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

Please rate it and make comments.

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 YouTube channel now has 100 subscribers. Yay!

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.

The leaving of Hoffman (which the floor drawings invite him to do) is equated, by the drawings nearest the door to the outside, with the sweeping out of bugs.

On the one hand, the message seems to be “Hoffman, you are disgusting, like a bug, and need to be removed”. This sentiment would likely be a response to Hoffman’s sexual behavior with the orphans.

On the other hand, there may be the warning too that, if Hoffman doesn’t leave, the spooky things will sweep him away, just like bugs get swept away. This sort of threat, in Thomas’s floor drawing, would be consistent with the threat found in Thomas’s drawing on Hoffman’s portrait in the Reception Room (only in that case, it was Stray Dog who would devour Hoffman, and in this case it is the spooky things that would sweep Hoffman away).

So… now there is a unified theory of the meaning of the drawings in this hallway. What do you think of it?

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?

We see, in the drawings nearest the door to the Headmaster’s Room, spooky things associated with a long line which has short crosswise striations periodically placed along the line. The impression that I get, regarding this line, is that it represents a string of barbed wire.

What could be the meaning of drawing barbed wire here?

If the drawings were made at a time before Hoffman “disappeared”, the barbed wire might be symbolic of a message to Hoffman from the orphans: “Stay away from us. Stay in your own place (the Headmaster’s Room). Stay away or the spooky things will get you.”

Further down the Hallway is a drawing that I think of as doughnut(a.k.a. donut)-man. Could this be a depiction of a dead Hoffman? The tongue protrudes (as with Thomas’s modification of Hoffman’s portrait in the Reception Room), and the large hole in the middle of the torso would be a fatal wound for any human. Combined with the “stay away” message that I propose for the barbed wire, could this re-enforce a message that “the spooky things will get you if you don’t stay away from us”?

A “stay away” message from the orphans might be a response to Hoffman having made a sexual advance, or sexual assault, on one of the orphan girls (Diana is the most likely victim, in my opinion). See the related links at the bottom of this post.

The idea of ostracizing somebody by means of a barrier is something that we will find later aboard the airship: a barrier in a corridor separates Clara’s cabin from the cabins of the other orphans. That physical barrier in the airship might be a fantasy elaboration of something like this in the orphanage: a symbolic barrier drawn in chalk.

Indeed, I wonder if that airship corridor barrier might possibly be a transformation of this very chalk-drawn barrier. What is the place, in the orphanage, that corresponds to Clara’s cabin in the airship? I don’t know. We know that Clara was seen, by Jennifer, to be naked in Hoffman’s bed. Could Clara’s cabin on the airship be an additional representation (in Jennifer’s mind) of a transformation of the Headmaster’s Room?

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Further along the Hallway, we find drawings that seem to depict spooky things sweeping, and what might be a couple of bugs. I don’t have any exciting ideas about these drawings. Perhaps bugs would come in under the door that connects to the outside, and orphans would use brooms to sweep those bugs back out the door.

This door, by the way, is never able to be opened during the game. If one could exit through the door, one would be in the rear gate area where the clotheslines and the “8 mysterious objects” are located. But the shapes that can be seen (of trees?), when looking out through the window in this door, don’t seem to me to match anything that one can see when one is actually outside in the rear gate area (which is only accessible earlier in this, “The Little Princess”, chapter of Rule of Rose, and never at any other time).

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An alternative barbed-wire theory:

If the drawing of barbed-wire was done after the disappearance of the adults from the orphanage, then it could possibly have the purpose of warning orphans to stay out of the Headmaster’s Room unless they had permission to enter. This idea is based off of the hypothesis that the Headmaster’s Room might have been taken over by the leader(s) of the orphans. The Wheelhouse of the airship is a transformation of the Headmaster’s Room, and the Wheelhouse is the place where the airship was steered on its course. A leader might well want to use the P.A. system in the Headmaster’s Room to give orders to the other orphans. And this area might be used to sequester important supplies, such as food (we saw a mention of food as being in the Headmaster’s Closet).

By this hypothesis, dead doughnut-man might be a warning of the consequences of trespassing into the Headmaster’s Room. Indeed, it might be a warning especially directed at Xavier not to try to steal food from the Headmaster’s Closet.

In my opinion, the main weakness of this alternative theory for explaining the barbed-wire barrier drawn in chalk is that the spookythings are all drawn to be seen from the direction of the Headmaster’s Room door. This argues for the drawings being a message to Hoffman. If the message was supposed to be to certain orphans to keep out of the Headmaster’s Room, I would think that the drawings would be oriented to the perspective of somebody approaching the Headmaster’s Room door, not to the perspective of somebody leaving that door.

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Related blog-posts:

For Hoffman as sexual in relation to the orphans, see:

The Frightened Princess Mystery
Clara Naked in Hoffman’s Bed
What is Hoffman Saying As He Paws Diana?
Tying Together the Opening and Ending of the “Mermaid Princess” Chapter
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[audio:imps_forward.mp3] (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:imps_reverse.mp3] (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.

I don’t remember who it was, long ago, who first posted this discovery on the Gamespot/GameFAQs Rule of Rose forum, so I can’t give that person credit for the discovery. That same person uploaded to some other site the forward and reverse mp3’s for us forum-readers to download, and that is how I got the mp3s that I am now using, years later, in this blog-post.

How do I know that the mp3’s aren’t a clever fraud by that person?

Recently, I installed on my computer the (free) Audacity audio editor and recorder, and used that to determine that the forward-direction mp3 (with the reversed English) that I used above does indeed say “a bright red crayon, just for you” when played in the reverse direction.

One can also hear that the sound of forward-direction mp3 does indeed match the sound of the imp vocalization by comparing it to the following video on YouTube: “Gameplay and Combat“. Play it at the 4 minute, 28 second point to hear the vocalization the most clearly (if you expand to full-screen, then it becomes easy to re-play the vocalization over-and-and-over with a simple click on the time-bar).

If you listen to the above YouTube video in its 5th minute (in the pre-bossbattle scene where the imps and Hoffman are together), you can hear that the imps also seem to say some other things that may be additional reverse-speech. I think it would be interesting to try capture those sounds and reverse them to learn what the imps are saying. I’ll look into seeing if I can do that.

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.

What do you think? Does this explanation make sense to you?

Related 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)“

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?

What do you think?

“…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.

Take a look at the picture of the bird-imp below.

I think that when we are shown that the various animal imps are costumes worn by the plain imps, this is a fantasy-elaboration of the idea that, in Jennifer’s real past, the “imps” were just the orphan children wearing costumes… particularly, the orphans wearing bags over their heads, some of which had animal faces drawn on them.

Related posts:

“The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (Part 1)”

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

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.

Some locations in the airship, and some locations in the orphanage, are especially associated with Meg. Other locations are especially associated with Diana. But whenever goat-imps are found in any of these locations, whether these locations are associated with Meg or associated with Diana, they are always white goat-imps (with gaping abdominal wounds).

I mentioned in a previous post, “Infinite Goat-Imps in the Airship Library“, goat-imps that appear in the airship library, a place associated especially with Meg. And, it should be recalled, a goat-imp replaces Meg in the library of the orphanage during “The Funeral” chapter. These were all white goat-imps with gaping abdominal wounds.

Diana is associated with the dormitory of the orphanage, and the corresponding area in the airship: the crew’s quarters. The many goat-imps found in the crew’s quarters during “The Goat Sisters” chapter are all white goat-imps with gaping abdominal wounds. There is also reason to believe that the white goat-imp, with the gaping abdominal wound, that appears in the Freezing Compartment of the airship during “The Goat Sisters” chapter, is associated with Diana (as is the snowman to be found there), but I’ll save discussion of that for another post, coming up soon.

In the “Once Upon a Time” chapter, Jennifer tells us:

Library:

–By the white goat doll:

“It’s a stuffed goat… The white goat Mary. The black goat Sally. When Meg found her letter to Diana torn apart, she was deeply wounded and cried in Diana’s arms, even though she was the one that ripped it up… And, when Meg’s notebook was found all scattered about, Diana made fun of her, saying, ‘Mary and Sally must’ve ate it.’ Poor Meg… She was bound by the shackles of foolish devotion.”

If, in Jennifer’s real past, Diana cut open both of the goat dolls, Mary and Sally, to stuff with Meg’s papers (fitting in with her joke that “Mary and Sally must’ve ate it”) this might explain why both the black Sally goat-imp and the white Mary goat-imps have gaping abdominal wounds.

If Diana later sewed shut the goat dolls (with Meg’s papers inside) that Diana had cut open, then Meg would have had to re-cut open the dolls in order to retrieve her papers. In that case, unlike in the storybook, both Meg and Diana would have used the scissors. Could this be why both the black goat imp (in “The Goat Sisters” chapter) and the white goat-imp (in “The Funeral” chapter) use scissors as a weapon? Because both Meg and Diana used scissors on the two goat dolls?

Because both black and white goat imps have gaping abdominal wounds, and both have used scissors as weapons, it seems to me that it is impossible to use those criteria to determine if Sally represents Diana, and Mary represents Meg, or vice versa.

Related posts:

The Goat Sisters Storybook, Part 1, The Cover

The Goat Sisters Storybook, Part 2, Love and Conflict

What is Mary Stuffed With, Part 2

Why is the Goat in the Grandfather Clock?

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.

And this fits with what we saw in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter when we saw imps attack Martha. I argued the case, in my posts, The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (part 1) and The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (part 2), that when we see imps, it is a fantasy-embellished representation of orphans wearing bags over their heads, bags which represent imps. Jennifer was seen to be attacked by imps at the end of “The Rag Princess Sews” chapter, which led to her being bound to the post, scribbled on with red crayon, and with red crayons stuffed into her mouth. The imps that attacked her emerged from the shadows immediately after the orphans disappeared into the shadows. I suggest that the “imp attack” on Jennifer was, underneath the fantasy embellishment of Jennifer’s memory of it, an attack on her by the other orphans… and was directed by the Red Crayon Aristocrats.

And the attack on Martha, judging by the red crayon “signature”, was also directed by the Red Crayon Aristocrats.

Could there have been a part played by Gregory in what happened to Martha? After all, it seems that the motive for attacking Martha, at least in part, probably related to Martha’s letter writing concerning Gregory (see my post: The Mystery of Martha’s Letter).

I think that we can rule out that the orphans (other than, perhaps, Wendy) worked together with Gregory in any violence, or saw him be violent, or knew that he would be violent. I say this because, in the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter, we know, from the writing on the blackboard, that the orphans came to believe: “The Stray Dog Legend / That is Just Wendy’s Lie”. So, I think that any involvement of Gregory in the “disappearance” of Martha must’ve been unknown to the other orphans.

The first scene of imps attacking Martha (in the Unlucky Clover Field” chapter) begins by showing Martha falling down stairs. We saw a similar attack on Jennifer in “The Funeral” chapter. An orphan sneaked up behind Jennifer and pushed her down the stairs. The modus operandi of the imps (make the victim fall down some stairs) matches the modus operandi known to be used by the orphans. In another scene we see an apparently dead Martha being swept away by imps. How does this square with Jennifer seeing a bound, bagged, and bloody, but alive Martha in the “Bird of Happiness” chapter? It seems to me that, if all of Jennifer’s “visions” of Martha that we’ve been discussing are built on Jennifer’s actual memories (even though distorted by fantasy), there isn’t much room for Gregory to have been involved in the actual killing of Martha and yet still be unknown by the orphans. Rather, it seems to me that the orphans were likely the ones who attacked, bagged, and later finished off Martha… judging by the evidence we have.

I think that Gregory could have been involved at the final stage of body disposal, however, when the orphans other than Wendy weren’t around. Could Wendy have decided that the best place for Martha’s body was Gregory’s back yard? Could the three holes that we see in Gregory’s yard (in the “Gingerbread House” chapter) perhaps be for Hoffman, Martha, and Clara (rather than for the three kidnapped children mentioned in the newspaper article)?

And what about Jennifer’s involvement in all of this? How did she get these memories of what happened to Martha? And why does she ignore Martha’s plight when Martha is bound and bagged?

Could it be that, in the same way that Jennifer succumbed to the peer pressure to bury Brown, she also went along with the others at this time, participating in the violence against Martha?

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.

The choice offered to Jennifer was essentially the choice described in “The Funeral” storybook:

Once upon a time, a girl found a hole in the ground in the yard.
The Little People came out and told her the news.
Today is the day of her funeral.
If you don’t like it, then you must sacrifice your friend.
Who wants to be buried alive?
So the girl did what she had to, and buried her best friend.
Well, I wouldn’t want to be her best friend!

The “Little People” are shown by the illustration in the book to be the spooky things (imps).

I have put forward the argument in previous posts that the imps were, in Jennifer’s forgotten past, the other orphans with bags on their heads acting out the role of being imps: see the posts “The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (part 1)” and “The Imps Mystery, and Orphans-wearing-bags (part 2)“. So, I think that this “choice” was actually forced on her by the other orphans.

I propose that this choice was put to Jennifer in the Cell of Bliss, with the dolls on the table illustrating the consequences of her choice. The presence of blood may have been due to an animal of some kind being killed in front of her for the shock-value of letting Jennifer know how serious the other orphans were.

The dolls on the right side of the table are a representation of Jennifer (represented by a teddy bear) being hanged-by-the-neck by the other orphans (represented by imp dolls).

The hanged-by-the-neck representation with the dolls matches the idea represented in “The Funeral” chapter on the posters announcing Jennifer as that month’s gift: a drawing on that poster showed Jennifer hanged-by-the-neck.

One can get a closer look at the hanged teddy bear in the “Once Upon a Time” chapter. Unfortunately, this chapter is without color, because color would help to verify that the erratic lines on the teddy bear are red crayon scribblings such as Jennifer has on her clothes during “The Funeral” chapter. But I think that we can still make that identification, and use it to support the idea that the hanged figure represents Jennifer.

That a teddy bear would be used to represent Jennifer also makes sense, I think, as both are “Joshuas”. And, in Wendy’s very first letter to Jennifer, back when Jennifer was living in Gregory’s cellar, Wendy addresses it to “Joshua, the bear in distress.” But I’ll deal with that subject later in this post, as I have some other things to write about that I want to discuss first.

I’ve already written about the dolls on the left side of the table–in “The Cell of Bliss Mystery (part 1)“–as representing an initiation scene. I forgot to mention, in that post, that the red coloring on those dolls is, I think, an indication that the dolls represent Red Crayon Aristocrats. The two sets of dolls, taken together, I propose, represent a sort of “carrot vs. stick” scenario. If Jennifer doesn’t do as she is told, she will be hanged. If Jennifer DOES do as she is told, she will be rewarded by being initiated into high-rank status in the Aristocrat Club.

A possible indicator that Jennifer’s initiation raised her up to a position of high status in the Aristocrat Club might be seen in the procedure of pouring water on Jennifer during the ceremony. Diana says, while doing this, “Just look at you! You’re filthy.” The pouring of water on Jennifer might signify that she is having her “filthy”-status removed.

Another possible indicator that Jennifer’s initiation raised her up to a position of high status in the Aristocrat Club is the fact that, after Wendy is deposed from the position of Princess, Jennifer herself was made the Princess. It is hard to believe that this was due to a factor of physical domination: that is, that it was because Jennifer beat up Wendy that Jennifer, in particular, became the leader of the orphans. Wendy certainly hadn’t been the leader because of being the physically strongest: she was a sickly girl. And, if it came to a physical confrontation, Diana was surely stronger and more physically domineering, as shown by the incident when Diana harassed Jennifer with the rag dipped in aquarium water (the final moment of the “Mermaid Princess” chapter: see the You Tube video of that scene here, Diana attacks Jennifer). I think that Jennifer was made the Princess because she was no longer “filthy” Jennifer. I don’t think that the rebellion of “filthy” Jennifer would have made any difference to the Aristocrats. I think that Jennifer had already legitimately become elevated to a status comparable to Wendy’s status, and so Jennifer’s rebellion had been a very big deal, a legitimate coup.

I think that this change in Jennifer’s status, which was brought about by the choice that Jennifer made in the Cell of Bliss, may relate to the name: “Cell of Bliss”. I think that Jennifer may have been been elevated to the status and role of Prince Joshua, consort to Wendy, Princess of the Rose. The “bliss” referred to, may have been, in Wendy’s mind, a sort of wedded-bliss. Wendy may have imagined her future with Jennifer the way we see them together in a rose garden in one of the pre-game videos: Jennifer says to Wendy, “My name is Joshua. I will serve you, Princess. Just kiss me, please.” So Wendy, presenting herself to Jennifer in the newly-made “Little Princess” gown (which was the secret-thing that Amanda told Jennifer she was sewing as a surprise for Jennifer, which in a sense it was), was presenting herself to Jennifer like a bride.

The dolls in the Cell of Bliss, I am suggesting, illustrated the consequences of Jennifer’s choice: either become Prince Joshua, or become hanged Joshua (represented by the hanged Joshua-the-bear).

To become Prince Joshua, and avoid her own funeral, Jennifer had to choose to bury Brown.

Which she did.

And this is why Jennifer holds herself to blame in regard to what happened to Brown.

After Wendy was deposed as princess, Jennifer became Princess Jennifer, rather than Prince Joshua, because the gender-bending Prince Joshua role had been necessary only so that Jennifer could be Wendy’s consort. But with Wendy deposed, Jennifer’s rank could be the more appropriate princess rank.