there's a lot of "ideal/dreams" vs "reality" going on in umineko which is of course, fitting with the whole fantasy vs mystery thing. but it's like battler/beato being the ideal writer/reader relationship contrasted with the goats, or will vs erika as readers of a story

but the one i want to focus on is the idea of children, specifically with the mom's relationships with their kids, because the "hopes" or "ideals" the mothers have for their children and their families are such an essential part of their expected societal roles

like for natsuhi, she dreamed of her child as someone to love and also a way to validate her place in the family and "belong". in reality, she gets jessica who she doesn't get along with and in present day, is still alienated from her household and is an incredibly lonely person

or how eva's dreams for george is to be an upstanding man who would give her access to the successorship, and then george resents her for it, doesn't care that much about the headship, and is willing to anger his family and distance himself from them by marrying shannon

and then rosa....oh man rosa. she wanted to have a perfect family life with the support of the man she loved and then she becomes a single mother with a special needs child and does NOT deal well with the responsibility, pressure, work, or emotional labor that requires from her

and the thing is that their fantasies and dreams of how their families would turn out and how their relationships with the children would be are very much something they were expected to think about and consider seriously their whole lives as women and eventual wives

there's several discussions throughout the series about how women are "dreamers" and like to fantasize a lot about things like romance, children, and the future. meanwhile men aren't interested in that girly stuff or whatever

and...well it makes sense because society keeps telling them that they're only important for their future relationships with their husbands and children, which is pretty much encouraging them to cultivate these ideal fantasies and imagining themselves there!!

BRINGING THIS BACK TO YASU - yasu, in the end, figured that reality would always disappoint her after living an entire life of being encouraged to fantasize as a woman and also using it to cope, and decided she'd rather just...forever preserve the state of being an ideal dreamer

yasu thought she needed to die to achieve her dream, but ange's lesson she has to learn in ep8 is that keeping her personal dream alive, of being with her family, will come only through continuing to live and carrying them in her heart and not through suicide