~

And in the “Orphanage World” of Jennifer’s dream, the orphans are again killed by Gregory Wilson, a. k. a. Stray Dog at the Rose Garden Orphanage, with Jennifer being the sole survivor.

~

In the “Airship World” of Jennifer’s dream, however, Jennifer relives the last days of the orphans through the distortion of the fantasy that the orphans had used at the Rose Garden Orphanage during their last days: pretending to be on an airship flying to India.

Jennifer’s dream recreation of this fantasy-play of the orphans is colored by her own experience, during her forgotten past, of having actually been on an airship flying to India that crashed (with Jennifer being the sole survivor).

As Jennifer dreams the “Airship World” she remembers (partially) that the orphans are doomed and are inevitably going to die… so the dream reflects this by having the airship of the “Airship World” moving toward a destiny of coming apart (hence the need for rope everywhere to try to hold the airship together and secure the things within the airship) and inevitably crashing (which we will not be shown, but which is implied to be coming). When the orphans die in the real world, their fantasy of an airship voyage to India will die as well.  So Jennifer’s dream of the “Airship World” recreates that approaching doom in airship-terms: an approaching crash.

In the “Airship World”, Jennifer’s dream attributes the pending crash of the airship, and the pending doom of the orphans, to the actions of what I have called the gremlin imp… an imp that Jennifer finds attacking one of the engines of the airship with a sledge hammer.  See my blog-post:  Gremlin Imp.

But Jennifer also finds this newspaper article in the Smoking Room of the airship that foreshadows the approaching doom of the orphans in terms of the “Orphanage World” and of Jennifer’s forgotten past:

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.

~
(Smoking Room, Sir Peter chapter, Goat Sisters chapter, newspaper)

~
The above is part of my theory about how these three different stories of the orphans’ doom inter-relate.

To read of how the doom of the orphans as seen in the “Orphanage World” of Jennifer’s dream may differ from the story of the true events of Jennifer’s forgotten past, see my previous blog-posts:

The Stray Dog Boss Battle Mystery (Part 1)
The Stray Dog Boss Battle Mystery (Part 2)
The Stray Dog Boss Battle Mystery (Part 3)
The Stray Dog Boss Battle Mystery (Part 4)
The Stray Dog Boss Battle Mystery (Part 5)
Bad Ending vs. Good Ending
Did Jennifer Hide in the Grandfather Clock During the Massacre?

When Jennifer reaches the bottom of the ladder, the sound of an imp banging on the engine with a sledgehammer can be heard.

If Jennifer doesn’t get too close, you can watch the imp hammering away indefinitely.

If Jennifer gets close, the imp screams and throws the sledgehammer at her. This sledgehammer can be acquired as a weapon for Jennifer. Once it is in your inventory, if you select “look” the subtitle says “Sledgehammer. One swing will break most objects.”

The imp itself can’t be harmed by attacking it. I tried to block its path of escape by having Jennifer run to the other side of the imp, but the imp walks right through Jennifer, and her attacks pass right through the imp. The imp ends up crawling under the engine and disappearing.

I can’t recall any other imp in the Rule of Rose game that can’t be killed by attacking it, but I think that it makes a lot of sense that this particular imp can’t be killed by Jennifer if this imp has the symbolic significance that I think it has (I will discuss the symbolic significance I propose for it at the end of this post).

I have decided to call this imp the “gremlin imp”.

I want to thank Gauntlet for informing me of its existence. In all of my considerable time spent on Rule of Rose forums, I had never heard of this imp before. So I was very surprised and pleased to learn of it from Gauntlet.

Why do I call this imp a gremlin imp?

Gremlins are imp-like creatures that have an interest in sabotaging aircraft. The earliest printed reference to them is a poem published in the journal “Aeroplane” on April, 10 1929. This poem wouldn’t have been known to the general public, but perhaps Jennifer would have learned of the poem from one of the crew on the airship that Jennifer had flown on with her parents. That flight occurred a couple of months after the publication of the poem, so a crew member could have had a copy on board, or had just passed the tale on to Jennifer. Follow this link for more information on gremlins, a link to a Gremlin poem (but this poem doesn’t date as early as 1929), and a picture of a cartoon gremlin with an over-sized hammer.

What is the symbolic significance of the gremlin imp?

In my blog-post “Ropes Increasing in Number in the Airship” I proposed that the airship has been progressively breaking apart as the airship chapters proceed, and that the increasing number of ropes are a response to the airship breaking apart… an attempt to hold things together. The ropes, I propose, could symbolize the doomed efforts of the orphans to successfully survive in the orphanage (playing out their airship fantasy trip to India) without adults to take care of them.

I have also argued in previous posts that the imps we see are fantasy-versions of the orphans themselves.

See my blog-posts:
“The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 1)”

“The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 2)”

“The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 3)”

“Olivia Imp“.

So I propose that the gremlin imp, trying to damage the engine with a sledgehammer, symbolizes the self-destructive consequences of the actions either of the orphans as a whole, or possibly of one orphan in particular (perhaps Wendy, as the leader), that leads to the orphans’ own destruction. If this is the true symbolic significance of the gremlin imp, then I think it explains why Jennifer can’t kill it. Because if Jennifer could kill it, she could save the orphans from the crash of the airship—which I believe symbolizes the death of the orphans in the orphanage. But Jennifer can’t stop the deaths of the orphans, because that has already occurred in reality. Jennifer can’t change the past, only remember it. So she can’t kill the gremlin imp. The gremlin imp escapes and will eventually succeed in bringing about the crash of the airship (the death of the orphans).

~

Later addition to the blog-post (Sept. 12, 2008):

I just now added an image:

To Jennifer’s left is the engine that the gremlin imp attacks with a sledgehammer.  The gremlin imp will be found on the opposite side of the engine from where Jennifer is standing in the picture.

~
Another addition (October 14, 2008):
See a YouTube video of the Gremlin Imp by using the link given in comment 69.