Rule of Rose Mysteries

See the YouTube video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFhaHRnIdBs

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This is a video treatment of my former blog-post:
This Is How We Can Understand What The Imps Are Saying
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My theory about the meaning of the drawings on the floor near the Headmaster’s Room has evolved since I wrote Part 23a.

Previously, I failed to fully grasp the significance of the path of the barbed wire, and I failed to see how all of the drawings in this area work together in sending a message to Hoffman.

It is important, in order to get the full message of the barbed wire drawing, to realize that the path of the barbed wire does not fully block passage into and out of the door of the Headmaster’s Room. This is even more evidence for rejecting my alternative theory about the barbed wire being a “keep out” message to orphans such as Xavier (see Part 23a). If the barbed wire only meant “keep out”, or “stay in”, then it would be drawn so as to fully block the path into and out of the door.

The barbed wire path, however, allows passage out of the Headmaster’s Room for someone to travel down the hallway toward the door leading to the outside (the only other possible destination would be the Closet Room). The message to Hoffman is not just “stay away from the orphans” (which I still believe to be part of the message) but also “here’s the way out… leave.”

The drawings at the end of the hallway, of the spooky things sweeping, and the bugs, can now be seen to fit in as part of the overall message.

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Leave the Headmaster’s Room by the door leading to the small hallway (that is, the door next to the door connecting the Headmaster’s Room to the Reception Room).

Just outside of the door, at Jennifer’s feet, there are some drawings on the floor. These drawings extend down the hallway to Jennifer’s right, almost to the very end of the hallway.

In the “Once Upon A Time” chapter of Rule of Rose, Jennifer makes three comments about these drawings:

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At the drawing on the floor of a big donut-shaped one-eyed person (near cabinet):

“This sloppy drawing must be Thomas’s. See what happens when you give him chalk? The walls, the floors… To him, it’s one big canvas.”

At the drawing on floor of spooky things nearest the Headmaster’s Room:

“The spooky things… They swept away everything that’s dirty, including disobedient children. It was a scary story that started as a rumor and spread like wildfire.”

At the drawing of spooky things nearest the Closet Room:

“The spooky things love to clean. That’s why they always carry mops and brooms. They’ll kidnap you if you don’t clean. At least, that’s what everyone says.”

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We learn from these comments that Thomas was the child who drew these floor drawings.

Thomas was also the child who drew on Hoffman’s portrait in the Reception Room. That drawing showed Hoffman being devoured by Stray Dog, and Hoffman with tongue protruding (strangled?). For more on this topic, see my previous blog-post: See-all Walkthrough, With Commentary: “The Little Princess” Chapter (Part 14): Reception Room: Stray Dog Gobbles Hoffman In Hoffman’s Portrait

Thomas’s drawing on Hoffman’s portrait, in the Reception Room, was a possible clue to Hoffman’s fate. Do these drawings also contain clues that tell us something about occurrences at the orphanage?

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During many of the imp attacks, the imps are saying this:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(press the arrow to hear an mp3 of the imp vocalization)

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In order to understand it, listen to it backwards. Here is the above mp3, played in reverse:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(press the arrow to hear the above imp vocalization played in reverse)

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“A bright red crayon, just for you!” can be clearly heard when the imp vocalization is played in the reverse direction.

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In “The Mermaid Princess” chapter of Rule of Rose, one can find a lot of imps that look like the one in the picture that accompanies this post. In past posts I’ve referred to this type of imp as a “plain imp” or an “ordinary imp.”

Notice that the right eye hole (they have black holes rather than eyes) of the ordinary imp is much larger than the left hole.

One can also find, in “The Mermaid Princess” chapter, many imps that wear bags over their heads that have squared-edges. If you look at the eye-holes of these bags you will notice that the right eye-hole of the bag is much larger than the left eye-hole.

I think that the imp-faces of the regular imps are just dream-fantasy elaborations of Jennifer’s returning memories of the bags that the orphans wore over their heads. The imps have eye-holes rather than eyes because bags have eye-holes rather than eyes.

I also think that the large right eye-holes of the square-edged bags worn by imps are reflected by the existence of the large right eye-hole of the regular imps, and that this is a way used by the authors of the Rule of Rose game to show us that these eye-holes are equivalent. In other words, at least one of the other orphans, in Jennifer’s forgotten past, must’ve been sloppy in making eye-holes for their bags, making eye-hole sizes that weren’t uniform in size… so Jennifer sees the ordinary imps the same way, with eye-holes that aren’t uniform in size.

In particular, Jennifer must have subconsciously remembered seeing an orphan that wore a bag which had the right eye-hole larger than the left, so in her dream she sees the ordinary imps that way… and when she starts to remember that bags worn over the head have something to do with the existence of the imps, Jennifer then sees the the imps as wearing bags with a large right eye-hole.

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It seems to me that the motion of the bird-imp attack resembles the motion of drinking-bird toys.

You can watch a You-Tube video of the motion of a drinking-bird toy via this link: vintage drinking bird toy.

Here is another YouTube video: motion of giant drinking birds.

A problem that exists with making this connection between the motion of the drinking-bird toy and the motion of the bird-imp attack is the date of the invention of drinking-bird toys: according to this wikipedia article (link: drinking-bird wikipedia article) the drinking-bird toy was invented in 1945 and patented in 1946. However, the incidents of Jennifer’s forgotten past, about which she dreams, take place during 1929 and 1930.

Was the drinking-bird toy connection intended by the authors of the Rule of Rose game, but the authors made a mistake by assuming that drinking-bird toys existed further back in time than was actually the case? This sort of error is called an anachronism.

Or perhaps no drinking-bird toy connection was intended?

Or, could it possibly be, that Jennifer’s dream (which is the plot of the Rule of Rose game) is being dreamed by her at some point in time after 1946? That she has seen drinking-bird toys in her life after the orphanage, and she has inserted this image from her later experience into her dream?

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In my post “The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 2)” I wrote the following:

“…when pig-imps are introduced into the game for the very first time, we are shown a view into the pig’s mouth that shows a plain imp inside of the pig-imp, wearing the pig-exterior like a costume. Although we aren’t shown an orphan wearing the pig-exterior, the idea IS put forward associating imps with costume-wearing. I think that some of the bird-imps also look like plain imps wearing a bird-costume. I suggest that the idea here of an imp wearing an imp costume is a fantasy embellishment of the idea that the orphans are wearing imp costumes.”

We can see this idea that the animal-imps are costumes worn by plain imps by taking a close look at the pictures that I have included with this post.

If you look carefully at the goat-imp at the place where the neck and the shoulder meet, you’ll see that the goat-head, even though very realistic looking, is actually a bag-like mask worn over the imp’s head. The neck of this bag is not flush with the imp’s body; the edges of the bag can be seen to stick out from the body of the imp.

Similarly with the pig-imp, the head can be seen to be a bag-like mask, part of which overlaps the rope which wraps around the pig-imp’s body.

The bird-imp, like the goat-imp and the pig-imp, is also formed by a costume worn by an ordinary imp.

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On the next page of “The Goat Sisters” storybook, the text reads:

Little sister wanted to read big sister the letter. So she fetched it from sister’s stomach.

The accompanying drawing in the storybook shows one goat, holding the letter in one hand and scissors in the other hand, having cut open the other goat. Large splatters of blood emanate from the cut goat. Due to the primitive drawing style, it isn’t clear to me, from the drawing on this page, which goat is which, or where on the body the cut goat has been cut.

In the drawing on the next page of “The Goat Sisters” storybook, however, it becomes clear that the cut goat has had her abdomen cut open, and Diana’s necktie can be seen lying next to the cut goat, confirming that the goat with the cut-open abdomen is the Diana-goat.

In “The Goat Sister’s” storybook of Rule of Rose, it is clearly the Meg-goat (“little sister”) that has used the scissors to cut open the Diana-goat (“big sister”). But in the rest of the Rule of Rose game, the symbolism of the cut-open abdomen, and the symbolism of the use of the scissors, is shared between the goats Mary and Sally, and is shared between Meg and Diana.

The only time that I’ve seen a black goat-imp in the Rule of Rose game is during the dual goat-imps bosses battle of this “Goat Sisters” chapter. The black goat-imp boss has scissors as a weapon and a gaping abdominal wound. But the white goat-imp boss and every other goat imp (all of which are white) that I’ve seen each have a gaping abdominal wound as well. And, in “The Funeral” chapter, the white goat imp that replaces Meg in the library uses scissors as a weapon.

So scissors have been used by both a black goat-imp and a white goat-imp; and all goat-imps, whether black or white, have gaping abdominal wounds. Although the picture that I have included with this post shows a white goat-imp with the abdominal wound stitched closed, I haven’t found this imp in the game. If anybody sees it, let me know where it is to be found, please.

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In the “Bird of Happiness” chapter of Rule of Rose, if you go through the 2-leaf clover door into the 1st Passenger Corridor, and from there into Room 9 (Clara’s Cabin), you will see Martha, bound and bagged on the floor. One can tell that she is still alive because her legs are moving, but there seems to be blood on her clothing. See the picture posted.

One thing that I remember having bothered me, the first time that I played the game, was Jennifer’s lack of sympathetic response, and neglect to give aid, upon finding Martha like this.

I recall thinking something like: “Hmmm… I’ve been assuming that Jennifer is a good person. But would a good person be so indifferent to something like this? Jennifer just leaves Martha there without helping her. What does this say about Jennifer?”

We’ll return to those important issues.

But first, let’s deal with another question. Who is responsible for Martha being bound and bagged and bloody?

I think that we have a good clue to this from the “face” (of a bird?) drawn on the part of the bag that covers Martha’s head.

The face appears to be drawn onto the bag with red crayon.

Later in the game we will see, when Jennifer wakes up tied to a post in “The Funeral” chapter, that Jennifer has been scribbled on with red crayon by those that tied her to the post.

The use of red crayons in this way, I propose, is the “signature” of the Red Crayon Society. As also is the beating of bagged creatures.

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What follows is a hypothesis by me about how to explain one of the very most mysterious of the mysteries of the Rule of Rose game.

This hypothesis attempts to explain the presence the dolls on the table in the Cell of Bliss, and the role that they played in Jennifer’s forgotten past.

I propose that the dolls on the table illustrate the consequences of a choice offered to Jennifer.

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