History Characters / AceAttorneyWitnessesAndOtherCharacters

* TheBusCameBack: After being absent from the series since ''Investigations 2'', he returns in the DLC case "Turnabout Time Traveler" in ''Spirit of Justice''.

* AnimalMotifs: Phoenix compared him to a lion in 2-4. His hairdo and buff physique probably helps in that comparison.

* GenreSavvy: When pressed in a part of his testimony in "Farewell, My Turnabout", he expresses concern how Phoenix managed to get a witness a Guilty verdict during every previous trial, and if that means he's going to get falsely blamed himself.

[[folder:'''Florent L'Belle''' (''Shuuichi Biyouin'')]]
[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lbelle_1.png]]
->''"Now if [you] would excuse me. It's time to touch up my makeup."''

A man working for the Tenma family as one of their secretaries and frequently uses a special brand of perfume and dyes his hair to various colors. The introduction to Case 2 strongly implies that he is responsible for the murder of Rex Kyubi. It's not a lie. He murdered Rex Kyubi in an elaborate plot to gain access to Tenma Taro, a gold ingot. He needs the money because his efforts in creating a cosmetics brand for only himself have rendered him bankrupt.
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* AllForNothing: His plan to steal the gold ingot was doomed to fail from the start since the ingot had already been stolen by Azuki Kozo, Filch's grandfather, long before he even learned of the hidden treasure of Nine-Tails Vale.
* ArcVillain: Of the second case of ''Dual Destinies'', as obviously spelled out in the opening.
* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: In-universe. L'Belle fancies himself a genius entrepreneur with a successful beauty product line. To an extent he's right, since there's apparently a lot of demand for his products (especially for a hair dye that easily washes off with water)... except the part about ''needing to sell your products to actually turn a profit.''
** It's even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in ''Spirit of Justice''; going into Inga's residence in Case 5 as Apollo after Phoenix and Edgeworth search it and then investigating the bottle of 'Je suis L'Belle' hairdye reveals that it's a free sample that was given away to select people, and an advertising blurb at the back of it ends with a disclaimer saying that this product is "not for sale. EVER.", while also calling the user a 'peasant'. Apollo and Athena are bewildered at this, and Apollo's inner thoughts can only ask just what L'Belle's purpose with the business was in the first place.
* TheBeautifulElite: Thinks that society works like this, and considers himself as one of its members.
* {{Blackmail}}: He coerces Damian into forcing a merger against his will by threatening his daughter with a blackmail letter, even destroying the letter if you confront him about it. L'Belle resorts to holding the secret of Tenma Taro over Damian's head in court, trying to prevent him from confirming that he's the Amazing Nine-Tails. It's implied he also threatened to pull the plug on Rex Kyubi's hospitalized wife to get information out of him.
* BoldInflation: Or caps inflation, to be precise. It seems there's at LEAST one all-caps word in EVERY sentence out of his mouth.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Turns out that, despite his thoroughly unpleasant personality and rather foppish demeanor, L'Belle is actually a rather brilliant cosmetic chemist and inventor, having created a line of beauty products that are very effective and ingenious and therefore in high demand, and created his phone-suit himself. Shame his narcissism causes him to [[InsaneTrollLogic refuse to actually sell his products to the public]].
* ComplexityAddiction: His plots to steal the town treasure and pin the murder on Mayor Tenma are the very definition of convoluted; especially when contrasted with Filch's break-in of the Forbidden Chamber. L'Belle's scheme no doubt took many weeks and loads of money spent through blackmail and other illicit measures to set up everything just right. Filch's thievery attempt? It took him 15 minutes, cost him nothing (with the exception of the effort of crawling through a dusty vent and his Tenma Taro costume), and the only reason he did so was because he was bored that day.
-->'''Apollo:''' [[LampshadeHanging Yeesh, Rube Goldberg machines have less elaborate setups than L'Belle's scheme...]]
* CutLexLuthorACheck:
** Actually a plot point. Had he had even the slightest business sense at all, selling at least some of his products would have made up for the high cost of developing them in the first place as well as the advertisements. Of course, that would be asking too much, making him resort to theft instead...
** To put into perspective the profits he could have gained and the demand for his products, ''Spirit of Justice'' reveals that his products were put into distribution following his arrest, and that Khura'in Minister of Justice Inga Karkhuul Khura'in is a regular user of it.
** The business suit he claims to have personally designed for Mayor Tenma wasn't too shabby as well, and the integrated cell phones do fulfill their function of letting him juggle multiple calls.
* DoingItForTheArt: InUniverse, this is why he spends so much on his (apparently successful) cosmetics line ''without'' selling it to anyone. However, this excuse evaporates into plain vanity when it's revealed he spends a lot of money ''advertising'' them anyways, purely to revel in the envy of those who want them.
* DyeHard: In-universe, and it's actually a major plot point.
* EyeScream: Sprays cologne on your eyes if he wants you to shut up, and when caught off guard, he accidentally sprays it on his own eyes.
* GambitRoulette: When the totality of his scheme is revealed, even the game itself starts acknowledging what an unholy convoluted mess it is, even by ''Ace Attorney'' standards.
* GorgeousGeorge: If you were paying attention at all during the opening cutscene of the case, this isn't even a spoiler.
* HateSink: At first he's just a bit of a weird bird that can make you chuckle but you write off as harmless (you know he's the case's villain from the opening cutscene, but at first he just seems like the LaughablyEvil type). Then it's revealed what a ridiculous fop he truly is when all the deductions begin pointing to him as the culprit. He's incredibly vain and has no qualms about sharing that with everyone within earshot, he's condescending towards people constantly as though he's true nobility and you're a filthy peon, and finally the fact that the whole crime was committed because his vanity and narcissism is so out of control that he spends all his money to advertise beauty products that he will ''never sell'' because he can't stand the thought of "unworthy" average folk trying to emulate his immaculate look. His solution to this is to steal, extort, and finally kill people, just so he can continue promoting products he'll never make any money off of and feel good about himself, making it inevitable that he'd have to resort to similar measures to fund his beauty line at some point in the future. By the end of the case you'll be chomping at the bit to put him in his place. Don't worry, Athena and Apollo feel the same way in-universe.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
** His damage animation involves accidentally spraying his cologne on his own eyes by squeezing on the spritzer too hard, then hastily covering them in pain.
** The final piece of evidence that seals his fate is his own hair coloring product, which ''he gave you personally'' as a free sample, just to rub his exclusive supply of it in Athena's face.
* HollywoodAcid: His cologne has a lot of this trope's properties, being green, painful, and corrosive enough to dissolve letters.
* HumiliationConga: After he has his breakdown, he gets call after call that dismantles his career once his looks and reputation are destroyed.
* TheHyena: He bursts out in obnoxious laughter frequently as he dismisses your claims. It stops once you have him cornered.
* IHaveYourWife:
** Sent a letter to Damian Tenma which demanded him to force a merger between the two towns, or he would pay with Jinxie's life.
** Pressing an unrequired statement in his final testimony implies he also did this with Alderman Kyubi's wife, who was placed under his care while she was hospitalized.
* ImpossiblyCoolClothes: Those rectangular shoulderpads on his coat? They're actually clamshell cellphones that ring and pop open whenever he gets a call.
* {{Jerkass}}: This guy will get on your nerves the moment you meet him. It's even implied the reason Blackquill doesn't call him as a witness was because he ''is just that annoying'', and Blackquill sounds completely exasperated when Apollo and Athena manage to drag L'Belle onto the stand.
* {{Leitmotif}}: "Je Suis L'Belle"
* MeaningfulName: L'Belle comes from "la belle", the French word for "the beautiful".
* MeaninglessVillainVictory: Even if he were to succeed in his plot to gain unrestricted access to the Forbidden Chamber, it would still not solve his monetary problems, as the legendary gold ingot he was after was already long gone, stolen by Filch's grandfather. Even if the gold was still there, L'Belle refuses to actually ''sell anything from his beauty line'', meaning he'd be right back where he started after the money from the Tenma Taro gold dried up.
* MonsterClown: He has pale white skin, hair dyed in various crazy colors, a purple suit, and has a flower toy which sprays perfumes that can hurt other people's eyes.
* {{Narcissist}}: So proud of his own looks and his line of beauty products that he advertises the latter heavily to the public despite them not actually being for sale, just to gloat about them (in the vein of "it's so exclusive that ONLY I can USE them"). This way of marketing has rendered him bankrupt and in desperate need of money.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: He resembles Oscar Wilde in many ways, including his hairstyle, interesting fashion choices and obsession with his looks. Most obviously there's his perfume bottle that looks a lot like a green carnation on his lapel.[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_symbols#Plants_and_animals]]
* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Crosses over with BewareTheSillyOnes. L'Belle is far more competent a villain than his appearance suggests. He has most of the case's witnesses scared into silence, carried out a very complex plot and was blackmailing at least two (locally) powerful people with the threat of killing their loved ones.
* ObviouslyEvil: Between his PracticallyJoker looks and his abrasive attitude, even people who forgot the introduction cutscene of the case would quickly assume he's the killer (and he is).
* PracticallyJoker: His appearance ''alone'' will remind you of ComicBook/TheJoker, especially his appearance in ''Comicbook/TheDarkKnightReturns''. He even likes to spray things in people's faces and shows up with bright-green hair at one point.
* RichesToRags: L'Belle gets this at the end when all of his sponsors abandon him and he ends up with a hefty fine. The murder conviction probably isn't going to help either.
* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Apparently many stores want to stock his beauty products. If he let them, then he'd probably be loaded. But no, his products are only for him, the peasants are unworthy (but he'll certainly advertise them to you to remind you that you can't have them). Better come up with a convoluted plot to steal an ancient chunk of gold instead!
* SignatureLaugh: "Ah ha ha ha!"
* SissyVillain: Bonus points for his sissiness (his vanity and unwillingness to sell his own products) being what ultimately provides a motive for committing murder.
* SkewedPriorities:
** Apollo says it almost word for word when L'Belle claims the thing he was worried about after the murder was ''Mayor Tenma's suit'' he personally designed.
** And in the very next piece of testimony, he prioritizes the cleanliness of his designer shoes over a chance to possibly help the dying victim.
* SmugSnake: Treats everyone like dirt? Check. Not as clever as he thinks? Check. Unbearably arrogant? ''Double'' check.
* SoBeautifulItsACurse: At least he ''thinks'' he's this. Everyone else considers him {{Gonk}}.
* SpannerInTheWorks: His hair product plays a role in the final case of ''Spirit of Justice'', namely [[spoiler:taking care of the hair-related issues regarding spirit channeling]].
* StupidEvil: Bankrupts himself by funding a product he won't sell (he's too vain to let anyone else have it), and does convoluted crimes to try and pay his debt.
* TooDumbToLive: His entire murder plot stems from his crippling debt incurred from his business, which as shown in [[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice the sequel]] regarding its use by royalty in a foreign country and an offer he blatantly shoots down, he never bothers to sell it [[ItsAllAboutMe out of pure vanity]], even going as far as to frequently advertise it publicly so he can just show off.
* UncertainDoom: As premeditated murder is punishable by the death penalty in the ''Ace Attorney'' setting, Florent L'Belle is now at risk of being sentenced to death as his murder of Rex Kyubi was premeditated with evidence of it being the spiked coffee he served to Kyubi and Tenma to knock them unconscious.
* VerbalTic: Tends to ACCENTUATE certain words in his PHRASES to sound upper-crust.
* VillainousBreakdown: L'Belle starts to spray his face with more perfume and eventually shows his dyed hair to be now back to its natural color, white, and his skin color to be darker. He then answers a bunch of cellphone calls, learning that his sponsors are leaving him, a vague project is being cancelled, and he is being sued for ''100 million dollars for damaging the stratosphere with his products''. He then collapses with the news he's now in massive debt.
* WhiteHairBlackHeart: It isn't immediately obvious, but L'belle's natural hair color is white. This is how you determine he was the one wearing the Nine-Tails mask, which leads to his conviction.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Once his true appearance is seen after his breakdown, it's very hard to believe L'Belle's only 33. Then again, he single-handedly used enough beauty products on himself to damage the ''stratosphere''. It's not that hard to believe they had that kind of effect on his hair and face.
[[/folder]]

* ImprovisedWeapon: He [[WouldHitAGirl clubbed Cindy Stone]] with the "Thinker" clock.

* WouldHitAGirl: Given that he killed Cindy Stone via conking her.

* EccentricArtist: Seems to have become one of those by the time of ''Spirit of Justice'', adding to his already traditional quirkiness. For starters, he wears a fake mustache and smokes from a (seemingly also fake) pipe while in his "Laurice Deauxnim" persona.

* EccentricArtist: Seems to have become one of those by the time of ''Spirit of Justice'', adding to his already traditional quirkiness. For starters, he wears a fake mustache and glasses while in his "Laurice Deauxnim" persona.

* TerribleArtist: Subverted. Both Phoenix and Edgeworth constantly insult his artistic abilities, but this is suggested to be a result of them being unable to get past the fact that [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Larry]] made them, as all other characters praise his work. This is supported in ''[[VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth Investigations]]'', where Edgeworth is nearly brought to tears by Larry's performance in a play when he didn't know that it was him, but then immediately scoffs at it after learning that fact. In ''Spirit of Justice'', he's gained enough prestige as an artist for the influential Sprocket household to hire him as a wedding reception sign designer. He's also infamously known for his ability to create high-quality statue clocks, which are noted to be so well-made that a witness thinks it was sold in a shop.

* ChivalrousPervert: He is quite the pervert, but he is also a murderer's worst nightmare. When he is in a murder scene or other scene where someone is in danger, Larry will (inadvertingly) collect critical evidence (if no make it outright), deliver critical testimony after his lies are broken through, save lives, create enough chaos to cause a murderer to make a mistake that allows the murder to be solved or otherwise interferes with a murderer's plans, and/or foil murder plots. He often does many of these things by accident.

* ChivalrousPervert: He is quite the pervert, but he is also a murderer's worst nightmare. When he is in a murder scene or other scene where someone is in danger, Larry will (inadvertingly) collect/create critical evidence, deliver critical testimony after his lies are broken through, save lives, create enough chaos to cause a murderer to make a mistake that allows the murder to be solved or otherwise interferes with a murderer's plans, and/or foil murder plots. He often does many of these things by accident.

* ChivalrousPervert: He is quite the pervert, but he is also a murderer's worst nightmare. When he is in a murder scene or other scene where someone is in danger, Larry will (inadvertingly) collect critical evidence, deliver critical testimony after his lies are broken through, save lives, create enough chaos to cause a murderer to make a mistake that allows the murder to be solved or otherwise interferes with a murderer's plans, and/or foil murder plots. He often does many of these things by accident.

* VillainousBreakdown: L'Belle starts to spray his face with more perfume and eventually shows his dyed hair to be now back to its natural color, gray, and his skin color to be darker. He then answers a bunch of cellphone calls, learning that his sponsors are leaving him, a vague project is being cancelled, and he is being sued for ''100 million dollars for damaging the stratosphere with his products''. He then collapses with the news he's now in massive debt.
* WhiteHairBlackHeart: It isn't immediately obvious, but L'belle's hair color is white. This is how you determine he was the one wearing the Nine-Tails mask, which leads to his conviction.

Because of page length, this page has been split into individual pages based on the character's debut work. For examples from individual games, go to the following pages.

[[caption-width-right:189:[[labelnote:Click here to see him in ''Investigations'']] https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frank_prisoner.png[[/labelnote]]]]

[[Characters/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth Investigations]] ([[Characters/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMinorCharacters AAI]], [[Characters/GyakutenKenji2MinorCharacters AAI2]]) | [[Characters/TheGreatAceAttorney TGAA]] ([[Characters/TheGreatAceAttorneyMajorCharacters Major]] | [[Characters/TheGreatAceAttorneyMinorCharacters Minor]])\\

[[Characters/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth Investigations]] ([[Characters/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMinorCharacters AAI]], [[Characters/GyakutenKenji2MinorCharacters AAI2]]) | [[Characters/TheGreatAceAttorney TGAA]] ([[Characters/TheGreatAceAttorneyMinorCharacters Minor]])\\

* {{Foil}}: Desirée could be considered one to [[Characters/AceAttorneyDahliaHawthorne Dahlia Hawthorne]] in the previous case. [[spoiler:Both are incredibly beautiful, and are in relationships with overly emotional guys when they're first met. However, the two of them might as well be night and day otherwise. Dahlia is a BitchInSheepsClothing who didn't value any of her boyfriends, tricking one into making a SuicidePact with her, and made off with an expensive diamond for her own gain. Desirée meanwhile, despite appearing to be a GoldDigger due to her expensive shopping habits, is [[NiceGirl actually a good person]] who [[HappilyMarried married someone she genuinely loves]], and the fact that he had a high-paying job was [[NotWithThemForTheMoney just a bonus]].]]

* InnocentlyInsensitive: [[spoiler:Her ignorance about the true nature of death and cheerfulness after what Acro and Bat suffered pushed Acro over the edge, since she would keep making jokes about that prank she pulled on Bat... even though it clearly caused Bat severe brain damage, and she said these jokes to Bat's surviving ''brother'']].

* TheUnfought: While she was an accomplice to the culprit, she doesn't actually make an appearance in court.

* TooDumbToLive: His entire murder plot stems from his crippling debt incurred from his business, [[VisualNovel/SpiritOfJustice which as shown in the sequel]] regarding its use by royalty in a foreign country and an offer he blatantly shoots down, he never bothers to sell it [[ItsAllAboutMe out of pure vanity]], even going as far as to frequently advertise it publicly so he can just show off.

* InconsistentSpelling: A plot point--her name is "Magg''ey''", as opposed to the more common "Maggie", which Richard Wellington learns the hard way when he tries to frame her for murder. (In the original Japanese, her name is written with nonstandard kanji.)

* TheChewToy: Maggey Byrde has a perpetual streak of bad luck, which culminated in her being accused of murder on ''three'' separate occasions.[[labelnote:*]]Only Maya Fey has more murder accusations under her belt throughout the series[[/labelnote]] Byrde lampshades this a lot too, and considering [[MeaningfulName her name]] [[PunnyName is a pun on the magpie bird,]] known to bring bad luck, she's practically the female version of Larry. When she was six months old, she apparently fell off the balcony of her ''9th floor'' apartment...

* {{Meido}}: Soon after her first trial, Jean Armstrong employed Byrde as a waitress at his restaurant. And the waitresses wear maid outfits.

-->'''Byrde:''' [[LampshadeHanging I wonder what my next job should be...? Ooh, this is actually kind of fun!]]