As the Angel of Love in this game is represented by a horse-chimera, there was a lot of care put into using horses to symbolize love & relationships. There's the obvious theme of Dream Eater plastering his realm with paintings, statues, and artifacts about Chamuel and other random places like the crypt using his visage too, but I'm mostly gonna talk about something a bit more abstract.
Sorry We're Closed uses hearts as its primary symbolism for love; but it also uses a less mainstream visual motif to show us how it matters to the characters. Horse. :)
To start with, each episode of Dying Petals starts out with a shot of a horse painting, before zooming out to bring in the characters.
Shots of the characters talking will usually be accompanied by one or two paintings. This is where we first see horses associated with relationships.
[There are TWO SEPERATE paintings behind them, yknow, just in case you don't notice the first.]
You might know that the story represents Michelle's love life, (quite literally as Epiphany is played by her actual ex; the story mimics their conflict and break up) but this room also becomes the place where Michelle solidifies her destiny, whether she chooses new love, her ex, or something else.
Also, notice how the painting behind Canary is much bigger than the one behind Epiphany. This is still true when accounting for perspective.
Although the biggest (and brightest) horse painting is off-screen.
You can see it behind Chamuel on the final day, next to his door that allows you to choose love.
The Carousel.
In the scene where we watch the duchess execute a woman for lying about her 'love' for the Duchess to save her life, there is a carousel-style horse in the background.
This is, I believe, the first time we see this horse carousel, and it appears with a bleeding heart. An empty spot where there used to be something. Love is not here.
The Duchesses room.
On the outside, you see paintings of Dream Eater and Chamuel.
I used to think a lot of the paintings around the game were random - like maybe they were just filler. There's a lot of repetition of the same images over and over again, but I've come to understand it is its own visual language.
The Duchess seems to place a big focus on these two around the hotel - who are "quite infamous" in the supernatural community. There's the obvious connection to taboo love here, but I think it's also an example of a demon being able to resist the change of love. Which might explain the hierarchy here of Dream Eater being on the top/larger. More value is placed on Dream Eater, who holds onto the past.
[Spoilers for inside the Duchesses room]
Straight off the bat, you start to notice a trend in this room. This is where I started picking up on the meanings behind certain pieces and noticing the emphasis on horses throughout the game, especially in regards to the Duchess. It might feel like maybe they just like horses - having a picture book with horses or framed paintings all over their room seems like more of an interest, but it continues to entwine them in the language of love.
Also - I won't go into this too deeply but the repetitive paintings of the Duchess, especially the close ups of their eye/features, is a parallel to the fractured, disjointed images of Chamuels face that represent his 'mortalisation' and get more and more frequent (and also, violent) the further he gets into his struggle with love. It implies to me that the Duchess has already begun this process, or at least reflects how they've been fractured by love as well.
Ironically, the picture of the lead singer of Michelle's favourite band, who they brought to the hotel to make her feel more at home is right next to it. It's not mentioned if the Duchess was already a fan, or if they checked it out because of Michelle/how much they love her outfit (fish fight shirt included!) :)
Here we see the horse with the bleeding heart again.
Over their clean, neat bed which is kind of a mix between elegant hotel opulence and rusty torture chamber imagery (the case on the left side of the bed..... if you know you know). Their room itself is a beautiful illusion that seeks to cover up for their one weakness, but it still shows through.
You also find some assorted Duchess-themed artifacts.
Notably, the missing heart fragment. T.A.D says this is "said to be what remains of the Duchesses heart after the incident."
(There's also the presence of Dying Petals in the Duchesses room, but that's a topic for another post.)
I also find it interesting that they has these on their shelf. A visual reference to Dream Eater fighting himself, maybe?
[Also, Bonus A La Mode games reference. Or, the Duchesses version of the warriors that I've just now realised is a reference to the devs logo]
Hotel Ascent is when things start to get more... surreal.
There's a repeated trial throughout this area where, to pass to the next room, you have to charge your heartbreaker before shooting the heart of the horse statue. The first instance of this is also accompanied by a literal anatomical heart you have to shoot to charge it up.
Usually, it's aggressively defended by giant roller-spikes and/or enemy hordes. The Duchess doesn't want you to break past their barriers and into their heart, that's for sure.
This is the opening scene for the final boss fight.
The statues stay in the background for the whole fight. Notice how these ones no longer have arrows jutting from their chests.
(We also see these weird abstract horses from the start of hotel ascent again - even they have a true form which can only be seen with the third eye.)
Other uses in the game.
I think Dream Eater's Palace would take up wayy too much, so I'll skip it. It's already something that is canonically brought to attention in-game so Iif you've played it of course you'll already know how obsessed this guy is with, uh, horses, and what that says about him. :)
There is also a picture of Dream Eater (a.k.a "a forlorn being") in the church where Benedict and Robyn (the OTHER angel/demon relationship) spend most of their time together. You can imagine it's not on the side Beloved chooses to hang around haha.
Oakley doesn't have anything in his diner as far as I know, but Darrel does have two paintings of the earlier picture of Duchess riding a horse in his bar.
He has other Duchess paintings also, likely because they're his boss, but this feels very in-place in the bar for a reason.
It does mean that all three relationships in the game have some connection to Dream Eater/Chamuel imagery. Some of it may be coincidence, but I thought I'd mention this anyway as it solidifies the connection to love.
Okay fine I'll talk about the crypt.
The examples/relationships I've used here are romantic in nature, but it's worth noting there are excessive amount of Chamuel statues in the crypt as well. A crypt that belonged to a broken family, that has mostly covered up it's traces of said family after Gabriella took revenge on her parents. Traces of angels are systematically replaced with demonic imagery, as though Gabriella was insulted by the appearance of love being featured so heavily throughout her families tomb. You might see love in the past (using your third eye), but it's disappeared/fractured.
So what's up with the horses?
I already kind of mentioned this at the start, but in this fictional world the concept of love and horses are pretty much inherently linked through Chamuel, so I appreciate how they leaned into this by making it sort of a cultural concept of love.
Horses can be seen as a symbol of love historically, but generally the cultural zeitgeist uses something a bit more fragile and delicate, like doves or rabbits.
It reminds me of Disco Elysium, where love is understood through the lungs rather than the heart due to it's association with Dolores Dei; a pseudo-religious symbol who was just a deified historical figure. Changing what love 'looks' like in a way that serves the story. It shows how well-intergrated Dream Eater and Chamuel are in the world-building and story. They represent the fear of change, and the consequent leap of faith you need to embrace that change. Something the Duchess needs.
Why not use horses? It still feels childlike and nostalgic. They're strong, lively creatures who still exist as prey animals to be hunted - the Duchess doesn't want to be hunted. They want to hunt.
And, life didn't really go that way for them.
By the way I lied earlier, not every episode of Dying Petals has a horse painting. In the Duchess route, during the final episode when Epiphany and Canary break up, they are cramped into the only corner of the room that doesn't have horses. I guess Michelle really did move on from Leslie. :)
