As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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General
- Okay, according to Court Records, the Jurist system is not going to be in this game. Point of order, why?
- Because Phoenix is the one who came up with it, and thus it's inherently biased toward defense attorneys, and that's hardly fair. Or, more seriously, it's probably because it would affect the game's design too dramatically. The games' cases are constructed like mysteries: there's one right answer and one right way to get to it. Having a jury is, from a gameplay perspective, utterly pointless, since everything revolving around the court cases still boils down to "the player must solve the riddle." The developers would have to design the game to deviate from this model, to integrate some means of "persuading" the jury to your case, in order to make it worthwhile. From an in-universe perspective, it might be Hand Waved as a result of the "dark times" descending on the justice system, with the bombing of the courthouse serving as the catalyst for the crackdown.
- Not to mention that it'd likely make the trials too easy, considering how often the cases end up at a point where the real criminal is very obviously guilty, but only is able to possibly get away on technicalities. Any jury of halfway sane people would get to that point and vote the defendant "Not Guilty" in an instant.
- The Perry Mason TV series, the games' Spiritual Predecessor, didn't take place in front of a Jury either.
- Perry Mason typically involved the titular attorney getting this client's charge thrown out during the preliminary hearing (aka, proving that it isn't a strong enough case for a trial-by-jury), which is why that series typically had no jury in it. That's a different reason to why Ace Attorney did it that way (because it was based on the Japanese bench system). Although it's true that this is still a fairly good comparison to make. The reason Perry Mason typically had the "trial" be him trying to throw the case out during the preliminary hearing was so that they could concentrate on Mason's attempts to prove his client innocent by proving the real culprit's guilt, which would not work so well if you included him trying to convince a jury into that. It's the same thing with Ace Attorney.
- In-story, it's because of the people losing their faith in the legal system, causing the Jurist System to be abandoned.
- Actually, it was stated that Phoenix's framing by Kristoph with fake evidence, and Prosecutor Blackquill's conviction of murder eight & seven years previous respectively were what caused people to lose faith and start the "dark age of the law". The Jurist System used in the last case in the previous game was explicitly said to be a test, so it can be inferred that the whole legal system wouldn't be revised in such a short amount of time (yes, even a year). This also gives the implication that the Jurist System was a means to restore the citizens' faith in the courts by including them in the court proceedings.
- There are campaigns to reform the law, which the Jurist System test would be a part of. This game is more about healing the wounds of the past than making any actual action for the future.
- Also, Simon Blackquill and Nahyuta Sadmadhi are both very good at manipulation, and the latter especially likes to stir the gallery up against the defense and their case. Not to mention that whole smear campaign being run against Trucy in 6-2. There are some instances where having a trial decided by objective facts is better than having it potentially be swayed by people’s opinions.
- In Real Life countries that have jury trials, the defendant can waive their right to a jury and have the case tried by the Judge. It is possible that in the cases the 3 have seen, it would be more beneficial for trial by judge than jury.
- Because Phoenix is the one who came up with it, and thus it's inherently biased toward defense attorneys, and that's hardly fair. Or, more seriously, it's probably because it would affect the game's design too dramatically. The games' cases are constructed like mysteries: there's one right answer and one right way to get to it. Having a jury is, from a gameplay perspective, utterly pointless, since everything revolving around the court cases still boils down to "the player must solve the riddle." The developers would have to design the game to deviate from this model, to integrate some means of "persuading" the jury to your case, in order to make it worthwhile. From an in-universe perspective, it might be Hand Waved as a result of the "dark times" descending on the justice system, with the bombing of the courthouse serving as the catalyst for the crackdown.
- So, um, where is Ema Skye?? The last we see of her in AJ is her still being moody about being a detective and randomly chatting about "Golden Snackoos". I'm fine with the creators putting her on a bus, but what was the point in completely rewriting her character if the subsequent game doesn't even acknowledge her existence?
- Simply, Ema would have nothing to do in the plot, and for a very good reason. She's almost certainly going to be in GS6 as the detective, however.
- So you think that there'll be a 6th main game? I hope so to be honest.
- Considering all the plot threads left at the end of Ace Attorney 5, I would be surprised if there WASN'T a 6th main game.
- Motohide Eshiro, the producer, said in an interview that he's pretty sure the series isn't ending anytime soon, and certainly not with Dual Destinies.
- Well, you're right about that. Ema will be a detective in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.
- Fulbright was in charge of Blackquill so it's to be expected that he'd be the lead detective in all cases involving him, Ema is probably working for Klavier and didn't show up for Case 3 because Klavier wasn't the prosecutor in charge for it and was there mostly to catch up with Courte.
- Although the three main lawyers do rely on DNA analysis more often than in previous games to make their cases. Perhaps Ema has retaken her forensics exam and passed?
- Ema is referenced in the DLC case, though not by name. Still a detective.
- Simply, Ema would have nothing to do in the plot, and for a very good reason. She's almost certainly going to be in GS6 as the detective, however.
- So, what happened to Vera Misham? Apollo's reactions to her in the previous game seemed to hint that he was interested in her and she just kinda got forgot about. Also while I am here: Is there a reason they completely ignored the revelations in the last case of the fourth game with Lamiroir?
- Ummm.... not really. Vera's absence, like any client seen after a long period of time (e.g. What happened to Adrian Andrews or Will Powers between games) is not of great importance. You could say, "He's seeing her between cases" or "She's trying to re-enter society & is busy". It's just like Maya, Pearl & Edgeworth in the previous game, just because they aren't in one game isn't a cause for a headscratcher or a clear sign they forgot about them. As for the Lamiroir thing? For all we know, it hasn't been forgotten. Phoenix probably is choosing to wait for a more proper time before revealing what he knows. In any case, it would be incidental information in the story it was trying to tell; perhaps it will be a big plot point in the next game, whenever it comes out.
- Even if Apollo was interested (something I never noticed myself), that doesn't mean she is. Just like with Juniper, as she is interested, he doesn't seem to be (hence Oblivious to Love). That's the thing with romance: to make a relationship, the feelings have to be reciprocated. I always thought he was behaving more like an older brother to all of the girls. As to Lamiroir, as stated directly above me, Phoenix and Lamiroir are waiting for the proper time. I think that's directly stated.
- So Nick occasionally visited Edgeworth in Europe during his time disbarred. My question is, where was Trucy while he was in Europe? Did he bring her with him or did somebody else take care of her? And if it's the latter, who took care of her?
- Phoenix wouldn't leave Trucy behind, but in the event that he needed to, the most convenient choice in a caretaker would be Apollo.
- Phoenix specifically says that an old friend needed help with some cases in Europe, which points to visiting Edgeworth to me—after all, the two of them were working together to revamp the legal system and bring the Dark Age of the Law to an end. As for who took care of Trucy: besides Maya, other possible choices are Adrian, Will Powers, Lana Skye, Iris and Bikini, Gumshoe and Maggey, or my personal favorite, Moe the Clown and the rest of the circus folk. Phoenix has a lot of friends.
- In Spirit of Justice, Edgeworth implies that Trucy has made a habit of stowing away in people’s luggage to stealthily go on trips with Phoenix.
- What brought Athena and Phoenix together initially? Phoenix says he met Athena whilst visiting Europe on legal excursions and the game sort of implies he just liked her zeal and attitude towards justice and invited her to work for his firm. However Athena had always intended to come back and exonerate Simon so did he really bring her back so she could do that? Phoenix himself was working to clear Simon's name but was that related to bringing Athena into his fold? Did he have a deeper understanding of the UR-1 Incident than he lets on in-game and knew if he hoped to save Simon from execution he'd also have to help Athena get past it too?
- I always thought that the person Phoenix was talking to on the phone during the intro movie was Edgeworth, so I assume that he was in as well in regards to Simon.
- Phoenix's thoughts in the final case reveal that he had no knowledge of Athena's connection to UR-1. I do agree that what brought them together is vague. In Turnabout Reclaimed, Athena says she was helped out of a "difficult jam" by Phoenix, and Phoenix says in both Reclaimed and The Monstrous Turnabout that he saw her as lawyer material, especially in regards to her ability.
- I think Edgeworth decided early that clearing Blackquill's name was the key to ending the Dark Age of the Law, so he himself tracked down Athena and then saw to it that she and Phoenix were introduced. He may or may not have told them why — probably just "Here Wright, you'll be interested in this one. She's very promising and she has some interesting abilities."
- In “Turnabout for Tomorrow”, Phoenix is appalled to learn that Simon’s execution is set for the very next day. If he’d been more involved in seeking Simon’s exoneration, you’d think he wouldn’t be so shocked about that. It stands to reason that Edgeworth was the one really pulling all the strings, and that Phoenix was there trying to help him out on the side.
- I always thought that the person Phoenix was talking to on the phone during the intro movie was Edgeworth, so I assume that he was in as well in regards to Simon.
- So why does Phoenix come off like a rookie again? Back in Apollo Justice, he was calm, cool, collected and quite badass in his years of experience and investigation. But now in DD, he's just back to the flustered, unsure, bluffing doofus he was in the first 3 games.
- Besides this being pretty opinionated, the game wouldn't be very Ace Attorney like if you weren't playing as someone who was unsure and bluffing. Not to mention that this is kinda untrue anyway. Phoenix is undoubtedly more noticeably mature, experienced and confident. He objects more frequently without first thinking about it for ages (in the original games, he'd often wonder if he should get involved and object. Here he just knows when to do so), plus a lot of his more immature comments and screw ups are kept to internal thoughts, rather then how he'd often shout them out in the original games. It's noticeable also how his cases rely far less on luck. I don't recall a single point in one of his cases where a sudden interruption or new sporadic fact adds to the trial in any way other than shooting his case in the foot.
- A key part of the original question is “in his years of experience and investigation“. Phoenix was able to remain cool and collected in Apollo Justice because he had everything court-related planned out in advance. In “Turnabout Trump” he already knows who the culprit is and how to mail them; all he needs is for Apollo to prove it for him. And “Turnabout Succession” is the result of seven years spent investigating Kristoph, the Mishams, and Troupe Gramarye and setting up a new system to resolve the intricacies of the case. He has no reason to ever act flustered like he does in this game, dealing with new trials and evidence; you’ll notice when he’s not in court in Dual Destinies, he’s still got a lot of the playful surliness and snark he had in the previous game.
- So... why is it the game is told out of order? Chronologically, the first case is the second one. However, a case from around the middle of the game is the first one the player does. Why is that?
- There's a lot of reasons why the cases are put out of chronological order. Part of the mystery in the courtroom bombing case from the player's perspective, for example, comes from the fact that they don't know what's already happened during the space center incident. Doing that both makes the scenario seem more interesting right off the bat, and also streamlines the case so that the player's mind is focused on the case specific facts. When it comes to Juniper too, the entire twist on her character comes from how she's presented in Turnabout Countdown as a meek forest girl with the hots for Apollo, then you see her in Turnabout Academy as a stern student council president, and you see her slowly begin to unravel into the girl you know from Turnabout Countdown. That's a type of character development that wouldn't work if you experienced the cases in chronological order. There's countless similar reasons too, but the long and short of it is basically that they were being fancy with the storytelling, to give some narrative stuff more of a punch. Although I admit that doesn't explain why they decided to make case 1 take place in the middle of case 4.
- How is the Mood Matrix able to draw new information out of witnesses so easily? Phoenix and Apollo both rely on their abilities in conjunction with evidence that they already have to open up new paths, but Athena only has her own special hearing to go off of. Whenever she says “I sense you felt X when you mentioned this”, why don’t witnesses ever just say “No, you’re wrong, I didn’t feel that at all.” Somehow it even works on Simon Blackquill, who was otherwise prepared to take his secret to the grave without a word, yet he acts like using the Mood Matrix is equatable to a truth serum.
- well, it is a machine, machines don't lie
The Dark Age of the Writers
- In the last case we are told that the dark age of the law began because of two cases; a defense attorney used forged evidence and a prosecutor was convicted of murder. It is repeatedly stated that the characters are correcting this by proving Blackquill's innocence. Except that doesn't change the actions of Manfred Von Karma, Damon Gant, Godot, Calisto Yew, Kristoph Gavin and whatever went down in Edgeworth's second game. Even if Blackquill isn't evil, there was already high profile dirt before the supposed beginning of the dark age.
- Doesn't this take place like 10 years after the first games? It may be that this is a new Dark Age of the Law.
- Straws that broke the camel's back? The fact that most of the above were resolved by a defense attorney who was "proven" to have used forged evidence could be enough to greatly sway people away from trust. In one of the final case's bad endings, Athena & Blackquill are found not guilty but, because Phantom was never apprehended, respect for the law sunk even lower, so it's not just a case of people having little respect in the law, but how they also doubt if lawyers & prosecutors could even do their jobs. It also didn't help that the two who "ushed in the Dark Age of the Law" were a frequently mocked, but largely well knownnote and proven defense attorney, and an up-and-coming prosecutor under the new guard which ostensibly promised change & reform who apparently snapped and killed in cold blood for no reason.
- Going off of that, Godot had only just started out as a prosecutor and it's possible Calisto Yew wasn't well known enough that the reveal of her crimes would dent public opinion. Kristoph, meanwhile, was revealed as a criminal not too long after Phoenix was disbarred, so probably it didn't cause as huge a sensation, since the previous news overshadowed it. Keep in mind that by the time Phoenix was disbarred, he had built up a decent reputation for pulling off wins and only using legitimate means. Him being caught using false evidence suddenly throws every inspirational case he ever won into doubt, and probably extinguished a good bit of faith people had in one of very few lawyers we see dedicated to upholding the law.
- Oh man, that's not even the half of it. I think I have an idea, but first I want to talk about what led to the low opinion of the law in the first place. In about three years, about SEVEN prosecutors (Edgeworth, von Karma, Lana, Godot, Portsman, Blaise, and Blackquill), two defence attorneys (Phoenix and Yew), a police officer (Maggey), and the Chief of Police (Gant) were accused of murder. Six of those eleven people being the actual killers, and a seventh pled Guilty. Not helped by the fact that almost all of the incidents involved primarily people in the legal system; in fact, Godot and Blackquill are the only ones whose cases didn't involve someone in the legal system, and even then, Godot's involved someone who had previously worked with the police and the assistant of the nation's top attorney. Further, two of those prosecutors were the Chief Prosecutor. One of the defence attorneys murdered the prosecutor opposing them and her own client, and one of those prosecutors murdered the defence attorney that was opposing him. One case involved a police officer potentially killing a fellow on the force (Ultimately disproven). That's not including the fact that it's apparently very easy to impersonate members of law enforcement (Furio Tigre) or pretend you're in law (possibly Yew). The police force is repeatedly shown to be careless, too (nearly everything about the third case of the first Investigations game screams this). Phoenix's accusation of forgery probably struck the world hard since he was responsible for getting to the truth of nearly every single case I mentioned above, as well as several other cases involving famous individuals (Redd White and Will Powers, for instance). Which, by extension, probably cast a huge shadow of doubt over every single case making everyone he saved look potentially just as guilty as the person charged with murder. It made him look worse than von Karma, since Phoenix was a bit of a hero.
Then, up-and-coming talent Prosecutor Blackquill admitted to the murder of Metis Cykes, but remember Athena tried to prevent that? Athena spouted what came across as childish nonsense; who's to say Blackquill didn't force her somehow? Think about it if you were a member of the gallery or the prosecutor or the judge: the defendant is claiming he did it, smirking and apparently smug (supposing he was just as visually smug then as he is in the present when confessing), claiming he murdered a little girl's mother right before her eyes, and that same little girl is desperately crying that he didn't do it, that "his heart is screaming he didn't do it" which is just plain ridiculous to you, someone who doesn't understand that this little girl can hear emotions. She's just making excuses, you think, I mean he killed her mother right in front of her. Why would she do that? Wouldn't she want him found guilty? Did he threaten her? How did he threaten her? Then the Fridge Horror sets in to you, the gallery member watching or the prosecutor trying to settle this case, or the judge who has never met either of these people before. Did he threaten to kill her? Something worse? This man is extremely scary looking. He's evil, he killed this woman in front of her daughter out of nothing but a simple desire to kill. No motive. Who knows what else he's capable of? To everyone else, he was probably smug because he thought Athena would be able to get him off and perhaps confess in his place, as weird as that logic is, since why would he confess in the first place? But people tend to think weird logic when children are concerned. - Also consider that the Police themselves aren't exactly exempt of any wrong doing in this age of lack of trust in the court system. A former Chief of Police was shown to be corrupt, and the Police in the AA universe are notorious for mucking up something in their investigations, leading to Phoenix's many cases of trying to prove accused clients innocent. If this many cases were very close to convicting innocents of crimes they didn't commit, how many more people were falsely convicted? Would have doubled as very good development for our detective characters, but alas, they weren't given roles in this game for a valid reason.
- Related to that, Edgeworth planned to clear up the dark age by proving a prosecutor not guilty of murder... by instead finding a defense attorney guilty of murder? How would that restore people's faith in the courts??
- Because Athena wasn't an attorney when the murder happened, whereas Simon was one of the Prosecutor's Office's best & brightest lawyers. Athena would get sympathy because of how Metis apparently "abused" her as a child, and that caused her to snap, whereas Simon seemed to kill her for no reason.
- Two words: Batman Gambit. I sincerely doubt he genuinely thought Athena killed her mother, but explored it as a possibility to keep the trial going and find the truth. He probably knew all along who the real killer was (though had no idea he was pretending to be someone else). Why else would he be beyond positive of Blackquill's innocence? Phoenix's phone conversation with him at the very, very start of the game pretty much say Phoenix and Edgeworth are scheming something, and since Athena was a prominent part of that conversation would indicate she was part of it. The tone of his voice when talking about her is completely different from the rest of his dialogue in that scene, it's much lighter but he never mentions her by name. If you're telling someone about someone else you think they might find interesting, you'd mention their name, indicating Edgeworth already knew about Athena. It's possible Phoenix's tone indicated that he was telling Edgeworth Athena was ready for her assigned role in their little gambit without directly saying it.
- Now we're going into headcanon territory a bit but i don't think that DAOL was because Blackquill was found guilty but because nobody believed he actually was. Let's look at previous cases for a bit shall we? Karma was known for having perfect 40 years winning streak, but very few that it was legit, he was rumored of forging evidence, manipulating testimonies, and all other nasty stuff. When Phoenix shut him up people probably breathed out a huge relief. Then there was Godot who became prosecutor to fulfill his private agenda of taking down Phoenix, so again, no one missed him. Phoenix himself gained a bit of reputation not only for being good, but also for being honest. We know how he lost a Engarde's case, probably the news about this screwup helped his reputation. Then suddenly he's charged with forging evidence, which the prosecutor somehow knows in advance, and has a witness prepared out of nowhere to testify this. Now we don't know what kind of person Simon was before he went to prison, but afterwards, we do see that he's a decent guy. He uses psychological tricks, but nothing more. Now someone like this gets suddenly accused of murdering a woman for no reason that anyone knows and found guilty. That's two decent lawyers, one of which had already a rep of cleaning up the craphole of the legal system, and exposing corrupt prosecution suddenly thrown out of business or arrested on totally bullshit charges. How does it look like for general public? Conspiracy Theorists probably had a field day with this.
- I understand why the Dark Age of the Law began with Phoenix's case, because he was a shining light of hope in the legal world and being suspected of forging evidence casts doubt on all of his wins. But how does it work with Simon? What significance did his career have?
- The existing AA legal system that tends to put heavier duties on the defense is internally dependent on the idea that prosecutors are trustworthy state agents, which is absolutely not the case within the game world, but it wasn't too strikingly obvious. If anything, the tricky part is why didn't something like Manfred von Karma's court incident kickstart the whole deal, and the most probable answer is that Blackquill's murder of Metis, as perceived by the public since it wasn't the real deal of course, was absolutely outrageous and cast shadows on the parts of the state responsible for hiring/licensing/screening prosecutors.
- Also, Blackquill was an unrepentant "murderer." Unlike the others, he didn't even try to cover up or excuse what he'd done. Your run-of-the-mill Amoral Attorney is one thing, but a flagrant criminal in the Prosecutor's Office is just going too far.
- I think there are a few factors involved in what happened:
- First off, the defense attorney responsible for a lot of the corrupt prosecutors, police officers, etc. being arrested had recently been found out to be a liar who used forged evidence. Even if he was framed, the public didn't know that.
- Next, the events of Ace Attorney Investigations 2 likely took place before Simon was arrested, and since the position was made available at the end of that game, this is likely when Edgeworth became the chief prosecutor. Unfortunately, he was not only inheriting a position which had had the past 2 holder arrested for crimes within the past 3 years. Not to mention, the rumors about Edgeworth and his corruption probably were still circling around at least in part. So now, the prosecutors are being led by a man who could very well be just as corrupt as his old teacher.
- Edgeworth didn't become the Chief Prosecutor until one year before the events of Dual Destinies, though...
- There also wasn't a spot open at the end of Investigations 2. Plaise was the head of the Pi C, not the chief prosecutor, he was the ex chief prosecutor who was in power 18 years ago back when Edgeworth was a child, so likely several positions before Lana.
- Finally, look at the circumstances of UR-1. Blackquill was a relatively new prosecutor (being the yearly 'up and coming prodigy'), and he suddenly goes and kills a random woman. Unlike people like Gant or von Karma, he didn't commit murder as a way of covering his corruption- he killed her because he was a sadistic monster, and he may have even made her daughter watch. At least, that was likely the public opinion of what happened. So, now, the possibly-corrupt chief prosecutor has hired a sociopathic murderer and the one who normally would stop such a person has been disbarred for forging evidence to help him at least one trial (and I'm sure a lot of people think he used forgeries in other trials). It's really not that odd that people would basically lose all faith in the criminal justice system of the AA world.
Early Cases and the Demo
Turnabout Countdown by itself
- This is a minor thing that isn't even from the game, but from the initial trailer. How was Athena able to pick up hatred in how Tonate "said" the word "lawyers", when he was "speaking" via a text-to-voice synthesizer?
- Maybe through the way he typed the word "lawyers". He might have smashed the keyboard a little harder than he usually would.
- Why does Ted Tonate feel the need to type ellipses and things such as "AAAAAAAAAAGH!" into his text-to-voice thing? He doesn't know about Athena's ability to sense a person's true feelings, and since he's fairly capable of concealing his own emotions, wouldn't he rather do that in an attempt to cover up his anxiety than type out his inner monologue?
- Other than being simply for comical effect, it's probably just because he's been doing it for so long. He also very obviously has a few screws loose, so being so overdramatic and typing in all of the words and punctuation he's actually thinking wouldn't be out of character for him.
- As is said above, muscle memory is hard to ignore. If he's been using the text-to-voice in replace of speaking for most of his life it'd just become ingrained into him to the point where it's as natural as actually speaking. Just like how most people can't stop verbal impulsive reactions, he presumably is the same way when he's typing. That is, until he becomes so agitated by Phoenix he just abandons it all together.
- In the very first case, why do the guards in the background of the lobby not react whatsoever when Apollo, the defense for the case, collapses onto the ground, blood seeping through his bandages? The same goes to the bailiff when he enters the room right after Athena notes the detail about the blood. He couldn't have been bothered to note Apollo's poor condition and offer to call an ambulance? Are defense attorneys so poorly respected that it doesn't occur to anyone that the bandaged-up defense attorney collapsing onto the ground while bleeding might, just might, be a cause for concern?
- There is nothing to suggest that prior to the first scene in the defense lobby or in the transition to the court that the guards do nothing to help Apollo. And Apollo is still conscious and aware enough to turn down any services (at least until Tonate brains him with a piece of rubble in the bombed court).
- Speaking of the first trial, why was Juniper the prime suspect in the first place? She had no motive (being brought up on false charges in Case 3 doesn't count, since she was also acquitted of said charges), nor does she have any background with explosives, and most importantly, she was in the room that was to be blown up (and could very well have ended up as one of the victims if it weren't for Apollo). If everyone had their head on straight, Ted Tonate should have been suspected right away, since he was one of the few people handling the bomb, the one who reacted to the bomb first, and has plenty of explosives training.
- For starters, Juniper's motive was that she was brought up on false charges, which she was. It doesn't matter if you're acquitted of them, the entire fact it happened and the court drama that occurred due to it doesn't magically disappear in a puff of smoke. And secondly, at the time of the initial investigation, all the things pointing to Tonate were things that were part of his job, and therefore would exist anyway. Has plenty of explosive training? Of course he does, he's a bomb squad member. Handling the bomb? Yes because it was his job to do so. First to react to the bomb? So what, that doesn't mean he planted it just because he was the first to warn people about it. In fact, the opposite logic would make more sense; "He warned people about it, which the bomber themselves wouldn't do". The evidence pointing to Juniper was evidence that wouldn't exist unless she had a hand in the bombing. Which is a much more compelling argument and case then just suspecting a bomb squad member who handled the bomb just because it was their job as a squad member to handled the bomb. And the point about Juniper being in the courtroom at the time...maybe the prosecution thought she planned a suicide bombing?
- Still, I'd think Tonate would at least get suspended, given that if the bomb was in a state where a random high school student with no bomb experience can reactivate it in ten seconds, SOMEONE DIDN'T DISARM IT PROPERLY. Though I guess Detective Arme disarmed it and she was dead, but still...
- For starters, Juniper's motive was that she was brought up on false charges, which she was. It doesn't matter if you're acquitted of them, the entire fact it happened and the court drama that occurred due to it doesn't magically disappear in a puff of smoke. And secondly, at the time of the initial investigation, all the things pointing to Tonate were things that were part of his job, and therefore would exist anyway. Has plenty of explosive training? Of course he does, he's a bomb squad member. Handling the bomb? Yes because it was his job to do so. First to react to the bomb? So what, that doesn't mean he planted it just because he was the first to warn people about it. In fact, the opposite logic would make more sense; "He warned people about it, which the bomber themselves wouldn't do". The evidence pointing to Juniper was evidence that wouldn't exist unless she had a hand in the bombing. Which is a much more compelling argument and case then just suspecting a bomb squad member who handled the bomb just because it was their job as a squad member to handled the bomb. And the point about Juniper being in the courtroom at the time...maybe the prosecution thought she planned a suicide bombing?
- In "Turnabout Countdown", why did Payne not just object to the claim that Juniper had Bum Rap Rhiny with her during the trial? There was no actual evidence showing she did, all they had was her word on it. Plus, even so, the entire issue seems a bit backwards. Were there literally only one Phony Phanty and Bum Rap Rhiny stuffed animal in the entire world? Because from what it seemed like, they were actual merchandise. Not only does it therefore seem a bit ridiculous that the police assumed that the tail in question must have come from the stuffed animal bomb, but it also makes the entire logic seem a bit strange. The fact that Bum Rap Rhiny's tail got mixed up with Phony Phanty's tail is kinda a moot point. The very fact that Juniper had a stuffed animal with her in the first place during the trial, regardless of which one it was, is enough to completely discredit the apparently "damning evidence" against her. Heck, the fact the police didn't even consider the possibility that someone besides the bomber just happened to have one of the two mascots with them as they were watching the trial seems extremely silly.
- To be fair, you wouldn't normally expect someone to bring a stuffed animal with them to criminal trial. Juniper is a forest girl with a frail personality, who's still in high school, so her having a stuffed animal with her doesn't seem too weird, in comparison to everyone else who was in the gallery. As indicated by the opening cutscene, you can tell that everyone else were pretty standard looking adults. The better question here is, why was the security so bad that Juniper was even allowed to bring Bum Rap Rhiny into the trial in the first place? It's a stuffed animal doll with a compartment inside to store things, and they were trying a bombing incident where one of those dolls was used to hide a bomb. It's kind of stupid that she'd be allowed to carry something like that into court with her. It would make sense to say that security performed some sort of spot check on her doll and let her take it in after finding nothing suspicious, but if that's the case, they should've had records, or at the very least an account from security, that Juniper had Bum Rap Rhiny on her at the time of the incident.
- The courthouse probably doesn’t keep records of every last thing that gets checked for security. As for Payne objecting to Juniper’s statement, if she were going to lie about having Bum Rap Rhiny with her, you’d think she would have done so when it was first brought up, no? What’s more, the mere possibility that she had Rhiny with her isn’t enough to clear her name, which is why the trial is postponed until the following day. It just means that the fingerprints on the tail aren’t conclusive enough to convict Juniper on their own.
- This is a very minor point, I admit, but how exactly had Phoenix and Athena not heard about Phony Phanty and Bum Rap Rhiny before? They're both attorneys who are specifically fighting the dark age of the law, and from the fact they've already got merchandise out for them, they must had been around for a while before hand.
- There's a difference between being a lawyer that individually targets some behaviors and being interested in lawyer organizations and their doings that may be officially and/or unofficially targeted at such behaviors. That, plus Athena is a fresh arrival to area around. That, plus Junie is a student, and this sort of stuff can be constrained to schools, or even one of them.
- A MUCH bigger problem with the supposed motive: the prosecution was seriously trying to claim that a high school girl with no severe mental health instability (she clearly has only anxiety disorders, at most) committed a bombing that could've—and would've—slaughtered a room full of innocent people, including her childhood friend, her love interest, and even herself because she couldn't get over her grudge of being falsely charged. And no one thought to bring up how _screwed in the head_ she'd have needed to be to do that? I understand that, from the POV of the prosecution's case she just is assumed to be an evil enough person to do something like that, but it's more how weird it seems that no one seems to notice this issue in the first place. The supposed motive just seems ridiculous. You'd at least expect the need for the prosecution to demonstrate that Juniper is a complete and utter wacko for a motive as petty as that to hold up in the first place. Especially since, like I said, her bombing would have killed her best friend, the guy she's crushing on, and even HERSELF, over charges that she was found not guilty off in the end anyway.
- To be fair, you could argue that Juniper being an insane nutcase was something that's inferred by the very nature of the prosecution's argument, so it doesn't really need to be specifically brought up. It is odd that no one thinks to argue this point though, particularly Athena.
- During Juniper's cross-examination about Apollo's attack, an optional press results in Phoenix asking Juniper if there's anyone she's romantically interested in. Phoenix gets scolded by the judge after admitting it's totally unrelated to the case. But, uh, it isn't unrelated. Juniper has a very obvious crush on Apollo, the guy they're saying she attacked. So obvious that Athena and Phoenix both know comment on it at different points. The defense getting her to bring up that she's in love with the victim should be entirely relevant.
- OK, a couple things: one is that you’re ignoring the context in which Phoenix asks the question. Junie’s testimony is something like “Apollo and I went to the courtroom ruins to look for something,” to which Phoenix responds with simple questions about her interests to calm her down. Lawyers aren’t allowed to press a statement, then go off on an unrelated tangent, then conclude with an argument that has nothing to do with the original statement. That’s what makes it an issue of relevancy. And the other thing is, Junie testifying that she has a crush on Apollo doesn’t make it true, nor does it mean she couldn’t have assaulted him to prevent him from finding evidence against her. Just look at Dahlia Hawthorne.
- Junie testifies that she and Apollo were searching near the witness stand in the bombed courtroom ruins when a bailiff came to take her back to her own trial. At which point Apollo opted to stay behind and keep investigating. Wouldn’t the bailiff be able to corroborate Junie’s story that she didn’t attack Apollo? Because he would’ve seen him lying unconscious if she had. Or did he just tell Junie to come back to testify instead of escorting her?
The Monstrous Turnabout
- So Athena literally knocked a police officer out cold, then her and Apollo decide to not try and see if he's okay and get him medical attention, but rather proceed to have a casual conversation with each other. They then scoot of, leaving a cop who's probably at least moderately injured and unconscious on the ground of a village lane. For starters, why would either of them be that apathetic towards a guy that's clearly been injured by Athena's "reflex reaction"; it's totally inconsistent with how their characters are normally like, but moreover, how in the world did neither of them, especially Athena, get into trouble for it? At the very least, Athena should've been charged with assaulting a police officer. Literally the only excuse I can think of is that the cop conveniently gained immediate memory loss after he woke up and that there also happened to be no other witnesses around.
- Why doesn't Athena explain how the Mood Matrix works to Apollo during the second case? I understand why it is from a Gameplay perspective, but storywise, they had only met that case so she didn't really have an opportunity to explain before the trial.
- Maybe she explained how it worked between the end of the investigation, and the start of the trial? Or it could be a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation, where she does explain it to him, but we skip over it as players because we don't need it.
- In case 5-2, L'Belle says Daiman Tenma opened the Forbidden Chamber. I presented the key. He ate it. Impossible. I get penalized. Explain please.
- Him swallowing the key only made it impossible for anyone else to get in, not himself. All he had to do was regurgitate it, then swallow it again. Granted, it's a little silly to suggest he could do that right there and then, but it's still viably possible.
- During Case 2, when Apollo tries to use his Perceive ability, Blackquill sics Taka on him. While his explanation why this technique should not be used in a court of law is sound, why does he let Athena use her Mood Matrix? Like Apollo's Perceive, the Mood Matrix is not exactly verifiable by an independent expert either.
- Because Athena’s hearing and the Mood Matrix are concepts Simon is familiar with, thanks to him studying under Metis Cykes. It’s possible he’d be more lenient with Apollo if someone were to explain to him, “Hey, listen, Apollo actually comes from a line of stage performers with the skill to perceive their audience’s emotional state by observing body language, and his bracelet is made of a special material that helps him hone and focus his abilities.”
- Early into the first trial day, Apollo tries to have the statue checked for fingerprints in order to prove there was a third party at a crime scene (a third party that killed the alderman and knocked Damian out), but he's told there are no fingerprints because the statue was covered by a piece cloth. However, no one even considers the possibility of checking whether the cloth itself had any fingerprints... even moreso given that L'Belle isn't seen using gloves.
- You can't get fingerprints from a piece of standard cloth. Or, at the very least, it's very unlikely, to the point where you might as well not even bother trying. Remember how in Turnabout Countdown Payne specifies that Phoney Panty's tail is made of "vinyl cloth"? This is because vinyl cloth can hold fingerprints. Standard cloth fabric can't. It's true that forensic fiction in general likes to exaggerate what can and can't be done with fingerprinting, but even within fiction lifting prints from cloth tends to be treated like it's an one-in-a-million miracle, or some sort of wondrous achievement. My favourite example of this is in Persona 4.
Turnabout Academy
- Was replaying case 3 the other day, and this occurred to me. When you talk to Myriam she tells you she has hidden recorders set up all around the school. Athena mentally scolds Myriam that such an act is illegal. Yet a supposed recording from the art room of your defendant threatening the victim is submitted as official evidence in the trial. How is that allowed?
- I know this is allowed Japanese law, at least. Basically if an illegal wiretap or recording shows proof relating to a crime, it's very easy for the police to be successful in stressing that the evidence's effectiveness outweighs the illegality of said evidence. Japanese wiretap laws are infamously open to abuse basically
.
- I know this is allowed Japanese law, at least. Basically if an illegal wiretap or recording shows proof relating to a crime, it's very easy for the police to be successful in stressing that the evidence's effectiveness outweighs the illegality of said evidence. Japanese wiretap laws are infamously open to abuse basically
- A second thing that bugged me from case 3: A big part of the prosecutions case is built upon the notion that very few people could possibly be suspects, as everyone on campus was at the mock trial before it started, short of Juniper, Hugh, and Robin. Can it be proven EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was there? The recording is at a fixed camera angle that doesn't show the entire room. The murder is also believed to have taken place after the last bell the previous day, then moved the following day during the mock trial. Again, how could it be known that someone else didn't kill Constance with the limited amount of people that would have been around at that time? This is something Blackquill likely would have checked out, but it still bugs me.
- Related to the above, but this one is about Professor Means. Hugh says that his seat was empty during the mock trial, and Blackquill dismisses it as just a mistake on his part as his testimony had been rather shaky. Yet even given the high up balcony seats, if Hugh could notice that then other students who were at a higher elevation should have been able to notice it too.
- With regards to the Mock Trial, there might have been some type of registry of the students who were there. It's part of the school curriculum for every course, so they probably had some way of making sure that every student who was meant to be attending was there, like a registry that checked students off as they they went in. As for Means's balcony, it might've been to dark for the main student body to see probably, whereas Hugh who was closer was able to tell it was empty. Remember that during the actual Mock Trial the lights were dimmed (as shown by the photo of Robin's hands that were glowing in the dark because of the luminous paint).
- Related to the above, but this one is about Professor Means. Hugh says that his seat was empty during the mock trial, and Blackquill dismisses it as just a mistake on his part as his testimony had been rather shaky. Yet even given the high up balcony seats, if Hugh could notice that then other students who were at a higher elevation should have been able to notice it too.
- How does a self-professed perfect genius who regularly refers to other people as mouth-breathers manage to have True Companions, anyway?
- Because he doesn't treat them like that? They know he has a heart of gold? Not really a real headscratcher anyway.
- Or perhaps he was stressed out at the time with all the recent events. His flashback showed him as a much more laid back fellow and he has the standards to not use lies and becomes humble in the middle of court as well.
- Well, that and Hugh O'Connor isn't really a "perfect genius" anyway; his parents were bribing Aristotle Means without his knowledge to raise his grades up to "perfect".
- Also, Hugh, Robin, and Juniper became friends when they first came to Themis, long before Hugh got his "genius" reputation. And on top of that, Hugh also admits that he deliberately Took a Level in Jerkass towards Juniper so that she wouldn't feel as bad about discovering his fake grades or letting him take the rap for Courte's murder. Being an Insufferable Genius to everyone else may have been just another part of the act.
- Slightly smaller one, how did Hugh get his Proof of Friendship on? He couldn't have taken it apart to put it around his neck.
- The hands act as a clasp that can open & close?
- That seems unlikely. They were made of clay, and didn't seem to have hinges or other moving parts.
- In the animated sequence, it looked like Robin had just finished making them out of clay, so maybe Hugh was able to stretch it and put it around his neck before it dried.
- This troper thought it looked like she made them out of some kind of resin or rubber. They probably can stretch enough to allow one to wear them.
- Most clay in school art rooms are the kind that have to be fired in a kiln, at least in my experience, to harden. Plus him stretching it would deform it anyway.
- They could be two halves that interlock, like they 'snap' together at the clasped hands and at the point on the back opposite them and we just can't see a seam for the back because of how Robin made them. None of them could have gotten their Proof of Friendship on easily, since Juniper and Robin both have to get theirs over their hands to fit rather snugly on their wrist and forearm, and Robin had to get hers over her elbow as well. Also, it's worth noting that you can't actually TELL what they're made of. Sure, it looks like it's clay (and I concede they probably are), but it could be something rubberier than that, and could clasp together at the, uh, clasped hands. They do kinda, to me, look like they have the texture of those wristband things that were all the rage years back, and where Robin has hers, it would need to stretch at least a little, since it's on her bicep.
- Maybe Robin initially made them out of clay, as shown in the cutscene, and then Juniper or Hugh said “Uh, Robin, you know we can’t actually put those on once they’re fired in the kiln, right?” And then she went back and made them out of something else.
- Why did Robin's parents raise her as a boy? There didn't seem to be any explanation on why and unless she came from the same village as Bridget, I don't see why they would do something like that. On top of that, since she hasn't gone back to acting like a guy, are they now okay with it?
- "I wanted a son"? Maybe she was from a family of girls and she was chosen to be the token "boy".
- Since her parents were also pressuring her to become a prosecutor, maybe they thought men made better prosecutors. After all, out of all the prosecutors in the series so far only two of them have been women- and one of them, Lana Skye, didn't come out looking so great after 1-5.
- In Japan, passing on the family name is important. They can't really do that if they have a daughter since girls take on their husband's name, so in order to pass on the family name when she got married, they forced her to grow up as a boy. They're probably NOT happy, but they can't exactly hide it anymore so will have to accept it and the fact that their family name won't be passed on through her.
- So... what, they'd have her marry a girl? How exactly would that work? I mean, I'm not up on Japanese opinion towards same sex marriage, but how would their family name be passed on with no biological children?
- Everything about the Themis Legal Academy feels really off even if it was being run smoothly. Law school typically doesn't happen until a student at least gets a bachelor's degree in college, yet Themis seeks to pigeonhole its students into 3 tracts before they even reach that point. While the idea of a legal college preparatory isn't that farfetched, splitting the course tracts into "Defense, Prosecution, and Judicial" seems backwards given that you have to at least be a second year law student before you can even choose your focus (criminal, corporate, civil, taxes, international, etc). It also feels strange that the Judicial tract is separate from Defense and Prosecution since most judges tend to be former attorneys anyways. Wouldn't it be enough for an academy specializing in legal education to just give these high schoolers a broadened scope of the legal world to prep them for college instead of relying on courtroom tactics?
- A similar discussion elsewhere raised a valid, non-Rule of Fun point: In Japan, if you know exactly what you want to be and are dead set on it before you enter high school, especially if it would normally be a long (i.e. 5+ Years) college course (Medicine and Law come to mind immediately), the there are "specialty" high schools where their curriculum is tailored to that course. However, that student is still required to enter a proper college for that course. A diploma from a specialty school is more or less a "free pass" to skip the more basic Gen-Ed and 101 courses and go straight into the more involved classes pertaining to that course, reducing the college stay by more or less half. This actually gives credence to some of the older characters and their relatively young starting ages (Nick at 24, Edgey at 20, Apollo at 22, etc.) The Rule of Fun comes in at the more ridiculous ones, like both Gavins having badges before 20 (Kristoph and Klavier are a year apart, meaning that the former was 18 and latter 17) and Franzy topping the chart at the pre-teen age of 13. However, There is actually some evidence of someone passing the Bar at age 18...
- A similar discussion elsewhere raised a valid, non-Rule of Fun point: In Japan, if you know exactly what you want to be and are dead set on it before you enter high school, especially if it would normally be a long (i.e. 5+ Years) college course (Medicine and Law come to mind immediately), the there are "specialty" high schools where their curriculum is tailored to that course. However, that student is still required to enter a proper college for that course. A diploma from a specialty school is more or less a "free pass" to skip the more basic Gen-Ed and 101 courses and go straight into the more involved classes pertaining to that course, reducing the college stay by more or less half. This actually gives credence to some of the older characters and their relatively young starting ages (Nick at 24, Edgey at 20, Apollo at 22, etc.) The Rule of Fun comes in at the more ridiculous ones, like both Gavins having badges before 20 (Kristoph and Klavier are a year apart, meaning that the former was 18 and latter 17) and Franzy topping the chart at the pre-teen age of 13. However, There is actually some evidence of someone passing the Bar at age 18...
- When Phoenix Wright introduced fabricated evidence (which he didn't know was fabricated) in the backstory of AJ, it resulted in the trial immediately being halted and his being disbarred. In Turnabout Academy, Blackquill introduces the falsified tape recording from the crime scene, which is proven to be a fabrication, and he apparently suffers no penalty whatsoever for doing so. What gives?
- Blackquill was under constant observation; there was no possible way for him to create said fake evidence. Since the tape was created by an outside party & given to be used in "good faith", Blackquill couldn't have been held responsible for it. The way that Kristoph set Phoenix up was that it made him look like the direct instigator of the creation of the fake evidence, and he was disbarred for it. And if you want to go deeper, the fake evidence in "Rise From The Ashes" was a big deal since it was the police (Gant and Lana, in a way) who created the fake evidence to get Joe Darke guilty for execution; Edgeworth got into some trouble and it helped ruin his reputation, but he was shown to have been manipulated and only used the fake evidence in good faith since he thought it was real.
- How did Hugh O'Connor never realize that something was up with his grades? Regardless of how intelligent you are (and especially so for someone who knows he's not a genius), one will come up against problems that you know that you got wrong, either from being unable to answer them due to lack of knowledge, knowing that you were only unable to complete part of the problem, running out of time on a timed assignment, or comparing results with others after you get your assignments back. Hugh should have noticed SOMETHING was wrong when he got 100% on a question that he knew was wrong.
- He probably noticed shortly before the events of the case, thus the phone call to his parents.
- Besides that even during the time when he didn't notice, it's not unreasonable to think that he'd just shrug any times when he got 100% despite having written down any old crap as him actually having known the answer, and subconsciously writing the right thing despite not realizing it. That's the thing about writing the "wrong answer". Unless you're told you wrote the wrong answer, you can't know that you wrote the wrong answer. If you know the answer is wrong, you wouldn't write it, so if you're just writing any old crap hoping you somehow subconsciously wrote the right thing, if you're told you wrote the right thing you're just gonna assume that you subconsciously knew the answer. Hugh doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd write an obviously wrong answer when he doesn't know the actual answer. I'd assume he'd try and write the best answer he can think of, and he'd just assume he managed to subconsciously recall them all when he was doing so. He likely noticed eventually that this trend was going on for a little too long and too frequently, and that there was something up, hence the confrontation over phone with his parents.
- We also don’t know how smart Hugh really is on his own. He doesn’t seem to be Sebastian Debeste levels of incompetent, so he could be a decent-to-above average student whose parents were just paying to get him that extra mile.
- Ok this is really bothering me but... what the hell is with the Themis Legal Academy uniforms?! Like for some reason, the prosecutor course and defence course wear two-piece, more traditional-looking seifuku with the school emblem on the left side of their chest, short sleeves, and (for some reason) a yellow neckerchief thing, with the skirt, cuffs, and collar being red for the prosecutors and blue for the defence. Yet the girls in the judge course (and it's not just Juniper, mind, you can see when we first open up on Athena at the school that ALL the girls in that course wear the same uniform as Juniper) are grey one-piece sailor uniforms with the emblem on the placard part of their uniform, long sleeves, and a yellow neckerchief thingy (the only actual similarity the uniforms share). The boys are easy enough; you can see in the aforementioned shot opening on the school that the boys all wear the exact same uniform just in blue, grey, and red. Why don't the girls' uniforms match? And why is the judge course GREY? They're clearly grey, since all the female uniforms have the yellow neck thing. Why aren't they yellow? I mean I get that they wouldn't want to put everyone in yellow because not everyone looks good in it, but that can easily be rectified by having all the girls wear either the one-piece uniform with colour-coded neck doodads, or if they don't care, by wearing the two-piece seifuku and having their neck doohickies match the rest of the uniform and just have the judge girls wear yellow on their collars and skirts. Hell, maybe just colour the two-piece uniform with grey collars, cuffs, and skirts for the judges and keep the yellow neck thingamabobs for all the uniforms. Some animes do stick all their students in yellow or just one gender of students (Ouran has all their girls in yellow, for instance) so they could get away with it. There is no reason why the judge course has such radically different uniforms but only for the girls.
- While the colour you refer to as gray looks more like dark-green to me, I'll have to say that it would make sense with gray for the judges anyway, as the main judge wears that particular colour, if only as a reference to him.
- That still doesn't explain the complete difference in style for the judge uniforms.
- Ah, yes. While this explanation could be considered a Voodoo Shark, I came up with an idea after taking a good look at the designs. The male uniforms look dignified already, meaning that the judge wouldn't need to look more professional than the others. However, the girls wearing Sailor Fuku hardly look like the people who are going to stand in court tomorrow. Now take a look at the attorneys, the prosecutors, and the Judge(s) in the game. Which group is the cause of the least Courtroom Antics? Apart from some strange remarks, the Judges - and even then, we only know of two of them, meaning that the majority of judges could be more level-headed. The judges look more professional because the society expects them to be more professional than their prosecutor and attorney students. Either that, or the judges look different to emphasize how they are not the opposite of anything in the courtroom, they just are. This still doesn't explain why all the males have almost identical uniforms design-wise, though... Maybe the difference mirrors how Athena (and, to a lesser extent, Franziska) have rather... odd dressing habits compared to some of their male co-workers?
- While I don't have anything on why the male judge-course uniform is merely a Palette Swap, it seems pretty clear to me that the female judge-course uniform is a reference to the full fledged judge's robe. They are the same shade of grey, feature the same vertical tucks down the front, are both long sleeved and are in fact both a one-piece garment. By that logic the male students in the judge-course should be wearing a variation of the judges robe as well, but maybe it was too difficult to design something for boys that was reminiscent of an actual judges robe but didn't look too much like a real one at the same time? In the girls Uniform they get around that by making it a rather tightly fitted dress but there's only so many variations on "grey, long-sleeved robe with front tucks" you can put on a guy...
- While the colour you refer to as gray looks more like dark-green to me, I'll have to say that it would make sense with gray for the judges anyway, as the main judge wears that particular colour, if only as a reference to him.
- Given one of the two major causes of the Dark Age of the Law, how does Aristotle Means's philosophy make sense with even internal logic? "A renowned defense attorney was caught using forged evidence and was disbarred for it? Clearly we need to forge even more evidence to protect our clients!" Unless the viewpoint changed in the law community that since even Wright was doing it, it shouldn't be considered so bad... but in that case, shouldn't Wright have been pardoned at some point before proving his innocence?
- Perhaps he (and other similarly minded prosecutors and lawyers) see(s) this as a kind of "Hawk-Dove" game (brief explanation later), in which dishonest lawpersons are hawks and honest people are doves. In "Hawk-Dove" game, there are two players who decide to be either doves or hawks. In the best situation, which both players decide to be doves, as doves don't attack each others, and they get most benefit. However, if one of the players decides to be a hawk, the dove player gets no benefit, since the hawk attacks the dove and eats it. If there are two hawks, they fight each others, but since neither of them are eaten, there is a little benefit. This dynamic results that while dove-dove situation is the best one, players eventually prefer to pick up hawk, because if you choose a dove and your opponent chooses a hawk, you get a major disadvantage. Similarly, if there are a honest lawyer and prosecutor (doves), it is a win-win situation what comes to the chances to win the case: neither of them have fabricated evidence that could give them an upper hand. However, if one of them has fabricated evidence (hawk), that person gets an advantage (and makes the trial unfair). If both of them have fabricated evidence, the chances are (sorta) equal, but the trial is a mess (hawks). So it would be best if neither of them used dishonest means (in other words, both were doves), but because the other one may use dishonest means (hawk), eventually everyone without enough moral determination starts to adapt dishonest means (hawks).
- I wish the Prisoner's Dilemma was relevant here, but that wasn't my concern. We have an esteemed law school where a good portion of the teachers are openly teaching their students to do something that can get them disbarred... because someone got disbarred for it.
- Because it had nothing to do with Phoenix being disbarred over it and everything to do with what they assumed about him because of the thing that got him disbarred. Think about it like this: you watch this fresh-out-of-law-school nobody turn into a ridiculously successful attorney in less than three years, an attorney far more successful than literally any other defence attorney ever, forget for a minute that he lost a single case in his career because he's won thirteen, something most DA's couldn't even dream about when they can't even win one, and you see him use forged evidence in court. You see that the only reason the prosecutor even knows about it is because he was very obviously told. And you realise that the entire reason this man had a thirteen-one ratio at the time of this case of wins to losses was most likely because he forged evidence. Phoenix's "make everything up and hope for the best" methodology starts to look bad when you think of it that way. You think to yourself about how he was making things up as he went along to try and get the evidence he forged to fit into the case. You come to the conclusion that the only way to be as successful as the great Phoenix Wright is to forge evidence, just like he surely always had done. I mean, fair's fair, right, when it's well known that the Prosecutor's Office believes that the only thing that matters is a win, right? "The end justifies the means". It's time to fight back at the Prosecutor's Office that has always been cheating- even two of the greatest prosecuting attorneys, Miles Edgeworth and Manfred von Karma have used forged evidence (and you forget it was publicly proved Edgeworth didn't know) and used every other underhanded trick in the book to get results. It's time to even out the playing field, fight fire with fire, something that Phoenix Wright obviously has always done and it worked for him, so why not you? You just have to be much more discreet, make sure nobody tells. THAT is why his ideal works. It's not because Phoenix was disbarred, it's the reason why he was and how it reflected on his entire, staggeringly successful career.
- Additionally, how can this possibly be seen as a necessary means to defend their clients when in the very case where Phoenix was disbarred for presenting false evidence, the judge and prosecution immediately concluded, despite Phoenix's appeal, that this action was sufficient to declare the defendant guilty? It's hard to believe that anyone who is willing to gamble their client's fate so vicariously would ever want to go to school to become a defense attorney.
- Perhaps he (and other similarly minded prosecutors and lawyers) see(s) this as a kind of "Hawk-Dove" game (brief explanation later), in which dishonest lawpersons are hawks and honest people are doves. In "Hawk-Dove" game, there are two players who decide to be either doves or hawks. In the best situation, which both players decide to be doves, as doves don't attack each others, and they get most benefit. However, if one of the players decides to be a hawk, the dove player gets no benefit, since the hawk attacks the dove and eats it. If there are two hawks, they fight each others, but since neither of them are eaten, there is a little benefit. This dynamic results that while dove-dove situation is the best one, players eventually prefer to pick up hawk, because if you choose a dove and your opponent chooses a hawk, you get a major disadvantage. Similarly, if there are a honest lawyer and prosecutor (doves), it is a win-win situation what comes to the chances to win the case: neither of them have fabricated evidence that could give them an upper hand. However, if one of them has fabricated evidence (hawk), that person gets an advantage (and makes the trial unfair). If both of them have fabricated evidence, the chances are (sorta) equal, but the trial is a mess (hawks). So it would be best if neither of them used dishonest means (in other words, both were doves), but because the other one may use dishonest means (hawk), eventually everyone without enough moral determination starts to adapt dishonest means (hawks).
- About Turnabout Academy, where was Aristotle Means's staff, which posed as the arm of the "Wright statue" that Courte's body stood as, during the morning before the mock trial? Answer that anyone with keen eyes can see: Aristotle was holding it all the time! Or is this just an error from the animators? The staff's absence could have offered a glaring hint though... And if Aristotle was holding a fake staff all the time, why didn't he just keep it and get rid of the original staff in some point? Blood and all, you know... One idea could be that it had personal value, but hey, not ending up to prison is kinda more important, you know?
- It's an animation error caused by the localization, in the original version he didn't have the staff at first. No idea why he didn't get rid of his staff later on, though.
- That explains it, thanks. About aftermath: Perhaps a) the staff indeed has personal value, and b) he was confident about not getting caught, c) and the complete disappearance of the staff might have looked suspicious, and d) it was possible that people didn't really pay attention to the disappearance if he got it back later? "Oh, professor is missing his staff, perhaps he lost it.. oh, he has it again, perhaps I just saw wrong." vs "Where the heck is his usual staff? He had it yesterday, hmmm..." More plausible if he has genuinely lost his staff earlier, too.
- It's an animation error caused by the localization, in the original version he didn't have the staff at first. No idea why he didn't get rid of his staff later on, though.
- Why is Myriam testifying while wearing her disguise? She's practically telling everyone in her school that she, Myriam Scuttlebutt, uses a cardboard box to spy on them with, and her cardboard boxes aren't exactly inconspicuous, with the giant arm holes in it. Wouldn't protecting her disguise be more important than protecting her face, which is probably in the annual/yearbook?
- First possibility is that she's so grounded in the mentality of being disguised that she can't go anywhere without it. Like wearing a hat for so long you feel naked when it's gone. And this one's more WMG, but "Myriam Scuttlebutt" might be a pen name and she's not using her real name. Someone at the Academy who saw her face might say, "Hey! That's ______, I have the same class with that snake!" Or something to that effect.
- To go further into WMG, it's also possible that Myriam actually just doesn't like people seeing her face. Since her entire character arch across Turnabout Academy is that she's a tsundere type who doesn't like displaying her true feelings to people (like the fact that she really loves Juniper, Hugh & Robin, platonically speaking, to the point where if you freeze frame the animation where her laptop falls out of the box, you can tell that her wallpaper is a photo of those three that she's either actually in or has photoshopped herself into). She keeps behind a fake persona to hide the fact that this is who she is, and whenever her face is revealed, temporarily, she seems incredibly flustered, and embarrassed. Not worried about losing her identity being exposed. It's incredibly likely that she, at least partially, wears her box as a way to cope with her inner-personality, and how shy she actually is about being herself around other people. At the very least, her hiding herself 24/7 inside a box, even when testifying in court, does seem symbolic for her character's personality as a while.
- There's one question I have about the ending of "Turnabout Academy". The method of hiding Professor Courte's body seems to make sense at first, especially after seeing Athena replicate it in court. But there's one major difference; Athena is alive. How did the killer force a dead body to stand upright?
- A little plaster, the tarp and some rope. It's not that hard to balance things. Also account for the pose, she wasn't standing upright, she was sitting on her knees. Large base area and some springiness in the forward direction.
- That, and the supports wouldn't have had to support her for long. After four hours or so, rigor mortis would've set in.
- So, was it supposed to be inferred through a vast portion of case 3 that Robin is probably gay for Juniper, or am I missing something? Because to my memory it's revealed that she's a girl during the first trial day, but the love triangle fiasco isn't proven to be a bunch of garbage until right at the end of the case. I would've thought that someone, namely Athena, would've brought up that Robin being a girl kinda puts a massive question mark over that love triangle that was supposedly making their friendship awkward, right off the bat. Unless that does happen, and I'm not remembering it.
- It's more likely that the game just didn't bother to mention this part. There's no implication at all that Robin has feelings for Hugh or Juniper, after all, and if memory serves, the player and by extension, Athena and Apollo, know that the love triangle was made up, long before they're able to completely disprove it in court.
- I thought that Athena and co. actively believe it to be true? Athena doesn't believe it, at first, because she doesn't believe Juniper is the kinda girl who would lead guys on, but she begins to change her mind after noticing the turmoil within their friendship (particularly when she begins to sense discord in the voices of Robin and Hugh). In fact, even Juniper herself got fooled into believing it, if my memory's correct. Because it's a case point that Juniper leaked the contents of the mock script to Robin, to swing the trial in "his" favour, so that Hugh wouldn't be able to confess to her and make their friendship awkward.
- The short answer would likely be yes. In-universe it's a little weird that no one brings it up directly, true, but it doesn't really need to be brought up. Robin is a girl + Robin fancies Juniper = Robin is not straight. The game doesn't put empathise on it, but they likely assumed that it's something players would naturally go with and that they'd assume the protagonists have silently done the same thing, until things are fully explained at the end.
- This is WMG on my part: just as Hugh was planning to "confess" his age and that he wasn't a genius, perhaps Robin was intending to "confess" that she was a girl. It wasn't exactly clear if Juniper and Hugh were aware of the Sweet Polly Oliver before the case started.
- It's more likely that the game just didn't bother to mention this part. There's no implication at all that Robin has feelings for Hugh or Juniper, after all, and if memory serves, the player and by extension, Athena and Apollo, know that the love triangle was made up, long before they're able to completely disprove it in court.
- When you Perceive Juniper to find out the truth about Hugh's grades, her "tell" is when she says that he "never causes trouble." Shouldn't the tell be in the part about how he always gets good grades, instead?
- Technically, he did always get good grades, so she technically didn't lie there. It's just that he gets it via illegal means, one (she thought) was his fault, thus he caused troubles, hence the tell's position.
- Why is Athena slightly hurt about Juniper not calling her "Thena" anymore, but doesn't feel at all awkward about calling her "Ms. Woods" in court(compare how Phoenix once had to correct himself and call Maya "Ms. Fey" in court in 3-5)? Does this have something to do with how they address each other in the original Japanese(I'm personally curious about that detail)?
- I believe in the Japanese version they just call each other by their first names, without any honorific. This is considered a sign of deep affection in Japan. To replicate this idea, the localisation has them pet name each other. I think in the Japanese version, Athena just calls her by her first name while in court, or uses indirect address like "the defendant" or "my client". I don't know about Japanese social customs for something like a courtroom, but in general in Japan, it's considered more customary to refer to a person by interpersonal relationship and "hierarchy statuts" in any given setting. So it wouldn't be weird for Athena to call Juniper by her first name, given their connection, whereas it would be for any old witness. As for Athena calling Juniper "Ms. Woods" in court, it's just the localisation, well, localising the text, to seem more natural for westerners. We expect formal address in a courtroom, so that's how they localised it. In a relaxed, social context, Athena and Juniper always call each other by their pet names, which is why it hurt Athena when Juniper didn't. But in court, she's expected to call her "Ms. Woods", when referring to Juniper, so she wouldn't mind. Athena just doesn't ever slip up on it, which is unusual, but it's not impossible. Notice how Athena reverts right back to using "Junie" whenever she's not actually addressing the court, while a trial is going on. Like when Juniper interjects, and Athena exclaims her name.
- You get Robin to admit to being a girl in court and then argue that she could have been the female voice in the tape recording. But does her actual gender change the feasibility of her voice matching up? Either she’d altered her voice to make herself seem like a boy or it’s just naturally deep enough to seem androgynous, which is supported by her one voice clip when Hugh breaks down. If she could have/deliberately did speak in a more girlish tone, how does that prevent anyone else from having done so?
The Cosmic Turnabout for Tomorrow
HAT-1 (The UR-1 Incident)
- Okay, so in the UR-1 incident, why was Metis Cykes killed in the first place? Is there something I missed?
- It all boiled down to She Knows Too Much as Metis was working on that psych profile as part of an effort to identify a spy.
- It is as the above stated. The phantom, whose lone fear was that he would be exposed, had inadvertently been recorded by Simon, who took the recording to Metis so she could create a psyche profile based on the voice. Knowing that with the existence of the profile, as well as a person who could use it to find him before he could finish the HAT-1 sabotage, the phantom went to the robotics lab to kill Metis and get the profile. However, he was found out by Athena, who stabbed him, potentially leaving more evidence of his existence behind, so he fled; unable to get the profile. Knowing that Simon was able to retrieve the profile and keep it, the phantom eventually killed and replaced Fulbright who was to be assigned to Simon so he could try to get it back. The rest is more explained in the game, but that's essentially what it was all about.
- During the final case, when you cross-examine Ponco, how come you're not allowed to point out that if Ponco could hear "Metis's" heartbeat after she fell down, that contradicts the autopsy report, which indicates Metis was stabbed through the heart, making death instantaneous? It seems like a much more obvious contradiction than the one they wanted you to point out, as well as a much less roundabout way of proving the person Athena stabbed wasn't actually her mother.
- Because Ponco immediately went to sleep mode after the "hug" first started. In any case, it could be plausible that even after getting her heart pierced, it didn't immediately stop beating for even the short amount of time it was pierced to when Ponco went to sleep.
- Because Ponco's exact wording was that Metis's heartbeat suddenly "flustered", aka, rose dramatically. Like the above troper said, literally the very next second, Ponco went to "sleep" to recharge. Instant death refers to a death that occurs within a few seconds, but all Ponco witnessed was the split-second rise in a heart-beat that occurred after the "hug" which anyone would have if they were stabbed, regardless of if the stabbing kills them instantly. Phoenix even asks Ponco if she could sense the heartbeat after the suddenly split-second rise, but Ponco says she can't recall because of her "sleep".
- Ok, so I'm very confused regarding Simon Blackquill's dialogue and actions concerning the phantom. They seem rather contradictory and confusing. We know that he was worried that Athena killed her mother and allowed himself to take the blame for Metis's death. Later on, however, he states during Case 5 that he believed that conclusion to be a mistake. Furthermore, when he presents the phantom's psych profile, he states that he has been hunting the phantom down all this time. In the time since his imprisonment, did he ever at all suspect that the phantom may have been involved in the death of Metis Cykes? If he did not, then why not? It's puzzling because he seems way too perceptive and intelligent not to make the connection between Metis Cykes's murder and the HAT-1 sabotage, not to mention the HAT-2 bombing and Clay Terran's murder. If he did, then is it possible that another reason he took the blame was to prevent other people (Athena, Aura, etc.) from investigating, and thus risking tipping off the phantom and getting murdered?
- It looks like he let his emotions cloud his thinking and honestly didn't suspect the phantom had any role in Metis' death. He knew that while Metis loved Athena, the girl felt she was being used by her mother and was unloved, and thus did kill her in the heat of the moment and try to "fix her".
- This troper got the impression that Simon didn't believe Athena killed her mother, but knew that no one else would really agree with him (the crime scene had Metis's corpse, a blood-covered Athena who'd clearly been doing something to the body, and a robot witness. Presumably Simon took the blame as an immediate means to protect Athena, while using his various contacts in prison to lure the Phantom out.
- If Simon had thought the phantom was the murderer, you’d think he would have suggested checking the security footage that showed the phantom leaving the scene of the crime. He was still a prosecutor back then; he ought to have been able to arrange that.
- So the killer wore a noh mask to hide his identity from everyone and so that Plonco would think that he was Dr. Metis Cykes. But later on we find out that the phantom has a large variety of lifelike masks which he always wears and that his identity as a guard for that case was also faked. So... why didn't he just not change to a different face mask? Wearing the noh mask just seems completely pointless and needlessly suspicious given that he could have hidden his identity in a variety of different ways.
- It's strongly implied that at the time, seven years prior to this game, the phantom didn't have the Latex Perfection masks that would become his defining feature.
- Another possibility would be that the killer was employed at the space center as a guard and Plonco could have recognized him as someone other than Dr. Metis Cykes if he didn't take the mask.
- The above point is fully supported in-game: when Edgeworth returns during the last leg of the trial, he reveals that Ponco's face recognition data from when Metis' body was discovered shows that there were three people present- one officer and two employees- and all three faces were on Ponco's registration list. The killer was amongst their number at the time and used the opportunity to steal the moon rock.
- Why did Blackquill take the fall for Athena in the first place? Unlike him, she was a child at the time of the murder and would not have faced imprisonment or execution. Since the wrong person was going to be convicted either way, he could have remained free and used his resources as a prosecutor to discreetly work on solving the case, since verdicts can be overturned if new evidence comes to light.
- There was some fairly decisive evidence to incriminate him, such as the video taken of him leaving the crime scene and the picture of him with the bloody katana. There's that and the fact that he's more emotional than he lets on, and that could have clouded his judgement during the trial.
- Also Blackquill seems to take the code of bushido, he may have been trying to fulfill his duty to his master (Athena's mom) by protecting her legacy. That would entail protecting said legacy from the truth as Blackquill saw it.
- Furthermore, Simon's dialogue during Case 5 implies that he was in the same boat seven years ago as Phoenix is during the impromptu trial: he really wanted to believe that Athena is innocent, and he may have had an idea of who actually killed Dr. Cykes (Phantom), but he doesn't have any proof of her innocence or of someone else's guilt. Remember, by the time Blackquill arrived at the lab, the Phantom had removed the only real evidence indicating his presence (he took the utility knife that Athena stabbed him with and hid the moon rock with his blood on it inside the Hope Capsule). In addition to the above explanations, because Blackquill is a man who knows that evidence is everything in court and who strongly values hard evidence himself, he very likely felt he had no other option. Thankfully, Phoenix provided an alternative...
- I think it's much simpler than any of that; if he hadn't taken the fall, Athena would have been the only other known option and the knowledge that she did it (despite being false) would have driven her insane and possibly to suicide. It can be compared easily to a scene in Ghost Trick, where the main character refuses to kill a child only to go back in time and save her life, because in Ghost Trick, when you die and are saved, you have to live with that knowledge that you died. The main character refused to traumatise that child, instead prompting an alternate solution. In this case, the third option Blackquill took was blaming himself, rather than let Athena "die" (take the fall) and grow up with the trauma that she murdered her mother (the knowledge that she 'died'), just so he can "go back" and figure out who the real killer was.
- Is anyone else bothered by the fact that Edgeworth keeps insisting that Athena (an eleven-year-old!) killed her mother and refuses to consider any other possibility? He is by far one of the last people in existence who should be rushing towards that conclusion, especially considering his own past! Seriously, this behavior is extremely cold-hearted, even for him.
- Someone somewhere else on this site had given a very good explanation. Because of the similarities between UR-1 and DL-6, Edgeworth is probably one of the few people outside the former case to know exactly what was going through both Blackquill's and Athena's minds. Because of this, he purposefully piled on the pressure on Phoenix, and by extension Athena so that everything will come to light. Remember when Edgey himself took the stand in 1-4, essentially confessing to the crime that he believed himself to commit? He wanted to put Athena into that position, because since what set him on the road to recovery from DL-6 was to have his confession, and the subsequent lie he had lived in for 15 years torn apart before his very eyes. Edgey's philosophy is that there is no escape from the truth, and that one should face that truth head on, regardless of how much it hurts. Even more to add to the Fridge Brilliance and similarities to DL-6, he had to play the role of Manfred so that Athena, who is in the same boat as Edgey was all those years ago, would have the same closure he got. All in all, if there is anyone that Edgey trusts to put the spiritual sequel to DL-6 to rest, it's Phoenix.
- OP here. Thank you for re-directing me to that. Now it makes a lot more sense...
- I kinda want to add that there's no way he thought she did it from the start, right? He had to make sure Phoenix closed off any notion that Athena did it to capture the REAL culprit. He actually ACTS like von Karma at points, such as when he demands the verdict be handed down, shortly before Blackquill gives testimony.
- The very fact that he didn't move to retry the case until Phoenix was back says a lot about Edgeworth. As desperately as he wanted Blackquill acquitted, he didn't dare push for a retrial unless Phoenix were there, because Phoenix was the only one he trusted to save Blackquill without sacrificing Athena. As for his tactics, he drops a warning beforehand that he's free to be "more unorthodox" since it's not an official trial: I think he was in Stealth Mentor mode, pushing Phoenix to the edge because he knew it would rouse his temper and bring out his best effort.
- Given the similarities to DL-6 it's very unlikely Edgeworth actually believed Athena was the culprit. However, he can't admit that without evidence as he is a prosecutor.
- Remember how Edgeworth acted towards Adrian Andrews in case 2-4? The guy is established as being utterly ruthless in the pursuit of the ultimate truth, even if that means tearing open old wounds.
- Why the hell did nobody ever see a guard leaving Dr. Cykes's lab just after her murder before the final case? The autopsy report says that she died between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM; that's a lot of time. Since Blackquill was spotted leaving at around 3:00 PM (the latest possible time), why did nobody even try to check the video footage before then? If someone did in fact see the guard, why did they never consider him a suspect and try to search for him?
- Yuri Cosmos says at some point that the case was rushed by the government. Probably, someone knew that Blackquill was innocent, but his actions made him to look related to the spy anyway.
- In the final case, how could anyone take an extremely low quality recording, to the point where the speaker cannot be recognized, and use it to create a complete psychological profile?
- Because you're looking at it from too much a real-life perspective. Metis has, what can be described as, a "super-human" ability to read emotions in voices. Which, we can assume is a genetic thing, since it passed down to Athena.
- If I'm remembering correctly, wasn't it stated, or implied, in-game at one point that Metis didn't have Athena's super hearing? Metis had no clue where Athena's ability came from (which is assumed to be part of the reason she was researching her daughter's power), making it unlikely for Metis herself to use the same, or even similar, ability as Athena's to create a psychological profile based on a low quality recording of the spy's voice.
- It was said that Metis, even without the super sensitive hearing of her daughter, was an expert in psychological profiling; so while the voice may not have been clear enough to identify, it probably still contained certain distinct elements in the vocal pattern. Hell, it's entirely possible that Metis actually got Athena to secretly help out with the profile, which probably went over her head as "more training from Mom" since her abilities were said to be even more powerful back then (due to lack of training) and could possibly find the speaker had no emotion.
- Responding to two tropers above - according to Simon, Metis used analytical psychology to analyze the voice, so it appears that Athena had nothing to do with it.
- Because you're looking at it from too much a real-life perspective. Metis has, what can be described as, a "super-human" ability to read emotions in voices. Which, we can assume is a genetic thing, since it passed down to Athena.
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but Metis was killed the same day as the HAT-1 bombing. So, why exactly did it never occur to anyone that, just maybe, the same person who tried to blow up the rocket and kill Starbuck was the one who killed Metis in her lab?
- It did, Simon was considered the one who committed both crimes. He was only charged with the murder because the HAT-1 bombing was never officially recognized as an act of sabotage. As far as the official report & general public was considered, it was considered a system's malfunction due to the government sweeping it under the rug, so they didn't charge anyone for it. They basically just considered that Simon's conviction for the murder meant the bomber would get locked away anyway.
- Which leads to the new question: when Athena was accused of murdering Metis, did people also think an 11 year old was responsible for the bombing?
- I doubt it. The only people who would even know of the original bombing would be those who were aware of the fact there had been a cover up. The government didn't actually definitively think Simon committed the murder, they just shrugged their shoulders and went along with it because it was good for them. When Athena's trial occurred they just considered that the bomber was someone else (as it had already become clear that Simon wasn't the bomber after all) and that Metis's murderer was unrelated, and kept hush-hush on it to avoid the conspiracy leaking. Those who were somehow in the loop of the conspiracy like Director Cosmos likely thought the same thing, just without the "keeping the conspiracy hush-hush" part.
- It did, Simon was considered the one who committed both crimes. He was only charged with the murder because the HAT-1 bombing was never officially recognized as an act of sabotage. As far as the official report & general public was considered, it was considered a system's malfunction due to the government sweeping it under the rug, so they didn't charge anyone for it. They basically just considered that Simon's conviction for the murder meant the bomber would get locked away anyway.
- Weight has to be calculated very carefully in rocketry. How did no one notice that there was a large rock inside the Hope Capsule? Was the phantom's real plan that the unaccounted-for weight of the moon rock would throw off the probe, resulting in the incriminating evidence against him either being destroyed in a launch accident or permanently lost in space?
- It's possible they were too upset and distracted about what happened the day before to really be concerned that the Capsule's weight was slightly off. I've held rocks from the moon before. Moon rocks don't weigh that much.
- Day-of-launch, you're right: a moon rock's weight would be a rounding error for the shuttle itself, let alone the launch boosters. But I would expect that the probe's operator would have noticed the extra thrust required for course adjustments. Of course, if it was a pre-programmed course, i.e. no corrections, the fact that the probe returned was a miracle in and of itself.
- It's possible they were too upset and distracted about what happened the day before to really be concerned that the Capsule's weight was slightly off. I've held rocks from the moon before. Moon rocks don't weigh that much.
- Maybe the Headscratcher near the top covered this but I'd like to word it in my own way: why was Simon so resistive in case 5? I get that he wanted to keep Athena from being blamed in the UR-1 Incident and the belief he was doing the right thing was more or less sound (albeit misguided) until the end of case 4 when Athena is accused of being Clay's killer. After that he should have been more cooperative because, as pointed out under the Fridge section, Simon continuing to bear the blame of the UR-1 Incident means that the Phantom will remain unexposed. Simon went into case 4 believing that he was dealing with someone who at least had some close ties to the Phantom so that fact should not have been shaken when the blame shifted to Athena. If he was so confident that the Phantom was still influencing the present case, he should have been fighting to exonerate himself as the culprit of UR-1 so he could redirect the focus to the Phantom. Instead he just insists he is culpable in the UR-1 Incident in order to keep Athena from taking the fall but ultimately that would only make her the guilty party in Clay's murder, something he would be completely unable to save her from unless he proves he had committed no wrong seven years prior. Just seems like his intentions should not have mattered after the conclusion of case 4 and he was being difficult to no useful end (and in fact damning Athena in the process of trying to save her).
- Most likely, Simon was refusing to relinquish any blame until it had been proven there was a third party there who could have killed Metis. As we see, because his innocence was proven before the Phantom was tied to the murder, the blame shifted to Athena, who Simon was trying to protect from the start. He would only concede blame when the blame would shift from him to the Phantom. Simon obviously has a very strong Big Brother Instinct towards Athena and would do anything to keep her from being psychologically damaged, like she was, from the idea that she had really killed her own mother. He would rather be Acquitted Too Late than risk that damage being inflicted on her. As to Clay's murder, the reason is the fact that the probability of Athena's guilt was lowered considerably, as there were five people with proven ties to that murder: Athena herself, Sol, Detective Arme, Director Cosmos, and his sister Aura, whereas in Metis's murder there were only two: himself and Athena. There was also a possible sixth person in a bomber for Clay's murder case. The sabotage in the HAT-1 Miracle was never proven as sabotage, so that number of people involved in the murder was still stuck firmly at two. Until it was proven the two murders were linked, and linked only by the Phantom, he wasn't going to say anything. He had a strong feeling the Phantom killed Clay, too, but as that couldn't be proven, he was hoping the blame could be shifted instead to Arme or Cosmos or the possible mystery bomber.
- During the final trial, it's stated that seven years ago, there was no evidence to show where Athena had been during her mother's murder. But considering she and her clothes were covered in blood, shouldn't it have been immediately obvious that she'd been at the scene of the crime?
- Perhaps Simon took her to where she lives, since it's implied it was near the robotics lab, and had her change out of her bloody clothes? I will admit, I don't remember the timeline of this case and when Simon was arrested, but it could be possible.
- Actually, Edgeworth presents a piece of evidence that links Athena to the crime scene. It was Blackquill's coat, with the blood of the victim in the shape of Athena's headphones. One explanation why Athena lacked an alibi is that this evidence was either not presented or not examined, as the trial was about proving Blackquill's guilt, not Athena's. In the retrial, Edgeworth presents the evidence of the bloody headphones to prosecute Athena.
- Perhaps Simon took her to where she lives, since it's implied it was near the robotics lab, and had her change out of her bloody clothes? I will admit, I don't remember the timeline of this case and when Simon was arrested, but it could be possible.
- We know Aura Blackquill tried numerous times to get her brother's conviction overturned and failed, but it bothers me how nobody else seemed to even try. Simon Blackquill's case is the pretty much whole reason why Athena became a lawyer, and why Phoenix re-took the bar exam (granted, he did it at Edgeworth's request, and Edgeworth made it much easier for him to get his badge back, but still). On top of those two, we also have Edgeworth pushing for Simon's innocence, and there's no way that he didn't know when Simon's execution date was. What the hell was the plan? Storm Simon's execution chamber and yell "HOLD IT!" at the last minute?!! What would have happened if Aura hadn't taken hostages? Or is it that the legal system is just so bad that not even two lawyers (one of them VERY prominent) AND the Chief Prosecutor combined can make a difference?
- Because of Double Jeopardy. Which is said to be a part of the legal system of Ace Attorney in the third game. This is the very reason why Blackquill's execution could only have been put on hold under special circumstances, or if the initial verdict was found to be made under some sort of dodgy trial. There's two things that made Blackquill's conviction overturnable despite double jeopardy; The fact that the spy from seven years ago couldn't be Blackquill. This was proven by the fact the same person also sent the bomb threat to the Space Center, and it meant that the government's cover up of a spy besides Blackquill from seven years ago would come into the view of Edgeworth and everyone else. The fact the government made a cover-up meant Blackquill's trial was unjust and therefore double jeopardy suddenly becomes void. Remember when this happened too. Phoenix didn't get through proving that that a third person could be at the scene until the end of Starbuck's trial, and it was this that prompted the entire notion that the spy could exist in the first place and that they could be someone besides Blackquill. Which, remember, was proven during the same few hours in which Blackquill's execution overturn was put as a goal. The second is that Aura had hostages held in a federal building, hostages who likely were important people in space research. This happened exact around the time that the government cover-up was becoming known to everyone, which helped push the retrial of UR-1 so it could be done by the end of the day.
- OBJECTION! Double jeopardy only applies to Not Guilty verdicts, a Guilty verdict can be overturned whenever as long as their is sufficient evidence to support it. Still, it's possible that Phoenix and Edgeworth DID have a plan... but the Space Center bombing happened, and then the Courtroom bombing and all their time got eaten up. Their only lead at that point was that the bomber might also be the Phantom, and so they ran with that. Edgeworth might have had a shot at getting a stay of execution had he not been so busy dealing with Aura's hostage situation.
- This is incorrect. Double jeopardy "forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction". It does apply to guilty verdicts. This was what Luke Atmey's plan relied on, remember? He was going to be found guilty of being Mask*DeMasque, which would not have been overturn-able due to double jeopardy. This would have given him a rock solid alibi for the murder, making it impossible to convict him for that crime. His plan wouldn't make any sense if the law only applied to not guilty verdicts. He wasn't going to be found not guilty as the murderer, after all. He was only going to leave the courtroom and get his guilty verdict.
- Excuse me, but this is not true at all. Double jeopardy doesn’t prevent someone from being exonerated if evidence of their innocence comes to light after a conviction. There are countless examples of real-life people being released from prison, usually after DNA evidence was used to prove their innocence. Double jeopardy definitely doesn’t force innocent people to rot in jail for crimes that they didn’t commit.
- Edgeworth is a wily one too. He could easily have dropped a hint to Aura that some 'crisis' could force a retrial, and then left the rest to her.
- This question is a relatively minor thing, but why does Simon only thank Athena and Aura at the end of Case 5? Don't get me wrong: both of them definitely helped quite a bit in clearing his name, and his gratitude to them makes for very heartwarming moments, but he is forgetting to thank the main person: Phoenix! Aura got the retrial for the UR-1 started, and Athena made it possible for Phoenix to dissect Simon's testimony. However, Phoenix is the one who suggested the re-trial (as opposed to Aura just getting Athena in exchange for the hostages, extracting a "confession" out of her, and likely doing a whole bunch of horrible things to her), and more importantly, he is the one who kept arguing for both Simon and Athena's innocence regarding the murder of Metis Cykes and (in Athena's case) Clay Terran. Furthermore, it's Phoenix who finally convinces Simon to tell the truth, which then sets in motion everything that allows the Phantom to be caught. You would think Simon could at least say something along the lines of "Wright-dono, you cleared both my name and Athena's, you helped me capture my long-time foe, and you ensured my actions to protect my mentor's memory were not done in vain. I thank you." It's all the more jarring because Athena explicitly says "Simon is free, thanks to Mr. Wright" shortly before the credits...
- Possibly because they're the two closest people to him, and they sacrificed for his sake.
- Athena and Aura both took drastic measures solely in the interest of seeking justice for Simon. Phoenix was more concerned with securing an acquittal for Athena, and he didn’t start pushing for a retrial until after Trucy had been taken hostage.
- So it’s suggested that the phantom took advantage of Ponco’s recharging protocol to make the time of Metis’s death seem later than it was. The problem is, that ploy only ended up working because Athena developed trauma-induced amnesia and couldn’t articulate what she’d seen when she saw the phantom. How did he know that she wouldn’t tell the police what really happened? “Mommy was on the floor with a cloth over her face, and someone else attacked me wearing her jacket and her theatre mask.” That would’ve told them exactly why Ponco only detected Athena and “Dr. Cykes”.
- It’s likely that being sighted by Ponco was the planned part, not the encounter that he had with Athena. As long as Ponco saw the phantom disguised as Metis, that would be enough to throw off the time of death even without another person that he could pin the crime on.
HAT-2 (Present Day Stuff)
- During "The Cosmic Turnabout", we learn that Yuri switched the rockets, and Clay and Solomon were nowhere near the bomb blast. But during the opening cutscene, as they escape through the tunnel, there are clearly flames glowing behind them.
- Rule of Drama? Same reason why "Turnabout Academy"'s opening has Juniper, Robin and Hugh standing over Courte's body, despite none of them actually seeing it, let alone at the same time.
- I understood it as the story Sol is telling Apollo in the detention centre.
- The intro also doesn’t show Clay’s struggle with the phantom over the Hope capsule; instead, he’s already been stabbed when he makes it to the lounge. A lot of case intros don’t reflect the absolute truth of what really happened, because that would give the twist away.
- While it makes sense narratively, why was Juniper's trial for bombing the courtroom happening between the two trial days of Solomon's trial? Was it really so critical that she placed on trial RIGHT THEN even though the trial that was disrupted did not have a chance to complete?
- It was seen as a terrorist bombing in a Federal building, so it's highly plausible that they would fast track it. And given that the bombing happened for a trial of a murder which happened after the shuttle bombing, and was the same bomb, it could be seen as directly related]].
- Related to the shuttle launch: how could anyone think that moving a launch pad could be done in secret at any point in time? Even without the mentioned increased security detail, were there no media or bystanders around? Or, the night before, any minor, unnamed staff member on-site?
- It was mostly done to protect Starbuck & Clay, and there wasn't much else that Cosmos could do since he couldn't cancel the launch due to government pressure. The government probably just ordered a media blackout given what had happened to the first launch, but didn't do much else. The switch was made the prior night, so Cosmos would have been able to shoo out lingering bystanders or non-informed staff before the security detail was assigned.
- Going back to Case 1: Why did Tonate leave the explosives and the fuse to trigger them in the bomb when he disarmed it? He had no reason to do that, as the one who rearmed the bomb and blew up the courtroom was the phantom.
- This is kinda speculation, but I always had the belief that Tonate was planning to blow up the courtroom, but that he was intending to do it after the trial. In this scenario, he was likely planning to use the fact the remote switch to claim that Juniper could have detonated it. Then the Phantom detonated it during the trial so Tonate panicked, warned everyone, then used it to his advantage.
- During Tonate's full confession after his breakdown, he mentioned that he was selling the bombs he disarmed on the Black Market, so one plausible explanation is that he was planing to do the same with the HH-3000, and knew from experience that he could get a better deal by having the bomb as ready as possible.
- Why the f... did Ted Tonate frame Juniper for the Courtroom bombing? He had nothing to do with it, the Phantom did it. Ted successfully made it look like Candice was blown up, whoever would be found guilty of bombing would look like the one who killed Candice, at this point Ted has nothing to gain from framing someone for the courtroom explosion, he'd only attach himself to the case and let Phoenix take him down, in the worst case scenario he'd get punished for something he didn't do. It just looks like being Stupid Evil to me.
- While it's entirely possible that the bomber and the killer would be linked as the same person, it wasn't exactly a guarantee. Tonate could hardly say the truth, because then it'd be obvious the killer was someone else. He could've just left it be and tried to claim that someone else murdered Arme and then blew up the courtroom, but it was presumably easier in his mind to pin the one thing onto a single person, rather then both, by making it seem like Arme died in the bombing. Plus he didn't know who actually blew up the courtroom, so there would be no-one for him to actually point people towards for that. All he had was the bombing, and all he had as far a suspect to point people towards was a false one.
- You miss my point. I understand why he made it look like Candice died in the bombing. But once he did that there was no point in getting connected further. Candice was a random victim of the bombing, end of discussion. He already framed the bomber for murder, there was no reason to pin up the bombing itself on someone, when he didn't do it. Whoever it really was didn't matter, they'd have just bigger charges. Unless there was some evidence connecting him to bombing (And why would there be when he's completely innocent?) this just seems like pointless overkill.
- Yeah, there was no evidence pinning him to any crime, and especially not his ID number written in Arme's blood. That was, I'm guessing, his main reason for feeling the need to pin the entire thing onto someone specifically. He couldn't wipe the blood away as it would've dried by the time he had the chance, and it would've been discovered eventually. Even assuming that he would manage to wash it away, it'd still be there in some form and there was a strong chance it'd have been found eventually via luminol tests. Leaving things as was wasn't exactly a viable option for him. His only other option besides what he ended up doing was to let things stand as far as the bombing is concerned, and try and pin the murder onto someone. Throwing his murder into a crime he did not actually commit, and trying to push for someone else to get convicted for that would've resolved the issue on his end. Bare in mind as well that we don't know if Tonate legitimately thought Juniper was innocent. For all he knew, he could've thought he was killing two birds with one stone, by throwing his murder onto an actual guilty party's charges, to save himself. All he would've had to do was help with the bomber's conviction, having already made it look like Arme was a random victim of the bombing.
- While it's entirely possible that the bomber and the killer would be linked as the same person, it wasn't exactly a guarantee. Tonate could hardly say the truth, because then it'd be obvious the killer was someone else. He could've just left it be and tried to claim that someone else murdered Arme and then blew up the courtroom, but it was presumably easier in his mind to pin the one thing onto a single person, rather then both, by making it seem like Arme died in the bombing. Plus he didn't know who actually blew up the courtroom, so there would be no-one for him to actually point people towards for that. All he had was the bombing, and all he had as far a suspect to point people towards was a false one.
- Why did the phantom feel the need to frame Athena with the lighter? He would have gotten away with everything if he had just left the blame on Solomon Starbuck as he originally planned. Without that lighter/gun, Phoenix would have had no evidence that someone other than Sol had murdered Clay and then escaped through the Space Museum.
- It's possible the the phantom wanted revenge for what happened at the space centre seven years ago. Getting stabbed in the hand is not only very painful, but it also seriously risked blowing his cover. It's even possible he wanted Athena to be blamed for Metis's murder, only for Simon to take the blame for it. So when he found it about Athena showing up at the space centre again, he put together a plan to frame her for Clay's murder.
- It's more likely that the phantom, being an extremely logical person, wanted Athena out of the way to eliminate any chance that she would reveal that he was the one who killed Metis Cykes. He doesn't have any emotions to consider revenge
- If the phantom wanted to silence Athena, why didn't he do it the first time they fought?
- If he had had killed Athena back then, there'd have been a double homicide of a mother & daughter at the space center with no one to blame at all apart from the person who also then went and blew the rocket not long after. The Phantom knew that since he was going to sabotage HAT-1, the government would end up looking for the spy responsible: Without Athena there to look like a suspect, Blackquill would have had no reason at all to have covered for her, he would never have been suspected, and the government would have ended up making an effort to try to track him down. Even if Blackquill never did cover for her, the Phantom probably intended for Athena to be seen as the culprit in her mother's murder. Which would at the very least, lower the amount of heat he would have on him. Thus he probably kept Athena alive to act as a decoy. Which also carries with it the rather disturbing implication that the Phantom purposefully soaked Athena in her mother's blood.
- Athena is stated to be a very bad actor, partly due to Widget's tendency to blurt out or show her feelings. She also has occasions where she'll look perfectly happy but Widget is crying. How is it then possible for nobody to have realized that Athena's a Stepford Smiler?
- Because she probably isn't an actual Stepford Smiler, at least until Clay's murder. She's probably genuinely that happy most of the time. It's not like she goes around thinking about how her mother's dead and her past sucks every single day, she's got other things on her mind, like doing what she needs to do for her client. Speaking from personal experience, people who suffer depression don't always go around thinking about what's put them in depression, sometimes they do think about other things and genuinely forget for a few moments that something's wrong with them (even when there isn't). It's the same principle with Athena. She gets distracted from her past, and when she IS faking it, it's blatantly obvious. As to Widget, I think it has to do with the fact that Athena is so sensitive to others emotions that she half-feels what they feel, and Athena outwardly shows either her own emotions or the person she's empathizing with, where Widget displays the other. Not helped by the fact that Athena's "happy tears" animation has a "sad Widget" face because it's also her animation for her empathizing tears, which tend to be of the sorrowful variety.
- Widget is actually green in that animation, meaning that Athena's happy.
- It seems more than plausible that she wasn't Stepford Smiling until Clay's death, and I withdraw my original question. However, I want to share something else that has puzzled me. I wasn't exactly implying that "she goes around thinking about how her mother's dead and her past sucks every single day"; rather, I thought that it seems odd how Phoenix, with his Magatama, and Apollo, with his bracelet, both social and friendly people, wouldn't notice that something is upsetting their newest assistant. Having to work together for a while would invariably lead to casual talk, and probably rather personal questions... Of course, Phoenix and Apollo could phrase their questions in ways that wouldn't make their abilities go off, but how big is the chance of that happening with both of them when just asking casual questions? While Phoenix might not have his Magatama with him at all times, Apollo had to cover up an eye just to not notice Athena's habits, meaning that taking the bracelet off seems to not be an option to him.)
- I think it has to do with how the abilities work, because they actually don't work the same way as the other (something that only just really clicked with me). Phoenix's Magatama detects secrets (both consciously hidden [red] and subconsciously hidden [black]), Apollo detects lies, and Athena detects a segregation in emotion and event. She detects falsities. The Magatama detects lies that are attempts to conceal a secret, where the Perception ability detects lies that are attempts to hide the truth. Most of the things Phoenix pries out of people through the Magatama are actually opinions, fears, ideas, and secrets, where Apollo forces out the truth and facts. Athena picks up on falsities told by the subconscious. Any time someone is obviously lying when using the Mood Matrix, it's usually blatant lies that the characters take note of, such as the entirety of O'Connor's last testimony or most of Captain Space Pirate's testimony. So with that knowledge... it makes sense that the Magatama never reacted, because Athena never tried to keep her past a secret. If she wanted to keep it a secret, she would have done everything she could to avoid going to the Space Centre and refused to tell Phoenix anything. Instead, she lied, and we know she kept setting off Apollo's ability (which has apparently gotten more and more sensitive since I think it's noted that he wasn't always looking at her when she lied). Apollo never took his bracelet off because there's actually no point; Case 2 tells us the bracelet can come off, as Filch steals it right off him at least twice. His ability is genetic and affects his eyes, that's why he wore the eyepatch. The bracelet just helps him. Strictly speaking, he doesn't need it. Apollo at least probably DID ask her, once he detected her starting to lie about her knowledge of the Space Centre, since his constant asking and her constant lying is what caused his slight instability during the case. She just lied to him.
- Because she probably isn't an actual Stepford Smiler, at least until Clay's murder. She's probably genuinely that happy most of the time. It's not like she goes around thinking about how her mother's dead and her past sucks every single day, she's got other things on her mind, like doing what she needs to do for her client. Speaking from personal experience, people who suffer depression don't always go around thinking about what's put them in depression, sometimes they do think about other things and genuinely forget for a few moments that something's wrong with them (even when there isn't). It's the same principle with Athena. She gets distracted from her past, and when she IS faking it, it's blatantly obvious. As to Widget, I think it has to do with the fact that Athena is so sensitive to others emotions that she half-feels what they feel, and Athena outwardly shows either her own emotions or the person she's empathizing with, where Widget displays the other. Not helped by the fact that Athena's "happy tears" animation has a "sad Widget" face because it's also her animation for her empathizing tears, which tend to be of the sorrowful variety.
- Apollo says that he and Clay used to hang out at the Space Centre after school a lot. How did he not meet Athena in that time? He's 5 years older than her, and became friends with Clay in middle school, which is usually only 3 grades. Therefore, he should have met her at least once or twice. Even if you argue that they only went in high school, there would have been 2 years where he would have been able to bump into Athena. Clay for certain should have met Athena, since he was at the centre even more than Apollo and seemed to be considered part of the staff. Why doesn't she know him?
- Maybe the robotics lab and the like were closed off to the public? The Cykes family residence is in the Space Center (if I remember correctly, they say it's near to the Robotics Lab). Not only that, but Director Cosmos says that back then the Space Center had really tight security. It can be assumed that while Apollo and Clay would have been allowed in, say, the more low-security parts like the lounge, they wouldn't be allowed in the more development/research parts like the fourth floor where the robotics lab is. Even if we assume they went there before Athena's mother was killed, Athena most likely would spend her time mainly on the forth floor and therefore wouldn't run into Apollo or Clay. And after her mother's murder, it's pretty much assumed that she never left the forth floor AT ALL. As for Clay running into her when he went all the time...I remember this point being brought up in the actual case. Apollo notes that since Clay was in the same building where Athena was living so often, it wasn't unreasonable that she could have developed some motive to want Clay dead over time. Athena never straight-out denies knowing Clay as well. It can be assumed that Athena just didn't mention that she saw him before a few times because she wanted to avoid that she lives at the center. She could very well know Clay, directly or otherwise. But either way, even if she didn't ever see Clay, it can be assumed that the reason is because, at the end of the day, Clay was still just a high school kid who didn't have high level access to the robotics lab and surrounding area.
- I thought Athena went to Europe almost immediately after her mother died to live with relatives, like Ema did in Case 1-5? Before her mum died, we know Athena went to school, that's how she met Juniper, so she should and could have bumped into the boys when coming home from school, since the younger grades get out after the older students do, ergo they'd be at the lab when she got home from school. Athena also remarks in her narrative at the end of Case 3 that she never got to meet Clay because he was murdered. It takes a lot of coincidences, I'd think, for them to never meet, unless there's some back entrance that Athena would use to come home and stayed in her room when she wasn't at school. Since Apollo and Aura seem to know each other well, I assumed that they'd been to the robotics lab a lot as teenagers.
- Lemme think... Apollo is now 23 years old. If we assume that he was in high school in ages 16-18, that would mean that he was in high school 7-5 years ago. Athena's mother's murder happened 7 years ago. So if we assume that Apollo and Clay visited the space center as high schoolers and Athena moved to Europe immediately after her mom's murder (I recall the game mentioning her "living at her relatives"), it only makes sense that they never met each other until Athena's employment. Otherwise we need other kinds of explanations...
- Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt a pair of teenagers would think that much of an 11-year-old that they may have run into at a space center they frequented after school. The fact that Apollo ended up working with Athena as an adult doesn’t mean he’s automatically going to recognize her from an incidental encounter like that, even after the space center came back into focus.
- Maybe the robotics lab and the like were closed off to the public? The Cykes family residence is in the Space Center (if I remember correctly, they say it's near to the Robotics Lab). Not only that, but Director Cosmos says that back then the Space Center had really tight security. It can be assumed that while Apollo and Clay would have been allowed in, say, the more low-security parts like the lounge, they wouldn't be allowed in the more development/research parts like the fourth floor where the robotics lab is. Even if we assume they went there before Athena's mother was killed, Athena most likely would spend her time mainly on the forth floor and therefore wouldn't run into Apollo or Clay. And after her mother's murder, it's pretty much assumed that she never left the forth floor AT ALL. As for Clay running into her when he went all the time...I remember this point being brought up in the actual case. Apollo notes that since Clay was in the same building where Athena was living so often, it wasn't unreasonable that she could have developed some motive to want Clay dead over time. Athena never straight-out denies knowing Clay as well. It can be assumed that Athena just didn't mention that she saw him before a few times because she wanted to avoid that she lives at the center. She could very well know Clay, directly or otherwise. But either way, even if she didn't ever see Clay, it can be assumed that the reason is because, at the end of the day, Clay was still just a high school kid who didn't have high level access to the robotics lab and surrounding area.
- During the final trial, why did Apollo feel the need to force it to continue for the case of Clay's murder? They were going to hold the trial for that the next day anyway. There was nothing to really gain from holding it the very same day as the retrial for UR-1. All that really accomplished was keeping the hostages held as such for longer than necessary.
- Most likely, it was because he couldn't handle even one more day of feeling like he couldn't trust Athena, who he had doubts was unrelated to Clay's death. He wanted it to end as soon as possible, and as a continuation to her first trial seemed more than fitting.
- In addition to the above, if he didn't speak up then, he'd miss his chance to have Phoenix and Edgeworth take the case. He'd already seen them set up and tear down Athena's fears about her past, after all, and it wasn't likely Edgeworth would return as prosecutor any time soon.
- Speaking of the hostages, remember that Aura was starting to throw a fit at the notion of Athena being found not guilty of Métis’s murder, and one of the bad endings establishes that she’s willing to “disappear” with the hostages, including Trucy, in the event that she doesn’t get her way. And considering the last time Apollo thought that Trucy had been taken hostage, it’s certainly a possibility that her situation contributed to him demanding that the trial continue — because there’s a better chance that Aura will let Trucy go if they can prove that the phantom was responsible for the past and present cases, to say nothing of potentially identifying him.
- My question is why didn't Apollo speak up sooner? Specifically, when Edgeworth posited the theory that the katana was a decoy and the missing utility knife was the real murder weapon? Athena had confessed to stabbing somebody, even though her memories were hazy. And she was formally accused of murdering Clay Terran earlier in the day. The judge even says the knife was "the murder weapon in the Clay Terran case" when Phoenix presented it. The basic solution to this puzzle given the facts at hand was that Athena was remembering Clay's murder, not Metis'. But if Athena's confession was interpreted as Dr. Cykes' murder, then it couldn't be used for the murder she was officially accused of. Apollo's not the type of person who would accept "she murdered someone 7 years ago, why wouldn't she murder someone in the present day?" He would want proof for the murder of his best friend; that's why he went on his own in the first place. So why didn't Apollo bring that up when Edgeworth was preparing Phoenix's ticket to HeroicBSODsville?
- Athena specifically remembered stabbing someone in the lab seven years ago.
- Also, the knife that killed Clay didn’t have blood on the handle either, so it presents the same contradiction the katana did — Athena claimed to have remembered a stabbing wherein she felt the victim’s blood on her fingers. She must’ve been talking about a separate stabbing if neither the past nor present murder weapons have blood near their handles.
- Apollo's injuries were pretty bad after the bombing right? How come he was able to take off the bandages he got from the bombing and not open a few wounds? The wounds were only about four days old (bombing was on the 16th, final case was on the 20th) and yet he takes off the bandages and is able to proceed with court. Yet three days ago he actually fainted because of his injuries being so bad (either blood loss or sheer pain). And he's definitely been overexerting himself the whole time since he got them, so his injuries haven't had a chance to really close (presumably fainting a few more times, especially since he also got a head injury). I mean, an answer to this apart from Hollywood Healing.
- I'd peg it on It's Personal combined with Heroic Resolve and the legal equivalent of Roaring Rampage of Revenge. It's already confirmed that Apollo is a Determinator, and Adrenaline can do awesome things to broken bodies. Case 5-1 was probably 15 minutes to a half-hour after the fact, and the Adrenaline there wasn't enough to compensate for the pain of internally bruised everything, since looking at the bandages being bone-dry even on 5-1 I'd say the damage was internal. Given a good day or so to simmer down and recover, the Adrenaline took care of most of the pain.
- Athena says he bled through his bandages, though.
- The more likely explanation (if you want to go down the "actually trying to explain it properly" route) is that Apollo's wounds were actually not that severe, and that they only caught up to him temporarily during 5-1. If his injuries had been that bad, I sincerely doubt that Apollo would even be allowed to go to court and do his job, let alone have everyone around him act like that's totally normal. It's likely that he was purely overexerting himself, despite his injuries actually being relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, which was what caused the most problems. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that Apollo's injuries seemed much worse in episode 1, since the player was lead to believe he had an injured eye, when that wasn't the case. That also likely made an average player perceive Athena's "blood is seeping through his bandages" line a lore more seriously, as it might conjecture up the image of Apollo's eye wound bleeding out.
- I'd peg it on It's Personal combined with Heroic Resolve and the legal equivalent of Roaring Rampage of Revenge. It's already confirmed that Apollo is a Determinator, and Adrenaline can do awesome things to broken bodies. Case 5-1 was probably 15 minutes to a half-hour after the fact, and the Adrenaline there wasn't enough to compensate for the pain of internally bruised everything, since looking at the bandages being bone-dry even on 5-1 I'd say the damage was internal. Given a good day or so to simmer down and recover, the Adrenaline took care of most of the pain.
- So, is it just me, or was Aura more interested in proving Athena guilty and punishing her then freeing her brother? Well ok, maybe not more so, but clearly equally. When Phoenix started proving Athena innocent, she immediately started going off, saying that she wouldn't accept any other verdict but Athena's guilt, even though, by that point, her brother had more or less been proved innocent through his testimony. Now that can be hand waved by her long time grudge because she thought the latter was guilty, but then when Apollo shows up and accuses Athena of murder, she says that she wants to see him prove the Princess' guilt, meaning that she still wants to see Athena be declared guilty. It makes me wonder how she treated Athena when Metis was alive, since she clearly had no problem bearing a grudge against the daughter of the woman she.....had strong feelings for.
- Aura seemed like the kind of person who has extreme emotions and little people skills, especially telling that she was more comfortable around programmable robots than people. It seems to be a trait she shares with her brother. As for Aura letting the trial continue after Apollo accused Athena, she most likely knew it had to do with the connection of the two shuttle bombings, which was connected to Metis's killer, so she kept up the act so the trial would continue.
- Apollo and Aura connect over their loss of people close to them. When Apollo interrupts the trial, he uses this to shift the trial to the present case ("Just as you lost someone close to you, I lost someone close to me, too."). And, of course, it's clear that she still tries to use her desire for revenge on Athena to continue the trial. This all started when Phoenix meets Aura in the robotics lab and says that the culprit behind both cases could be the same.
- Aura seemed like the kind of person who has extreme emotions and little people skills, especially telling that she was more comfortable around programmable robots than people. It seems to be a trait she shares with her brother. As for Aura letting the trial continue after Apollo accused Athena, she most likely knew it had to do with the connection of the two shuttle bombings, which was connected to Metis's killer, so she kept up the act so the trial would continue.
- In the last case, what does the leaf prove? Phoenix uses it to conclude that the Phantom jumped off the lab while it was moving, but how? From what I could tell the Phantom's feet never touched the ground.
- The leaf is simply proof that the door at the end of the corridor was opened while in transit, and presumably blew in on the wind. Normally the door would only open when the corridor was docked; Phoenix uses it to prove that it was open when the corridor passed the trees to the north of the Space Centre, and therefore that it was a possible escape route for the killer. Either that or there was no door, and it's simply that something getting into the corridor mid-transit meant that something could also get out.
- Is it just me or did everyone gang up on Fulbright way too quickly? The logic behind why he was suspected makes sense, but it's hardly conclusive on any level. As soon as Phoenix works it out though, everyone is adamant about suddenly treating him like he's obviously a bad guy. When he finally gives his "undercover cop" explanation, no one buys it despite the fact that at that point there's absolutely nothing that shows it can't be the truth, and the fact that it'd account for every problem. I can get that they're skeptical at least, but everyone seems completely adamant that he's pulling it outta his backside, even though his claims actually make sense at that point in time and tie things together. I would have forgiven this a bit more of Blackquill's entire trust in Fulbright he shows wasn't just an act to get him to reveal his lack of emotions. I'd think that Blackquill at the very least would at least try and genuinely trust in Fulbright
- Phoenix, Apollo, and Athena were all on the same side, and that side was claiming Fulbright was the criminal, not Athena, so it makes sense they wouldn't buy what he says. The Judge is impartial, as expected of a judge, and Edgeworth went to look into Fulbright's history- by the time he gets back, he knows the truth from his investigating. Blackquill is the only one who seems uncharacteristically quick to not trust Fulbright, but keep in mind that this is a personal matter to Blackquill. He probably wasn't thinking fully rationally (which isn't the best mindset to prosecute in, but conflict of interest doesn't seem to exist in Ace Attorney law).
- During the Recess-cum-Council-of-War, Blackquill swore that he would "claim the phantom's head by my own hand", then commented that he would "relish slashing that blackguard Fulbright to shreds without mercy". He effectively felt as betrayed by Fulbright as Apollo was and, more to the point, had a very personal stake in the proceedings: if Fulbright got away, that would leave Athena in deadly Jeopardy, whether by the Court's hands or by (supposedly) Fulbright's. And it didn't seem that Edgeworth needed much convincing himself:For him to have wormed his way into the police department as well... Nnrgh!
- Yes, but what about Fulbright's undercover cop explanation? Again I can understand why they'd be skeptical, but Phoenix and Apollo especially call complete BS on it straight away, even though there's no reason for them to distinctly distrust in Fulbright to the point of strongly doubting that his explanation is the truth and that he must be The Phantom, and can't be anything but. Especially since by that point they're all on at least friendly terms, even if it's just from the angle of a working relationship. They're on the side of Athena's innocence, yes, but they're arguing that The Phantom is the culprit. And in extension to that, they're trying to determine The Phantom's identity. That doesn't make sense of why they're so unusually adamant about insisting that Fulbright must therefore be this identity.
- Phoenix and Apollo weren't friends with him anymore. They set upon him immediately:JUDGE: Detective Fulbright... Do you know why you have been called to give testimony?FULBRIGHT: Yup! 'Cause there is only one reason why I'd be called! And that is, because it's time for justice! In justice we trust!PHOENIX: OBJECTION! You can't fool us with that act anymore! Your "justice" is nothing but lies!
- The fact that they "set upon him 'immediately" despite the game going out of it's way to show that the main trio have come to see Fulbright on at least a "friendly ally of justice" level through their cases together, is the problem. It's a major slap in the face to Fulbright's development from a seemingly arrogant buffoon who doesn't care about due process in The Monstrous Turnabout, to someone whom the lawyers genuinely admire for his sense of right and wrong come The Cosmic Turnabout. Plus, someone who had seemingly gone out of his way multiple times to help Phoenix and Co, particularly in The Cosmic Turnabout. Despite this, they work out one ambiguous piece of proof pointing to Fulbright as the Phantom (it's logical, and seems like it points to him, but 'he must be the phantom' is hardly the only way to explain it, and it's ludicrous that everyone just assumes it to be hard evidence of who the Phantom is), and they don't just act suspicious of Fulbright, they set straight out persecuting him. Out of universe, it's way easier for something like that to make a player suddenly flip on a character, particularly when the game itself bigs it up in a way that makes it clear that's what they want you to do. In-universe, it makes a lot less sense, and in fact, it seems especially ironic. The the main Aesop of the game is that you're supposed to trust people—something that they preach to the Phantom, aka, "Fulbright". Their 'ally of justice' whom they immediately set upon as soon as vague, ambiguous facts began pointing to him.
- The thing is, while Fulbright's excuse makes enough sense logically, it absolutely doesn't hold psychologically speaking. Consider: Fulbright alleges that under coercion, he deliberately framed Athena and deliberately aided in the escape of a dangerously murderous criminal. We can also assume that, like Yuri Cosmos, he would have had to know by that point that Simon Blackquill, who is about to be executed, was innocent of the crimes he was accused of and the Phantom was the true culprit. That's multiple people he is screwing over and condemning to death by aiding the Phantom. But Fulbright demonstrates not a hint of conflict nor of being coerced; through the entire case, he was his typical do-gooder self, to the point that neither Phoenix, Athena, nor Apollo saw even a hint of a hostage situation weighing on his mind with their respective powers—he even tricked the magatama in that way. And this is after multiple times in earlier cases where if there's even the slightest contradiction in which route is most "just" he very visibly agonized over it. Even if he weren't the Phantom, he would still not be the ally of justice he pretended to be, and no amount of overexaggerated tears on the stand would cover up for that fact. Additionally, he provides no follow-up to his cover story; is his family safe? If not, why isn't he more concerned about what the Phantom will do to them now that he's confessed? If they are, why didn't he admit the truth earlier? Either way, why was he so happy to throw Athena under the bus? Character witness is also an important theme in this game. Maybe the main cast should have had a brief discussion of "hey what if this is the truth?" since there's no logical contradiction, but given all they've seen, it's quite obvious from a character witness standpoint that Fulbright was lying. This in addition to the fact that Athena, Simon, and Apollo would all have reason to feel deeply and personally betrayed by him, Phantom or not, which would contribute to the rash "can you believe this bullshit??" response they had.
- During the Recess-cum-Council-of-War, Blackquill swore that he would "claim the phantom's head by my own hand", then commented that he would "relish slashing that blackguard Fulbright to shreds without mercy". He effectively felt as betrayed by Fulbright as Apollo was and, more to the point, had a very personal stake in the proceedings: if Fulbright got away, that would leave Athena in deadly Jeopardy, whether by the Court's hands or by (supposedly) Fulbright's. And it didn't seem that Edgeworth needed much convincing himself:
- Phoenix, Apollo, and Athena were all on the same side, and that side was claiming Fulbright was the criminal, not Athena, so it makes sense they wouldn't buy what he says. The Judge is impartial, as expected of a judge, and Edgeworth went to look into Fulbright's history- by the time he gets back, he knows the truth from his investigating. Blackquill is the only one who seems uncharacteristically quick to not trust Fulbright, but keep in mind that this is a personal matter to Blackquill. He probably wasn't thinking fully rationally (which isn't the best mindset to prosecute in, but conflict of interest doesn't seem to exist in Ace Attorney law).
- One of the possible pressings against Fulbright has you tell him it couldn't have been Athena because Athena always wears a glove in her right hand. He asks you to go and provide evidence that she was wearing it during the incident, which you supposedly don't have. Therein the problem: you do have evidence Apollo had brought in just a while ago, in the footage from the security camera in Boarding Lounge 2 that saw Athena leave. Surely they couldn't have checked that?
- Perhaps they did, but it didn't give a good image of Athena's right hand, so it wasn't usable as evidence?
- That would just prove that Athena had the glove on her person at the time. It would be impossible to prove she was wearing it during the murder itself, and that she didn't just put it on later. Completely illogical, yes, but the court runs on a "guilty until proven innocent" system. Prosecutors and culprits have made even farther-reaching claims in the past.
- *Presents bottle of Luminol* OBJECTION! Even if the glove was cleaned, there would still be some traces of blood on the glove if she wore it during or soon after the murder... traces, *music starts* which this bottle of Luminol could find! *Desk Slam* Your Honor, I believe we have a literal case of Forgotten Phlebotinum here!
- Um, the argument they made wasn’t that the glove was cleaned, it was that it wasn’t worn during the murder. Athena’s prints being on the lighter means she couldn’t have been wearing the glove if she was the culprit, which isn’t something you can prove with Luminol testing.
- Even if they did have proof that Athena was wearing her glove at the time of the murder, it still wouldn't have explained where the fingerprints came from. You would have to prove that Fulbright forged the fingerprint analysis report, which is exactly what you do in the original case anyway, making the glove an irrelevant piece of information.
- Back in Case 5-2, how did Phineas Filch manage to steal the shoes of an international spy without him noticing?
- It's possible that Fakebright noticed his shoes were gone but didn't say anything about it because he was pretending to be stupid. He probably didn't need to pretend to be THAT stupid though, unless the real Bobby Fulbright was in fact just that stupid.
- It's also people that the fake Fulbright has false feet, and therefore didn't notice because he didn't feel anything. Although this sounds absurd at first glance, it's actually not unlikely. He's an international spy who's a master of disguise. If he's that good at being other people, then isn't it possible he has fake feet? After all, feet and shoe size is an identifying factor. Different people have different feet, so wouldn't it kind of give it away if people noticed that this "Bobby Fulbright" suddenly dropped 6 shoe sizes overnight? If that's so, then it'd stand to reason he'd have fake feet. To fit with each person he acts as shoe sizes. Which could mean, Filch was able to steal his shoes because he couldn't feel them being taken off his feet.
- This is something that bugged me about the last part of the final case. If the phantom was really the killer, and you believe you've got them on the stand, why not ask him to remove his glove? Athena stabbed the murderer with a utility knife, hard enough that she felt blood pouring down her hands. Wouldn't that leave a bit of scar tissue upon healing up? A scar on the back of the hand isn't damning enough evidence to prove guilt, as one could claim they got it from anywhere, but it would help to add credence to the idea that he's the phantom.
- If he was Crazy-Prepared enough for perfect masks for his face, he'd probably have another for his hand?
- Also, Fake Feet, so why not Fake Hand?
- Also he could just lie and said that those scar are from irrelevant source. Just like von Karma, until you whipped out that Metal Detector. And in this case, you have literally no proof to connect that scar from the scar that Athena made.
- Also it's been 7 years, it might have healed over to a point its invisible, the blade was very thin and he probably made sure to get medical attention. As for claiming he got the injury somewhere else, it's the defense's job to provide proof that it was from the incident, not for him to prove it wasn't, (as he was still technically just a witness) which is impossible. We see how desperate he gets as well, there is no way he wouldn't claim that.
- If he was Crazy-Prepared enough for perfect masks for his face, he'd probably have another for his hand?
- Why didn't Athena notice Fulbright's emotionless nature until Turnabout to Tomorrow? She'd been talking to him the entire game, yet it's only there she notices that his extreme mood swings are an act. It's not like she can only use her hearing with the Mood Matrix. She was able to sense something was up with Juniper, Robin, and Hugh outside of court.
- Athena briefly discusses this; Fakebright has strong control over what emotion he projects, but he needs time to plan ahead and think about what emotions are appropriate for situations ("I'll be happy when I receive a present", "I'll be shocked if someone jumps out at me" etc.). When things go way off the rails in 5-5, he can't improvise fast enough and defaults to simply masking his emotions outright.
- She had no reason to try to focus on his emotions since he was never under any scrutiny up until that point?
- Well, Fulbright has incredible control of his emotions. It seems he really loses control of them when he is nervous like when he was on trial. For most of the game he was in control of most situation so he would have been able to convey any emotion properly.
- Maybe it has to do with how in-depth the analysis was. Fulbright can fake emotions by projecting them one at a time in sequence. It's not perfect and leads to him looking somewhat simple-minded, emotionally speaking, but it's an act good enough to fool Athena. Widget, on the other hand, is significantly more sensitive and would be able to tell the difference between a genuine emotion and a really good fake.
- It's worth noting that Athena is rather unsettled by him from the start, and takes a while to warm up to his antics. She likely did realize there was something 'off' about him, but just figured he was a bit weird and simple.
- The phantom arranges for Aura to lower a ladder for him to grab, a 20 foot leap over a 50 foot drop, while it's moving laterally. Why didn't he just lower himself to the ground with his grappling hook watch?
- Not enough reach? Might as well ask where Means got his chalkboard or how L'Belle managed to change hair color between testimonies.
- The above troper hit the nail on the head. The grappling hook watch was a just supposed to be a weird "over the top" comedic antic. It's not supposed to be something you take in consideration. How did Means get the chalkboard? How did Ted survive having his his goggles blow up up in his face without any damage at all? It doesn't matter because it's just something shown for a joke.
- I actually thought that the watch also helped him during his ridiculous escape, like while he was jumping for the ladder, he could've used the watch to latch on to the ladder in case he missed, or actually used it, and the ladder was something he could latch on to since there's nothing secure to snare on the outside of the smooth building.
- On a more serious note related to the ladder, though, why didn't the Phantom arrange for other ladders to be used? The fact that he didn't came back to bit him HARD...
- Not enough reach? Might as well ask where Means got his chalkboard or how L'Belle managed to change hair color between testimonies.
- As shocking a twist as it was, the real Bobby Fulbright being dead for at least a year hurts my head. Why did the police just identify the body now? What took them so long? And why did they use fingerprints instead of, say, blood or DNA?
- It could be assumed that the phantom, as Bobby Fulbright, switched the fingerprint data with someone else, much like he did with Athena. Upon the moment that suspicion was placed on Fulbright's records, Edgeworth would then ask for any cases with unidentified cadavers that Fulbright handled be tested again, leading to the discovery.
- Plain old identity theft, but enhanced with the disguises. Most people aren't going to check if a guy is declared dead or not when dealing with an obviously alive person. And there is little need for a background check when dealing with someone that has proof of suitability (like the badge). It wouldn't be the first time the police screwed up their paperwork.
- In Apollo Justice, the authorities over several months weren’t able to piece together that Shadi Smith and Zak Gramarye were the same person, even though he had done nothing to hide his identity. And there was no impostor involved who could’ve misled the investigation in that case. We have to assume that the authorities are just not exceptionally thorough with regard to things like this.
- On the subject of DNA, real police officers aren’t obligated to submit their own DNA to be kept on file. So the only way they would’ve identified the real Bobby Fulbright through his DNA was if they went out of their way to test it against a known relative. As noted, they had no reason to do that with the phantom already posing as a still-living Fulbright.
- How did the sniper, who we can assume is a highly capable assassin given they were hand-selected by some powerful agency/government, manage to "not hit any vital organs"? The Phantom was literally standing with his head in full view, and he had frozen still in that position for a few seconds. So the sniper took that chance to fire, but somehow managed to completely miss his head?
- Maybe the sniper got a higher reward since the phantom was taken alive? Dead men don't stand trial, after all, nor do they give up secrets.
- …What? He was going to be taken alive anyway; he was in the middle of a courtroom. If that was all the sniper wanted, they didn’t need to fire on him at all. In answer to the question, maybe the phantom ducked out of the way at the last second, and it wasn’t shown onscreen? He is a spy who’s constantly fearing a surprise attack, so it’s not impossible that he’s have the reflexes to do that.
- Maybe the sniper got a higher reward since the phantom was taken alive? Dead men don't stand trial, after all, nor do they give up secrets.
- I don't understand how the Dark Age of the Law was able to end with the culprit of the final case being a member of the police force who deceived people for years. Shouldn't that raise even MORE red flags?
- The talk about the Dark Age of the law only seemed to mention that the court was in a dark age, meaning that the attorney and prosecutor who started it being found not guilty would make the court more trusted. Besides, the member of the police force was not himself, but an impostor, meaning that the public who'd only know about one Phantom would think that he's now harmless due to being behind bars. And it's not like we've had a Police Chief who's a criminal before... Perhaps the police force is seen as being in a dark era, and the game doesn't mention this because hey, what can YOU do about it?
- Maybe I wasn't clear but... He infiltrated the police station and impersonated a detective for a year. That should raise red flags for what kind of police force we've got going for us, especially if we're already mistrustful of the court system imposed by people like "Bobby Fulbright", who though not directly employed by the courts, works for the courts because he works for the Prosecutor's Office, too. Meaning he's just as able to manipulate evidence as a prosecutor or a defence attorney. He might not be a lawyer, but he's still a huge part of the court system.
- The Phantom was an elite spy capable of impersonating nearly anyone he comes across, who typically dealt with the shadowy affairs of high government espionage. He was not just a random guy who showed up and said "Hi, I'm Bobby Fulbright" and did this for a year where someone in the police could/should have noticed it. To think the police should be held responsible for not catching it is ludicrous.
- Not only that, but the phantom is ultimately taken down by the defense attorney and the prosecutor who were thought to be responsible for the dark age, with help from the defense attorney who helped prove the Jurist System was a success. Combine that with Edgeworth firing the corrupt prosecutors in the next game, and people are going to have less reason to lose faith since law enforcement is controlled by the Prosecutor’s Office in this universe.
- It seems odd that Athena’s earring would be the piece of evidence that brings the phantom down. So you need proof that the piece of rubble with the phantom’s blood was from the moon rock, which is solved by matching the composition with that of the earring. But where’s the proof that the earring was made from the moon rock? How would they be able to establish that? That seems like a very obvious gap that the phantom could have pointed out.
- If Apollo had suspected Athena of Clay’s murder from the first time they investigated it, why was he so nonchalant about working with her during the trials for cases 1 and 4? Why did he wait until after Ted Tonate knocked him out to leave the office and start being all moody?
Turnabout Reclaimed
- There's the DLC case. Okay, a large part of the in-case controversy is that during a public water show one year prior, the performing orca killed its trainer in front of a live audience. Fact 1: the trainer had a heart condition that triggered during the show and the orca was trying to save her. This is kept secret, even after the trainer is dead, her boyfriend is distressed, the aquarium receives a scathing story by a noted author and demands are made to have the orca put down. Why? Who could possibly benefit at that point? And then there's Fact 2: the aquarium is forced to use a replacement orca after the incident. This is also kept secret, even from the aquarium staff. And while the aquarium may have far shadier secrets of its own, they aren't directly related to these two, and by hiding the fairly innocuous facts from everyone, the official aquarium statement appears to be "our orca viciously attacked and killed its trainer, and we're still using it in our performances". And this turns out to be the perpetrator's entire motive. If they could have cleared up the whole situation by revealing either of those two simple facts, neither of which are particularly damaging, why didn't they?
- 1) Shipley might have known that Azura died of a heart condition, but he had no way to prove it. His attempts to say that she died of a heart condition that not even her boyfriend knew about would not be believed. In any case, he might have not been able to get her medical records or was in the middle of an off-screen investigation to prove Azura died of a heart attack with solid proof. 2) The secret replacing of the orca was most likely done because if Shipley admitted that he put Ora down, he would be admitting that the orca killed her trainer, which would he would never admit. It's implied he kept Ora being alive a secret so that when the time came, he would be able to allow her to return to Shipshape Aquarium with pride that she never hurt anyone. No one even knew that Rimes was Azura's boyfriend until after the fact in the court, so Shipley couldn't have told him anything.
- On point 2, whether or not Ora was actually put down is inconsequential to this part. Shipley at the very least could have said "I don't believe Ora killed anyone, but until we can prove it we should be using this other orca Orla in our act to prevent backlash". To go as far as to act as though Orla was Ora accomplished little more than display excessive pride (but not enough pride to actually support Ora herself continuing to perform) and ensure that any Ora backlash would now target an orca that was not only innocent but also unrelated to the incident. Which happened.
- And on point 1, a weak and possibly unbelieved defense is better than no defense at all, especially when your public stance is that the orca will not be punished for the incident. Also note that the book's author herself went through a Heel Realization the moment she heard about the heart condition (outside of court, no less), though it can be argued that Shipley wouldn't expect that outcome.
- You missed the part where Shipley & Crab actually had to make it look like they did put Ora down, and they had to argue against the CDA from euthanizing Orla as well. The CDA didn't care that Shipley was calling the other orca by the same name as the other one, they were convinced the "dangerous" one had been put down. He couldn't just "take the real Ora to the sidelines until her name got cleared". Summers' condition was only proven to be concrete after Apollo found the records from Hickfield; Shipley who did not (for whatever reason) have said proof would not have been able to convince DePlume or anyone else otherwise.
- That doesn't make point one any stronger. They couldn't prove that Summers had a medical condition until Apollo solved the mystery by... asking her doctor? They couldn't have checked with him before? Or was Hickfield being tight-lipped about it, and Apollo got lucky by instead asking that guy who scratches himself and says "hmm, yes" a lot? (Good thing the patient was female, then.) As for point two, it makes me wonder what motivates the CDA, since they are insisting that Ora be killed to prevent future incidents, yet aren't actually concerned about the public's peace of mind, since they have no problem with the aquarium owners lying and saying that they're still using the same orca that killed someone.
- Apollo only discovers the fact that Summers had a heart condition because he brought Buckler's heart medication to the hospital. The medication is what brings this fact to light, as it is physical proof and Buckler kept her condition a secret like Summers.
- It's possible that Shipley didn't want to tell everyone about Summers' condition. I don't remember if they ever said that he knew the exact reason Summers wanted it kept secret, so if that was the case, he could be respecting her wishes even after her death. If he did know the exact reason, then I could also picture him running into trouble if people found out that he was letting a girl with a heart condition do these shows with a killer whale. He probably could have said it despite either of these reasons, but then he might have wanted to keep it to himself unless it was absolutely necessary (he did manage to work around putting Ora down). Also, it wouldn't completely surprise me if the CDA didn't care about the aquarium lying as long as the apparent murderer orca was put down. They sound a little shady, to be honest.
- We always have to consider the possibility that Shipley just wasn't a smart man. What little we get to know about him got me to believe he was more emotionally-driven than logic driven. Owning an aquarium is no guarantee you know how to run it.
- 1) Shipley might have known that Azura died of a heart condition, but he had no way to prove it. His attempts to say that she died of a heart condition that not even her boyfriend knew about would not be believed. In any case, he might have not been able to get her medical records or was in the middle of an off-screen investigation to prove Azura died of a heart attack with solid proof. 2) The secret replacing of the orca was most likely done because if Shipley admitted that he put Ora down, he would be admitting that the orca killed her trainer, which would he would never admit. It's implied he kept Ora being alive a secret so that when the time came, he would be able to allow her to return to Shipshape Aquarium with pride that she never hurt anyone. No one even knew that Rimes was Azura's boyfriend until after the fact in the court, so Shipley couldn't have told him anything.
- The culprit of the DLC case chooses one of the worst ways to execute his plan. Really? You have access to powerful sleeping drugs and the ability to covertly administer them, and you choose asphyxiation as your murder weapon of choice? Exactly how did Marlon plan to get away with murdering Orla when he is one of the only people on the scene with the ability and opportunity to drain the pool?
- Are we sure the culprit intended to get away with it? He wanted to kill Orla. He only prepared the frame-up once the victim was Shipley, and his intent was to make Orla look guilty. And then he testified against Orla. And when he was forced to testify against Sasha, he kept saying that he still thought Orla did it. You could say he's less of a man trying to get away with murder and more of a man who would do anything to ensure that Orla would pay for her earlier "crime". (This may or may not be a veiled Moby-Dick reference.)
- Despite the way Phoenix handles things, trying to kill an orca isn't exactly murder anyway. The series' other killers are trying to avoid a death penalty, and their coverups reflect that need. This culprit faces maybe a couple of years in jail and a fine under $10,000 in Japan (double that in California). They might well have considered this worth it. They're not going to confess, but they're not going to go to the same lengths as a full-on murderer would.
- Couldn't Shipley's death have been considered Felony Murder though? Rimes didn't mean to kill him, but he only died as a result of his actions taken in the attempt to kill Orla.
- Also, the culprit probably wanted the orca to suffer. Using the sleeping drugs to euthanize her wouldn't have been enough revenge.
- On the second trial day of the DLC case, "Turnabout Reclaimed", Marlon Rimes insists that Orla is guilty of killing the victim. However, on the first day, Orla was declared not guilty. Wouldn't double jeopardy apply in this case? As case 3-2 "The Stolen Turnabout" shows, double jeopardy laws exist in the Ace Attorney 'verse.
- Putting aside that Rimes' assertation wouldn't be changed due to the official ruling... it could be that either double jeopardy wouldn't apply for an animal or that without the suspicion cleared due to her "not guilty" verdict, the CDA would still order the whale to be killed "based on past events in conjunction" since the public opinion is that the two orcas were the same. The possibility does exist that the writers might have forgotten about the double jeopardy with the DLC case, though.
- The DLC case: Luminol is sensitive and all, but how were there still such distinct bloodstains on Orla and the Skull Rock after spending that much time under twenty meters of water?
- Dried blood in small crevices. Protected from erosion due to currents and takes time to dissolve. And when in doubt claim "there was something in the water".
- Why in the name of all that's good would you attach a sensor to monitor an orca's condition, which works by sending soundwaves through water, on the side of the partition where the water can be completely drained, rather then on the side where water remains even when it's drained fully? Wouldn't it make more sense to put it on the side where there'll always be water...considering it needs water to work? The fact that Dr. Crab didn't know about Orla's condition when she started to drown was because of this massive flaw in logic that Shipley somehow didn't notice. If Phoenix and Athena didn't happen to be there at that time, then Orla would have died, all because they were stupid enough not to notice a massively obvious problem with the sensor placement. It seems like the only reason for it to have been put on the side was to give the prosecution conclusive evidence that the death happened during cleaning.
- It could easily be that either half can be drained independently. Dr. Crab didn't know where the sensor was, meaning that he could easily have assumed that Orla was in the stage pool, which is stated to lack sensors. He's not exactly a people person, so he not knowing where Orla is supposed to be is an easy assumption.
- Most likely, they can drain the water from either side and they just chose the wrong side for one reason or another. The better question is why they don't have sensors on BOTH sides of the partition.
- There is only one drain, and it is on the skull rock and sensor side of the pool. Let's chalk the sensor placement up to bad planning.
- I'm pretty sure that an orca killing someone during a show in front of a crowd, especially one likely containing quite a few children, would've at least been a semi-major deal. It was likely all over the news, so how exactly had Phoenix never heard about the incident a year back?
- He might simply have just forgotten about it.
The Meaning of the Game
- So... exactly whose "Dual Destinies" is the title a reference to? Gonna take a wild guess here and say it ain't the Orca twins.
- Not hard to use a bit of imagination. Here are some examples:
- The destinies of Phoenix & Blackquill, who inadvertently ushered in the Dark Age of the Law, ending it.
- The destinies of Athena & Blackquill intertwined from UR-1 from the start to the very end.
- The destinies of Apollo & Phoenix who both take different paths to find the truth, to find the converge at the end to finally catch the Phantom.
- The destinies of Clay Terran & the real Bobby Fulbright, who were both ended by the same culprit for reasons they could never have possibly forseen or prevented.
- The destinies of Phoenix & Edgeworth, two old friends who over the years of ups and downs finally manage to take their proper places in the legal world and spearhead the movement to restore the law to its former glory.
- The destinies of Metis & Clay, who were both brought to an end by the same culprit and whose cases combined brought down the Dark Age of the Law.
- The destinies of Athena & Edgeworth, due to their similar traumatic childhood cases.
- The destinies of the GYAXA space program & the court system, getting back to their intended purpose after being derailed by a catastrophe.
- I always figured it was the destinies of Phoenix and Apollo, and the title was a way of assuring players that, even though Phoenix's name was back in the title, Apollo was still in the game and had his own story.
- More options can be found under Fridge Brilliance
- Not hard to use a bit of imagination. Here are some examples:
