This review contains spoilers
the main thing this episode reminded me of is the mountain goats song "love love love" and specifically this quote from john darnielle on its meaning:
"The point of the song is, you know, that we are fairly well damaged by the legacy of the Romantic poets–that we think of love as this, you know, thing that is accompanied by strings and it’s a force for good, and if something bad happens then that’s not love. And the therapeutic tradition that I come from–I used to work in therapy–you know, also says that it’s not love if it feels bad. I don’t know so much about that. I don’t know that the Greeks weren’t right. I think they were–that love can eat a path through everything–that it will destroy a lot of things on the way to its own objective, which is just its expression of itself, you know. I mean, my stepfather loved his family, right? Now he mistreated us terribly quite often, but he loved us. And, you know, well, that to me is something worth commenting on in the hopes of undoing a lot of what I perceive as terrible damage in the way people talk about this–love is this benign, comfortable force. It’s not that. It’s wild, you know?"
having finished umineko it'd obviously be a stretch to say that ryukishi is this cynical. even within this episode the character who says a similar sentiment is the hateable erika. but i think this episode (and ryukishi's work as a whole) shows that love is not INHERENTLY good, or at the very least that an individualistic love isn't. the primary failure of the characters in umineko and higurashi is their inability to understand the other, and it's only through understanding and connection that they can save themselves from tragedy. i think this episode follows on from higurashi chapter 3 in suggesting the consequences of love when it comes from someone who does not understand the other. umineko's large cast is used to great effect to show different varieties of these consequences. battler's neglectful response to the chick beatrice emerges out of his love for the past beatrice - a love that consumes him so much that he fails to recognise and respect the chick beatrice as an other. when george kills the eva piece it's out of a belief that his love matters more than anything. kyrie's monologue sees rudolf as someone to be claimed rather than someone human, and it seems that rudolf treats women in the same way. this possessiveness turns love into a self-imposed prison. rosa is trying to reunite maria with her father, but as we saw in episode 4 she also neglected her while trying to do that. i like this moment because it's not used as a handwave to justify rosa's abuse, it's just another moment of someone doing something out of love, or at least what rosa thinks is love. but when your act of love leads to you neglecting your daughter does it mean anything? and finally the love trial as a whole is driven by the lovers' failure to understand sayo and sayo's inability to understand herself. neither george nor jessica can see sayo as a whole, no matter how much they love the part they see. and for sayo the fear of not being loved as a whole is too much. the love trial is so cruel because there's no real winning result. can you truly be loved when you have to kill a part of yourself to feel accepted? can you truly love when you don't understand who you love?
"The point of the song is, you know, that we are fairly well damaged by the legacy of the Romantic poets–that we think of love as this, you know, thing that is accompanied by strings and it’s a force for good, and if something bad happens then that’s not love. And the therapeutic tradition that I come from–I used to work in therapy–you know, also says that it’s not love if it feels bad. I don’t know so much about that. I don’t know that the Greeks weren’t right. I think they were–that love can eat a path through everything–that it will destroy a lot of things on the way to its own objective, which is just its expression of itself, you know. I mean, my stepfather loved his family, right? Now he mistreated us terribly quite often, but he loved us. And, you know, well, that to me is something worth commenting on in the hopes of undoing a lot of what I perceive as terrible damage in the way people talk about this–love is this benign, comfortable force. It’s not that. It’s wild, you know?"
having finished umineko it'd obviously be a stretch to say that ryukishi is this cynical. even within this episode the character who says a similar sentiment is the hateable erika. but i think this episode (and ryukishi's work as a whole) shows that love is not INHERENTLY good, or at the very least that an individualistic love isn't. the primary failure of the characters in umineko and higurashi is their inability to understand the other, and it's only through understanding and connection that they can save themselves from tragedy. i think this episode follows on from higurashi chapter 3 in suggesting the consequences of love when it comes from someone who does not understand the other. umineko's large cast is used to great effect to show different varieties of these consequences. battler's neglectful response to the chick beatrice emerges out of his love for the past beatrice - a love that consumes him so much that he fails to recognise and respect the chick beatrice as an other. when george kills the eva piece it's out of a belief that his love matters more than anything. kyrie's monologue sees rudolf as someone to be claimed rather than someone human, and it seems that rudolf treats women in the same way. this possessiveness turns love into a self-imposed prison. rosa is trying to reunite maria with her father, but as we saw in episode 4 she also neglected her while trying to do that. i like this moment because it's not used as a handwave to justify rosa's abuse, it's just another moment of someone doing something out of love, or at least what rosa thinks is love. but when your act of love leads to you neglecting your daughter does it mean anything? and finally the love trial as a whole is driven by the lovers' failure to understand sayo and sayo's inability to understand herself. neither george nor jessica can see sayo as a whole, no matter how much they love the part they see. and for sayo the fear of not being loved as a whole is too much. the love trial is so cruel because there's no real winning result. can you truly be loved when you have to kill a part of yourself to feel accepted? can you truly love when you don't understand who you love?