But this flies straight out the window when Vergil craps all over his mother's memory by undoing her and Sparda seal in 3. This basically would cause people to experince the same loss he endured (if he even cared to begin with). Vergil is best when he's not played to be a sympathetic/tragic figure as that's what we have Dante (or at least as much wasn't retconned out by three) and more so played off as whiny entitled bratty brother that believed he was superior to everyone due to his heritage because of said heritage thought himself worthy of his father power. Knowing full well that Sparda and Eva would heavily disapprove of his actions.
Pretty much this. 5 failed by playing too heavily into "sympathetic fandom interpretation" that absolved Vergil of his transgressions by pinning it on how he wanted to feel protected and thought Dante was the favored son, at which point they have to retcon something that was explicitly stated and reiterated in various media ( Dante's "My mother risked her life to save me" line in 1, Mundus's "The true enemy was you, Eva!" spiel in Viewtiful Joe, Dante's flashback in 3's manga of Eva warning him to hide as she draws the demons' attentions from his hiding place by setting herself as a distraction) to entertain Vergil's entitlement issues by saying "Actually, she died looking for
you, so she loved you after all!" It's like when Loki ranted at Thor about being in his shadow and being "cast off into the abyss" in 2012 Avengers when he deliberately let go just because he heard the word "No". sometimes, entitled whiner genocidal maniacs are exactly that and their delusions can't be entertained. Imagined slights, indeed.
For a guy that wanted to be protected by his mother, he sure didn't care when he hired a man that murdered his own wife and orphaned their daughter, and then expected that man to murder the daughter too, huh?
And for that matter, Dante should have cared much more about what Vergil was doing precisely because of the memory of his mother if not the father on whose name he swore he'd kill Mundus. Regardless about how he felt about Sparda, Eva still died to demons, and whoever ordered that attack was still out there, and both twins should have had that informing their actions instead of some bizarre fujoshi-bait tunnel vision where they're each the only thing that matters to the other at the exclusion of everyone else.