Discussion Main / AmbiguouslyEvil

Brought from Ace Attorney

• In the third game, Iris dated Phoenix in college and really fell in love with him to keep her insane sister from poisoning him and later participated in a plan to stop Dahlia's return. On the other hand, one of her lines could be interpreted to mean that she knew about the times Dahlia killed people and only bothered to step in and protect Phoenix which, combined with her implied Love Martyr tendencies towards Dahlia, implies that she was fine with letting her sister kill people she had no personal connection to.

This isn't YMMV trope, and what's written here is Alternate Character Interpretation, not this. Fridge Logic of this interpretation aside, first of all entry misses one very important fact. Phoenix was a person she has no personal connection to when she saved him, making it unambigously good action. And secondly this is not interpretation suggested by the game, the game suggested that she was definitely not OK with her sister being a villain, and there is no ambiguity presented that would question she's a good person.

• Also in the third game is Godot, or Diego Armando. He was a defense attorney until a poisoning and coma combined with the death of his girlfriend left him bitter and more than a little hostile towards certain people. While he did hatch a plan to save Maya from Dahlia, his actions caused her to be put in danger in the first place (he used an incredibly convoluted plan instead of simply stealing or destroying Morgan's letter before Pearl read it) and he admitted that he was so overcome with anger at the sight of Dahlia that he stabbed her right away, not even bothering to consider that he was killing the spirit medium channeling her, who was also Maya's mother.

This guy lands in the opposite spectrum, the game makes it clear he's Tragic Villain who deliberately endangered Maya's life and hatched a plan that led to Misty's death. By no means they're actions of a hero, and he himself claimed that if he trully cared about Maya he wouldn't let her get into that situation in the first place. Again no ambiguity. Granted the game tries to make him sympathetic villain, but definitely does ot question his villainy.

Edited by NNinja

Can a main character be this? The Code Geass example seems to be missing the point that the series has Grey-and-Grey Morality and no heroes or villains, and I'm sure it's not the only such example on the page...

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Is there an ambiguously good trope?

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence" Hide / Show Replies

Shouldn't this be a YMMV trope? It's a difficult trope and alignments are highly subjective.

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