Rule of Rose Mysteries

Does Diana sometimes emulate Hoffman?

Comment-maker on this site, Mokgrok, explores this question in her video.

I think it is a very well-made video, and Mokgrok’s observation that Diana’s touching of Amanda resembles Hoffman’s touching of Diana is a new and original observation.

See the video on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfeOy8veZm4

(LATER NOTE: Mokgrok shut down her YouTube channel for some undisclosed reason)

Hopefully we’ll see more good videos from Mokgrok analyzing Rule of Rose.
~

Read the rest of this entry »

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?
Read the rest of this entry »

I constructed a theory, to explain the dolls on the table in the Cell of Bliss, in my blog-posts:

The Cell of Bliss Mystery (part 1)
The Cell of Bliss Mystery (part 2)

By this theory, the dolls on the left side of the table represent Jennifer, Diana, Eleanor, Meg, and Amanda during the event shown to us at the end of “The Little Princess” chapter of Rule of Rose wherein Jennifer has water poured on her and goes into a coffin.

I think that the dolls on the table, because we see them depicted in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter when Jennifer’s memory has returned to her in a clear manner, should be something that actually existed during Jennifer’s forgotten past. Which means that, in my opinion, the water pouring incident in which Jennifer went into a coffin should be more than just a dream-event, it should also be something that occurred in some fashion during her forgotten past. My explanation for the context of this occurrence during Jennifer’s forgotten past is found in my blog-post:

The Mystery of Jennifer in the Coffin

By my theory, the dolls on the right side of the table represent a threat to Jennifer that she will be hanged if she doesn’t do something that is demanded of her by the Aristocrats.

During “The Funeral” chapter, we see a “gift of the month” warrant for Jennifer which shows her being hanged by the neck. The dolls on the right side of the table, showing a figure hanged by the neck, surrounded by “spooky things”, is—according to my theory—a depiction of the threat of that.

But could it be that, like the dolls on the left side of the table, the dolls on the right side of the table depict an event that actually occurred during Jennifer’s forgotten past?

Obviously, Jennifer herself was not hanged by the neck during her forgotten past, so, if it is not Jennifer that is shown hanging, who could it be?

We have recently been discussing the matter of whether or not Hoffman was hanged. See my blog-posts:

Was Mr. Hoffman Hanged? (Part 1)
Was Mr. Hoffman Hanged? (Part 2)

But let’s open up the discussion to include Martha and Clara as well. Could all of them have hanged?

Read the rest of this entry »

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

I think that I have found some strong evidence against the theory that the forest scene at the end of the “Sir Peter” chapter of Rule of Rose might actually be the occasion of the hanging of Mr. Hoffman (see Part 1 of this series of blog-posts, and the comments there, for discussion of that theory). This evidence also argues against the “Mondays pea…etc.” chant being about Hoffman, Martha, or Clara.

At the end of that final scene, in the forest, of the “Sir Peter” chapter, Jennifer sticks a maggoty dead rat in Amanda’s face.

In Amanda’s diary, the following entry was made:

Sunday, June 1

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Those awful things got into my mouth!
She’ll be sorry the next chance I get.
But why me again?
What have I done?
(Working Class Luggage, “Rag Princess Sews”, Amanda’s Diary)

If the statement, “Those awful things got into my mouth!”, can be safely assumed to be a reference to the maggots getting into Amanda’s mouth when Jennifer thrust the maggoty dead rat into Amanda’s face, then we must date the forest scene to June 1, which is long before the time when Hoffman, Martha, and Clara disappeared (they were all present in the orphanage as late as November).

Read the rest of this entry »

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~

~
~
The following blog-post was based on my identification of the head of the seamstress as being that of a bear. Thank you Pandora for the alternative (correct?) identification of pig (comment #6). See links to images, scattered throughout the comments-thread.
~

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?

Read the rest of this entry »

The “Rag Princess” storybook of Rule of Rose tells us:

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!”

The accompanying illustration in the storybook shows Joshua-the-bear as the fairy godmother.

How does this section of the storybook tale relate to the events of Jennifer’s forgotten past?

Read the rest of this entry »

I have stated before that I believe that the months ascribed to the chapters of the Rule of Rose game are unreliable.

The airship chapters are ascribed the following months (in 1930):

April_________The Unlucky Clover Field
May__________Sir Peter
July__________Bird of Happiness
August________Mermaid Princess
September____The Goat Sisters
October_______Rag Princess Sews

~

If we take note of the progression in the number of Wendy’s drawings posted on the wall of the Sick Room, we find the following pattern:

April_________The Unlucky Clover Field__________2 DRAWINGS
May__________Sir Peter______________________3 DRAWINGS
July__________Bird of Happiness_________________________(no access)
August________Mermaid Princess________________________ (no access)
September____The Goat Sisters__________________________(access; but no drawings at all on the wall)
October_______Rag Princess Sews______________4 DRAWINGS

~

Now let’s look at the height progression of Amanda’s covered-up sewing project in the Working Class Luggage area:

April_________The Unlucky Clover Field____________________(no project present)
May__________Sir Peter________________initially SHORTEST-SIZE,
_______________________________________then MID-SIZE later in the May chapter (at which time Amanda says: “It’s almost ready.”)
July__________Bird of Happiness__________________________(no project present)
August________Mermaid Princess__________________________(no project present)
September____The Goat Sisters___________________________(no project present)
October_______Rag Princess Sews______________TALLEST SIZE

~

In both of the above progressions, the pattern breaks after the “Sir Peter” chapter and then resumes again in the “Rag Princess Sews” chapter.

~

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to start our discussion of Amanda’s sewing project by posting the entire text of the “Rag Princess” storybook here for reference:

Once upon a time,
there was a girl who sewed rags,
day in, day out.
The stench of the rags seeped into her clothes.
Her stepsisters wore beautiful dresses and went to the ball.
The girl stayed at home and her jealousy festered.
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!”
The girl patched together the sooty rags,
and that’s how she became the Rag Princess.
A very stinky princess indeed.
She stunk up the whole town, in fact.
No girl who stunk so would be allowed into the ball.
I’ll make that girl wear this awful dress myself!
And thus, the Rag Princess and the girl in the rag dress became play pals.

In the “Rag Princess” storybook, the Amanda’s sewing project begins as a dress for herself:

“Sew yourself an ash-grey dress.
Then you can go to the ball like your stepsisters!”

But it is a project that fails:

No girl who stunk so would be allowed into the ball.

Some entries in Amanda’s diary seem to relate to this sewing project.

Read the rest of this entry »

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
We don’t have any evidence that the grey dress worn by “older” Jennifer throughout the game relates in any way to Jennifer’s “real” life as an adult outside of her dream. In fact, the red broach that Jennifer wears from the dream’s beginning signals us that “older” Jennifer is probably NOT dressed as she dresses outside of her dream: Jennifer threw that red brooch away as a child (“The Funeral” chapter). It doesn’t really make a lot of sense that she would somehow be wearing the red brooch (and not knowing its significance) years later.

“Younger” Jennifer, appears to wear a dress of the same style as worn by “older” Jennifer (grey, long sleeves, and a white collar) under a white apron, in “The Funeral” chapter and in the pre-game (E3) video.

So presumably the dress worn by “older Jennifer” reflects a dress worn by Jennifer during her forgotten past.

~

What about the Jennifer dolls?  We see them dressed in raggedy, irregularly sewn grey dresses that resemble Jennifer’s grey dress.

The large body size of the Jennifer-doll that we find tied to a pillar in the Filth Room (“The Little Princess” chapter) seems to mark that doll as being, at least in part, a dream reflection of “older” and “larger” Jennifer.  Older Jennifer will get tied to a post in the Filth Room of the airship (“The Unlucky Clover Field” chapter) and in the Filth Room of the orphanage (“The Funeral” chapter), and the Jennifer-doll tied the pillar foreshadows this.  But Jennifer tells us (the “Once Upon A Time” chapter) that she was tied to the pillar during her—previously—forgotten past, so the doll tied to the pillar can be said to, indirectly, reflect that as well.  But the large body size of that doll tells us that it has dream-spawned characteristics; it is a dream-reflection of “older” Jennifer.  Does this mean that no Jennifer doll actually existed in Jennifer’s forgotten past?

I don’t think so.

I’m going to propose here a hypothesis that there actually was a Jennifer-doll, and that we see that doll being bludgeoned by Amanda with a big stick during “The Rag Princess Sews” chapter.

Read the rest of this entry »

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
In the Rule of Rose game plot, the appearance of the Jennifer doll provides a creepy happening (the game even explicitly tells us that the doll is “creepy”) that foreshadows events that will occur to Jennifer later in the game.  Jennifer will find herself tied to a Filth Room pillar—like the doll is here in “The Little Princess” chapter—twice as the game proceeds:  at the beginning of the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter and at the beginning of “The Funeral” chapter.

Considering the appearance of this Jennifer doll as a re-emergence of memory from Jennifer’s forgotten past, it could be regarded as a distorted memory of Jennifer having been herself tied to this pillar during her forgotten past. In the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, her memories returning, Jennifer tells us (at the central pillar of the Filth Room):

“Tied to this pillar, unable to move, I was all alone. It took a while, but I finally freed myself. I was always the slow poke… But, that won’t happen again. I’ll never let myself be tied up again.”

The idea that Jennifer might take a memory of something that happened to her, and re-live it as something happening to a doll, seems to me as if it might be comparable with what we will see in “The Funeral” chapter when Jennifer’s memories relating to the death of Brown bring forth visions of broken Brown-dolls.

If so, does this mean that Jennifer’s vision (in the “Rag Princess Sews” chapter) of Amanda beating a Jennifer doll with a big stick is actually a distorted memory of an incident during which Amanda actually beat Jennifer with a stick during Jennifer’s forgotten past?

It seems to fit the pattern, but I am reluctant to believe that it could be so, unless we force in the idea that Jennifer’s dreaming mind has greatly exaggerated the size of the stick and the magnitude of the force of Amanda’s blows.  “Younger” Jennifer would be killed, or at the very least gravely injured, otherwise.  And we have no evidence to support the idea that Jennifer was ever physically damaged during her time living at the orphanage.

Here is a YouTube video of the scene where Amanda beats the Jennifer doll: Amanda beating a Jennifer doll. Watch the scene from 8:45 to the end of the video.

Is there possibly another, totally different explanation for the existence of the scene in which we see Amanda beating a Jennifer doll?

Read the rest of this entry »