Theories On How **** Became the PrincessSPOILERS!

[domriver]

THe main question is why did Wendy start such a club in the first place? Was this AFTER she met Jennifer or has this always been going on?

[empressjess]

I feel like she created it to make Jennifer jealous--one of those "oh, you want to play with your dog? Well I'm gonna make a club and not let you in! Haha!"

'Cept it didn't really work out so well.

[bucketknight]

I think Wendy had the club already or VERY shortly after Jen arrived, and used them to isolate Jen so she could have Jen all to herself. I think Wendy got the rabbit to spite Brown.

[empressjess]

The RCA does seem pretty well-established by the time Jennifer gets there, so maybe there was another reason for Wendy creating it.

Perhaps she went through a short spurt being the favorite (next to Clara) and received some minor responsibility (like, say, overseeing cleaning time or something) and got addicted to the intoxicating drug that is power and control. Or maybe she read some book or something about royalty and that sparked the idea--the RCA started out completely innocent, just kids pretending to be adults, and when Wendy realized she'd have to share Jennifer at the orphanage, it started to take a darker turn.

[PrincessJennifer]

I think a good deal of the Aristocracy was inspired by stuff in the library books and what the orphans were learning about goverment.

[empressjess]

This game totally counteracts Reading Rainbow then.

[bucketknight]

Wendy probably came up with the idea reading all day in the sick bed and the kids liked it, so they adopted it. Then when they got to bully Amanda Diana really got into it. Once Wendy and Diana take to it, it stuck.

As for Wendy getting responsibility, just the fact that she spent so much time in the sick room puts her close to Hoffman.

[domriver]

Certainly does bucketknight - I wonder why Wendy chose Joshua to lure Jennifer in and help her remember of such events. Also how did Wendy become aware of Mr. Gregson's mental state? Perhaps reading a newspaper? Wendy is a smart girl.

[spookythings]

i have two 'theories' on that, domriver.

1) the fact that wendy dressed up as joshua to manipulate gregory than anything else, domriver. it kind of parellels the fact that jennifer's memory had been, in a way, deceased, but when wendy came around (both in her head and in gregory's presence) it was a sort of 'rebirth' (jennifer's memories reawakening, the return of 'joshua').

or

2) jennifer wasn't quite ready to remember wendy for the little beast that she was, so she sort of split wendy in half; good wendy (sickly, sweet little girl) vs bad wendy (tour guide from hell).

re: wendy being aware of gregory's mental state, jennifer could have told her, or wendy could have seen it for herself when she was snooping around during her initial discovery of jennifer.

edit: in response to the original question, why did any of us play the games we played as children? i used to cover everything i owned in bandaids. perhaps hoffman said something during a history lesson, since meg and susan seemed to be the only readers. as for the club starting after jennifer's arrival, didn't amanda's journal have an entry where she said something about now that the new girl was there, she'd never be at the bottom again?

from amanda's diary:

I'm still lower class, even after that girl came.

[bucketknight]

Well, even if Amanda didn't say that, you know she felt it after the rabbit deal.

[empressjess]

I like the double Wendy theory.

And I also love the new icon, spooky.

[roman]

To me Wendy was the laying princess. Apparently she managed to use a) the imp legend and b) the kidnaps, to create the ‘Stray dog’ legend, to keep the others under her command, with lies. Don’t know how she gets it, but it seems the girls wanted a leader. Just see how they asked Jennifer for what to do when she become the princess.

Then she makes things worse by 1) making the adults (incluying Clara) out of the orpanage, and b) getting herself her own dog (Gregory instead of Brown), making Gregory madness even worse and turning him in the ‘Stray dog’.

bucketknight said:

I do believe that Wendy gave the order to be mean to Jennifer (I don't know where I read that) but it would not surprise me if the bullying was just as much as people did not like Jennifer as much as it was Wendy's mandate.

In one of the letters between Wendy and Jennifer Wendy told Jennifer that she will pay for choosing the Brown instead of her.

[philweasel]

I don't think Diana ever saw herself as the princess type (Not... pure enough) and thus was scared of taking the position herself. She found being the Majordomo to royalty romantic enough for her.

And from what I remember as a kid, being able to tell a good story gives you a lot of power.

I identify three major traits that rule Wendy's actions, her need for attention on her terms, her emotional immaturity and her overactive imagination. All are easily explained by her being bed bound for most of her life, trapped in a single room with only books for company she would lack the sustained human contact required to really develop properly, either socially or emotionally. Thus she would create her own fantasy worlds to fill this hole in her life.

Eventually all she knew was fantasy, she became unable to see the difference between the real world and the world inside her head. This is why she got so aggressive when Jennifer insisted she was a girl and her name wasn't Joshua, it was like the telephone suddenly insisting it's really a sentient object that needs love. It wasn't part of Wendy's reality, and the idea that her reality could be so fragile scared her.

But she could tell a good story. And so, people came to her bedside and she would tell them stories of scary things and stray dogs, describing herself as this beautiful innocent princess. And so they believed her, and treated her as the princess she told them she was.
After all, this is a girl club, physical strength isn't what is really important, it's all about force of personality and image. Wendy was really what they all wanted to be, pure, untouched and beautiful. They admired her.


But as seen, such admiration is fragile. Killing Brown probably already put the willies up some of the more sensitive kids, seeing her slapped down without a word to say in her defence killed her regal mien stone dead.

[bucketknight]

roman said:

To me Wendy was the laying princess. Apparently she managed to use a) the imp legend and b) the kidnaps, to create the ‘Stray dog’ legend, to keep the others under her command, with lies. Don’t know how she gets it, but it seems the girls wanted a leader. Just see how they asked Jennifer for what to do when she become the princess.

Then she makes things worse by 1) making the adults (incluying Clara) out of the orpanage, and b) getting herself her own dog (Gregory instead of Brown), making Gregory madness even worse and turning him in the ‘Stray dog’.

bucketknight said:

I do believe that Wendy gave the order to be mean to Jennifer (I don't know where I read that) but it would not surprise me if the bullying was just as much as people did not like Jennifer as much as it was Wendy's mandate.

In one of the letters between Wendy and Jennifer Wendy told Jennifer that she will pay for choosing the Brown instead of her.

Wendy mentioned this very late in the whole abuse Jen thing. It was really close to the Stray Dog incident.

[spookythings]

i read somewhere that wendy probably told everyone to be mean to jennifer so that jennifer would have no one to turn to but her, which seems plausible. on the other hand, the kids didn't seem real friendly under the best of circumstances - diana was selfish and hostile, eleanor was a loner, meg was a narcissist in the making, and had amanda lived, she would have no doubt been a 46 year old high school freshman. for 32 years she'd be a teenage runaway. she would have been a boozer, a user, and a loser. her friends would have been dealers, cons, and 18-karat pimps... or maybe i'm giving her too much credit. my point is, those kids were little hellions no matter how you look at it.

also, i thought that 'you'll be sorry' was just another way of saying 'that dog is worm food.'