In the game-time story, Hoffman paws Diana while Jennifer openly stands nearby in the same room watching. Is it believable that Hoffman would act in such a way right in front of Jennifer? I have proposed that Jennifer did indeed have repressed memories of having witnessed the scene, but she wasn’t where Mr. Hoffman would have seen her as she watched. See my blog-post: As Hoffman Pawed Diana, Where Was Jennifer Really? Did Jennifer actually see worse happen at that time in her forgotten past, but cleaned up and falsified her memory of it somewhat (which is the version we see in the game-time story)? It seems very possible that Jennifer did, considering that she apparently walked in on Mr. Hoffman and Clara having a sexual encounter in the Sickroom, but seems to have cleaned up and falsified that memory (and thereby the game-time story as well). See My Video: A Sex Scene in “The Funeral” Chapter of Rule of Rose?.
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In the game-time story, the goats Mary and Sally, and Eleanor’s pet bird, are seen as living (and sometimes dying, and then back alive again) creatures during the time that Jennifer is in the airship. But during Jennifer’s forgotten past, in the orphanage, they were only dolls, not creatures that were ever alive. In the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, Jennifer tells us:

“It’s a stuffed goat… The white goat Mary. The black goat Sally.

and

“The red bird in the cage… The doll Eleanor treasured.”

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I think that almost everything that we see in the “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” chapter relating to the orphanage massacre is a huge distortion of Jennifer’s actual experience of the orphanage massacre. See my blog-posts:

The Stray Dog Boss-battle Mystery (Part 1)
The Stray Dog Boss-battle Mystery (Part 2)
Bad Ending vs. Good Ending
The Stray Dog Boss-battle Mystery (Part 3)
The Stray Dog Boss-battle Mystery (Part 4)
The “Stray Dog and the Lying Princess” Storybook Mystery (Part 1)
The Stray Dog Boss-battle Mystery (Part 5)
Did Jennifer Hide in the Grandfather Clock During the Massacre?

Please rate it.

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Some of my blog-posts that relate are:

See-all Walkthrough: “The Little Princess” Chapter (Part 7a): Rear Gate
See-all Walkthrough: “The Little Princess” Chapter (Part 7b): Rear Gate
See-all Walkthrough, With Commentary: “The Little Princess” Chapter (Part 9): Chalk Drawing

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I’ll brighten up future videos. I was eager to get this video out, having kept people waiting for so long, so I didn’t spend a lot of time polishing it to perfection. It was a bit of a test run anyway.

Some Rule of Rose fans, however, have written dialogue for the scene, and dubbed the scene for sound.

You can watch this dubbed, fan-fiction scene on YouTube at this link: Fan-fiction dub of unused Rule of Rose scene.
~

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I wrote about the original, undubbed scene previously in my blog-post: The Pre-game Video and the So-called “Unused Cutscene”

I later proposed an alternative possibility for how this scene might have come into existence. This alternative was based on the statement that can be read on the “Story” page of Atlus’s Rule of Rose site:

A mysterious story is spreading among the children in one town. “The park is dangerous after dark. You’ll be eaten by stray dogs. People who are eaten are confined to a zeppelin in the sky and can never leave.”

After changing “stray dogs” to Stray Dog (Gregory), I wondered, could it be that this unused scene was imagined as a way to transition Jennifer to the airship? As the game stands now, Jennifer transitions to the airship by undergoing a symbolic, ritualistic death in the fashion of certain initiation ceremonies. See my blog-post, The Mystery of Jennifer in the Coffin. Could it be that Jennifer was, in an early stage of working out of the plot by the authors, intended to transition to the airship by getting “eaten” by Stray Dog?

So, could it be that the scars that we see on Gregory were also a falsehood that Jennifer told herself about the massacre? And, if so, what sort of inner motivations might have led Jennifer to make up the falsehood that Gregory was scarred like that?

I propose that Jennifer loved Gregory (as a sort of father-substitute).

Jennifer surely must have kept it a secret that she had been kept in Gregory’s cellar all of those months, or he would have gotten in trouble for it. Jennifer wanted to protect Gregory.

Jennifer even declined Wendy’s offer to help her escape from the cellar, at first, because (as Jennifer explained to Wendy, in a letter):

…the man is so lonely, so sad. I can’t just leave him alone.

And in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, Gregory is one of the only three that Jennifer cares enough about to want to see, in the flesh, before she leaves.

I think Jennifer loved Gregory, and I think that she may have believed that he loved her in return. So, I think, Jennifer was absolutely devastated by the idea (whether it was, in fact true, or not) that Gregory came to the orphanage to kill her. How could he possibly be willing to do that? The idea that two people that she had loved, Wendy and Gregory, had come for her to in order to kill her was an idea that Jennifer feared was true, and yet it was also an idea that Jennifer found to be too awful to bear.

So Jennifer created a fantasy in which both Wendy and Gregory apologized to her before they died.

And Jennifer might have fantasized the scarring on Gregory’s body as a sort of excuse for him: he wouldn’t have dreamed of harming her if he hadn’t been tortured into insanity.

If this is true, what was the full nature of Jennifer’s excuse for Gregory?

In Jennifer’s mind, had Wendy tortured Gregory into insanity? Or had Gregory tortured himself into insanity?

I’ll explore possible answers to these questions in parts 3 and 4 of this series of blog-posts.

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See also:

Bad Ending vs. Good Ending
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)
Did Jennifer Hide in the Grandfather Clock During the Massacre?
~

I have argued, in my blog-post The Stray Dog Boss-battle Mystery (Part 5), that I don’t think that this scene truly occurred during Jennifer’s forgotten past. But even if so, I think it is important to understand the story that Jennifer told herself about what happened. So let’s ask ourselves what the scars on Gregory’s body would likely mean if we took the scene at face value (that is, as if the scene happened in Jennifer’s forgotten past exactly the way we see it in the game).

I can think of two possibilities:

(1) Wendy scarred Gregory as part of his being trained like a dog.

(2) Gregory self-inflicted the scars.

Can you think of other possibilities, assuming that we are taking the scene at face value?

~

I’ll address possibility (2) in Part 3 of this series of blog-posts, and possibility (1) in Part 4 of this series of blog-posts.

And I’ll address the question of what inner motivations might have led Jennifer to imagine scars on Gregory in the next part, Part 2.

Before long, she was old and decrepit.

See the time 9:28 in the YouTube video linked to here, Mermaid Princess video, to view that page of the storybook.

In terms of the surface level story of the storybook, the story of a mermaid princess, Stray Dog seems very out of place among the mermaids at the bottom of the sea. Why is he there?

The reasons that have been coming to my mind as possible answers relate more to the pattern of the inclusion of Stray Dog in the Rule of Rose storybooks in general—he can be found in most of them—than to any specific involvement in the story of Clara. So I think I’ll write up most of those ideas in a separate blog-post focusing on that pattern, as those ideas will relate to more than just this particular storybook.

On this specific page of the “Mermaid Princess” storybook, Stray Dog’s presence might serve to help us associate the underwater scene with the orphanage world, thereby encouraging us to identify the mermaids swimming in the background as the girls of the Rose Garden Orphanage.

For some reason, the mermaids of this storybook are not easily identified as particular girls of the orphanage: I don’t see Meg’s glasses, or Diana’s neck tie, for example, included to make such an identification easy.

Perhaps, if the mermaid-concept in this game can be said to relate to Hoffman’s lust, there is an idea conveyed symbolically here that Hoffman’s lust is without concern for the individual psychological needs and well-being of the girls, but just reduces them to generic objects-of-desire. See my blog-post Clara and Hoffman: Mermaid and Hare?.

I have another hypothesis about the “generic” quality of the mermaids, but I’m going to save that for “Part 5″ of this series, as it deserves a separate blog-post.

I have, in the past, proposed the possibility that Clara, dangling from a rope as the Mermaid-boss, might relate to her having been hung out somewhere as an offering to Stray Dog. If so, then I suppose that Stray Dog’s presence in the “Mermaid Princess” storybook might also relate to that idea.

What do you think is the reason for Stray Dog’s presence in the illustration drawn in the “Mermaid Princess” storybook?

During the time shortly before I started my Rule of Rose Mysteries blog-site, I had developed an alternative hypothesis that grew out of an “evil-Wendy” theory. I wrote about this on the GameSpot/GameFAQs forum, but that thread has long since disappeared. I think that I can reconstruct the jist of the theory, however.

Jennifer wrote in a letter to Wendy (the letter can be found in the “Once Upon a Time” chapter, in the Sickroom, by the lamp):

16 November

Dear Wendy, my visitor in the window,

Thank you so much for writing to me. The man calls me Joshua, but my name is Jennifer. I’ve been in this room ever since he saved me. He’s a nice person… but he won’t let me leave.

Jennifer’s statement that she has been in the room “ever since he saved me” is dated 16 November, so this opens up the possibility that Jennifer was let out of the room at times between 16 November and the date of her escape the following January.

Why would Gregory change his behavior after 16 November from what it had been before?

The explanation I proposed related to the hypothesis that perhaps Wendy had been the “Joshua” of Gregory’s June diary entries and had been training and controlling Stray Dog even at that early date.

For possible evidence relating to this, and to the “evil-Wendy” idea, see my previous blog-posts:
Was Wendy the “Joshua” of Gregory’s Diary Entries?
and
Wendy, Come Wednesday

My idea was that Wendy knew about Jennifer trapped in the cellar room all along, and that Wendy had a crush on Jennifer from the beginning.

At first it suited Wendy that Jennifer was isolated in the cellar, so that Jennifer would be desperate for company and be psychologically set up to bond with Wendy. Wendy watched Jennifer secretly during this time. In Wendy’s introductory letter, she wrote: “My name is Wendy. I always watch you from the sky.” Could this be a (rather creepy) confession that Wendy had been watching Jennifer for a very long time?

Once Wendy and Jennifer had bonded, it now suited Wendy that she and Jennifer spend time together outside of the room, so Wendy—who controlled Gregory—arranged it. Wendy and Jennifer may have spent time together in the rose garden, and Jennifer’s memory of seeing Gregory, through the cellar window from outside, could have been a memory of returning to the room from such an outing.

Why, you might ask, didn’t Jennifer just leave with Wendy during one of those outings rather than escape as she did?

Because Jennifer didn’t want to leave permanently unless Gregory’s handgun could be taken at the same time. Jennifer feared that Gregory would shoot himself with the handgun if she left.

9 January

From W to J

…Oh my poor kind prince.

You’re worried because that man sometimes seems crazy, right? Well don’t worry. I know where he hides that awful thing of his. So let’s run away together. You can leave it all to me. Everything will be all right.

(letter found in the “Gingerbread House” chapter, in the Cellar Bedroom)

Travel to the shed, but don’t enter. We will do that later. Turn right at the shed and proceed along side of the house until Jennifer is beside the cellar window. We will discuss other features, such as the grey shapes on the ground and a hole (that we passed by) in the side of the house, later. Notice that Gregory’s voice can be heard before Jennifer reaches the cellar window.

Move Jennifer right next to the cellar window and press “x”. Jennifer kneels down and looks through the cellar window into the cellar below.

Gregory can be seen sitting on a stool next to a bed. He is pointing a revolver at his own head, the opening of the revolver’s barrel pressed against his temple. He is facing a bed, which we cannot see except for its bedposts.

We will see, later in the chapter, that Joshua’s clothes are arranged under the bed cover… or is it actually Joshua’s body that is under the bed cover? See my blog-post The Mystery of Joshua’s Clothing Under the Blanket (Part 1)

Gregory is telling a macabre story about Stray Dog and “peas”:

Stray Dog walks the streets each day,
Collecting peas as he walks to and fro:
Big peas, small peas, every which kind of pea.

Come Monday, he finds a pea.
Come Tuesday, he bags the pea.
Come Wednesday, he shows the pea to his son.
Come Thursday, the pea kicks and screams.
Come Friday, he grinds up the pea.
Come Saturday, he buries the pea outside: the pea is in the ground.
And by Sunday, it can’t be found.
Good night, young pea.
Good night, young pea.

See my blog-post:
Peas That Kick and Scream

If Jennifer is now re-living an experience from her forgotten past, an interesting question is: when would Jennifer have been able to have been standing outside of this cellar window watching Gregory?

Jennifer wrote, in a letter to Wendy (after Wendy had asked: “…why are you trapped down there?“):

I’ve been in this room ever since he saved me. He’s a nice person… but he won’t let me leave.

If Gregory wouldn’t let Jennifer leave, when would she have been outside of the house while he was inside of the house?

One possible explanation is a hypothesis that I have already proposed earlier in this chapter’s series of walkthroughs: the memories of the first part of this chapter come from a time before Jennifer was trapped in the cellar room.

See my blog-posts:
See-all Walkthrough, with Commentary: “The Gingerbread House” Chapter (Part 1): Arrival in the Rose Garden
and
See-all Walkthrough, with Commentary: “The Gingerbread House” Chapter (Part 4): The Chained Gate

I’ll describe how we can fit together various pieces of the “puzzle” of this chapter—using that hypothesis—in Part 9b of this walkthrough series.

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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.

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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)

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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?

It seems to me that, of all the creatures that we see in this game, the creature of the drawing most closely resembles Stray Dog as seen in the storybooks.  In the storybooks, Stray Dog is always drawn facing the reader.  This differs from the drawings of Stray Dog elsewhere.  In the chalk drawings on the outside of the orphanage mansion, Stray Dog’s head is always depicted in side view, showing a dog-like snout.  Similarly, Thomas’s drawing of Stray Dog, on Hoffman’s portrait in the Reception Room, depicts Stray Dog in side view, showing a dog-like snout.

Jennifer’s comment at this Closet Room mirror, however, in the “Once Upon A Time” chapter, doesn’t deal with Stray Dog or Gregory.  It deals with Amanda. 

Jennifer tells us:

“Amanda was always more sensitive about her looks than anyone else. One day she was given a severe scolding by Miss Martha. That’s because Miss Martha’s lipstick had gone missing. The lipstick was never found, but I know Amanda took it. I’ve seen her applying it late at night.”

This statement made me wonder if the drawing might be of something other than Stray Dog.

If the drawing was of a pig, then it could be that some orphan was teasing Amanda.  The snout of the drawing, seen face on, seems to me like it could represent a pig-snout, but, over-all, the drawing just doesn’t seem very pig-like to me.

If the drawing on the Closet Room mirror DOES depict Stray Dog, does the style of the drawing (or anything else) give us a clue as to who drew it here, and why it was drawn?

It would be very interesting if the drawing were drawn by Gregory… Are the storybooks drawn in Gregory’s drawing style?  Can matching the style of the drawings of Stray Dog in the storybooks, to the drawing style used on this mirror, identify Gregory as being the artist?  I’m unsure.  What do you think?  Is it a match to the storybook drawings?  And if so, does that mean that Gregory was the artist?

In the airship, in the Women’s Lavatory accessed from the 3rd Passenger Corridor of the Lower Deck (Lower Deck being the term used by the airship map), if Jennifer goes to the mirror at the sink, and you press “x”, you get a different view of the sink and mirror and you get the following subtitle:

…It must be because of the crack in the mirror, but you see the illusion of a strange man in the reflection.

Is this strange man Gregory? Who else would it be? Hoffman in the Women’s Lavatory? I can’t actually see any illusion of a strange man in the mirror, so there are no visual clues.

In the Men’s Lavatory next door (still speaking of the airship), if Jennifer goes to the mirror at that sink, and you press “x”, you get once again get a different view of the sink and mirror, and you get this subtitle:

…Could it be because it’s cracked? For a moment, the reflection in the mirror looked like the old orphanage…

Could it be that the other “illusion”, of a strange man in the lavatory, also refers to something to do with the “old orphanage”? Could these clues be indications that Gregory used to stealthily enter the orphanage mansion?

Could it be that Gregory drew a drawing of Stray Dog in the Closet Room? Or is it more likely that the drawing was done by Thomas, or Wendy, or somebody else?

Is it even a drawing of Stray Dog at all?

What are your ideas?