because (as Jennifer explained to Wendy, in a letter):

…the man is so lonely, so sad. I can’t just leave him alone.

And in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, Gregory is one of the only three that Jennifer cares enough about to want to see, in the flesh, before she leaves.

I think Jennifer loved Gregory, and I think that she may have believed that he loved her in return. So, I think, Jennifer was absolutely devastated by the idea (whether it was, in fact true, or not) that Gregory came to the orphanage to kill her. How could he possibly be willing to do that? The idea that two people that she had loved, Wendy and Gregory, had come for her to in order to kill her was an idea that Jennifer feared was true, and yet it was also an idea that Jennifer found to be too awful to bear.

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When Wendy brings Stray Dog through the front door of the orphanage, in the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter, what are we supposed to think of the scars on his body?

I have argued, in my blog-post The Stray Dog Boss-battle Mystery (Part 5), that I don’t think that this scene truly occurred during Jennifer’s forgotten past. But even if so, I think it is important to understand the story that Jennifer told herself about what happened. So let’s ask ourselves what the scars on Gregory’s body would likely mean if we took the scene at face value (that is, as if the scene happened in Jennifer’s forgotten past exactly the way we see it in the game).

I can think of two possibilities:

(1) Wendy scarred Gregory as part of his being trained like a dog.

(2) Gregory self-inflicted the scars.

Can you think of other possibilities, assuming that we are taking the scene at face value?

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Those inclined to try to open every door while playing Rule of Rose may have found the number of locked doors to be rather tiresome. During the first airship chapter (“The Unlucky Clover Field”), in particular, one encounters many locked doors. If I remember correctly, behind the One Leaf Clover door, every single one of the many cabin doors is locked (although one can enter the lavatory and find Nicholas, after he has stopped being “a shadow”).

Is this pattern of locked doors in the story another connection to Alice in Wonderland?

Almost immediately as soon as Alice reached the bottom of the well down which she fell, she found herself in the following situation:

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.

Remind you at all of your experience with locked doors in the corridors behind the one-leaf clover door, and other corridors, in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter?

Coincidence? Or yet another connection between Rule of Rose and Alice in Wonderland?

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I have proposed that ropes, in Rule of Rose, may symbolize many different things, for example bonds of love (the restrictions of which may be sometimes resented), and bonds of fate (tying the orphans to their doom).

Now I want to propose an additional symbolic meaning: ropes as the psychological forces within Jennifer’s mind that suppress her memories.

The evidence for this comes from something told to Jennifer by a pair of scissors, the scissors that cut her bonds at the beginning of the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter:

“No thanks necessary. No thanks necessary. You might have been better off being bound than free to feel pain. So scary!”

According to the scissors, cutting Jennifer’s bonds made her “free to feel pain.” What does this mean?

The cutting of Jennifer’s bonds allows her to start her task, assigned to her by Wendy-as-Prince-Joshua, of obtaining a gift-of-the-month. The the gift-of-the-month task, I propose, is actually only a pretense (in the dream-plot at least, if not in Jennifer’s forgotten past) that disguises Jennifer’s true task: the recovery of her memories. Wendy-as-Joshua makes this clear in between the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter and the “Sir Peter” chapter when she says:

Well? Do you remember now what a bad girl you were? You haven’t gotten your memory back yet, have you? Well, you’ve really done many, many bad things. You’ll just have to remember them little by little! And when you fully remember what a bad girl you were, this game will end. Now, take your stupid dog and continue with our game, dear Jennifer.

See also my blog-post Bad Ending vs. Good Ending for more on the central importance of the recovery and acceptance of Jennifer’s memories.

So when the scissors tell Jennifer, “You might have been better off being bound than free to feel pain,” I think that the scissors are sending a message that pain will come with the recovery of Jennifer’s missing memories. And if so, the ropes that were cut seem to represent part of the psychological forces that have kept Jennifer’s painful memories bound up in her unconscious mind.
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I’ve posted about Avianna’s Silent Hill Homecoming cosplay already: see my blog-post Very Cool Silent Hill Homecoming Cosplay (not Rule of Rose related, obviously).

Since then, Avianna has done some Rule of Rose cosplay!

In the photo above, Avianna (Diana) poses with her friends Leesers (Jennifer) and Straywind (Eleanor).

Here are some links to more of their Rule of Rose cosplay I’ve found on the web:
http://www.cosplay.com/costume/241159/ (be sure to click on the photos at the bottom)
http://www.cosplaylab.com/cosplayers/costumes/details.asp?costumeid=203580

This YouTube video vlog shows some snippets of their Rule of Rose cosplay at Otakon ‘09. See the following times on the video for the Rule of Rose shots: 1:41-1:52, 2:12-2:19, 4:44-5:39, 5:52-5:54, 6:03-6:05.

See the links in comment #1 and #20 for lots more great photos by Elemental of their Rule of Rose cosplay (and the cosplayers writings about that cosplay).
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abisal wrote in a comment:

Stray Dog = Santa.
Imps = Elves.
Offerings = Milk and cookies.

This breakthrough insight by abisal led me to discover the following alternate ending to Rule of Rose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OVGiRALIqI
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I like the Noisy Hill parodies of the Silent Hill games, found on the YouTube channel of ilikewaxingowls.

Noisy Hill 2, 3, and 4 have been completed and now the first episode of Noisy Hill Origins is available for viewing.

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