#Literary analysis brain goes brrrrrr

[characteroulette]

Hey I'm not done analysing AJ yet. Here's another one on it's theme --

The overarching theme of Apollo Justice (AA4) is your lack of autonomy. You are not the protagonist of this game. Your decisions don't really matter in the plot; yes, you make the choices which progress the game, you're the one puzzling out the truth to these cases, but you aren't the one who is in control. This is emphasized through small hints in the dialogue (Apollo knows he's out of place between Phoenix and Kristoph's spat, he feels Klavier leading him along both in Wocky Kitaki's case and in Machi Tobaye's case, and Phoenix once again is the one truly in control for the final case), narrative choices (no matter how hard you try, you must present that forged card. You have to present the envelope recreation. You have to present that forged diary page.), and even how we're connected to each client.

Each of our clients wasn't our choice to take. Kristoph was going to defend Phoenix until Phoenix requested for Apollo to take the lead. Alita comes to us only after Trucy hands her a flyer. Klavier tells us that Machi requested our services. Phoenix assigns us to Vera's case without telling us until the last moment.

Even in the flashback case, Phoenix didn't exactly choose to be Zak's lawyer. Kristoph would have defended him if not for Zak's deciding to remove him and choose someone else. (I can't explain what Phoenix is doing there, but it's possible Zak called around in his search for a new attorney and just so happened to land on Phoenix.)

Our clients are the ones who chose us in this whole game. We had no say in the matter; we're just here to keep the plot moving, to walk through the doors which were opened for us in the end.

This is, of course, not followed through in Dual Destinies or Spirit of Justice (because those games are furthering the themes of the Investigations games). It is, however, followed up in Dai Gyakuten Saiban / The Great Ace Attorney.

The very first decision we make in TGAA is about who will take on our client. Who is going to take up our defence? It's a non-choice, of course, because Ryuunosuke is panicking and wants to protect his friend. He can't trust that his best friend believes in his innocence, and through the course of the trial, has to stand more and more with this choice he's foolishly made.

We see his conviction to make this decision evolve through each case. He's fully willing to prove his own innocence once more in the second case without even thinking about it. He's pressured into defending his client in the third case, showing his own conviction faltering as it's slammed into his face that his choices no longer matter. He grapples with what it means to actually decide to trust one's client in the fourth case, deciding in the end to take that leap of faith due to his own faith in his best friend. And then the fifth case, he's the one actively choosing to defend his client, since she continuously tries to reject his help.

I really believe this is where the series would have gone had we kept the same themes from Apollo Justice into its sequels. An exploration on being told our choices don't matter, but then making those choices anyway because they do matter. It's the same sort of feeling that exists in Justice for All's final case; our decision on whether to plead Guilty or Innocent at the final hour before salvation arrives may be a non-choice, but it mattered to us. It mattered, even if the narrative pushed past it and didn't actually take it into account.

We're on the rails, but that doesn't mean what happens can't affect us. We might not have any sway in the narrative, might be led along right to each answer by the nose, but we're still choosing to continue. I think that does matter in the end.

[characteroulette]

You'd think that Petel would be the foil to Dante. They're, at first glance, opposites. Dante is afraid of everything, Petel is unable to feel fear. Dante is endlessly secretive, Petel is very open about their truths. Petel gives off the energy of a lone wolf but is very pack oriented, Dante is the actual lone wolf.

But they're actually too similar to be foils. Predator for predator. The desire to destroy and the desire to consume. This similarity is the whole reason they're able to understand one another and become partners.

So then, who is Dante's foil? Because he does have one. Is it Damon, who is his clearest opposition? (Popular vs bullied, comfortable in his skin vs wanting to tear his skin open.) Is it Aglaé? (Beast of bones and flesh vs beast of blood and flames, never hides his teeth vs always hiding his danger.) Neither of those really seem right, especially with how little focus they get in the story (I'm sorry I'm sorry aaaaaaa).

The true foil to Dante is, in fact, Vektor.

They still have similarities, of course. Artificially raised kids who aren't very good at interacting with the world or blending into society. Kids with status that doesn't actually matter. They have to be similar in some ways, being raised in very similarly sheltered manners.

But this similarity marks their starting points. Their foil nature towards one another develops as they take this start and run in completely different directions.

Dante is tired of being human. Petel encourages him to let down his walls, to accept friendship, and then to acknowledge that his innate danger is a part of him. Dante grabs his humanity and, after everything, RUNS in the farthest direction from it as possible. He is fire and flames and the root of everything wrong for his friends. He has power, he is Change, and he burns what he touches. It's just the nature of his being.

Vektor is drawn to being human. He's a learning program, so his actions and behaviours change over time the more he interacts with the core cast. His understanding of his own programming evolved the more he learns, the more he is loved by his friends. Their love is strange, as none of them can call themselves normal, but it is undeniably love. Being shown all this love, is it any wonder that he would grab onto their humanity and sprint towards what they represent instead of away from it? They call themselves humans mostly, and so of course he would want to join them in their humanity.

Dante's arc is one of descending into his monstrous nature. Vektor's, in perfect contrast, is one of crashing through his artificial nature. By the end, Dante is more free of the shackles humanity chained onto him and Vektor is less the program he was written to be. It's why the only way it could ever end was with Dante and Vektor switching places. It's why they both had to sacrifice themselves for these friends who have helped them become their true selves.

Anyway Vektoria is a parallel to Azula if she won and then found herself trapped in helping out the heroes thanks for coming to my ramble about my kids.

[characteroulette]

A study on Prosecutors --

(On AO3) (next)

So the Ace Attorney series has a vast cast of colourful characters. From their protagonist to their one-off witnesses for a trial, there's bound to be one or two who catch your eye. A main draw for many are the prosecutors in particular and a lot of thought goes into making them appealing to us. They're our villains, but they have to be likable enough for us to want to spend time with them. So, from start to beginning, here's a personal analysis on how each games uses every narrative trick available to it to make us like their villains.

First, Edgeworth.

He's introduced to us in a very specific way; someone who's all ready tied quite personally to our protagonist. There's an air of mystery to him even as you enter the first day of the trial; Phoenix knows him somehow and there's dark rumours surrounding him. The first day of the trial does its best to "prove" those rumours true! Everyone knows about the famous "updated autopsy report" scene and what follows. Another important factor in this is the cross-examination with the bell boy. Edgeworth does use underhanded methods to win his cases, so it seems to us. He's really willing to bend the rules in order to get the culprit declared guilty. (He's right, of course, for wanting that update for the autopsy report. We saw it in the intro ourselves; Mia didn't die instantly when Redd White hit her. But it's a sting to us and it goes to prove his methods aren't the cleanest and so all we can think of is how despicable this move is, how brilliant it is for him to throw us off completely.)

And then, the second day of the trial. He confronts Phoenix before the trial specifically to almost warn him that there's no mercy. He comes to show off to the player that there's a deep seated darkness in him, just not in the way we might have thought from that first game. And Phoenix's manner towards him is crucial to our own feelings towards him; Phoenix doesn't get upset or even react much differently than he had when talking with Gumshoe about it. He merely says, "You've changed." And then Edgeworth walks away and the trial can begin.

Edgeworth fighting against Redd White starts the important trend of Edgeworth not being quite as in control as he likes to think he is. He can't control any of his witnesses and it's a crack in his affect. It's the first sign towards him being less than the demon he presents himself as, the first moment we get to see there's something endearing buried beneath his coldness. It also brings his ruthlessness and quick thinking back into sharp focus; the very moment Redd White is about to confess, he tells White to do so. To confess, in fact, to a different crime; to placing the wiretap. It's a brilliant move that sets everyone off-balance, it handily explains White's involvement without him having to be the murderer, and it gives White the second wind he needs to drive Phoenix (and us) into a corner, to deserve our deus-ex-machina that follows. As a personal note, this is the moment where I started really liking his character. It's such a brilliant bastard move that I couldn't help but like him immediately for it. Oh, this man is actually a bastard, I thought to myself. I'm going to enjoy grinding him down completely as this game goes on. (Exactly what the story wanted from me, I'm sure.)

But with Mia's help, we win the trial and save both ourselves and Maya. The mystery is left hanging in the air: who is Edgeworth to Phoenix and what happened to make him fall so far to darkness?

This isn't a question that will be answered in case 3, but this is where the writing goes into overdrive to endear us fully to our prosecuting rival.

The first day of the trial is a comedy of errors. We get to witness firsthand how much careful control Edgeworth places in his methods, in his scripts, and how lost he is without all that. He's floundering so hard with Wendy Oldbag, who makes strange assumptions in her testimony that he has to run with and omits important things due to forgetting or just not being allowed to say. It becomes a bit of a game for him as well; he's figuring out what exactly happened just the same as Phoenix is. He starts working with Phoenix right at the end, just for a moment, after his own witness lied about the full scope of things.

This is important, this glimpse of working together with Edgeworth. It's a hint, a taste of what's to come, and it's masterful in how quietly it's slipped under our focus. We're reeling, too, after all, from Oldbag's sudden truths.

But we need to investigate some more. And so we head on into the second day.

I don't think I can overstate enough how well each Gumshoe anecdote goes towards endearing us to Edgeworth. Having a character with 100% faith in someone as darkly presented to us as Edgeworth is goes such a long way in demonstrating their humanity. Edgeworth may appear ruthless and dubious, but he's so goofy. He crushes a cup full of hot coffee and burns himself!! He stands at a window and mumbles Wright's name to himself over and over!! He's just as much of a trainwreck as everyone else in this universe and it goes so far towards endearing us to him, to building up our own trust of him when it's needed most.

Trial day two is one step forward, two steps back for Edgeworth. He's managed to find stability in Sal Manella's testimony, he knows this proves that only Will Powers could be the criminal here, and yet everything falls apart once again when Cody takes the stand. Once again, Edgeworth finds himself floundering and scrambling for ways to discredit Phoenix's methods of questioning Cody. He tries to make his belief in Powers' guilt work, but Phoenix throws it all into his face. By the end of this day, there's practically no way Powers can be found guilty of this murder. And so Edgeworth is left in shambles, no longer able to cling to his belief that everyone is guilty, that if he just gets a guilty verdict for everyone then he can make up for his own failings.

(We get a glimpse of it, but the real reveal is yet to come.)

(This investigation day, I feel, is where Gumshoe is cemented as our lovable oaf of our friend. He saves us from Dee Vasquez's yakuza/mafia men. He gets his big damn hero moment and gets to be a little in awe of it himself. This is the moment, right here, where we can really just fall in love with Gumshoe. It's another small point towards our endearment to Edgeworth, albeit one that's a detour into a different character study.)

And thus, we come to the third trial day. Our strongest, most definitive look into Edgeworth as something more than just our villain/rival of the game.

It's stated right out the gate that Powers cannot still be considered as the guilty party. That Edgeworth's approach to this particular testimony has to be different, focused on proving her lack of involvement but unsure of where to go from here. He lets Phoenix and Vasquez run most of the show, watches as Phoenix engages in a battle of wits with her, and flounders all the while in what he's supposed to do here. He shouldn't be needed, after all. There's no way Powers can be guilty, so what is he even doing here?

Seeing Phoenix falter, however, brings him the answer. In a sudden move, he throws out an objection. He stalls the trial because the truth, the full truth, has yet to be pulled from this witness. The full truth is within their grasp and after seeing Phoenix claw at it so desperately, he has to see it to the end. He can't let it hang in uncertainty; he has to figure this out or it will eat at him like so many other things in his life. (His father's death. His own guilt. His first two trial experiences. SL-9's darkness. So many unanswered questions hang over his head that we've yet to become aware of, and still they inform his turn here in this moment. They fit together to form this picture of a man who has been shown the light of truth which can dispell his own doubts and he latches onto it in a desperation, in a moment of casting aside his own helplessness in the face of all the darkness he's accrued inside him. He wants to find the truth! He's cast it aside for so long in his efforts to punish himself for a crime he believes he committed and yet still, yet still, he can't help but stumble forward into that light at the first moment he's allowed. He wants to believe in Phoenix, he wants to believe in something besides his own demons, and it shows in his stumbling, in his floundering, right in this moment.)

Because of his efforts, Dee Vasquez slips up and allows us to dig into her lie. Because of his moment of accepting the light of the truth, Phoenix is able to prove Powers' innocence.

Another iconic scene, Edgeworth comes to us after the trial and tells us in no uncertain terms to get out of his courtroom. He's not lying when he says he's been saddled with uncertainty and unease; after all, if Phoenix was able to show him this truth, then it brings up a doubt he never wanted to acknowledge.

*How many innocent people has he convicted in the past four years?*

*How can he say what he's doing is right when the truth he's been fighting for has never been the full truth?*

We've inadvertently cracked him wide open. We've inadvertently shown him a reflection of his own darkness and he could no longer stomach what he saw.

Which leads perfectly into our next case where we get to put all of this building endearment and trust into practice by defending Edgeworth from that looming darkness.

First off, everything about the scene between him and Phoenix in the detention centre is perfect. If you assumed he would give in so easily and allow us to defend him, then you haven't been paying attention to him. He's so stubborn he didn't give in to assisting us prove Vasquez's guilt until it was literally the last moments of the trial. He's been actively avoiding any revelation in his life for years. Of course he'd reject us outright. Even when Phoenix makes a heartfelt plea, is his usual irreverent self with his misplaced humour, Edgeworth won't even tell us a single detail.

But we, and Phoenix, know better than to give up. We know that, to get him to admit to anything, we have to dig deep. (A wolf who pursues the truth like it's an illness; Phoenix is a great character, too, because we're the ones who drive him to this in our own endeavours to Know.) So we investigate and learn and when we return, he has no choice but to admit that we're the only ones whom he can place his trust into.

We're the only ones willing to take his side. A favour in return for another; he doesn't remember, but it's important enough to Phoenix that we also begin to understand what exactly drives these two to be so Normal(tm) about one another. We begin to see that Edgeworth is less detached than he likes to believe himself.

It all comes very much into sharp focus the moment we meet Manfred von Karma. (Here's another thing the Ace Attorney series does really well: a contrast in mentors. We see how Mia teaches and nudges Phoenix and us along, how she can be stern and gentle in the same breath. She's clearly fond of Phoenix and treats him accordingly. A huge contrast in everything about Manfred and Edgeworth's dynamic. Edgeworth respects him deeply, but he doesn't seem to have any regard for Edgeworth at all. He talks about Edgeworth in a detached and unfeeling way so much that you could find yourself wondering if he knew Edgeworth at all if not for how many cues Edgeworth clearly takes from him. The difference in mentorship of Grossberg to Mia and Diego to Mia, of Kristoph to Apollo and Phoenix to Apollo, are also fascinating but I'll dive into those some other time agh.)

First of all, it's in their similar poses, it's in the way Edgeworth introduces us to the idea of Manfred. Second, it's Manfred's actions which reflect sharply right back onto Edgeworth. Suddenly, the way Edgeworth conducted his witnesses in the second case makes so much more sense when watching how Manfred controls Lotta and Gumshoe with his iron fist. It becomes apparent that Phoenix is outmatched when we can't find anything to gain a foothold and we're nearly at the end of our rope. We've come too far to back down here! We've grown too endeared to Edgeworth to let him down in this moment! There's darkness in him and we have to shine our light onto it, to reveal to him that he's not the demon he portrays himself as!

(I really feel Phoenix's desperation when he says, "I'm the only one who sees the real Edgeworth. I'm the only one who can help him!" Because he's right. We're the only ones who can help, who are willing to help, whether it be by playing the game and continuing the story or by seeing that same light in Edgeworth that Phoenix believes in so fervently.)

But despite everything leading up to this truth of Edgeworth's innocence, despite all our belief, Edgeworth himself can't believe it. It drives us, drives Phoenix to dig in further, to claw out the whole truth no matter how messy and ugly.

I cannot overstate enough what a masterclass of buildup and payoff 1-4 is to Edgeworth as a character. It's a culmination of how surprising it is to suddenly regard your main antagonist, your main rival whom you've fought against for the past two cases, as your ally. It takes some kicking and screaming to get Edgeworth to even be forthcoming to us about everything, it takes hard proof and full bluffing of a whole theory before Edgeworth tells us the whole truth. But we know he will. We trust him to trust us in turn because this is where the whole thing has been leading to.

And the catharsis to proving Edgeworth's innocence even against his own despair cannot be overstated either.

It really is no wonder that Edgeworth is a fan favourite. The leadup to his being fully instated as a mainstay ally is just absolutely beautiful in its execution. At least, it is to me.

(Edgeworth's continual growth as a character in his consecutive appearances are great, too, but by that point we've been endeared to him so of course we're happy to see his returns. Or annoyed, idk this is about my experiences lol.)

Anyway yeah, Edgeworth is great and the buildup of him becoming our friend is really good.

[characteroulette]

Let's talk about how Dante's Change works.

Now, Dante is a bit unique when compared to the other subjects. He wasn't simply given his code (framework, core argument, warping) and sent on his way to await results. No, Dante was at ground zero, being patched and updated and tinkered on at nauseum. This actually compliments his core argument: Change. He is Change in every sense of the word, whether it be his coding being changed constantly or the way he warps the world around him.

His Change gives him access to Create. Because his warping has basically no limiters on it besides those he imposes on himself out of fear, this means he can Create and Change whatever he imagines.

Is it any wonder a child who wished to become like the sun ignited a fire within his skin? Is it any wonder a child who had to endure test after test after test would make up silly games and rules to play so the isolation wouldn't drive him completely mad?

Dante has been told all his life that he's bad code, that he's a disappointment, that he's more of an experiment than a person. He internalised these messages to the point of putting his own life in danger for his perceived misbehaviour. He made up rules just as nonsensical as the ones his parents gave him, only the consequences grew more and more gruesome each time. It only made sense as he was told time and time again that he had to prove his capabilities or else face a reboot, yet no matter how he refused to lose even once, he was forced into reboots anyway.

Dante's one very real fear is that he might not even be who they've told him he is. They say he is their son, he looks too much like them to discount, but a lot of his memory of his childhood from before Hell is muddled. He can't say with complete certainty if he was created or if he was born. He can't even say if it really matters anymore, considering he has enough shadow in him to make him the same as Vektor and Vektoria.

He was given the ability to spawn items and focused it wholly into his food, filling it with maggots and rotten bits. An unexpected side effect was his ability to pull life from the shadows, but it was taken full advantage of just as any of his other capabilities. He was given the power to rewrite others' code, to overload them with his own power even if only for a short while. This had to be contained to his Berserk as its unintended consequences nearly warped his parents into the beings he sees them as.

He was given Change and, after so much of it being forced upon him, he rejected that as much as he could.

Dante, as we first see him when he arrives at the Boarding School, is stagnant. He's bottled up as much of himself as he can in his bid to thwart whatever plans his parents had for him. He refuses any action, living for a while purely in reaction. It's better for everyone if he doesn't activate their code. It's better if he keeps his head down and doesn't engage with the world around him which he can dig his claws into and mold into whatever he desires. It would make him too much like his parents to take the power they've poured into him and so he swallows down every bit of Change he exudes.

Unfortunately for him, he is surrounded by others who can recognise that power and see him more as a peer than something to fear.

Dante's framework is filled with theoreticals and bits of unfinished experimentation. It's filled with a lot of his own work, as he is constantly Changing despite his own attempts to refuse it. One exception becomes two becomes ten becomes a spiral out of control. Dante was built to be an outlet for testing how much reality could be warped. He is Change in the meanest sense and it's reflected back onto him every time he lets himself relax for a second.

Fire is a living, breathing thing, and so he starves it. Eating is a painful, mind-numbing task, and so he amplifies it with his little game. Fear is a constant presence breathing down his neck, and so he continually gives it new and horrifying shapes.

As much as he tries, he cannot stagnate. Change will Change even if it has to kill him to do so. A step forward is one that cannot be taken back. A step backward cannot be overwritten by moving forward again. Even moving in circles is Change, but moving in circles isn't what Dante attempted in his bid to prevent the game from being played.

His best bet to truly break free from this code laid over him would have been to take matters into his own hands. To perform an action, no matter how painful.

He learned the second time around. He cannot pretend he has not been Changed.

To take steps in either direction, he had to accept action and Change.

He'll carry the weight of those deaths on his head even when he manages to find his way home.

[characteroulette]

adding onto this:

The weapon Green made to defeat his evil wizard character: the sword that deflects red attacks.

This was a desperate fantasy on some way to counter Red all the way down.

Had this thought, Everhood spoilers:

The Evil Wizard at the end of Medallion is red. They have a red cloak and gold highlighting. The same colours as Red; red cloak, yellow straw hair.

Just an interesting detail!