Rule of Rose Mysteries

I wrote, in my Twentythird Month-iversary blog-post, that I expected to make a blog-post this month about the snowman that can be found in the Goat Sisters chapter of Rule of Rose.

The snowman can be found in the Freezing Compartment of the airship, and I decided to make a quick revisit to the Freezing Compartment, before writing up my theory, to make sure that I would describe the details of the scene accurately.

Scanning the scene, I noticed something that I had never noticed before. And suddenly everything that I thought I knew about the snowman changed. How did I miss this before? It is right out in the open in plain sight, and yet I had missed it. Surely somebody else must have seen this before now, I thought to myself. But if so, why has nobody ever made a comment about it on my blog, or on any Rule of Rose forum that I have ever frequented?
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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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In the Women’s Lavatory of the orphanage there are five stalls.

Let’s consider the stalls from right to left, from nearer the entrance of the lavatory to furthest away from the entrance of the lavatory.

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Nearest to the entrance of the lavatory is (1) a stall without a door, piled high with sacks filled with who-knows-what, and which has boards nailed across its door frame to block access. I’m going to ignore the mystery presented by this blocked-off lavatory stall in this blog-post.

One stall further away from the entrance of the lavatory is (2) the stall in which we see Diana and Meg together in the E3/pregame video (this is the scene during which Diana deliberately presses Meg’s finger into the thorn of a rose that Meg is offering to Diana, after which Diana sucks on Meg’s wounded finger—provided we believe the illustration on the game box showing Diana sucking on a finger: from the just the E3/pregame video itself we cannot see exactly what Diana is doing… she could could just be kissing the wounded finger).

This (2) is also the same lavatory stall in which Diana and Meg are talking to each other—during the “Bird of Happiness” chapter—while Jennifer is listening from (3) the adjacent stall (one stall further from the entrance).

(3) The adjacent lavatory stall from which Jennifer is listening, during the “Bird of Happiness” chapter, is the stall with the drawing of the red bird.

One stall further from the entrance, is (4) the stall into which Gregory pulls Jennifer during the E3/pregame video.

And there is one more stall (5) that is the furthest from the entrance of the lavatory.

I propose a hypothesis that these lavatory stalls are assigned (by the Aristocrat Club) as follows:
(2) The stall of the Duchess, Diana
(3) The stall of the Countess, Eleanor
(4) The stall of the Baroness, Meg
(5) The stall for all of the other girls
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In the “Bird of Happiness” chapter, when Jennifer has Brown follow the scent of the red feather, the path that Brown takes is marked, at first, by drawings of a red bird. These drawings have been made on corridor walls as if to represent the red bird flying down these corridors. It might be that there is the idea being conveyed that Jennifer is following the flying red bird.

Along the way, Jennifer can encounter Eleanor searching for the red bird. See my previous blog post: Eleanor in the Sector 9 Turbine Area During the “Bird of Happiness” .

Brown eventually comes to a halt shortly after entering the 3rd Passenger Corridor, where a trail of fallen, and falling, red feathers begins.

Is it a coincidence that the place in the corridor where Brown halts and barks is in the vicinity of the door to the Women’s Lavatory, and the end of the trail of feathers will also be a Women’s Lavatory?

The trail of feathers is made up of feathers too large to belong to the red bird, and there are far too many on the floor, and falling from above, to belong to any single bird.

What does it mean that the feathers are continuously falling from above? The impression I get is that it means that whatever happened to the red bird was very recent… the feathers haven’t even had sufficient time to have all hit the floor yet.

Jennifer can follow these feathers up the stairs, through the one-leaf clover door, into the 2nd passenger corridor, and to the door of a Women’s Lavatory.

Once inside the Women’s Lavatory the trail of feathers is much different. More realistic.

The feathers are now small enough to have come from the red bird. And there are only just a few feathers, not so many feathers that they couldn’t have come from a single bird. And there are some dark red drops along the path that look like blood that has dripped down to the floor.

I get the impression from this scene that the previous trail of over-sized and over-many feathers was a dream exaggeration of this trail that we see now, this trail of feathers being the truer and more realistic memory upon which the dream-exaggerated trail was built. (Yes, I know that we will learn in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter that the red bird was a doll and not a living bird… nonetheless, the impression given by this scene—in my opinion—is that we have transitioned from a fantasy exaggeration of a memory to a true—or truer—memory).
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Go now to the door of the salon.  You will see that there is a sign next to the door that says “Aristocrat” (written in red) taped above the sign that says “Salon”.  Enter the salon.

I have mentioned before that the airship salon is a transformation of the orphanage reception room.  See my blog-post See-all Walkthrough, With Commentary: “The Little Princess” Chapter (Part 17): The Airship Salon is the Reception Room Transformed for an account of the correspondences that can be seen.

The salon has two tables that have been flipped onto their sides and moved away from the center of the room. There are small red objects scattered on the rug and the couch. Are these red feathers, or the petals of red roses? The flower vase that would normally hold red roses is lying on the rug, tipped on its side among the red objects. This seems to support the idea that the red objects are rose petals. However, Eleanor’s red bird is in the salon, which could support the idea that the red objects are red feathers.

It seems problematical to attribute the mess in the salon as being due to the affect of air turbulence on the airship. The china looks undisturbed on the narrow ledge of the china cabinet. Why did none fall and break? And why have none of the free standing picture frames, on the table to the right of the china cabinet, tipped over?

Go to Eleanor and press “x” several times while Jennifer stands next to her. You will get the following text:

The cold Princess said, “The thief will be punished.”

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I recall reading a discussion on the Gamespot/GameFAQs Rule of Rose forum long long ago (these comments are long gone now) that there is an inconsistency, somewhere in the game, relating to the aristocratic rankings of Eleanor and Meg.

So I did some checking on this.

In the airship, after one enters the First Class Guest Sector from the Sector 8 Stairway (during the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter), one can see a chart with the heading “Social Rank” on the wall to the left. On this chart Eleanor is ranked as Countess and Meg is ranked as Baroness, and Eleanor’s name is placed higher on the list than Meg’s name.

On the other side of the door, on a chart with the heading “The Red Crayon Royalty”, the rank Countess is again placed higher on the chart than is Baroness, although the names “Meg” and “Eleanor” are not on the chart, just the ranks.

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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?

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In the Perrault version of Cinderella, in the Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella, and in the Disney animated movie version of Cinderella, there are only two step-sisters for Cinderella.

In the “Rag Princess” storybook, however, the illustrations show that the rag princess has three step-sisters. Why this change in the number of step-sisters? I propose that there are three step-sisters because the story here is depicting the relationship between Amanda and three orphans: Diana, Meg, and Eleanor.

In the airship, during the “Unlucky Cloverfield” chapter of Rule of Rose, after coming up the stairs and entering through the door into the First Class Guest Sector, one can find a sign hanging on the wall to the left which describes “Social Rank”:

Social Rank
Refined Class
Duchess…..Diana
Countess….Eleanor
Baroness….Meg
—Lower Class—
Poor………..Amanda
Beggar…….Jennifer

The text of the Rag Princess storybook tells us:

Her stepsisters wore beautiful dresses and went to the ball.

The girl stayed at home and her jealousy festered

I propose that the “real life” situation being described is this: in the Aristocrat Club, the girls Diana, Meg, and Eleanor are ranked socially as “Refined Class (“wore beautiful dresses and went to the ball”), but Amanda is ranked “Lower Class” and desperately wants to move up to “Refined Class” rank (“stayed at home and her jealousy festered”).

We see, in the storybook illustration, a castle off in the distance. This is the site of the ball and indicates that the ball relates to aristocracy.

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Turn the page of the “Rag Princess” storybook again and we get the following subtitled text:

Her stepsisters wore beautiful dresses and went to the ball.

The girl stayed at home and her jealousy festered

Here we have the beginning of a Cinderella theme in this storybook.

The Cinderella story has a connection to the stinky and filthy themes (brought up in Part 2 of this series of blog-posts) in that Cinderella is associated—via her name—with the idea of being unclean. The Perrault version of Cinderella tells us:

When she had done her work, she used to go to the chimney corner, and sit down there in the cinders and ashes, which caused her to be called Cinderwench. Only the younger sister, who was not so rude and uncivil as the older one, called her Cinderella.

The Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella tells us:

she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the hearth in the cinders. And as on that account she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella.

On the previous page of the “Rag Princess” storybook we were shown Amanda at the sewing machine, and we were told she “sewed rags, day in, day out.” This theme of being worked hard matches the Cinderella theme. From the Perrault version of Cinderella again:

She [Cinderella's stepmother] employed her [Cinderella] in the meanest work of the house. She scoured the dishes, tables, etc., and cleaned madam’s chamber, and those of misses, her daughters.

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From her position standing in front of the aquarium, if Jennifer moves to her left, she will come to Hoffman’s desk. Pressing “x”, we see a close up view of the desk, and get a subtitle that says:

“Something is written in the notebook.”

Pressing “x” again, we can read the the diary entry:

March 2, 1930

Recently, the children have been engaging in odd activities and spreading disturbing rumors—rumors about creatures that come after children who don’t clean up and stray dogs that kidnap small tots… It’s all very bizarre.

The player who only chases Joshua through the mansion, and doesn’t take time to explore the rooms of the orphanage, will miss this story-element until this same diary entry re-appears in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter at the end of the game.

For the first-time player, reading this diary entry now (rather than at the end of the game) provides an added impact to development of the Rule of Rose story. That first-time player will read of “odd activities” by the children, and will naturally think back to having seen two girls, each wearing a bag over their head, beating a bloody bag with a stick. That first time player will also get an ominous foreshadowing of dangers to come in the game from the “bizarre” and “disturbing” rumors of “creatures that come after children”.

The March 2, 1930 date of this diary entry seems to fit with the date ascribed by the game to “The Little Princess” chapter in the chapter intro: March 1930. But as I have frequently pointed out during this series of walkthrough posts, nothing about what we see of the features of the orphanage during this chapter actually fits in with a March 1930 date. The diary date might seem to be providing evidence that we are actually in March, but does it really? Does the fact that the diary is opened to that page mean that it must be the latest entry of the diary?

I think that there is really only one sense in which there can be said to be a quality of March-ness to “The Little Princess” chapter.

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