#I don't mean to say that Asougi becoming a prosecutor only makes sense in the ways I outlinned

[rev3rb]

Spoilers for the end of DGS2, but the thought has been plaguing me for a while now.

I just can’t stop thinking about how odd it feels that Asougi chose to be a prosecutor in the end. While some of that oddness definitely comes from DGS’s rushed wrap up post 2-5, I also just feel that Asougi’s own reasoning for becoming a prosecutor hits a little wrong.

Narratively I get why he became a prosector. It’s to set him up on an opposite but complementary path to Ryuunosuke (among other things), but I feel like for his own personal story, it doesn’t make a ton of sense the way it was done. At the very least, it feels like it’s a decision Asougi should have made much further down the line.

The rest goes under a cut bc this gets a little long.

When Asougi gives Ryuunosuke Karuma, he explains why he wants to become a prosuctor, saying the following:

“Because I’ve seen it now. I’ve seen what’s inside me. The demon that reared its ugly head that day. It was only for the briefest of moments, the last time I came face to face with that inspector... but it was unmistakable, I wanted to kill him. I’ve always known there are demons that live inside people. And now I know there is one in me. The fact that it very nearly consumed me is something I’ll carry with me until the end of my days... while I devote my life to fighting those whose demons have got the better of them... as a prosecutor!”

I don’t know if it’s just me, but if anything, it feels like this should reinforce Asougi’s want to be a defense attorney. Maybe that’s a little odd, but bear with me here.

He’s basically saying that while he knew that there were bad people out there with ‘darkness in their hearts’ (essentially), he’s come to realize that he too has this potential to do bad in him. If anything, shouldn’t that make him realize that good people can do bad things? Shouldn’t that make him realize that there are people out there who make mistakes? Wouldn’t it then make more sense that he’d feel compelled to help those people?

I understand that getting convicted of murder results in capital punishment here, but wouldn’t that make for a great new shift or addition in Asougi’s original goal of wanting to change the justice system? Now that he understands that good people can mess up, wouldn’t trying to change the law so that convictions aren’t necessarily so harsh be a great goal for him?

Sure, I get that Asougi’s goal wasn’t as noble as you’re initially lead to believe as it really had more to do with wanting revenge and all that, but with how he talked in 1-1, I can’t help but think it wasn’t all fake. I like to think that Asougi really did have ambition to change the legal system along with his goals of finding out what happened to/getting revenge for his father. But we’ll never really know since DGS2 couldn’t give us time to properly talk to Asougi about stuff like that.

Yeah, he can do this from the prosecutor’s side of things. No doubt that it would be much easier that way in universe, so in that instance his reasoning for becoming a prosecutor would track. However, from the way Asougi’s talking here, that doesn’t appear to be his goal at all. It really does come off more as “I want to contain the darkness within me while I punish those who let that darkness get the better of them.” It feels rather harsh, even if I’m unsure that it’s supposed to come off that way.

On top of all that, I feel like a character having this kind of goal would fit well with the themes of the game. DGS’s characters are not as black and white (for the most part) as the characters in the mainline games. Take a look at the true culprits across both DGS games. A number of them never intended to hurt anyone, and some that did never intended to kill anyone. There’s grey morality everywhere, and yet if a person is convicted of murder, they’re faced with capital punishment. (The games themselves sorta get around this by having the less guilty characters not actually kill anyone, which feels like a bit of a cop out, but I guess we can’t be too morally grey now can we?) A character trying to align the universe’s punishments with the grey morality seems like it’d be a nice fit, and interesting to boot, but I digress.

To bring things back to Asougi specifically, I suppose another way to read what he said is that this realization caused Asougi to lose faith in people, something he’s said is vital to being a defense attorney. In which case, becoming a prosecutor is his only real option if he wants to still become a lawyer, but there’s another issue I take with it.

When Asougi first tells Ryuunosuke he’s going to be prosecutor, he says he’s going to study under van Zieks to become as formidable as he is. The problem is that, not but a few days earlier, Asougi said that he’d never be able to forgive van Zieks. While that doesn’t mean that Asougi wouldn’t be able to work with van Zieks, it would no doubt be difficult due to those lingering feelings of resentment. On one hand, this tells us that Asougi is putting aside his feelings to better himself as a lawyer, which is good, but it feels very odd that Asougi would have such a change in attitude towards van Zieks in such a short time period.

Not only that, but van Zieks also no doubt has some conflicted feelings towards Asougi as well. Without getting into a big analysis on how van Zieks might feel towards Asougi himself post 2-5, I feel it’s safe to say that those feelings would be complex. Add on that Van Zieks has purposefully distanced himself from people for years, and while he’s shown that he's slowly moving past his issues, I can’t imagine he and Asougi would get along well at first for the same reasons I stated earlier. They could tolerate each other, yes, and ultimately, I do feel that they’d be able to properly accept everything and become good colleges... but again. That. Takes. Time. Likely a lot of time in their case. It’s just not going to be a good environment to learn in at that point in time.

It honestly feels like they’d get on better if they were rivals in the courtroom where they can grow to appreciate each other’s abilities without having to actually directly interact much at first like how van Zieks and Ryuunosuke did. From that point it would make a ton more sense if Asougi were to decide he wanted to change sides. Then again, maybe that anamosity and tentative truce would escalate if they were on opposite sides of the courtroom...

But look. All I’m saying is imagine if Asougi stuck with being a defense attorney and tried to change the law surrounding convictions. He ultimately could have become a defense attorney like Raymond Shields, where he takes guilty clients who deserve some sympathy in an attempt to get them less harsh punishments. It would have been cool.

TLDR: Prosecutor Asougi works, but it feels like a weird and awkward choice at that point in time. On the other hand, defense attorney Asougi could have been really cool.