#WKSHDKAHDKS

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

sits up in bed. so lana and ema definitely thought they were responsible for edgeworth "choosing death", right?

(the rest of this post was supposed to go in the tags, because it's not very well organised or written, but it got too long so. here are the slightly edited tags for your reading pleasure (or otherwise)):

i was going to make this solely about ema because she's the obvious one with her open adoration of edgeworth, but the thing about rfta is that it goes to great lengths to emphasise the connection between lana and edgeworth as well.

the sl-9 incident showed that lana grows attached to people deeply, hence angel starr's comment on how, when neil marshall died, 'she (lana) felt like her own brother had died.' with edgeworth, i think it was similar but worse. because he's not just a coworker or subordinate who's dear to her. he saved her life. and it cost him his own.

at the beginning of the case, edgeworth says he was mistaken for thinking that lana was always looking out for him post sl-9 (a statement interesting on its own because that's when everyone else says she grew distant), and, later on, he brings ema fingerprinting powder because lana asked him to. then, of course, there's the 'lady luck' comment he makes.

similarly, on lana's side, you obviously have the end of the trial when she says he did well, but there's also that additional moment post-trial where she's the only one to notice — in a group comprising her, ema, phoenix and gumshoe — that he's 'hiding', listening to their conversation. point is, there's enough to suggest that she might have been the nearest thing edgeworth had to a mia; his 'chief prosecutor' to phoenix's plain 'chief'. they're as close as two people can be in a relationship where one of them is constantly lying and the other is von karma's star pupil.

rfta is pretty straightforwardly depicted as the case which solidified edgeworth's resolve to do what he did; i don't think i have to prove that. rumours about him have reached new heights, his car and knife were involved in goodman's murder, he makes an unprecedented mistake in court by failing to connect the evidence room and carpark incidents, thus forcing the chief of police to enter the trial to do so himself, and he's publicly revealed to have relied on falsified evidence to secure a conviction in the sl-9 case, all of which only happened because of lana. jake marshall even claims that from the beginning — that if you trace edgeworth's rumours back to their source, you end up meeting one person: lana skye.

and it gets worse because at the end of rfta, she thinks he's fine!! she literally says, 'i was afraid the pressure would break you, but you rose above it,' and reminds him he's nothing like gant because he's not alone. she leaves the case thinking he will be okay. and then, what, like a week passes, and she finds out that he wasn't, and that he's gone, and it's her fault. even after she was freed from gant's control, even after she had finally stopped lying, she couldn't prevent herself from claiming another life. so much for 'lady luck', i suppose.

and the game reiterates this multiple times. gumshoe states at the start that edgeworth's ties to those higher up in the department have made him the subject of constant rumours, and phoenix says (in front of ema) that he shouldn't be held responsible for the forged evidence because that was all lana's doing, which then leads to edgeworth commenting (again in front of ema) that he feels as though 'something inside him has died.' it all goes back to lana. we can argue and say that it was technically gant's doing that caused all of this, but lana still took actions that led to it. even her complicated friendship with edgeworth isn't spared; it's that closeness between them that exacerbated those rumours. how could she not feel responsible in some way?

and with ema, it's rather obvious, isn't it? if she hadn't gone poking her nose into things, none of this would have happened or come to light. and, of course, she'd never choose anyone over her sister, not for anything in the world — it's simply not a question, but that's the problem, isn't it? it's not a question. it's not some hypothetical moral dilemma. it just is. she may not have killed neil marshall, but she still has one king of prosecutor's blood on her hands. and now she has to live with that. she just. has. to live with it. no matter if he chose otherwise.

moving on from that a little, i think it's actually wild how much of ema's journey to becoming a forensics investigator is paved with bad memories. neil marshall's death and her subsequent inability to testify are what drives her to begin pursuing it, her first proper investigation results in her idol's "death" and when she finally graduates, the person who saved her sister has been disbarred, and she can't even help because she isn't allowed to. all that pain and constant pursuit of her goals, and she's still the same ema skye, still that girl shrouded in darkness, always one step behind the truth, one step a little too late. no wonder she was angry in aa:aj. i would be furious.