I am a bit confused.
What was the significance of Ray calling Isabella ‘Mother’ before her death? And
Why did Isabella only tell Ray she was sorry and to take care of others and not the thoughts actually raging in her head? Wasn’t that entire thought process, and wanting to ‘mend’ things with Ray one of the primary factors among everything else for her rebellion?
(On that note I am pretty sure Isabella only started reflecting during her confinement thanks to the shock to her system that her children’s escape and the subsequent hope at the impossible being accomplished gave her)
[Related posts here and here]
The Grace Field orphans referring to/addressing Isabella as Mama instead of Mother (ママ vs 母 / お母さん, Haha / Oka-san) is a distinction in the original Japanese text that's lost in the English translation.
In the first panel of the series, Emma says this:
(Chapter 1)
Right off the bat, Shirai means to introduce a degree of separation that, while not automatically nullifying or lessening a sense of familial love, acknowledges a fact that Isabella never hides from the children—that she isn't their biological mother—for the reader to take in.
Even on her deathbed, they refer to her as ママ.
(Chapter 177)
Everyone except Ray, who starts off using ママ before switching to 母さん.
I've talked a lot about this topic over the years (see my tag for Isabella and Ray's relationship here), but one of the most tragic things about their relationship is that their biological connection caused Isabella to hold a profound, unique ire for Ray that she didn't have for any of her other charges.
I continue to debate how much of her maintaining her deal with Ray was strictly for pragmatic reasons and how much was due to wanting to keep him close out of some painfully complicated mess of emotions that was constantly oscillating between a tainted affection and spiteful hatred. Any time she would find herself falling into the former, forgetting the circumstances of their relationship, him being the living, breathing reminder of one of the worst things HQ forced her to endure would resurface and how they chose to put him in her plant as if to silently mock her and unknowingly rub in how pitiful the life of a Mom would always be under this system. To openly love him would be one step further in giving in than she’d already done by accepting the Mom position and loving all the other cattle children she raised for slaughter, and she hated to give that much more of herself than she already had when she wasn’t aware of his origins. - from this post
"I couldn't dote on you. For twelve years, I made you live a life you wanted to curse."
This is something I originally saw brought up by @just-like-playing-tag that always leaves a bad taste in my mouth for AUs where she and Ray easily mend things and start acting comically chummy with one another:
Least favorite thing about [Isabella]: Eh it has to be how she treated Ray. Now, hear me out: You know there's this kid who knows that him and his siblings are being raised in a farm. He knows none of them will survive their 12th birthday. He has to see the siblings he obviously loved (because that's what kids do, they love their siblings, no matter how much Ray tried not to get attached) being shipped once every two months. He had to go through all of this, while acting like everything was fine. And you think "oh yeah why don't we treat him like a fucking animal that's obviously the right thing to do." Just. Girl what's your problem??????? His life was a nightmare, why did you had to make it even worse??????? She called him "dog." She made him hate himself more then the already did. She made it so that he'd never forget that his biological mother hated him. Really,,,, why. Why didn't that boy deserved the "happy life" you promised to give every child you raised. Why did you chose to fuck him up more that he already was. Even worse, the thing is,,,, I know the reason she did it. It's because she knew Ray was her son, and she didn’t want to get attached in any way. It's because him himself was born out of the system that had tortured her in every way. Because that too was probably the manifestation of a deep self loathing for all she had done and she kept doing. But still- woman, you're an adult. And he was a freaking five years old. All you had to do is not to add more trauma.
So when she says she "couldn't" bring herself to dote on him, it's not that she was holding back special treatment of him because of the farm's rules or something similar. It's that for so long she couldn't bring herself to let go of this disdain she held for him and how that seeped into so many of their interactions after that revelation of their relationship, in ways that were imperceptible to all the other children around him, but Ray knew. He always knew.
(always a riddle inside my head (aesop's kin) by evanescent)
I come back to this moment from S1 episode 10 where she smiles to herself at Ray in the throes of despair after Norman's shipment.
There's no one else around to constitute this being part of a front. This is her silently reveling in thwarting the schemes of children she’s taken care of for years for daring to think they could upset the status quo, taking petty delight in the challenge and the break it offers from the monotony of her existence in her role while also harboring jealously for the hope they hold that she lost so long ago, and finding catharsis in snuffing it out.
But she also recognizes how ugly this is, even if only unconsciously or without ever putting a name to it, which is why she holds a level of detachment in her observations of Ray in the second light novel.
(TPN Light Novel 2: Moms’ Song of Remembrance - “The Starry Sky and Leslie’s List” Chapter 9)
Claiming to hold no particular maternal feelings toward him, always trying her best to refrain from falling into outright loathing, being unable to bring herself to dote on him for all he represented, yet still noting and appreciating the unconditional love Norman and Emma were able to provide Ray and the solace he found in their presence. A tempest of emotions that, as you note, she was only able to fully sort out once she had the distance of both space and time at Grace Field headquarters.
For his part, Ray tries to maintain aloofness and distance in their relationship as well. The bonus sketch of Isabella hugging each member of the full score trio is incredibly telling with him refraining from hugging her back.
re: Ray, I see it as him being either so desperate for affection he goes to her while utterly loathing himself for giving into that moment of weakness (I will forever love the anime for including him humming her lullaby on the night of the fire for what one can interpret from it), or she manipulated him into doing it while they were in front of the other children to remind him of the power she holds in this intricate and delicate hell they’re living in, making him suffer another small defeat in a line of many. ["That’s something he will never have. Ray probably thinks that she is giving him all this because of his academic prowess."] The wondering whether this is something he treats as a flat matter of fact or if it’s something he laments and forces himself to believe, because imagining Isabella being able to love him while choosing to interact with him the way she does—putting on a loving show in public while taking her mask off behind closed doors and maintaining the clinical air of a business transaction—is simultaneously a waste of energy and too painful. - from this post
It's part of why his initial presentation of his meeting with Isabella at the wall to Norman is framed like this in chapter 14:
And like this in chapter 28:
When the reality is some mixture of what's presented to us in chapter 37 and chapter 181.1:
Here he appears much more emotional and vulnerable. Any sign of weakness could be used against him, and that's not something he can afford in securing Emma and Norman's future. Yet there's still a small part of him that clings to the hope that Isabella will immediately drop everything to be on their side, the side of all the children in general, and that she won't kill him. Not any of the other children anymore, him specifically now that she's aware of their biological connection after the five years they spent together at Grace Field, because that has to mean something, right?
And we see the pure devastation in his eyes when he realizes she won't.
Even as he does everything he can to steel his resolve and build his mental fortitude over the years, even when he knows logically nothing good can come from longing for a relationship with her that can never be, that small hope remains in his heart that maybe, deep down, she didn’t truly resent him. That maybe, deep down, she could genuinely love him.
And that’s why he has so much trouble finishing his sentence of “to you, I’m…” in S1 episode 8 despite feigning nonchalance when referring to himself as a dog in chapter 13/S1 episode 5.
(As a side note, post-escape I don't think this gnaws at him as much since he's out of the oppressive environment of Grace Field and Isabella's immediate presence, which gives him the time and space to also sort through his feelings and heal through being present for his family, though in this post I've talked about how I don't think they would ever be able to fully shed the past in an AU where she survived.)
All of this contributes to their last conversation in chapter 177.
Why did Isabella only tell Ray she was sorry and to take care of others and not the thoughts actually raging in her head? Wasn’t that entire thought process and wanting to ‘mend’ things with Ray one of the primary factors among everything else for her rebellion?
Her internal monologue in chapter 177 makes it clear she only has so much strength to act as the life leaves her body (which lends itself to Shirai wanting to wrap the series up as quickly as possible at this point).
In the blitz her mind is going through as it rapidly fades, she's addressing the points her heart believes are most important. This includes apologizing to Ray for the way she uniquely wronged him.
(@1000sunnygo's tweets on Ray's use of 母さん throughout the series)
Every instance Ray refers to Isabella as "Mother" is an emotionally charged acknowledgement of their connection and what it's supposed to mean under normal circumstances, be it more obvious such as in the flashbacks during their meeting at the wall or subtly as in the note he used as bait for Krone in chapter 22/S1 episode 7 (I have a separate post on that here).
For the final one, Isabella reaches out to gently cradle his face, and Ray in turn grasps her hand as he cries out at the impending reality that he's forever losing the chance to reconcile crashes over him, willingly accepting and clinging to the ties that brought him so much grief, even if it's an acknowledgement only privately shared between them among those present.
For his part, he mourns the loss of what could have been. How, in another life, they could have had a normal, loving mother-son relationship. Something that as much as he might try to deny after everything with how foolish it could sound, was something he wished for deep in his heart. How now any opportunity at mending their actual relationship, of her making a long-term, concerted effort to repair it was gone. How he was left to pick up the pieces. - from this post
I think there's also a selfish reading one can pull from her final words to Ray, though it's unintentional on her part given where one's mind must be when they're on the precipice of death. At this point, it's safe to say she's genuinely remorseful when she states she wishes she had time to atone for everything she's done, and asking Ray to take care of everyone in her stead given what we've seen of him truly beginning to thrive in life when he opens himself up to his family's love and has others relying on him does pair well with those maternal well wishes for the children's future. Yet knowing everything he went through and how little regard he held for his own life for so many years because he was also filled with self-loathing over his actions, her last request being to take care of everyone else without also advocating for him to take care of himself feels somewhat off, especially in light of how it was stressed by Emma and the other escapees in chapter 38.
It's a small choice of wording, and again she's not thinking the clearest when she's so close to death and so overwhelmed with wanting to convey her final sentiments toward them, but that's a lot to place on the shoulders of a thirteen year old, especially when he's not afforded the chance to truly have an honest conversation with her to express all his feelings over the years to her, and he's left to mourn that lost opportunity and all the "what ifs." - from this post
Yet again she dictates how their relationship will proceed, how this final exchange will play out, and upon reflection of it I think Ray would feel a torrent of emotions similar to what banana_slug_army presents in chapter 4 of her fanfic Sunshine and Solace.
Hatred, bitterness, emptiness. Despite knowing there wasn't much else she could do under the circumstances of her death and learning of everything she worked toward during those two years since he last saw her, it doesn't cancel out the mental scars she left on him over a lifetime, the memories and fear etched into his being that shaped who he was without completely defining him that he could never shed, his blessing and his curse. Their relationship would forever be tainted, and complete reconciliation would be impossible.
But in the immediacy of that moment, in the face of the inevitable and the weight of finality, he desperately wanted to try, and that's what makes him addressing her as "Mother" significant.