Rule of Rose Mysteries

PokerNemesis says:

Welcome, kaoleen!

Thank you for recognizing my lovableness, lol.

PokerNemesis says:

I pretty much stick to focusing on Rule of Rose on this blog, rather than talking about myself.

Have you played Rule of Rose? What did you think of it?

PokerNemesis says:

Welcome, CandyMilk!

this game.. does it make your mind think in a different way?

The complexity of the story has required me to have to think very carefully, not only in order to try to comprehend the story clearly, but also in order to describe my theories about it in such a way that someone else can understand what I’m thinking. The idea that one game-event, such as Jennifer falling backwards into the coffin, is simultaneously the telling of two stories—first, a dream-story (that we see as the obvious story of the game), and second, the hidden story of Jennifer’s forgotten past, the pieces of which are used to construct the dream-story—is quite a difficult idea to get a handle on. And one could say that things are even more complicated than that. One could say that the game-story is a dream-story, that occurs in the mode of a story told by Gregory, built from pieces of the story of Jennifer’s forgotten past! It is like the box within a box within a box, of the “Bird of Happiness” chapter!

Another different way to think, for me, was to deliberately use the principles of story-telling in order to try to solve a mystery. When I was a kid I used to try to solve the mystery of mystery novels before the hero (or heroine) of the novel solved it in the novel. But I thought that I was just trying to think like a detective, rather than thinking like a story-teller (but perhaps I actually was thinking like a storyteller even then, without realizing it). With Rule of Rose, it is very obvious to me that there are differences between trying to solve a real-life mystery (thinking like a detective) and a literary mystery (thinking like a story-teller).

PokerNemesis says:

Welcome, NunYbizArrE!

You can find some aspects of the meaning of roses discussed in the following blog-post (and comments):

See-all Walkthrough, with Commentary: “The Gingerbread House” Chapter (Part 2): The Language of Flowers

But there are other aspects too. One might add how “roses” are almost always featured in shoujo-genre manga cover-art and shoujo-genre anime opening animations… something which has led me to argue in favor of the idea that Rule of Rose, with its emphasis on roses, is very much expecting to appeal to players who are girls.

PokerNemesis says:

S!-Dízzlє☆! wrote:

do any of you know how to unlike the octopus clothing in the game?

Lower the edges of your mouth?

PokerNemesis says:

Megan asked:

Can someone PLEASE explain to me the story?!?!

The following blog-post begins a series of blog-posts that, taken together, will be an attempt to explain my reluctance to try to explain the Rule of Rose story by way of some sort of summary:
Why I Am Reluctant to Summarize the Story of Rule of Rose (Part 1)
~

PokerNemesis says:

Welcome, Eden!!

Thanks for the kind words of appreciation!

I wish you success with “The St. Raphael Diaries”.

I frequently encourage people to “think like an author” as they think about the mysteries of Rule of Rose, so I hope you will be able to participate in discussions about the game’s story.

PokerNemesis says:

Cori asks:

I’ve always wondered why Martha was in Clara’s cabin…

Perhaps it was just that it was a conveniently nearby room in which to detain Martha after she was attacked by the orphans. Martha was likely attacked, I think, near the top of the stairs which ascend from the main Hall in the orphanage. And I think that Clara’s bedroom was, in the orphanage, the Filth Room (which isn’t far from that stairway.

See my blog-posts:
Was the Filth Room Clara’s Bedroom?
The Mysteries of Clara’s Cabin (Part 2): Martha’s Death

PokerNemesis says:

Welcome, bepi!

My blog is not about me being the guy who can explain everything in Rule of Rose, so much as it is a place where I try to piece together clues from the game into theories that might explain what the authors secretly had in mind.

For example:

bepi wrote:

they all talked about the orphanage being an airplane was because it was a memory of Jenifer about her parent who died because of an airplane crash. I mean, how can we/they tell???

Jennifer had been a passenger on the airship that crashed (during which crash her parents were killed). So it makes sense that if Jennifer’s dreaming mind is creating the airship that we see in the game, then that memory plays some part, at least, in how Jennifer’s mind creates the appearance of the airship.

But there are more clues than that to consider.

The orphans had, according to a newspaper article we can find, attended the inaugural ceremony of an airship (prior to Jennifer’s arrival at the orphanage). Jennifer tells us that that the orphans “played airship” while she was at the orphanage. If this means that the orphans imagined that the orphanage was actually an airship in their “play” then this might well be more of a reason why the airship that we see is the orphanage transformed.

Another potential clue comes from the official (Atlus) Rule of Rose website, which talks of a tale in which “people who are eaten [by stray dogs] are confined to a zeppelin in the sky and can never leave.” If the empty clothes of children, that we see in the yard during the Stray Dog boss-battle, signify that Jennifer thinks of the dead orphans as having been gobbled up by Stray Dog, then the airship-world may have the significance—in Jennifer’s mind—of being the realm of the dead, a place where she can reconnect with the dead: which may explain why Jennifer travels to the airship-world (at the end of the first chapter in the game) inside of a coffin.