Puzzles

Music Box Player Puzzle (Hotel)

Location: Lake View Hotel, Lobby 1F
Requires:

  • "Little Mermaid" Music Box: On the west fountain out the back entrance.
  • "Cinderella" Music Box: Inside the locked briefcase in room 202 2F.
  • "Snow White" Music Box: On a shelf in the Pantry 1F.
Contents

Intro

The idea of this puzzle is to make the large music box play music in the correct tune so that the turntable spins, revealing an item on the other side. If you make it play music as is, it will sound terribly out of tune because it requires six music boxes placed in the correct spots on the turntable, and three of them are missing. The other three are on the other side of the turntable, out of sight for the moment.

If you examine the three open slots, you'll find an inscription written in each, differing per riddle level. What you need to do is read the inscriptions and solve the short riddles to correctly place the three music boxes in the correct slots. Refer to the riddles and their solutions for each difficulty below.

Easy

All three slots contain the same inscription:

When the Lost One is returned
the sour note shall turn sweet

There's no real puzzle here. These inscriptions just tell us that when the three music boxes are placed in the player, the music will play in tune. Therefore it doesn't matter which boxes go where.

Place the "Little Mermaid" Music Box, "Cinderella" Music Box and the "Snow White" Music Box in the three slots in any order.

Normal

This time, each of the slots has a different inscription which describes the corresponding character on each music box. They read as follows:

Seat of the Princess
who fled at midnight.

Seat of the Princess
who awoke from death.

Seat of the Princess
who spoke no words.

This is a rather easy puzzle and only requires basic knowledge of the Cinderella, Snow White, and Little Mermaid fairy tales.

Cinderella was the princess who fled at midnight, and she also left a shoe. It was her fairy godmother who turned her into a princess, allowing her to visit the ball where she met and danced with the prince. But she was warned that the spell would wear off at midnight. When the clock struck 12, she remembered this and rushed to her carriage as quickly as she could. Thus the "Cinderella" Music Box goes in the left slot.

Which princess awoke from death? That would be Snow White. After she ate the poisoned apple from the Queen, she was put into a deep sleep thought to be death. However the Seven Dwarfs couldn't bear to hide her beauty and bury her. A prince then found her, and depending on the version of the story, a piece of the poison apple became dislodged during transit of her body, or it was the kiss of the prince that brought her back to life. So the "Snow White" Music Box goes in the middle slot.

Lastly, the princess who spoke no words was certainly the Little Mermaid. A mermaid princess named Ariel, half woman and half fish, saved a prince from drowning and began to fall for him. A sea witch named Ursula offered her human legs in exchange for her voice, which she accepted in the name of love, and thus never spoke. Therefore the "Little Mermaid" Music Box belongs in the right slot.

This leaves you with the following solution:

Cinderella Snow White Little Mermaid
Hard/Extra

This time the inscriptions delve a little deeper into each fairy tale. They read as follows:

Twas shameful greed did stain
her shoe with blood.

Even so, I still want to believe
that she was happy.

Beauty - Both a blessing
and a curse thou be.

Let's look at the first one. The word "shoe" sort of gives it away here, but the part about blood may understandably raise an eyebrow. There are apparently over 3,000 versions of Cinderella and some are certainly more PG than others, but this one draws from earlier versions of the fairy tale which are much darker than the pop culture versions.

In all versions, Cinderella ultimately goes to the ball, dances with the prince, runs off when midnight strikes and loses her shoe. The prince then sets out to find out whose shoe it was, or rather who was the beautiful young lady he danced with, by getting all the young women he could find to try it on. This brings him to the house of Cinderella and her two step sisters.

In the children's story, the first step sister's foot is much too long and the other's much too wide, leading to Cinderella trying it on with a perfect fit. Earlier versions of the fairy tale however, take a darker turn through this part of the story. The stepmother, desperate for one of her daughters to marry the prince, hacks off the first step sister's big toe for the slipper to fit. It does and she leaves with the prince, but some birds cry out that there's blood in the shoe, which is also too small, and that the right bride is still at home.

Next, the stepmother hacks off the heel of the second step sister and the slipper fits her, but the birds warn the prince again. Upon returning to the home, Cinderella finally tries on the shoe and it fits perfectly without any gruesome modifications, since it's hers after all. As for how this applies to this riddle, it was indeed shameful the stepmother's greed for the prince's riches did stain Cinderella's shoe with blood. With that, the "Cinderella" Music Box belongs in the left slot.

The second inscription is very vague, but upon deeper examination it describes the Little Mermaid. Ariel had the finest, most beautiful voice of all mermaids and humans. She saved a prince from drowning and began to fall for him. A sea witch offered her human legs in exchange for her voice so that she could be a human and have the prince return her love. Ariel accepted her offer and thus became a mute. She did end up living happily ever after with the prince but at the cost of losing her beautiful voice. Even though she's now a mute, I still want to believe that Ariel was happy. Therefore the "Little Mermaid" Music Box sits in the middle slot.

The last sentence refers to Snow White and how beautiful she was. The Queen, Snow White's stepmother, was so obsessed with her beauty and would always ask her mirror who was "the fairest of them all", to which the mirror would always reply that it was her. But as Snow White grew older and more beautiful, the mirror eventually told the Queen that it was in fact Snow White who was the fairest. And the mirror could not lie.

Upon this, the Queen ordered a huntsman to kill Snow White, but he could not bear to kill such a beauty and agreed to let her run off into the forest, where she'd find her new home with the Seven Dwarfs. Still hearing her mirror reveal Snow White as the fairest and thus still alive, the Queen tracked her down and managed to feed her a poisoned apple. Snow White eats the apple and falls into a deep sleep. Assuming she is dead but unable to bury her and her beauty, the Seven Dwarfs place her in a glass casket.

Soon a prince stumbles upon her and agrees to take the princess to her proper resting place. On the way while transporting her body, a prince's servant trips and this dislodges a piece of the poisoned apple inside Snow White, and thus she returns to life. In other versions this is more romanticized and it is the prince's kiss that brings her back to life, but either way the result is the same. The story goes on but that is the essential resolution and gives us the full context for this riddle. Beauty was both a blessing, as Snow White was so beautiful to everyone around her, and a curse in that the Queen attempted to kill her. This puts the "Snow White" Music Box in the right slot.

This leaves you with the following solution:

Cinderella Little Mermaid Snow White

With the three music boxes in the correct locations, make the large music box play and it will do so in the correct tune, offering up a catchy little composition. The music box turntable will begin turning and then stop to reveal the other three music boxes that were inside it, along with a key on the middle box. If the music is still out of tune, you have the boxes in the wrong slots, so take them out and try again.

by Andrew Haffenden aka Conquerer (Silent Hill 2 Puzzle Guide)