how would you interpret Maria hugging hunter in her visceral? i always thought of it as some sort of mockery from her
Sort of, but in the way that her whole fight is sort of a "mockery" of the concept of a dashing Heroic romance (In the Shakespearean sense of the term). Let me explain.
First, we have to understand Maria's character design in that she is of the bifauxnen archetype. The bifauxnen is a handsome, gentleman-ly type woman portraying all the traits we associate with a dashing hero: courageous, refined and sometimes aristocratic, and androgynous. She is the counterpart to the bishonen, the contrast to the more coarse Lad-ette. The most famous of this archetype of course is Lady Oscar from Rose of Versailles. She is essentially a Female Prince.
The Lady Maria reflects this design. Out of all the Hunters and Byrgenwerth crew, she is the one dressed to the Nines, wearing dashing Cainhurst fashion to something that is essentially nasty and wet and all the other things (the Hunt). She's wearing jewelry (the Lumenflower brooch) the cravat, the fact she curls her hair, the aristocratic looks and backstory (the fact that she's the Lady Maria, a Knight of Cainhurst Vileblood royalty), the fact that she was the one taking care of the Research patients and they worship her, etc. Her outfit fits along the lines of the Lady Oscars, Alucards, and so forth. The fact that she is the only one to realize the atrocity of her actions, to regret her actions and reject her calling as a Hunter, is so fucking introspective at the cost of noticing Gehrman's mania for example reads very much in line of a Romantic hero. She is presenting a Look and this Look says she is meant to come off as rich, handsome, and heroic as she's slaying monsters. At least, those are the visual cues the player is meant to read in that sense. And that is carried over into her actions.
Lady Maria fights the Hunter to "liberate [them] from [their] wild curiosity" - she is taking the role again, of the hero. The villain here, being that need for Insight and she is saving the Hunter from the call of blood. She then engages you a fight, a dance really, set to waltz - again, playing with those romantic hero tropes (assuming you don't parry her to death). The visceral attack therefore, plays into that fantasy. She treats you so gently cause of course you are the Victim enslaved by your thirst for knowledge, she is the romantic hero, mercy killing you with the sweet kiss of death. She steadies you as your now heartless body bleeds out onto the floorboards of the clocktower.
But like everything in Bloodborne, there is a catch you see. Cause the Lady Maria is not a hero in fact; she is a bloody coward.
Yes, Maria is the only member of the Byrgenwerth crew (and amongst the few Hunter in general) to make a dry stop + u-turn from the Hunt and the atrocities associated with that. But unlike someone like Djura, who at least is trying to be productive in his redemption, Maria runs from her mistakes. She casts Rakuyo into the Well and leaves. She joins the Research Hall and contributes to more atrocities there, but hey at least all the patients there love her right?? (😬) And when her brooding (or maybe insanity? who says she was immune to the Beast plague? Or Kos infecting her brain??) was too much for her, she takes her own life instead of you know, working to dismantle the systems - both the Research Hall and the Hunt itself. Her issues and her guilt - that is more important to her than actually helping or saving people. She the Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower, Lord over nothing else but the reminder of her greatest failure. Both in life and in death.
Cause you see, her stopping the Hunter isn't really about saving them from their wild curiosity. The Fishing Hamlet is dead and gone. The effects are echoing throughout all of Yharnam in this day and age. Heck, the Hunter just came in from the Research Hall itself. It is well and truly Known, to prevent future atrocities of that scale, one has to know the events that led to those atrocities in the First Place. Lady Maria isn't helping you, isn't saving you from anything you already knew to begin with. She is, once again, trying to alleviate her own guilt and shame and trying to prevent others of knowing of that shame. So she tries to kill you. But you know, in a Heroic way. Hence why the whole fight is a sham and mockery.
She also hates your guts. I consider this to be tertiary canon at best, but the deleted lines has it so that she calls you insufferable, and baits you to kill her. She Does Not Actually Give a Shit About You. It cannot be more blatant than that. And how couldn't she? You make her recall her greatest shame, force her to break the last of her principles (no Vilebloodbending) so that your ass does not learn of what she's done. You also keep coming back, so you're a constant reminder that no matter what she does, her actions really do mean nothing, not before, and definitely not now.
Also she stares at you like this the whole fight if looks could kill well, you would be dead and not coming back (The way you ought to. Bastard. Stay dead already!! - Lady Maria, probably):
So yeah, she is mocking you with a oh so sweet kiss from the Handsome Hero type as she rips your heart out (breaking it) and kills you very dead. Cause fuck the Hunter specifically.
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So, my mom does this thing where she orders groceries online to be delivered because she has a chronic illness and can't walk for too long. So, just now, I heard a car door shut outside, I saw my dogs ears perk up, and his head turned to the door, and I already knew they'd be arriving about this time. So I went and opened the door as she was knocking on it
Y'ALL I PULLED A RANGER
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