Why now?*SPOILERS*

[PrincessJennifer]

Why is Jennifer remembering at this stage in her life? What is triggering her to enter a twisted dream of forgotton memories? Any theories?

[cellerikun]

I think she's dying.

I think the biggest thing that gets it for me is that the only person outside, "with her" when she's locked out of the orphanage at the end, is Gregory, who shot himself. That suggests to me that she's in the process of committing suicide as well. It's possible that the entire game isn't so much a nightmare as a drug-induced fever dream, combined with the "life flashing before the eyes" phenomenon.

Doubtful, and there's not vast amounts of evidence to support it, but I really like that idea.

[bucketsquire]

cellerikun said:

I think she's dying.

Consistent with your speculation would be the fact that, at the end of the Stray Dog boss battle, when you get the good ending, Jennifer and Brown leave by heading off toward a burst of bright white light, as people have described when coming back from a near-death experience. It is as if she were a spirit trying to find her way to heaven and out of the realm of ghosts.

[PrincessJennifer]

I think it might have been because she saw something in the park that triggered her memories. I'd like to think it was a stray dog, but you'd think she'd have seen more of them over the years since she left the orphanage.

[bucketsquire]

admin said:

I think it might have been because she saw something in the park that triggered her memories.

I think that the park scene poses some interesting problems, especially in regards to the context in which it appears.

It appears as part of a cluster of different scenes that get shown to us before "game start." And some of these scenes seem inconsistent with the story that we see after games start, don't you think? Consider the scene where Gregory grabs Jennifer in the restroom. Can such a scene be consistent with the story we see in the game? Does it even make sense that Brown would be mistakenly barking at the entrance to the restroom (as if danger was coming from that direction) when Gregory is actually hiding behind them in a stall? There are other scenes too, in this cluster of scenes, that don't seem to fit the story that we see during gameplay. So how do these "false" scenes reflect upon the status of the park scene?

Suggestions:

A. The scenes could all just be promos and therefore none of them should be considered in any Rule of Rose explanations whatsoever.

or,

B. The scenes are dreams that Jen is having before the main dream starts. Her repressed memories are beginning to surface, but many are surfacing in a very distorted (that is, unreliable) way. More distorted than in the game proper. Some scenes could contain some accurate information, but all in all one should be very cautious about using anything from these scenes in a Rule of Rose explanation because some of what we see in these scenes is apparently false. By this interpretation, the park scene is a dream and not the reality outside of Jen's dreams that triggered these dreams (unless she is dreaming about what triggered the dreams she is dreaming--pretty convoluted but not impossible, I guess). If you think about it, the park scene is really quite dream-like, and not much like ordinary experience, don't you think?

So, what do YOU all think about the context of scenes in which the park scene appears? How does the context of these other scenes reflect upon what the park scene means?

[PrincessJennifer]

We have a topic about the trailer in this section. We are 99% percent sure that the trailer is not all that accurate, as it was released before the game was even finished. Some big clues are: Many of the characters look different from their final versions, Gregory is portrayed as a meaner looking character who is stalking Jennifer as opposed to his constant sad look and just bumping into her randomly in the final version of the game, and the different and wallless look of the orphanage, to name a few.

However, some things shown DO play a role in the game, like the murder of Eleanor's bird and Brown, and the sealing of the coffin.

[bucketsquire]

What I was trying to get at, in light of the thread topic, is...

Is there really any good reason to think that the park scene sheds light on "why now?"

Seeming so dream-like, and appearing with mostly unreliable scenes, it seems to me like there is justification to give it a rather low probability status as being an answer for "why now?"

And giving it a low probability status would encourage the exploration of other answers.

[PrincessJennifer]

I've always believed the park scene was the beginning of the dream, and that she perhaps fell asleep in the real one, perhaps amid seeing a dog and kids playing.

[Princess Katie]

Maybe she's getting like..therapy, and learning to face her demons? so to speak

[Dinah]

I honestly believe like the others that she is dying. It's sad to imagine. But there's really no other reason for someone to come to terms with something so traumatic. Plus the fact that like the above parties mentioned, she heads off into a burst of light, often associated with death or dying. But at least thinking of it that way brings some closure to it. Maybe this suggests also that the last chapter, is jennifers way of making things right. At least in her own little way.

[tooky]

admin said:

We have a topic about the trailer in this section. We are 99% percent sure that the trailer is not all that accurate, as it was released before the game was even finished. Some big clues are: Many of the characters look different from their final versions, Gregory is portrayed as a meaner looking character who is stalking Jennifer as opposed to his constant sad look and just bumping into her randomly in the final version of the game, and the different and wallless look of the orphanage, to name a few.

However, some things shown DO play a role in the game, like the murder of Eleanor's bird and Brown, and the sealing of the coffin.

Gregory could be stalking her, but not in an obvious way, like when he grabbed her in the restroom in the vid begore gamestart, and he could be "Accidentally" Running into her. he could be stalking her to write more storybooks for the children about her and the others.

[PrincessJennifer]

But his attitude in the trailer and game itself are completely different. In the trailer, he is clearly stalking her. In the game, his run-ins with her seem to be accidental, and instead of following her, he usually just leaves. But that's more of a discussion for the Trailer thread I mentioned above.

I find it hard to believe she is dying, since that seems like the kind of thing we would be informed about in some way. Plus, she speaks about riding the bus back to the real world. That doesn't really sound like the type of thing a dying person would say.

[tooky]

yea i really dought she is dying. atlus would have told us at least that much, is it official that its a dream?

[PrincessJennifer]

There is no official answer as of yet, though the trailer seems to suggest it being a dream.

Maybe she was taking a stroll through the park at night and stopped to rest on a bench. She sees a stray dog and suddenly remembers the rumor about stray dogs gobbling up kids who wander the park at night and trap them in an airship. This triggers some of her other related memories, causing her to pass out on the bench and wake up where we see in the trailer.

[tooky]

yea but how does she exactly die or get hurt in your dreams and i dont exactly think she fought clara, hoffman and goats in her past? (sorry if its off subject)