One of my favorite aspects of VoV is the symbolism and the details that symbolism gives us about Vergil as a character. By now, I think most people are aware of the Blake book V carries around being referred to as "Vergil's heart" but there's a lot more to the scene than just that-- its not only about Vergil humanity, it's about his relationship with Dante too, that is also instrumental in Vergil's return to himself.
The interactions between V and baby Vergil are very interesting to me. Vergil's subconscious is portrayed as his child self, which could honestly be a whole other post on its own because fuck... the implications of that, but I think the fact that it's specifically his child self from the night of the attack is extremely important. Baby Vergil is portrayed as wearing a cloak, which he uses to hide himself, but as we know from the flashbacks, Vergil wasn't wearing a cloak when he was attacked, which led to his clothes being torn off. So I also find it interesting that he manifests a cloak to shield himself in his subconscious. But very notably, Vergil is afraid of V. He's running around, through the flames and hordes of demons, exhausted but continuing to fight because that's the only option he has. He's quite literally stuck in a perpetual state of fight or flight-- slaying the demons with Yamato and running away until eventually he bumps into V, who he then immediately tries to take out with the Yamato because he's afraid of him.
But during this first interactions, Vergil isn't cleaned up and wearing the cloak-- V sees him as he was that night; his clothes torn off, covered in blood, absolutely terrified. And Vergil's eyes are wide and terrified, and he swings on V immediately.
And so V gives Vergil the book but as is plainly stated, it's not just a book, its a representation of everything that was taken from Vergil-- his childhood, his family, and the simple pleasures of life he used to enjoy as a kid. Just seeing the book launches Vergil back into a state of fight-or-flight-- he's back in front of the fire, eyes wide, the demons attack again and he's trying to outrun then.
Baby Vergil start to cry, running away and hiding in the cloak now, but V grabs him and covers his eyes. Because the demons and the fire aren't real. He's not there again physically; he's making himself feel this way by fixating on the past. And the demons disappear when Vergil let's go.
But then we get the moment of truth; V consoles Baby Vergil and tells him what he needed and wanted to hear all along: he doesn't have to be alone anymore, he doesn't have to constantly relive his nightmare in terror, he can make new memories with Dante and be with his brother again. Baby Vergil doesn't fully believe him at first, he remembers his (suicide attempt) fall into Hell & Dante watching & he questions why Dante would care about him. But with some reassurance, Baby Vergil accepts the poetry book and merges back with V, and Vergil returns to himself.
VoV is awesome for so many reasons but I absolutely love the details it gave us regarding Vergil's psyche & his emotional state & his relationship with Dante. Their relationship is layered like an onion-- they're not just twins, they're not just rivals/competitors, there so many little nuances to their relationship, but at the end of the day I think it's clear that for all his bullshit, Vergil does love Dante & cares about him. Vergil's lack of self-esteem & his jealousy of Dante (both in terms of Dante's powers/abilities & feeling like Dante was loved more & wishing desperately that their mom had saved Vergil too) very obviously complicates their relationship, but I think it'll be interesting to see where things go from here for the shit twins. Vergil's not dying now, he's a little more chilled out, he's found out he's got a kid, he has his brother back & they were playing around in Hell together, Dante confirmed that Eva did try to save Vergil too, and he's not alone anymore 'cause he's learned to quit pushing people away. It'll be interesting to see what Vergil's like when he's not self-destructing & self-sabotaging his relationship with Dante.
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