Rule of Rose Mysteries

The idea that Mr. Hoffman was murdered at the Orphanage might seem far-fetched to many readers, mainly because of the following entry in Mr. Hoffman’s diary (and Jennifer’s comment on it):

(Jennifer:) “…the last page is particularly interesting… It’s Mr. Hoffman’s last entry before he disappeared.”

11 November 1930

I’m leaving the orphanage.
Clara’s here to look after things, and the children are quickly growing up.
I’ve done right and fulfilled my duty.
…Bloody hell!
All the trouble started when that wretched child arrived…
I’ve done nothing to deserve this!”
(Headmaster’s Room, Hoffman’s diary, “Once Upon a Time”)

(Jennifer:) “…That’s the end of the diary. We never saw Mr. Hoffman again.”

Isn’t this proof that Mr. Hoffman left on his own? And doesn’t Jennifer even tell us in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter that Mr. Hoffman, Martha, and Clara “left”?

Actually Jennifer never tells us that they “left”, as is sometimes claimed. She only tells us, as above, that Mr. Hoffman “disappeared”, and Martha and Clara “soon followed”:

Headmaster’s Closet:

–At the shelf that has shoes:

(Jennifer:) “That day, Mr. Hoffman disappeared, like he was running away from something. He had tried too hard to be someone he wasn’t. The expectations were too much for him… and he wanted to escape those restrictions. However, children and adults live in the same world, and we must both play by society’s rules.”

and

Entrance-way:

–At the portrait of Hoffman:

(Jennifer:) “One day, Mr. Hoffman suddenly disappeared. Clara and Miss Martha soon followed, leaving me and the other orphans alone.”

But doesn’t this still seem to indicate that Mr. Hoffman left on his own, rather than was murdered?

If this was all that we had to go by, I would be inclined to think so. But there are some intriguing other clues that relate to Mr. Hoffman’s “disappearance”.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the “Once Upon A Time” chapter of Rule of Rose, Jennifer tells us the following story at the blocked off toilet stall in the Men’s Lavatory:

Once, Susan started a rumor about voices coming from this room at night… It turned out it was only the door creaking in the wind, but one night, sounds came from the room even with the windows shut. Susan jumped out of her bed and screamed. It was really just a prank by Nicholas and Xavier. From then on, the room was believed to be haunted and was considered off limits.

One question that comes to my mind is one of translation. Does “room” refer to the entire lavatory (as would be expected of normal English usage) or does “room” refer to the blocked off toilet stall?

In either case, I wonder if we are missing something if we just assume that this little story of Jennifer’s only exists to give us an innocent “slice of life” from the orphanage.

Jennifer, herself, sees a ghost in the course of the game. She sees Martha’s ghost in Clara’s cabin. And Clara’s cabin is also the location where Jennifer sees Martha alive, but bound and bagged. I suggested previously that Martha died at the location in the orphanage represented as Clara’s cabin in the airship and that’s why Jennifer sees her ghost there. See The Mysteries of Clara’s Cabin (Part 2): Martha’s Death.

Could it be that the orphans are quick to think that the Men’s Lavatory is haunted because they think that Hoffman died (or something happened that led to his death) there?

Read the rest of this entry »

I currently have the “Contents” page about halfway to being up-to-date, and intend to get that page and the “Walkthrough” page fully up-to-date within the next couple of weeks.

I recently added a “Tactics” page which gets this blog into issues of game-play for the first time.

I also plan to have a “Storybooks” page created which will house all of the links to my blog-posts about the chapter-related Rule of Rose storybooks.

If you have some favorites among the blog-posts that you have read on this site, please feel welcome to tell us about these in the “Favorites” blog-post linked to on the “Favorites” page.  And (who knows?) you may find it interesting to see which blog-posts were the favorites of other readers.

Links to the above specialized pages can be found in the header of the blog.

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“Mystery” topics that I intend to address during this coming month will be:

• Some implications of assuming that game references to Sir Peter may be metaphors that tell us about Mr. Hoffman and his fate.
• The “See-all Walkthrough, With Commentary” series (for “The Little Princess” chapter) will finally reach the lavatories!  (No shit!)

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The comments-threads for Month-iversary posts have become the place for comments that are off-the-topic of Rule of Rose (personal communications, etc.):  feel free to continue that precedent and place those sorts of comments here.

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Because of the spoiler-intensive nature of this Rule of Rose blog, I have always envisioned it as being for readers who have already played through the game. However, there are readers of this blog who come here before finishing the game. Some even come here before starting the game.

As a service to those who may be having trouble getting past some of the difficult combat challenges, I’m going to create some blog-post threads where readers may give advice on battle tactics.

Let’s dedicate the comments for this post solely to the subject of how to defeat the Hoffman (headmaster, teacher) Boss in the “Sir Peter” chapter.

Read the rest of this entry »

Because of the spoiler-intensive nature of this Rule of Rose blog, I have always envisioned it as being for readers who have already played through the game. However, there are readers of this blog who come here before finishing the game. Some even come here before starting the game.

As a service to those who may be having trouble getting past some of the difficult combat challenges, I’m going to create some blog-post threads where readers may give advice on battle tactics.

Let’s dedicate the comments for this post solely to the subject of how to defeat the Mermaid Boss in the “Mermaid Princess” chapter.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have previously written blog-posts about the hypothesis that the story of Sir Peter in the “Sir Peter” storybook is really a story of metaphors about Mr. Hoffman, his sexual dirtiness (from a child’s perspective), and his murder at the orphanage. See my previous blog-posts:

“Sir Peter” Storybook: The Story of Hoffman? (Part 1)
Clara and Hoffman: Mermaid and Hare?

Sir Peter is depicted in the “Sir Peter” storybook as standing upright (also walking and running) on two legs, holding an umbrella, and dressed like a man in a suit-coat and hat.

The hat may be an important clue that supports the above mentioned hypothesis that the “Sir Peter” storybook tells Hoffman’s story.

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In my previous blog-post “Sir Peter” Storybook: The Story of Hoffman? (Part 1), I discussed the idea that the story of Sir Peter, in the “Sir Peter” storybook, is really a story of metaphors about Hoffman, his sexual dirtiness (from a child’s perspective), and his murder at the orphanage.

The original insight, leading to that blog-post, came from a comment-maker going by the name of RozenMaiden. In that same comment, she also came up with the insight leading to this blog-post you are reading now.

Quoting RozenMaiden:

Of Clara the mermaid, what it possibly symbolizes and related musings:

First of all, I think the mermaid may be an important euphemism here concerning Clara.

The dubious relationship between Hoffman and Clara, and the mermaid element, reminded me about Mary, queen of Scots, and how she was known as the “Mermaid Queen” after her affair with Lord Bothwell (he raped her, but she consented -or was pressured by him- to marry him). Anyway, back in Mary’s time, a mermaid was a euphemism for a prostitute, whore, slut …etc. Is this how Clara feels about herself? Like a filthy whore?

The following is a quote from http://www.marileecody.com/maryqosimages.html:

‘The Mermaid and the Hare’: Placard denouncing the adultery between Mary and Bothwell. This anonymous placard was one of many plastered throughout Edinburgh during the fateful spring of 1567. Rumors of adultery with Lord Bothwell were only encouraged when Mary wed him just three months after Darnley’s very suspicious death. In popular culture, the mermaid symbolized a prostitute; the hare was Bothwell’s insignia. The initials ‘I H’ refer to his full name, James Hepburn. ‘M R’, of course, stands for Maria Regina. Mary was devastated by this sort of anonymous slander. Her reputation in Scotland never recovered.

Think about what else a mermaid symbolizes, luring and tempting men to their doom (which ties in with Hoffman’s lust for Clara and Diana - who is the other main focus in the mermaid theme.)

As a side note, I think it is also an interesting coincidence (I’m not saying it’s intentional, but still interesting :p) that Lord Bothwell’s insignia is a hare and Hoffman is represented as Sir Peter-Rabbit…

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I suspect that it is NOT a co-incidence that Bothwell’s insignia is a hare. I think that the game-makers are deliberately drawing from the story of the Earl of Bothwell and Mary Queen of Scots. And, I propose, it is not at all unreasonable that Jennifer would know of the story of Bothwell and Queen Mary. She is, after all, an English school girl and would, as such, be expected to study the history of the royals.  And we KNOW that the girls of the orphanage were obsessed with ideas of royalty and aristocracy.

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The theory that the “Sir Peter” storybook tells a story about Hoffman was introduced at this site by comment-maker RozenMaiden back in June of 2008.  I think RozenMaiden displayed a brilliant insight with that theory, and it deserves its own blog-posts on the subject. The text of the “Sir Peter” storybook is:

Sir Peter, Sir Peter, went out for a stroll. Sir Peter, Sir Peter, put in a cage, had to hold it in. Sir Peter, Sir Peter, needs to go right now, doesn’t want to sin. Sir Peter, Sir Peter, bagged and whisked away, before he found a toilet. Good-bye, Peter. Good-bye.

RozenMaiden commented:

I think that the tale of Hoffman mirrors the tale of Sir Peter. 1. He’s a molester of young girls, and now finds himself in charge of them, trying his best to resist his urges and being a good teacher. “put in a cage, had to hold it in.” 2. It gets harder and harder to resist temptation as time goes on. “needs to go right now, doesn’t want to sin.” 3. He can’t control himself any longer and gives in to his true nature. Then disappears. “bagged and whisked away, before he found a toilet. Good-bye, Peter. Good-bye.” Quote from “Once Upon A Time” chapter:

“That day, Mr. Hoffman disappeared, like he was running away from something. He had tried too hard to be someone he wasn’t. The expectations were too much for him… and he wanted to escape those restrictions. However, children and adults live in the same world, and we must both play by society’s rules.”

I think Hoffman left because he could not control himself among other things.

I think that RozenMaiden has some great insights in her comment. But I also think that she got the ending of the story wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

In the “Rag Princess” storybook, we are told that the fairy godmother cast a spell on “the girl”:

One day.
a fairy godmother came,
cast a spell on the girl, and said,
“Sew yourself an ash-grey dress.
Then you can go to the ball like your stepsisters!”

What puzzles me about this is the role of the spell. Why doesn’t the above passage just read:

One day.
a fairy godmother came and said,
“Sew yourself an ash-grey dress.
Then you can go to the ball like your stepsisters!”

In the Cinderella story, the fairy godmother casts spells, but are any of these spells actually cast ON Cinderella herself?

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The first section of the following blog-post was based on my mistaken identification of the head of the seamstress as being that of a bear rather than of a pig. See the links to pictures in comment #4. Thank you Pandora for the correct identification (comment #6)! The very last section of this blog-post, however, could still be valid.
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The animation that begins the “Rag Princess Sews” chapter of Rule of Rose is described by TheSinnerChrono’s “Rule of Rose Game Script” as follows:

A girl works at a sewing machine. Her hand gets punctured by the needle; the wheel continues to spin and she’s pulled through the machine, becoming flattened by cloth.

TheSinnerChrono failed to mention a very important feature of this “girl”: she has the head of Joshua-the-bear!

As the only person who we see sewing in Rule of Rose is Amanda, this establishes, it might seem, some sort of co-identity between Amanda and Joshua-the-bear!

What could THAT possibly be about?

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