Whether or not you may think that there have been influences of one work on the other, I think that you will find that the ending of “The Orphanage”, which is quite different from the ending of “Rule of Rose”, can none-the-less bring considerable light to bear on a question that has been of great concern to many players of “Rule of Rose”. That question is:

“Why does Jennifer leave Brown behind in the rickety shed in the last scene of the game?”

The protagonist of “The Orphanage”, Laura, cannot bear to not be together with her beloved dead son, so she takes an overdose of medication and kills herself. Her spirit can now dwell with the spirit of her dead son in the orphanage.

I’ve heard it said that “The Orphanage” can be interpreted either as a ghost story or in psychological terms, but I think that the film-maker has really heavily weighted the movie toward being a ghost story. The audience is, I think, supposed to believe that Laura’s suicide isn’t so bad… because she and her son can now be together.

Rule of Rose, although in some ways seeming to be like a ghost story, is (in my opinion) more heavily weighted towards the psychological: Jennifer is dreaming, not awake and encountering real ghosts. But the choice she has to make, about whether to embrace life or to somehow try to “be” with her dead friends in the orphanage, involves similar alternatives to those faced by Laura.

Jennifer could try to choose to join Brown, Wendy, Gregory, and the others in the “heaven” of the “Once Upon A Time” chapter… but to do so would be to choose not to live. Her friends are dead.

And because the game has a psychological interpretation, rather than a ghost story interpretation, we know that Jennifer, by trying to stay with her friends, would really just doom her friends to the non-existence of being forgotten because she is the only person who remembers them, the only person who can keep the memory of them alive. If she commits a “love suicide”, then they all disappear.

As sad as it may seem, that Wendy remains behind the locked front gate of the orphanage, and that Brown remains tethered inside the rickety shed, the only life-affirming thing that Jennifer can do is to lock her friends in her heart and return to the real world with her fond memories of them.

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To read about the similarities between “Rule of Rose” and “The Orphanage” read my blog-post:  “El Orfanato” (”The Orphanage”) and “Rule of Rose” Similarities (movie spoilers!)