Santa Monica Madness: or Will the real Voerman sister please stand up?

This was touched on in another thread, but I figured I'd start this one rather than hijack the other.

So, just for debate: Is Therese the original, and Jeanette the bad girl personality that lets her act out her repressed feeling about what daddy's doing to her? Or is Jeanette the original personality, and Therese the personality she made up to convince herself that the bad things were happening to someone else? (I already have my opinion; I just want to hear what you think.)

Whichever it was, the breaking point seemed to be reached when Daddy molested the Jeanette personality, when up until then he'd been doing Therese. Therese/Jeanette couldn't handle this, because it disrupted the compartmentalization she'd created in her own mind, to retreat from being raped by her father.

Thoughts?

This is how I see it :

Therese is the original one, but Jeanette exists ; it was exactly as how both sisters described it (there wouldn't have been two beds in their room, and the painting wouldn't show two girls if it had always been only one body). Or rather, she existed at some point.

Therese snapped when she "lost the love of her daddy" and his attention, killed him, and was taken away in asylum (juvenile correction, maybe..). Incarcerated and alone, she "recreated" Jeanette to keep her company, as once she got out, she "went to find her" ; because she couldn't find her, she recreated her to "find her", to be able to cope with life, and it's how she became Malkavian (maybe she was embraced in the clinic and recreated Jeanette as a way to cope with the Malk blood).

Jeanette might have been killed by Therese when she killed the father as well, and Therese "forgot" about it, but my guess is that Jeanette lived a pretty normal life and died, thinking her sis died in the clinic at some point when she got embraced (masquerade cover, "she ran away" reports, whatever)...

I consider Therese to be the original, but I have little in the ways of arguments.

Based on the dialogue I always considered Therese to be the original. Of course now you came up with the question I'm starting to reconsider the reliability of the source.

They both represent two wildly different coping strategies... but I agree with Claudia that I'm sure Jeanette was previously a real person. Just not "our" Jeanette. That could even be why she's so flamboyant: it's possible that Jeanette had her own coping mechanisms, which just happened to be the opposite of Therese's own. But it's also possible that the Jeanette we meet is just a reflection of how Therese perceived her sister through the lens of her jealousy/resentment. The real Jeanette could have shared very little in common with the fabricated Jeanette.

I like Claudia's idea that Therese might have killed Jeanette and just doesn't realize it; heck, it could've easily been an accident. A skinny teenage (well, roughly thereabouts) girl trying to handle a shotgun in such very close quarters?

I have two (well, three) favorite interpretations of the story, one of which is probably more "logical", although the other two may be more "interesting":

1. Therese accidentally (or perhaps not) kills both her father and her sister, goes to what is presumably an asylum, and invents the "Jeanette" personality. The doctors attempt to cure her (eg. "they tried to separate us") but a Malkavian Embraces her; maybe she even is cured and given a clean bill of health, but then this mystery Malk embraces her, so the staff are unaware that right after her release her sanity goes straight back down the toilet. Presumably she returns to her own home. The reappearance of "Jeanette" can be chalked up to Therese's own original, mortal brand of insanity coming back with extreme prejudice at the same time she happens to be in her old, familiar surroundings.

2a. Therese kills her father, but Jeanette survives. Therese goes to what may or may not be an asylum, and is Embraced by a Malkavian. She uses her new abilities to escape, and returns looking for her sister. Therese finds Jeanette but kills her, probably by accident (maybe due to Frenzy, or in a sad attempt to Embrace her); later she convinces herself that she had committed something along the lines of diablerie. Malkavians are prone to hearing voices anyways, so it's easy to believe that Jeanette is "with her" even though she really isn't.

Or 2b. Therese genuinely Embraced Jeanette, but someone objected to the new fledgling (eg. "they tried to separate us"). It might've been Therese's Sire or even the local Prince. Either way, Therese diablerizes her sister so that they can "always be together". Therese's natural Malk tendencies give Jeanette's personality a way to manifest itself, but their combined mental state is still a mess: we have Therese who is insane, Jeanette who is also insane, and the personality of one or perhaps both is influenced by the other's perception of them. Yipes.

The Voerman sisters are one of my favorite things in the game to theorize over.

My own (absurdly simple) reason for believing Jeanette to be the alter of Therese is that Jeanette's eyes are mismatched. It's almost as though the blue eye is her coming to the surface.

I tend to think that Jeanette was a flesh-and-blood sister at one point in Therese's life (and recreated later out of guilt and as a coping mechanism), but it's possible she wasn't. Memories fabricated to cope with or explain away traumatic events are just as real as factual memories, and paintings can be commissioned, so I don't use those as hard evidence when I'm considering what might have really happened. Therese's memory of having a twin sister and killing their father after finding them together in bed might be anything from "precisely what happened" to "Therese snapping and murdering him one afternoon while he was napping."

The fact that both sisters agree that it was Therese who their father had been raping is a really good point: if Jeanette was a coping mechanism from the start, why wasn't she the one doing the coping? Of course, for me, this just supports my theory where she was real.

I also hadn't considered the possibility that Therese inadvertently killed her sister when she used the shotgun on her father.

That Therese was already "crazy" when she was Embraced seems to me much more likely than not.

buzzsaw wrote:

My own (absurdly simple) reason for believing Jeanette to be the alter of Therese is that Jeanette's eyes are mismatched. It's almost as though the blue eye is her coming to the surface.

I think it's the other way around (aren't both Therese's eyes blue?) but I definitely agree with you.
Actually, I find that detail very odd (pardon the pun) considering that PC Malkavian has odd eyes. (Or at least Female PC Malkavian does... we can't see through Male PC Malk's glasses.) PC Malk "has it bad" even by Jeanette's standards... Jeanette is also the crazier of the two sisters, and also has differently colored eyes... whereas Therese is the one that seems more "with it" and her eyes match.

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...paintings can be commissioned...

Good point. Short of finding a date somewhere on it, we can't be sure when it was made... for all we know Therese could have just handed an artist two photos of herself with different hairstyles and claimed one was her sister.

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if Jeanette was a coping mechanism from the start, why wasn't she the one doing the coping?

I'm not sure I follow.

Okay, I'll give my opinion now.

I think Therese was an only child, and that she created the Jeanette personality as an escape from being abused by her father. Jeanette was the one who didn't get abused; Jeanette was her only playmate, because her father didn't allow 'them' to play outside because they might get hurt. (Parents who abuse their children often don't let them play with other kids, because they are afraid the child will tell someone what mommy/daddy is doing to them.)

Later, Jeanette was the one who brought men home, against daddy's wishes (actually Therese rebelling against daddy's control). In her twisted mind, Therese was actually the 'good' girl (I'm sure that's what daddy told her), and so Jeanette became the 'bad' girl by default. The PC Malkavian sees through this lie, calling Therese the 'dark daughter of Janus', and Jeanette the 'light daughter'.

The painting in the upstairs room of Asylum proves nothing. I think it was painted by Therese/Jeanette to bolster their delusion that there are two sisters. (Probably Jeanette, because I don't see Therese as very artistic.)

The breaking point was the day the Jeanette personality happened to be dominant when daddy abused her, instead of Therese. This tore apart the fiction that Therese was the only one in daddy's affections. So she shot him. From what Therese says, she was obviously put in an asylum herself, which is probably where her unknown Malkavian sire found her and Embraced her. Therese said she "brought Jeanette into this life", i.e. Embraced her, but I think that was just another fiction she created to explain why her 'sister' was Kindred as well.

As a side note: It's interesting that Therese named her club "Asylum", because deep inside she knows she never left the asylum -- she's just the warden now.

The theories that Jeanette was an actual sister at one point are interesting, but I don't think there's enough evidence to back it up. I've seen developer interviews; and they talk about the baron of Santa Monica having a split personality, so I think that's as far as they went. They obviously just read an article or two about split personalties, and made the NPC.

Duncan.Oliver wrote:

The painting in the upstairs room of Asylum proves nothing. I think it was painted by Therese/Jeanette to bolster their delusion that there are two sisters. (Probably Jeanette, because I don't see Therese as very artistic.)

Great point--we are talking about the owner of Gallery Noir after all, so that's a definite possibility. Although Therese was the one who owned the gallery... so she would seem to have had some kind of appreciation for paintings, even if she didn't make those paintings herself. Shame none of them have any kind of visible signature, as that's one detail that would be nice to know.

There is another thing about the paintings in bloodlines. Officially, the cam denies the existence of Caine and the Antediluvians. But no matter where you look, you'll always find some paintings of the "Caine slays Abel" motive

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Childe of Malkav wrote:

There is another thing about the paintings in bloodlines. Officially, the cam denies the existence of Caine and the Antediluvians. But no matter where you look, you'll always find some paintings of the "Caine slays Abel" motive

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Voerman(s) are undercover Sabbat, I am telling you....

Feral wrote:

Childe of Malkav wrote:

There is another thing about the paintings in bloodlines. Officially, the cam denies the existence of Caine and the Antediluvians. But no matter where you look, you'll always find some paintings of the "Caine slays Abel" motive

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Voerman(s) are undercover Sabbat, I am telling you....

Only the Therese personality then. That's why Jeanette wants the pictures destroyed.
And most of the pictures in LaCroix' office also are Caine slays Abel. So he's a Lasombra posing as Ventrue Gotta check it when I come from the museum and get at him near the window...

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Ettinarius wrote:

buzzsaw wrote:

My own (absurdly simple) reason for believing Jeanette to be the alter of Therese is that Jeanette's eyes are mismatched. It's almost as though the blue eye is her coming to the surface.

I think it's the other way around (aren't both Therese's eyes blue?) but I definitely agree with you.
Actually, I find that detail very odd (pardon the pun) considering that PC Malkavian has odd eyes. (Or at least Female PC Malkavian does... we can't see through Male PC Malk's glasses.) PC Malk "has it bad" even by Jeanette's standards... Jeanette is also the crazier of the two sisters, and also has differently colored eyes... whereas Therese is the one that seems more "with it" and her eyes match.

Nope, Therese is green-eyed! Although, I played this the day I wrote that and realized when you face the sisters together, Therese is represented by the side with the blue eye. Heh.
At one point I wondered if Jeanette's mismatched eyes were supposed to be a little in-jokey sign for, "this is the crazy part."

Ettinarius wrote:

buzzsaw wrote:

...paintings can be commissioned...

Good point. Short of finding a date somewhere on it, we can't be sure when it was made... for all we know Therese could have just handed an artist two photos of herself with different hairstyles and claimed one was her sister.

That's exactly what I had in mind. I can see her wanting a family portrait somehow.

Ettinarius wrote:

buzzsaw wrote:

if Jeanette was a coping mechanism from the start, why wasn't she the one doing the coping?

I'm not sure I follow.

I was referring to the fact that all of their memories are of Therese being molested, which kind of throws a wrench in the whole "an alternate personality deals with the trauma" trope. Of course, as Duncan.Oliver points out, Jeanette might well have simply been used for acting out; maybe blaming Jeanette was Therese's way of dealing with the guilt of being "bad."

Speaking of, Duncan, that's mostly how my original theory of Jeanette went. It seems more likely to be true, too. Come to think of it, I spent a hell of a lot of time explaining how Jeanette probably wasn't ever real in the same post where I claimed I thought she was. Oh, well. I mostly go back and forth, anyway; this thread is so good, I'm starting to lean the other way again!

Childe of Malkav wrote:

Feral wrote:

Voerman(s) are undercover Sabbat, I am telling you....

Only the Therese personality then. That's why Jeanette wants the pictures destroyed.

The Black Hand upon the Dark Daughter!

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Nope, Therese is green-eyed!

Hmm... they look like this in my game: the outer rim looks rather like Jeanette's darker eye, but the main part of the iris is that scary blue-white. Unless they switch her eyes to be a different color in one of the mods?

...okay, I'm letting my derangement get ahead of me. Shutting up now.



I actually wouldn't be surprised if LaCroix had ties to the Sabbat. He obviously believes the Antediluvians are real, based on his obsession with the sarcophagus and what he says in at least two of the endings. He has also Caine-related stuff all over his penthouse, and he has a Nagloper(-like character) for a Sheriff. How does one get such a fellow to be his Sheriff? Diablerizing his previous leader, perhaps...?

Has anyone ever used Auspex on LaCroix? It should be possible in the ending I think?

Oooh that is such an interesting idea. I never thought to do that, but now I'm tempted to try...

No chance mate. The penthouse always stays Elysium. I doubt they ever made an aura for LaCroix, and if they did, if you can get anything apart from vampire and depending on the story state friendly, neutral, or hostile.

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Childe of Malkav wrote:

No chance mate. The penthouse always stays Elysium. I doubt they ever made an aura for LaCroix, and if they did, if you can get anything apart from vampire and depending on the story state friendly, neutral, or hostile.

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Too bad...

Hrm, and the beginning cutscene doesn't end until after you're already outside Nocturne, so you can't try there, either. Now I'm starting to wonder if they set it up that way on purpose.

See...I hold the opposite view that most people seem to have; I believe Jeanette was the original and Therese was the personality she created as a way of coping with the abuse from her father. A good number of people who were molested as children grow up to be promiscuous (not all of them of course, but a large number do), Jeanette, even as a vampire is essentially a nympho, even though Kindred derive little if any pleasure from sex- maybe in her twisted mind this is a way of asserting some degree of control over her life. Her father forced himself on her, but now she only sleeps with the people *she* chooses, and uses the very thing that once tormented her as her own weapon to gain influence over people ( "Bertram was dancing on MY leash" ).  The creation of the Therese personality also ties into the idea of Jeanette being the original....no matter who you support, both `sisters' say the abuse happened to `Therese'....this could just be yet another coping mechanism. If Jeanette created a sister for herself, she could also distance herself internally from the abuse by convincing herself that her `sister' was the one `their' father raped, not her....SHE only slept with the men she `chose'. (in her own mind).

`Therese' is the opposite of Jeanette...she's strong, cold, in control of everything and everyone, and morally `superior' to Jeanette to the point of being puritanical. Victims of D.I.D often create a stronger personality that is opposite their original one to cope with whatever trauma or abuse caused the disorder in the first place. Jeanette is abused for years by her father, one day she finally can't take it anymore, snaps and kills him. She herself doesn't seem too bothered by his death, even smirking "as I recall, he died with a smile on his face". However, victims of family abuse still often feel connected to and love their abusers, so it explains why Therese (as the created personality) is obviously upset by his death, she's the one to feel the guilt over murdering him, though that personality itself has coped by creating the delusion that he was driven to kill *himself* thus absolving her of the blame for that crime as she blames everything else on the Jeanette personality.

Malkavians often prefer to embrace already insane individuals, so presumably Jeanette killed her father, was locked up or institutionalized, and somewhere after that point met her sire and was embraced. Being `separated' from her `sister' could have been the treatment she got while locked up (the doctors trying to integrate her created personality with her original one), but once Embraced Malkavian the other personality re-emerged with a vengeance, and even gave her the delusion of tracking down her `sister' and embracing her to make sure they could stay together.

As others said, the painting means nothing as far as `proving' there ever were two girls...anyone can create a painting or pay someone to paint one for them...and as Therese confirms that the show at the gallery was her event...she either was the artist who created the paintings, or sponsored the event. (Toreadors aren't the only vampires who can be artists after all *g*)

Quite consistent theory, I must admit...

Welcome to the forum, young blood, btw. I hope you stay.

A very good argument, Margifish. Quite feasible. I still think Therese is the original, from things said during the game; but we may both be reading more into the character than the game developers intended. They were in a rush to get the game out before they closed their doors. I think they only did minimal research on multiple personality disorder, before creating the Therese/Jeanette character. It makes for an interesting debate, though.

As Feral said, welcome to the forum.  

Yeah XD I so, so wish Troika had been able to devote the time and finish the game the way they'd *wanted* to do, even as rushed and buggy as it was, Bloodlines is one of the best rpgs I've ever played. I'd have loved to have seen it as it was fully meant to be.

As for Therese vs Jeanette being the original personality. We probably *are* reading too much into things, but these debates about characters in a computer game is just a testament to how awesome the game is, that we care enough about an npc in a video game to probe their psyche and concoct theories about their background.

Also, to me another point that I think supports my own theory is that when you play as a Malkavian, Jeanette confirms that she knows she has a split-personality "you've just met the nicer side first" (or something along those lines, still sadly on my first play-through as a malk), Therese doesn't display such awareness of her mental state, which to me lends credence that she's the fabricated personality.

Thanks for the welcome btw. I found this place via a VTM discussion group I'm in on facebook. We were debating various things about Jeanette and Therese, and one person linked here. I read through the responses and had to register so I could chime in XD

Welcome indeed! We needed some fresh blood... er, I mean new people in this forum. Especially intelligent ones.

"Ya ever had a PhD kid? Ooh, that's good stuff." -- Jack.

Yes, fresh blood is always welcome. The place tends to feel a bit dead without it.