| 1 | '''[[Administrivia/SpoilersOff A reminder for editors and viewers:]]''' Headscratchers pages are for post-viewing discussions. Spoiler tagging here defeats the purpose of the article. You shouldn't be reading the following entries if you are worried about spoilers. |
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| 4 | [[foldercontrol]] |
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| 8 | [[folder:In General]] |
| 9 | * Why does gunpowder burn (or, in general, the idea of averaging how far someone was shot from) seem to be distinctly absent throughout this game, despite it being present in previous games? In Turnabout Corner Alita shot Meraktis from quite close range while inside the stand, whereas Wocky was standing quite a ways from him, so an examination of the wound should've been enough to show that Wocky didn't do it. With Magnifi's "murder", he turned out to have shot himself in the forehead, with the barrel probably pressed against his forehead. With that instance it can be argued that gunpowder burn or other such proof wouldn't really be proof of anything since Zak or Valant may have just done it executions style anyway, but it's a little odd it isn't brought up, as it would've made for some pretty good "confirmation evidence" (aka when it's revealed it's suicide, the fact he was shot execution style is brought up as making much more sense now). And for that matter, in Magnifi's crime scene photo, his gunshot wound is completely clean of gunpowder burn, which makes no sense in itself. |
| 10 | ** In the case of Meraktis’s murder, we can assume that either Wocky was standing close enough or Alita was far enough that the presence or absence of gunpowder burn wasn’t that noteworthy. The only evidence they have about how close Wocky was is Wesley Stickler’s testimony, so there’s no way to be conclusive about it. As for Magnifi’s death, it being a suicide doesn’t make the gunpowder burn make “much more sense”. Zak and Valant were instructed to shoot square in the forehead, they only had one bullet each, the victim was confined to his bed, and they were in a hospital, so doing it execution-style would have helped to muffle the sound. Under those circumstances, there’s no reason why they would forgo putting the gun to his head before firing. |
| 11 | * Where did Phoenix get the idea to become a piano player, especially if he can't play a lick? Yes, there is a piano in the office (covered in magic supplies), but why would he choose to try and advertise himself as one? Did Trucy persuade him? Was he just that desperate? (This also raises another question... Was Mia also a piano player, or was it simply left in the office?) |
| 12 | ** His piano playing job is just a cover, he is a professional poker player that attracts clients and gambles to the Borscht Bowl Club. |
| 13 | ** He can play a little, so I guess he once took lessons (maybe as a kid) and wasn't that good at it but he thought that would be a good idea for his gambling side job. |
| 14 | ** As for where the piano at the agency came from, they’re actually really easy to get for free because they’re so difficult to move. They’re usually given away just to get rid of them and clear up space rather than for money, so they’ll be listed for free provided the “buyer” covers the moving cost. Phoenix probably found one like that and got some of his many friends to move it into his office. (In fact, in the first ''Investigations'' game, Gumshoe mentions he used to work for a moving company. He’d be perfect for the job.) |
| 15 | * How could Phoenix be playing piano for 7 years and ''still'' be terrible? Surely he must've picked up some techniques along the way or something. |
| 16 | ** Phoenix being a pianist was a front for his poker playing. It's implied numerous times that he would play horribly partly on purpose (or at least that he didn't bother trying to get good), since it would turn interest away from his piano playing, and make his poker career more lucrative as a result. |
| 17 | ** Considering he keeps a miniature piano in his hospital room for "practice" during the second case, I'd wager that he's practiced enough to keep the people at his venues happy, even if he can't play specific songs on request. Piano playing isn’t something you can just “fake” if you want people to think you do it for a living, so we have to assume that Phoenix is passable at it and is underselling his level of skill as a joke. |
| 18 | * How could Apollo ''not'' know Kristoph had a brother? It was stated in 4-4 that Apollo watched Phoenix's last trial at least several time and he definitely took note of Klavier. |
| 19 | ** Didn't he watch it between the two trial days of 4-4? It's implied Apollo didn't know all the details of Phoenix's disbarment up until then, so I doubt he saw the tape earlier. Also, Kristoph probably isn't too forthcoming about his past / family / etc. |
| 20 | * Considering the fact that Ema Skye's hobbyist forensics are constantly turning up evidence that the actual forensics team completely missed, how did she fail to become a crime scene tech? Hell, you'd think they'd let her in just because she gets better toys from magazines than they get as professionals. "You can be a CSI, but you have to buy your own luminol." |
| 21 | ** Probably as a joke, or...her methods might be considered to be unconventional to the police force. |
| 22 | *** It's explained that she was about to become a crime scene tech, but she failed the examination. |
| 23 | ** Knowing her ForScience attitude towards investigations, it's possible Ema failed the test on procedural grounds. There's no doubt Ema's got talent, but she's gets so eager to play with a new toy that she blows off orders and common sense until she comes down. |
| 24 | ** I thought it had to do with the way she tries to improve on the original procedures or invent her own, which she does in her introductory case. People giving tests generally expect you to do what's in the book, not your own thing. It probably made her come off as careless, even if her ways were more efficient. |
| 25 | ** If I recall, the game actually implies on several occasions (pretty strongly) that, while Ema's undoubtedly good at forensics, and has the mental know-how, she's pretty bad when it comes to practical forensics. Or the very least when it comes to putting practical forensics to new use. When they use the footprint analysis kit, she reads the instructions while going through process, and specifically passes the buck to Apollo. Been a while since I've played the game, but I think I recall the game emphathizing how Ema seemed to make Apollo do it, and didn't seem to want to do it yourself. So it's implied she has quite a bit of trouble actually learning new techniques. Plus, simply being knowledgeable and decently adapted to forensics isn't exactly going to make sure you get in. Honestly, let's be frank here: Ema's main trait when it comes to forensics is her enthusiasm and love for the entire thing. Yes, she's knowledgeable and good at it too, but the main reason she's seen as a forensics centered character is because of how much she loves it, not because of how good she is at it. |
| 26 | ** Word of God has stated that, in one of the cases, the formal investigation was disrupted due to corruption, leading to the inability of an "offiical" forensics team to examine blood evidence in that case. Ema being able to find vital evidence in that particular case was due to the perpetrator thinking that a standard detective wouldn't be doing their own luminol tests. |
| 27 | * What are Snackoos? Are they savory, are they sweet, are they crunchy, are they chocolate? |
| 28 | ** They are fried dough covered in chocolate, that somehow make good projectiles. |
| 29 | ** Technically, they're ''karintou'': sweet crunchy quasi-cylindrical snacks with a strong visual/auditory resemblance to thumb-sized pumpernickel pretzel sticks, though without any white crystals of salt/sugar embedded in the surface. ''Karintou'' normally get their caramelized color and taste from dark brown sugar, but apparently there are some versions made with chocolate. |
| 30 | ** I took Snackoos to be different from karintou (you know, like how onigiri sometimes become hamburgers when anime is dubbed over), and thought they were like Twix, but without the caramel and the biscuit bit was chocolate. Even though they more look like small pieces of those jerky sausage things. |
| 31 | * In a conversation with Ema in 4-2, she mentions that the reason she came back to America to take the exam to become a forensic scientist was that "Mr. Wright and his people" helped her years ago. It makes me wonder who is Ema talking about when she says "his people"? By the time the player gets to 1-5, Maya is already back in Kurain and there doesn't seem to be anyone else working in the Wright & Co Law Offices. So who is she talking about? Gumshoe? |
| 32 | ** Well, given how chummy Phoenix is with Gumshoe and Edgeworth, maybe she meant them? |
| 33 | * When Apollo "perceives" a witness's tell, why does he inform the witness what their tell is? If he wasn't so stupid as to tip the witness off as to what he's doing, he'd be able to use the same tell over and over again in order to pinpoint he crucial parts of the person's testimonies, while the witness would have no idea how Apollo can see through them. But instead, he just outright tells the witness what their "nervous tick" is, allowing them to hide that particular habit, and forcing Apollo to go through the effort of searching for a new one. |
| 34 | ** He has to tell them something. He's trying to get them nervous and keep them talking. Saying "I think you're lying," would just result in them responding with, "No, I'm not." By describing the tell, he gets them on their defense, hinting that he knows something that they don't want the court to know, which makes them start talking in an effort to answer his offense. He doesn't have evidence, he doesn't have a contradiction, he has to give them SOMETHING for his "You're lying" claim to have any weight at all. |
| 35 | ** The ticks are a subconscious thing, so presumably the witnesses would require a ''lot'' of concentration to notice they were doing it and stop. Recall how Lamiroir had her throat-clenching tick pointed out, yet did it again when hiding that Machi knew English. |
| 36 | * Why do you think Apollo never noticed his ability to catch people lying? He's had that bracelet all his life and surely every now and then he'd feel it randomly tighten around his wrist when talking with someone. After awhile you'd probably start to wonder why and maybe read into the situation a little deeper. |
| 37 | ** It likely either happened rarely enough that Apollo didn't put much thought into it, or he simply had no real reason to put it to use until the start of the game. That, and even if he did notice, going from "Hey, my bracelet randomly tightens sometimes" to "I have magical lie-detecting abilities" would be kind of a leap if he didn't have Phoenix there to point it out to him. |
| 38 | ** Some additional explanations: We don’t necessarily know that he wore the bracelet all the time growing up. It doesn’t pick up on every lie that someone tells. And given how easily he can brush off the bracelet’s reaction when it first happens during Olga Orly’s testimony, it’s safe to assume it’s a subtle enough reactions and/or hasn’t happened frequently enough for him to notice it before. |
| 39 | *** Well in the very least we can now say he had it since he was grade school age since you can see him wearing it in his Khura'in photo from ''Spirt of Justice''. |
| 40 | ** Remember, the bracelet tightens on his wrist because Apollo subconsciously feels tense in response to other people’s tells. But Apollo is also a pretty nervous guy himself, so he has that excuse for the bracelet to feel funny instead of connecting it to other people. It’s not until he’s in his element in the courtroom (and has had his sensitivity pointed out by Phoenix) that he’s able to realize it’s not just him feeling nervous. |
| 41 | * Where did everyone ''go''? Not only is Phoenix left with only Ema -- a side character who appeared only once, and that was in the "postscript" game -- as support, none of the "old guard" appear in the flashback case... which takes place only two months after the final case of Ace Attorney 3. Would Edgeworth, Maya, Pearl and Gumshoe really just stand back as Nick's life went "boom"? |
| 42 | ** The out-of-universe reason is that ''Apollo Justice'' was going to be a reboot of the series, but late into the development someone ordered that Phoenix had to appear in the game. They probably didn't have time to give prominent roles to most of the supporting cast at that point. In-universe, until the fourth case, the playtime is spent focusing on Apollo's cases, with Phoenix himself appearing sporadically and briefly throughout them. There's nothing saying he's not spending his time with Maya, Edgeworth, and the others when he isn't around. |
| 43 | ** Edgeworth in particular has a big question mark over him. Canonically, less than a month before the Gramarye trial (spoilers for Ace Attorney Investigations 2 follow), Edgeworth: solves a cold case about the President of a foreign nation right after dismantling a major smuggling ring; takes down the head of the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee, and a prison warden; solves another cold case and brings the killer to justice after over 18 years; and organises the effort to rescue a kidnapped child who was also the star of a movie that was successful at the box office. All the prestige he must have got from his accomplishments in Investigations 2 would put him in a position to help Phoenix - but more importantly, on a personal level, he showed that he was willing to put his position as a prosecutor on the line for Kay Faraday - he was even held in prison at one point for investigating without authority (which he does not seem to regret for a second). If he was willing to do that for Kay, who he only became close with a month earlier, it feels like a weird turn for him to stand by idly as Phoenix got disbarred. Hell, even if (for whatever reason) Phoenix didn't want him to investigate - Miles showed in Investigations 2 that he would help a friend even if they didn't believe in themselves. |
| 44 | *** There would only be so much that Edgeworth’s investigation could do. ''Dual Destinies'' implies that he did help Phoenix get the jurist system implemented for Vera’s trial, but to come up with evidence to overturn the decision of the bar association itself is no small feat. Not even the full-fledged MASON system, capable of showing in detail all the connections between past and present, was capable of yielding conclusive proof. |
| 45 | ** Meanwhile, the sixth game explains that Maya has been busy with spirit medium training in Khura’in for the past few years in preparation for becoming the Master. A conversation with Edgeworth likewise implies that Gumshoe is still on the force, but since Ema is the detective assigned to work under Prosecutor Gavin, it makes enough sense why Apollo never met him. |
| 46 | * Why was Apollo so flabbergasted to learn that Phoenix had a daughter only half his age, considering Apollo’s own backstory involved him being adopted and placed in foster care? It seems like “adoption” should’ve occurred to him well before Trucy explicitly confirmed it. Even if his backstory hadn’t been completely planned out at this point, it was this game that established that Jove and Thalassa were both out of the picture well before Apollo could’ve gotten on without them. |
| 47 | ** It could be that he was thrown off by Phoenix and Trucy’s cavalier portrayal of their relationship. They don’t act much like you’d expect a typical father and daughter to behave, but they‘re so nonchalant about it that it’s hard for him to get where they’re coming from. Apollo may not have had a strictly normal childhood, but he was still raised alongside his “brother” by a “father” who acted like a normal father. |
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| 49 | * Why didn’t Klavier ever realize how suspicious Kristoph’s behavior was in the aftermath of Phoenix’s disbarment? Not only was Kristoph the only one to vote against disbarring Phoenix, but he went on to befriend him for several years before ultimately planning to defend him against a murder charge. All that after he’d told Klavier that Phoenix was an underhanded cheat and unworthy of any respect. Did the two of them fall out of touch after the Gramarye trial? Otherwise, how could Klavier have glossed over such blatant contradictions? |
| 50 | [[/folder]] |
| 51 | |
| 52 | [[folder:Turnabout Trump]] |
| 53 | * Phoenix blatantly admits to a crime and this is completely overlooked. Either the trump card is fake, making the evidence a forgery, or it's real, and Phoenix admitted to removing said card from the scene and giving it to his daughter. |
| 54 | ** He doesn't actually lie once though. He's just making a subtle non-distinction with his wording. He's saying that he's taken the card and given it to his daughter, which is true. He didn't say he took it from the crime scene, and never actually calls it the missing ace. This actually mirrors something that happens in the fourth episode, when Phoenix produces a "forged" version of Kristoph's mail, but Apollo distinctly notes that it was simply Phoenix's replication of the mail. They weren't passing it off as the actual evidence. This is the exact same thing, except that Phoenix never directly makes the distinction, he just lets everyone, including Apollo, fall into the misconception. Depending on how good of a defense you can put up (aka how good your lawyer is), this can legitimately be enough of a defense against Phoenix having, legally, done anything wrong, not just in the wacko world of video game law, but even real life. Obviously there's a very big difference between morality and legality, which is why, morally speaking, Phoenix's actions are cast into doubt, even by Apollo himself. And this is also why Phoenix just up and admits "I forged evidence" after the trial, because morally speaking, that's what it still is. Morality doesn't run on technicalities, but legal ramifications often do (which Klavier, ironically, mentions to Kristoph later in the game). |
| 55 | ** The fake card is basically used in the same manner as the phony bottle of poison from Turnabout Recipe in the third game, where it's used hypothetically in order to prove or support a particular notion or trick the real criminal into admitting something they shouldn't know. Like with Glen Elg's ear medicine, Phoenix initially claims that he took the card from the crime scene and gave it to Trucy, but when Kristoph protests to it, he points out that the real logic behind presenting the bloodied card is to provide a motive for the killer to have swapped it out. It's also a bit like the photo of Maya's spirit channeling abilities that Franziska presented in the second game; it's technically inadmissible as evidence, but it does open up the possibility that the court needs to consider. |
| 56 | * Why was the 5th ace taken? Logically speaking, would it have changed anything about the prosecutions case other than Phoenix's location when he did the deed? In fact it would make him look worse, because he'd have planned on sneak attacking him, which is worse than just doing it on the spur of the moment. |
| 57 | ** I'd say panic. Kristoph was already in a rather compromising situation in case Zak decided to talk about the case that got Phoenix disbarred, so he had to kill him there to stop his reputation from being tarnished. But then he realized some blood dropped on an ace, so he hastily swapped cards, not realising there were two decks with different colors on the back (which is the real problem in this situation), and left. |
| 58 | ** Because it cuts out the hidden passageway from the case and removes the possibility of someone else having done the deed. Kristoph is basically counting on keeping the room isolated to make ''someone'' inside that room be the guilty party. |
| 59 | * One thing I've never understood is why Phoenix took Shadi's locket. I suppose it might have interfered with the whole transfer of rights thing if it was found out who Shadi really was, but apparently just not having a successful trial was enough for it to be fine, so with Shadi already dead he obviously can't be charged with anything. |
| 60 | ** In my head-canon, just because it had a picture of his daughter. Emotional value, nothing more. |
| 61 | ** It’s implied through the MASON system that Phoenix doesn’t think very highly of Shadi, and the whole of Triupe Gramarye, after what he’s been out through thanks to them. And with how Shadi had planned on going back into hiding after that night, Phoenix probably took the locket in order to sever all ties between him and Trucy, since he claims to have wanted to protect her from the controversies surrounding the troupe. |
| 62 | ** The above seems especially appropriate if you consider that we don’t know when the locket was stolen. Olga Orly had initially assumed that Phoenix was strangling Shadi to death when he took the necklace, so she probably witnessed said “strangling” after she was clubbed with the bottle. Think of it this way: Phoenix phones the police and then Kristoph shortly afterward, then realizes what will happen if a locket with Trucy’s picture is found on the victim’s person. He hurries to take the locket off, but Olga happens to regain consciousness just then and mistakes the scene for him strangling Shadi. |
| 63 | * Whatever happened to the (real) fifth ace that the killer stole from the scene and Phoenix had forged? |
| 64 | ** Given who it was, I assume he'd burn it, or something similar so it would never be found. |
| 65 | * How was it that no-one recognised Zak Gramarye apart from Phoenix and Kristoph, when he used to be famous? |
| 66 | ** It's been 7 years. He's lost his hair, grown a beard, no doubt has several more wrinkles, and isn't wearing his rather distinctive magician's outfit. That last being a big point, too, I'd say: As Zak Gramarye, he was a 6'+ tall man in a pink silk hat and cape...it's really likely that that nobody would have recognised him out of costume even when he wasn't deliberately presenting himself as a different person, who was 7 years older and balder than when last seen. |
| 67 | * Why doesn't Apollo's bracelet react to Kristoph's TwitchyEye? |
| 68 | ** Probably because his distress is so obvious at eye-twitching levels that he doesn't need the bracelet to make him aware of it. |
| 69 | * Why didn't Kristoph simply tell everyone that he'd seen "Shadi Smith's" bald head when he'd tipped his hat as they passed by after Gavin had left the club? This would have explained how he knew he was bald, without putting him AT the scene. |
| 70 | ## Because his entire motive for murdering Shadi was to conceal his connection to the case from seven years ago, and falsely admitting that Shadi tipped his hat in greeting would suggest to the court that Shadi might have known Kristoph. Thereby defeating the purpose of the coverup. |
| 71 | ## Because he wants to throw Phoenix under the bus now that Phoenix has begun to suspect him. He has to say he was at the crime scene in order to claim he saw Phoenix commit the crime. |
| 72 | ## Because he already admitted to being at the crime scene anyway when he mentioned that the cards on the floor were blue. |
| 73 | * Why didn't Kristoph just reveal that the 5th ace is forged? If he's screwed either way, he might as well take Phoenix and Apollo with him. |
| 74 | ** Kristoph did say Apollo was presenting illegal evidence when the fifth ace showed up. However, and likely because of his pride, he merely mocked Phoenix for doing that instead of accusing Phoenix and Apollo of using forged evidence as the serious offense it is. As a result, no one took Kristoph's words seriously nor realised the fifth ace was a forgery, and the topic is dropped almost immediately. |
| 75 | ** Once he had already been caught, though, why not point it out again? |
| 76 | ** Phoenix had basically already acknowledged that the fifth ace wasn't real evidence; he explains that it was presented only as a ''reason'' why the killer had to swap out a card. It's a wonder why Apollo still gets upset about it after the trial, in all honesty. It's not much different from the bottle of ear medicine from Case 3-3 or the detention center photograph from Case 2-2. |
| 77 | * After Shadi gets irate and hits Olga with the bottle, Phoenix goes to call for the police. Then he went back down, and found that Shadi was now dead. AKA, Phoenix actually called the police and reported Olga's assault, not Shadi's murder. Why, then, did no one seem to know that Olga had been assaulted, and why did everyone think that Phoenix called the police to report the murder? |
| 78 | ** The call was probably a generic "someone was attacked, send help" call. Although you're typically held on the phone during a 911 call and made to relay info, people cutting the call off early isn't exactly uncommon. If my memory serves, Phoenix says during a cross-examination that he didn't want to leave the unconscious Olga alone with Shadi for too long (and cell phones don't get reception down there), so his call to the police was probably fairly short and to the point. |
| 79 | * Why didn't the bailiffs in the lobby do anything when the lawyer began physically attacking his client? |
| 80 | ** There's nothing saying they didn't, keeping in mind the visual limiations of the medium. All Apollo gave Phoenix was one uppercut; the bailiffs could've stepped up to interfere before realizing that the altercation was basically over, especially since Phoenix didn't appear to hold it against him. |
| 81 | * Why did Phoenix dispose of the five of hearts card inside the bottle? Everyone brings up how strange that was for him to do, and Phoenix vaguely tells everyone that he had a reason for doing something random like that, but doesn't say what it was. |
| 82 | ** Phoenix was playing a card game when he suddenly noticed a card in his pocket which he had no knowledge of. Then he either a) immediately figured out Shadi's plan and stepped out of his trap, or b)having learned something from seven years ago, he simply didn't want to get caught with anything that might suggest that he had cheated, even if he had no idea of the fact. Either way, he had to immediately dispose of the card, and he chose a way of doing it that 1) didn't attract any attention to himself, 2) didn't interrupt the game and 3) put the card in a place that wouldn't undergo a deep check by Shadi afterwards. It was just a response to Shadi's trap, and had nothing to do with the murder or the bottle swap, neither of which he could have predicted. |
| 83 | ** He ''does'' say what the reason was. He says he was used to entrapment from when he worked as a lawyer, so when he found the card he knew enough to assume it might be the setup for a similar trap. |
| 84 | * People always point out (and Phoenix himself brings it up in-game) how Phoenix never told a single lie through the case; he was technically telling specifically phrases truths the entire time to manipulate the flow of the trial. That's all well and good, apart from the fact that Phoenix does lie. He says he never touched the murder weapon, despite his prints being on the bottle. As it turns out this was likely his specific wording relating to the swapping of the bottles, so he never touched "the murder weapon". But, the thing is, that's still not true. Unless I'm mistaken, the murder weapon was the bottle with the playing card inside it. Not only did Phoenix obviously touch it to put the card inside, she specifically says that it was the bottle of juice he had been drinking during that poker game. |
| 85 | ** For what it's worth, [[DistinctionWithoutADifference the bottle wasn't a "murder weapon" at the time he touched it.]] |
| 86 | ** You are mistaken about which bottle was the murder weapon, too. The bottle with the card inside was what Shadi used to knock out Olga. For Kristoph to have gotten his hands on that bottle, he would’ve had to reach around Shadi to grab it or wrestle it from Shadi’s own hands, before using it to actually kill him. It’s far more likely that the he took a bottle from the piano before heading into the tunnel, used it to commit the murder, and then left it at the scene while taking the one with the card inside back upstairs. |
| 87 | [[/folder]] |
| 88 | |
| 89 | [[folder:Turnabout Corner]] |
| 90 | * Wesley Stickler first testifies that he entered the park from the south and thus, when he shouted at Wocky and Meraktis, the doctor turned his head and was shot in the right temple. Then he says he saw the "NOODLE" sign on the stand and Apollo figures out Stickler was standing on the north side of the park. But after that, Stickler turns everything on its head again when he admits he'd been hiding from Trucy after the panty snatching, and went to enter the park from the south, using the opportunity to grab Plum's bloomers on the way. So which way did he enter the park after all, and on which side of the noodle stand was he standing? Did he just pass '''between''' Wocky and Meraktis before he noticed something was going on, prompting him to turn around and shout at them, which '''only then''' caused Meraktis to turn his head? Sounds like a rubbish explanation. |
| 91 | ** Maybe he passed by the murder scene heading north just before Wocky and Dr. Meraktis arrived there, and the sound of their encounter caused him to turn around and interject. |
| 92 | * How did that bullet get in the safe? We're never told that. If we go by the 'villains never lie when cornered' logic, then she was threatening him to open the safe with the gun, which, obviously, means the safe was closed when he attacked her. |
| 93 | ** By the way their conversation went, Meraktis could've already started to open the safe at the point where he began to suspect Alita. By that point she could have fired toward the safe to try and get him away from it so she could get the chart, or she just fired at him in self-defense and missed the shot. All Meraktis would have to do is close the safe after he strangled her. |
| 94 | * Apollo says to Trucy that because of a case of Phoenix's that he read, ("Rise From the Ashes",) he always checks the exhaust pipes of cars, to see if there's anything in there. However, if he knows the case so well, why, when he meets Ema Skye, does he not recognize the name? Even if he doesn't remember that she was a witness, he should at least remember that the defendant for that case was Lana Skye, and make the connection! |
| 95 | ** The reason Apollo remembers the case is because it involved a piece of evidence that was found in a car's exhaust pipe, as noted; he says he thinks of that case every time he examines a car. He doesn't remember Rise from the Ashes as "That case of Phoenix's where they found a piece of evidence in an exhaust pipe," he remembers it as "That case where someone hid the evidence in the exhaust pipe... Oh yeah, and that Phoenix Wright happened to be involved in." |
| 96 | ** “Skye” isn’t an unusual last name to have. Even if he remembered the name of the defendant, it would be a stretch to assume she’s related to this grumpy police detective simply because they have the same last name. Note that Apollo isn’t that surprised to hear that Phoenix does know her, but that doesn’t mean he should have expected it. |
| 97 | * One of the big twists is that the murderer shot from inside the noodle stand. Yet wouldn't this have left a bullet hole in the front side of the noodle stand?. They spend so much time debating where the murderer must've stood to kill the doctor, yet (when factoring in the entry wound) it should've been clear before the trial even began! |
| 98 | ** If you look at the stand in the court record, you can see there's a curtain covering the front. Alita could have stuck the gun out past one of the edges before she fired. |
| 99 | * Why doesn't Dr. Meraktis bother verifying if Alita Tiala is really dead? He's a doctor, and I assume he would be able to tell the difference between a corpse and an unconscious person. |
| 100 | ** It was mentioned during the trial that he was so panicked that he didn't bother to actually check her pulse. |
| 101 | ** Even then, that’s mostly the court’s assumption based on what little information they know. He wouldn’t have needed to think Alita was dead to want to dump her unconscious body in the river. |
| 102 | * Why did Alita hire Apollo? Yes, we know her stated reason: she wanted Wocky to be found guilty and thought Apollo was incompetent. But consider these facts: 1) Either due to misunderstanding or desired G-cred, Wocky was already admitting to the crime. 2) According to the first game, most defense attorneys don't take clients that they believe are guilty. 3) Also according to the first game, such a client would be given to a state-appointed attorney, which is practically equivalent to an automatic guilty verdict. Basically, she could have sat around and done nothing and he would have been found guilty anyway, and she would have saved money in the process. Or did she think the Kitakis would have otherwise hired a corrupt attorney to rig the trial in his favor? |
| 103 | ** Exactly, if she hadn't acted then the Kitakis themselves would have gone and got a competent attorney for their son, she couldn't just do nothing. |
| 104 | ** Also, the only reason that a state-appointed attorney was considered an automatic guilty verdict in the first game was because Redd White would have made sure Phoenix got the worst attorney possible. Perhaps Alita thought Apollo would be less competent than a public defender. |
| 105 | * It is established that the reason the Kitakis are going clean is because they need money for Wocky's operation. However, they didn't even KNOW that Wocky still had the bullet inside him until the check-up a couple of days before the trial! How is it possible, therefore, for their business to do a complete u-turn (and gradually) to pay for an operation when they have only known about it for a couple of days? |
| 106 | ** While the Kitakis did not know that the bullet was still in Wocky's heart, they DID know that he'd been shot and almost died because of gangstering. They probably considered that reminder that Wocky could be murdered any day now without warning to be a reason to change lifestyles. |
| 107 | ** Also, technically speaking, Wocky’s parents could have been told about the bullet in his heart before the complete check-up results were sent to them. All it would take is a look at the X-ray results to know that something was wrong. The court record only says that the health check was performed sometime in June; that’s an entire two weeks in which it could happened before the day of the murder, plenty of time for Big Wins to have started compiling a legitimate fortune. |
| 108 | * Eldoon says that he used to serve Phoenix and his assistant 'back in his lawyer days,' but then later, during the investigation, he reveals that he's only been doing the noodle stand thing for, what, a year? |
| 109 | ** He said Phoenix frequented his father's stand. The noodle stand thing was a family business. |
| 110 | * How exactly was Alita Tiala's gold-digging scheme supposed to work? Suppose she marries Wocky and he dies shortly thereafter. Okay, so... she gets nothing substantial, because the family's wealth belongs to his parents. Maybe he has a bank account that his allowance goes into or some kind of trust fund, but shouldn't most of what the family owns (that they have a legal title to at all) belong to the parents? Unless she was planning on killing Winfred and Plum after the wedding - or thought that they would adopt her as their daughter and heir after Wocky died - this doesn't seem like it would work. Was she planning on just walking off with stuff after he died, knowing that they'd be afraid to take her to court over it since they'd have to explain to a judge where everything came from if they did? |
| 111 | ** Well, if everything had gone to plan, she would have married him and would have become a Kitaki. Most likely, when he died, she would still be a Kitaki. Remember, if the plan had gone well, the Kitakis would have thought that she was just an innocent girl who loved a doomed man, I doubt they'd kick her out. All that would have remained would be to wait for her "parents" to die of old age, and she'd have all the money |
| 112 | ** She was banking hard on the power of sympathy. Mob boss's son gets married to a beautiful young girl, only to tragically die very shortly after the ceremony? All of their grief and regret would translate into sympathy towards their son's widow, who would be set for life. |
| 113 | * Why did Alita Tiala confess to breaking and entering into the clinic during the investigation in court? Apollo says, "confessing to the small crime to avoid the big one, eh," but there's no reason that confessing to that helped. I can see why the culprit had a hard time avoiding confessing to being a bitch fiancee since that had already been proven, but confessing to the breaking and entering didn't appear to be necessary and didn't help explain anything suspicious that had been brought up yet. My only guess is that the culprit expected that Apollo would figure out who was responsible for breaking and entering and figured it was better to beat him to it. |
| 114 | ** I kind of figured that she admitted to breaking and entering just to back herself up if Apollo had come up with a weaker argument. She could have used something like "I just tried to steal the medical charts for Wocky's sake," as I think she mentioned something like being concerned about Wocky even after everyone realized she was a bitch fiancee. Or she probably thought that Apollo would just back down if she admitted to the breaking and entering. |
| 115 | ** Alita has a tendency to be broken down easily and say more than she should once she’s on the witness stand, presumably to indicate that she’s not as clever or thick-skinned as she leads people to think. After all, she practically boasts about taking advantage of Wocky for his family’s money, during the trial which his parents are undoubtedly watching, and then tries to argue that she stole the chart because she was actually terrified of what the Kitakis would do if they found it. She probably just let slip about the B&E thinking it would help paint her as a desperate girl who was willing to stoop to that because she was in such fear for her life. |
| 116 | * Why did Dr. Meraktis put the gun in the back of the noodle stand with Alita's body? There would be no reason to put it in the back. If he wanted to dump it in the river, then why wouldn't he carry it on his person? |
| 117 | ** Owning a gun is illegal in Japan for most people (thus the Ace Attorney universe also), and it's pretty bad news to be found carrying one around. Given he was already doing something as highly suspicious as dragging around a noodle stand at night, if he was stopped by the police and they found his gun on him, at best he'd be in deep trouble for that, and at worst it'd make them suspicious enough to check the stand itself. |
| 118 | * Who was actually responsible for the hit-and-run that injured Phoenix? You're led to believe that Meraktis's car was involved when you find the broken sideview mirror at the scene, but on the second day of trial, you prove that the car couldn't leave the garage because Trucy's panties were clogging the exhaust pipe, hence why Meraktis took the noodle stand to the park instead. Yet according to Plum Kitaki, there was some kind of a commotion that made a mess at the scene of Phoenix's alleged accident... Not to mention, the car being inoperable doesn't explain how its mirror ended up there. |
| 119 | ** Replaying through the case, I found the answer that I must've missed the first time. It's explained that Phoenix's accident happened as Dr. Meraktis was driving home earlier that evening. It was only after he'd parked in the garage that the panties were stuffed into the exhaust pipe. |
| 120 | * Why wasn't Stickler suspected of the murder, exactly? If you accuse him, Gavin demands evidence, and you can't respond, but there it is: a gun with prints wiped, which contradicts the situation with Wocky and the knife, and him coming from the "NOODLE" direction, from which he could have shot the victim in his right temple. Trucy points it out quite well, and Gavin just uses his authority to dismiss it out of hand and lead us to the panties tomfoolery. He should at least have been arrested as a possible suspect, like Meekins in 1-5. Now, when Stickler admitted to stealing the bloomers from the SOUTH side, I could see Gavin pouncing on to question the validity of his whole testimony (he should have seen "ELDOON", not "NOODLE"), and then encouraging to stick to the basic facts. But that whole issue was just left in the plothole. |
| 121 | ** Simply because it’s really obvious that Stickler wasn’t actually the killer. As Gavin points out, the only connection he had to the victim was his cell phone being found in the victim’s garage — which was because he hid Trucy’s panties there. And with no connection to the Kitakis or the police, he couldn’t easily have gotten his hands on a gun. Not only does he have no means or motive, but his actions would be viewed as completely illogical if he were assumed to be the killer. The police would have to believe that he was just an opportunistic psychopath who happened upon a crime to which Wocky had already admitted, then decided to intervene and shoot the victim himself, ''then'' decided to leave the crime scene to report the incident to the police, then return to the crime scene to wait so he could be registered as a witness, without which no one would have known who he was. Taking all of that to be true would make him the most irrational and self-defeating murderer of all time, in addition to ignoring the much more reasonable explanations behind his actions. |
| 122 | ** Klavier isn’t the kind of prosecutor who’s going to arrest and try someone for the sake of it. They mention Stickler was arrested and that his story is being corroborated with Wocky’s; if they had found a genuine reason to try him, they would’ve done so. |
| 123 | [[/folder]] |
| 124 | |
| 125 | [[folder:Turnabout Serenade]] |
| 126 | * The stage tower is said at first to be 30 feet, then 20, and finally 15. Why the inconsistency? |
| 127 | ** Because the tower could move up and down, presumably. |
| 128 | * The characters regularly reaffirm that the murder weapon, a 45mm revolver, is so powerful that it would dislocate the shoulder of an adult of average build. How is it then, that someone as small as Machi is the prime suspect, when it should be pretty obvious that if he had fired the gun, the recoil would have done ''a lot'' more damage to damage to him? |
| 129 | ** Everyone reaffirms just as often, if not more so, that an experienced shooter can easily go away unscathed. Thus, the Judge assumed that Machi was experienced, as he was the only one who could have conceivably committed the crime. |
| 130 | ** Additionally, Prosecutor Gavin notes that the authorities want a suspect to be found and prosecuted quickly, due to the high-profile nature of the incident. He's aware that there are logical flaws in the case, but he isn't being given the time to investigate properly. |
| 131 | ** WordOfGod says that the case was written based on the assumption that Daryan was the one manipulating the investigation and the police but that ultimately they failed to make this clear in the game. |
| 132 | ** The case is also meant to demonstrate the massive failings of the current court system, in part so that they can be rectified by the Jurist System in the next case. |
| 133 | ** Machi has an animation where he winces and grabs his arm, as though he’s in pain. It’s possible Daryan actually injured Machi himself to give people the impression that he had fired the gun, and that either the prosecution just didn’t mention it or Machi wouldn’t let them give him a proper examination to say for sure. |
| 134 | * Apollo says that Lamirior couldn't have been Daryan's accomplice because the signal for the headset couldn't reach her when she was on top of the tower. But it's already been established that it was Valant on top of the tower, and Lamirior was moving through the vent. Why doesn't anyone mention this |
| 135 | ** It was actually the remote switch that Apollo was referring to, not the headset. Lamiroir couldn't have been the accomplice because the remote signal just couldn't reach the guitar's igniter from where she was standing relative to when the igniter activated; while the stage's tower was raised. |
| 136 | * Why did Daryan confess? Apollo's entire strategy was to call on a key witness, Machi Tobaye. If Machi testified in that court that he would smuggle a cocoon away from Borginia, then he could avoid both death penalties in US/Japan as well as Borginia. By itself, it makes sense. But Daryan's entire strategy was to say Lamiroir was lying. What stops him from simply saying Machi is lying as well? It would be easier to accuse Machi of lying than Lamiroir of lying. Any rational person would choose no death penalty over death penalty. Daryan was actually right in saying only decisive evidence could prove Apollo's case. |
| 137 | ** My guess is that they left other evidence behind them. By getting Machi to testify, Apollo could probably have him explain exactly how the cocoon was obtained, how he got in contact with Daryan, and point the police to any other people who were involved in the smuggling, plus any sort of paper trail that Daryan left behind. This cumulative evidence could then be used to get a conviction. |
| 138 | ** But Machi WAS decisive! He was a confirmed cocoon smuggler. In Borginia, cocoon smuggling is punishable by death. That is what the problem was. Machi only smuggled and helped destroy the contraband; he didn't kill anyone, so the only crime he could be charged with was smuggling. However, the penalties for this smuggling differed: "US" was jail time, Borgina was death. Daryan's plan wasn't just to say that Lamiroir was lying, but that Machi ''wouldn't'' name him as the murderer and accomplice because of Machi's fear of being executed. What Apollo did was that he convinced Machi to confess and serve his sentence in "the US" rather than stay silent and be extradited for execution. The defendant, in this situation, would confess and name the murderer to not get the death penalty. |
| 139 | ** What reason would Machi have to lie about Daryan being his accomplice? “Having an accomplice” isn’t what saves Machi from being deported to Borginia, and he’s not going to be convicted of murder either way. It would make no difference to Machi’s case whether he identified Daryan or not, so what motive does he have to lie about it? |
| 140 | * Why is Romein so cryptic about who the witness is? She has a name, there was no need for all that 'siren' business. |
| 141 | ** My best guess is that he was too weak to actually state her name. Now, I've never heard "Lamiroir" pronounced in real life, but it looks like it could take a great bit of effort for a man that got shot with a HandCannon and was seconds away from death to actually say. On the other hand, "siren" could be whispered with very little effort. |
| 142 | ** Not to mention, to add to the likelihood of the above explanations being correct, he specifically muttered out, "the witness is siren", not "the witness is THE siren". Plus he clearly struggles to even get the "ren" of "siren" out, so there's no way he would've been able to just say straight out that the witness is Lamiroir. |
| 143 | ** Could have been to protect her as well, in case his killer was nearby. "Lamiroir" is a much more distinctive word no matter how it's pronounced than "siren", a word that could be mistaken for less distinct words when whispered or choked on- including, ironically, "Daryan". |
| 144 | * Isn't Lamiroir meant to be a native "English" speaker? If that's the case, why was she unable to find a better term for the ventilation shaft grate than 'some kind of small window?' |
| 145 | ** She woke up in Borginia with no memory of her past and magical knowledge of a language. There are bigger problems conceptually than her not knowing one English term. |
| 146 | ** Sometimes people struggle to think of ordinary words in their native languages. The woman did sustain a brain injury. |
| 147 | * So if the Borginian Cocoon Daryan smuggled over was burned, and there's super-strict export laws on them...are we to assume the Chief Justice's son died of incuritis after the case? |
| 148 | ** I guess so, unless the case highlighted the ridiculousness of the Borginian cocoon laws enough for people to get really incensed about it to the point where Borginian law was forced to change. |
| 149 | ** Alternatively to the above theory, Borginia could have simply sent over some of the already-created remedy. |
| 150 | ** Or they just had the Chief Justice's son flown to Borginia for the treatment. |
| 151 | * It's a casual thing to suggest asking the Borginian government to give a cocoon up to test residue from burning it, but completely impossible for a major politician to ask for one when the news shows he has legitimate need. |
| 152 | ** Who says the Borginians "gave up" a cocoon? They could have burned it while it was in Borginia. Then, they could have either sent the residue (if the residue cannot be used to make the poison) or described it in detail. |
| 153 | ** It’s mentioned that ''silk'' from the cocoon is what’s needed to make the curative/poison. Presumably burning it first and then sending the residue would be enough to render the silk unusable for that purpose. |
| 154 | ** Apollo suggests testing the residue to try and get Daryan to confess. It doesn’t need to be completely plausible in practice; it just needs to sound possible enough for Daryan to believe it. |
| 155 | * If the cocoons can't leave Borginia, what exactly stops the victims from going to Borginia for treatment? |
| 156 | ** I think that there's nothing to stop it, but it's because of that there are so few people outside Borginia who know the power of the cocoon. Lamiroir doesn't know why it was banned for smuggling outside of the country when she's supposedly a citizen of Borginia; if a citizen doesn't know much, what do you expect of foreigners? |
| 157 | *** So no doctor would know? |
| 158 | *** A doctor would, but John Q. Averageguy wouldn't. Also, even if the doctor mentioned it, Borginia is supposedly somewhere in northern Europe, so perhaps not a lot of people would be able to afford going there. Finally, it's mentioned that the Chief Justice's son is the first case of incuritis in America - perhaps it was only diagnosed in a later stage and they can't move him anymore, therefore requiring someone to get the cocoon to him. |
| 159 | ** In addition to the public being generally clueless about the cocoons, we don't know much about incuritis. Perhaps incuritis afflicts the body so badly that leaving the country has a chance of mortality around the same as the doctors deciding to have a competition of "who can knock off the most body parts with an oxygen tank". |
| 160 | ** It’s implied that incuritis is a rare disease; the Chief Justice’s son is said to be the first case of it in the country, and Daryan’s testimony implies that the cocoons are tied more to the black market than they are to the healthcare industry. If the demand for a cure simply isn’t high enough, that would only aid in Borginia’s attempts to obscure the fact that there is a cure. |
| 161 | * You prove that the pianist is playing with only one hand by using the video. However, Klavier, who would know the sheet music well, says that it would be possible to play the song with only one hand, meaning the part in question does not have to have both hands playing at that part, making it impossible to conclusively say that he pressed the switch at that moment. Klavier realizes that the bass clef portion is missing only after the video is presented as evidence, which is illogical since he should have known that it was missing while listening to the playback unless the part pointed out only has the treble clef portion playing. |
| 162 | ** Having just replayed the case, and watched a recording to double-check, Klavier never once says whether it's possible to play the part with one hand. It's actually Daryan who says that, and it's mostly just in the sense that Apollo can't prove otherwise. |
| 163 | * Wait a minute. Aside from Klavier, the Gavinners weren't performing during Lamiroir's big number, right? So how did none of them[[note]]aside from Daryan[[/note]] hear the gunshots during her performance? The song was sedate, and their dressing room was next door! |
| 164 | ** The game implies that basically everyone at the venue was in the audience to watch Lamiroir’s performance. It’s not a stretch to imagine that Gavin’s bandmates would have been watching it too. |
| 165 | * Apollo finds a switch in the piano. It ignites a device under the couch in the dressing room, most likely to trigger a few small explosives. Yet we're meant to believe that Machi left the switch in the piano after using it to ignite the cocoon (and guitar). He pressed it during Lamiroir's song. Yet the explosives went off during the Gavinners' next set. Huh? |
| 166 | ** Machi left it in the piano presumably because he didn't have any other place to leave it in, and could be well carrying it with him, and the explosives that went off during Gavinner's next set were activated by Daryan himself when he heard Ema and Apollo talking just next to the dressing room Letouse was in, to create the alibi. |
| 167 | *** Yes, but that leaves a hole. The switch in the piano activated the device that set off the explosives. This was shown when you practically burned Ema. And where Machi was playing, the switch's range could reach both devices, so it can't be universal without setting them off in the second set. So... maybe the one in the piano was Daryan's? Why would ''he'' leave it there? |
| 168 | *** To frame Machi. If you re-examine the piano after finding the switch there, Apollo and Trucy conclude that it must’ve been left there after the Guitar’s Serenade performance, since it would affected Machi’s part if he’d tossed it in there during the song. The implication is that Daryan used the switch during the Gavinners’ next song to light the firecrackers, then left it in the piano deliberately. Machi did probably have another switch that was tied to the igniter inside the guitar, but he was trying to keep the smuggling plot under wraps, so he had no reason to bring it up. |
| 169 | * Why does nobody think it odd that Machi is discovered unresponsive, apparently unconscious, beside a body he'd likely have never been able to move on his own, certainly not in the time he had available? At least, given his scramble to get away from the body when he walks in on Apollo, it's highly unlikely that he'd have just lain there waiting for the hammer to fall, no matter what his co-conspirator said, so Daryan probably needed to subdue him - not difficult, but certainly conspicuous! |
| 170 | ** One possibility is that some sort of backstage trolley was used to move the body; as long as Machi/Daryan was alone for long enough to pull it off, which the game implies was the case, then it's not an impossibility. |
| 171 | * Is there any reason that [=Romein LeTouse's=] profile in the Court Record is named simply "[=LeTouse=]"? The first time you meet him, his profile description even says "First name: Romein", but why is he the only character ever whose profile isn't named after his full name? |
| 172 | ** It's assumed the court-record is written by the lawyers themselves, so it's likely that Apollo just couldn't be bothered to remember his full name and instead put the first name as a note in the profile. Since Apollo seemed to not recall his name when he found the body this is likely. ...Although, granted, it's a weird reason to actually put this as thing in the profile. I guess it's just an example of the developers having a joke with the fact the profiles are written by Apollo. |
| 173 | * Why didn't Lamiroir ever just say "the window I'm talking about is on the ceiling"? |
| 174 | ** Maybe she just assumed everyone would put two and two together sooner than they did, since it was obvious to her what she meant, or... Lamiroir might have had a hard time keeping up with the trial. Sure, she knows English and she's considerably more fluent than Machi, but the speed at which everyone was going may caused her to miss some things. |
| 175 | ** Actually, it's inferred that Lamiroir had been assuming that everyone ''was'' talking about the air vent. The point was that Lamiroir thought Klavier knew how she performed her trick (and that since everyone was just casually agreeing with him, she may have also assumed that everyone else had been informed before the trial or something). She thought he would know she was crawling through the ventilation system even if everyone else didn't. She says that she had been highly confused as to why Klavier kept insisting that she couldn't hear the voice due to the "window" being closed, despite it obviously letting sound through. If you notice whenever Klavier brings this point up to her in the first trial day, she does act pretty confused, but Klavier constantly cuts her off with some comment or another about how she's obviously not a viable witness before she has a chance to say anything about it. Also a little later on, Klavier realizes that Valant didn't tell him how the trick was performed, and gets irate over it, since if he ''had'' known, the entire misunderstanding wouldn't have happened. The bottom line is that Lamiroir had been confused as to why everyone was so casually insisting that the air vent wouldn't let sound through if it was closed, but wasn't ever given a chance to ask, or was maybe just too confused to know how to bring the issue up. |
| 176 | ---> '''Lamiroir''': I admit it's had me confused since yesterday. Yes the "small window" was closed, but why does that mean I could not hear a voice through it? I had feared that our prosecutor might himself need an interpreter. |
| 177 | ** When Apollo presses Lamiroir about the “small window”, she wonders whether that is the best term for it in English; before she can elaborate, though, Gavin tells her her English is impeccable because there ''is'' a small window in the dressing room. With him having said that, she had no reason to think he didn’t know what she was talking about, up until he brought up that the window was closed, at which point he wasn’t letting her get a word in to clarify. |
| 178 | * Are the igniters really just so light that Klavier didn't feel it inside his guitar? I feel like he must have noticed the extra weight. |
| 179 | ** When Ema shows the igniter from the dressing room, she says that it's so small her and the police overlooked it until now. Therefore I imagine that it wouldn't have made much of a difference in terms of weight. |
| 180 | ** If you've never actually held a guitar before, they aren't exactly light. |
| 181 | ** Gavin had only played the guitar in question once before. He probably wasn’t familiar enough with it to notice such a minute difference in heavy it was. |
| 182 | * On the first day of trial, Apollo claims to have told Prosecutor Gavin about [=LeTouse’s=] last words but that Gavin evidently didn’t listen. Is this a part of some secret optional dialogue or something? Going back to the initial investigation, the only one Apollo mentioned the last words to was Lamiroir; during the trial, he even says that he’s the only one who knew of LeTouse’s last message. So why is he claiming to have told Gavin about it? |
| 183 | * So how did Mr. [=LeTouse=] know that Lamiroir was a witness to his murder? Everyone assumes that he just glimpsed her looking in through the window, but it turns out she only heard the gunshots through the air vent, which is on the other side of the room. There’s no way he could’ve known she was there. |
| 184 | ** Assume he knew how the trick was performed and you have your answer. He likely did since he would be present while she was practicing it. She had a very, very narrow window of time to move through the vents, so if he knew she'd be passing overhead at that exact moment, he knew she was a witness. Since she's blind, it didn't matter if she couldn't see the incident- he knew she heard it. |
| 185 | ** We also know that Lamiroir dropped her brooch as she was passing above the dressing room. Provided LeTouse noticed that, he would’ve known that she had been there to hear what transpired. |
| 186 | [[/folder]] |
| 187 | |
| 188 | [[folder:Turnabout Succession]] |
| 189 | |
| 190 | [[AC:People vs Enigmar (And subsequent Investigations in the Past)]] |
| 191 | * Why was a dying cancer patient even allowed to keep a loaded gun he could use to shot himself in his hospital room? Yes, it's a one of his stage props, not a "proper gun", but obviously it's fully capable of firing real shots, and it was ''loaded.'' |
| 192 | ** Simple, he had either the guns or the ammunition smuggled in somehow. As a stage magician, it probably wouldn’t have been that hard. If Zak could escape from a courtroom and Trucy could smuggle herself between countries in a suitcase, Magnifi could have found a way to get two bullets into a hospital. |
| 193 | * Why did Magnifi commit suicide-by-gunshot in the most backwards, illogical way possible? The gun's barrels are rather large, it would be difficult to commit suicide by shooting yourself in the forehead with it, when all he had to do was shot himself in the temple. In fact, doing it that way ended up leading to the misconception that either Zak or Valant shot him, as per his instructions to shot him "square in the forehead". Why in the world would he do that? |
| 194 | ** The only reason that the suicide was mistaken for a murder was because Valant tampered with the crime scene, specifically by removing the gun from Magnifi’s hand. If he hadn’t intended to frame Zak, it would’ve been a lot easier for the police to brush it off as a dying cancer patient who wanted to put himself out of his misery. His letters to Zak and Valant presumably only came to light during the investigation; without them, there’d be no reason to think that either of them had the motive or opportunity to kill him. |
| 195 | * How did Zak manage to escape the courthouse? Yes, Trucy did her trick with Mr. Hat to get the bailiff chasing the wrong person, but is it seriously THAT easy to get away? Once he shook the bailiff he was home free, with not a single other law enforcement officer on the premises? I mean, if it was that easy all along then why even go through with the trial at all? If he didn't want to be declared innocent because it would put Valant at risk of being arrested then why not just run before the trial even began? |
| 196 | ** He had some way of appearing to vanish from the courtroom instantaneously, and with Meekins getting hung up with Trucy in the lobby, he would've had a nice head start before anyone realized he was gone. And if you consider that he'd planned on escaping if it came to that, he could have also had some type of disguise at the ready to change into, again, while Meekins was dealing with Trucy. |
| 197 | ** As for why he bothered with the tral at all, probably just in case the getaway wasn't necessary. If Phoenix had managed to get him declared innocent, you can imagine hwe would prefer that over having to escape custody and go on the run. |
| 198 | * Zak shoots a gun off in a hospital, and yet he has time to chat with Magnifi for ten minutes without anyone coming to investigate? I wouldn't buy that the guns are silenced, both because they're used in a stage show, and it's specifically said something to the effect of, "It appeared Magnifi was sleeping, but even if he wasn't the shot would have woken him up anyway." Which implies that it makes a sound like a real gun when it fires. Is everyone deaf in the hospital? |
| 199 | ** Since it's for a stageshow the gun wouldn't need to be very high caliber, and shooting it point blank into a plushie or a head *would* act as a sort of silencer, so it could theoretically be able to make a noise loud enough to wake up someone only a foot or two a way yet quiet enough that it might not immediately register as a gunshot to someone not expecting it. More importantly though, it's not uncommon for some types of hospitals not to be staffed 24/7 in Japan, and in the original Japanese that's heavily implied to be the case here. If anyone DID hear the gunshot it was someone half a wing away who likely couldn't investigate even if they wanted to. |
| 200 | ** This is pure conjecture, but it’s possible that Magnifi spent the day beforehand watching old recordings of his troupe’s performances on the TV in his room — performances that would include the shootout trick the guns were originally for. Anyone who came to investigate the sound of gunfire could be assured that it was just the TV, and they would naturally assume the same thing when the guns were actually fired that evening. Especially in a country where guns aren’t readily available, it would be easy to chalk the sound up to some other source. |
| 201 | * Why didn't Zak just show Phoenix the ''actual'' diary page in the first place? |
| 202 | ## He didn't know that Phoenix had been provided with a fake diary page. |
| 203 | ## He wanted to ensure he retained the diary page so that the performance rights would be passed onto Trucy. |
| 204 | ## Even if he had presented the diary page, it would have presented an even stronger motive for Zak to kill Magnifi than a vague sense of blackmail since it indicates he would’ve inherited something when the victim died. |
| 205 | * During the flashback case, why didn't Phoenix bring up the fact that he couldn't possibly have had the time to have a forgery made in time for the case, and suggest a search for the real client? |
| 206 | ** Because it would be impossible to prove that. The reason Kristoph was so confident that no-one could work out that he was Shadi's previous lawyer is that attorneys are registered the day before the trial. And Shadi's testimony would be useless, because being the defendant, he had reason to lie. |
| 207 | * When you present the nail polish to Vera, her lock breaks with her saying "I promised I wouldn't tell". She doesn't, so why does the lock break, showing she's ready to tell her secret when she isn't? |
| 208 | ** Kristoph's black Psyche-locks are mentioned as having a great deal of cold despair about them. Vera hasn't developed anywhere near that level of hopelessness. |
| 209 | ** She promised she wouldn't tell anyone what her good-luck charm was, because doing so would spoil the charm. |
| 210 | ** There are plenty of times in games 2 and 3 of the VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightTrilogy when people's psyche-locks break without the person actually revealing everything. |
| 211 | * I know that the real reason was to HandWave the StupidityIsTheOnlyOption moment, but was there ''really'' a plausible reason to refuse to accept Magnifi's diary itself? There was a perfectly solid case to be made out of "the next page was ripped out, and said page could very well provide a motive or at least refute the current theory" without ever needing for Phoenix to claim to have it without checking its validity first. It's likely that Klavier said it to bait the trap, but Phoenix couldn't have appealed to the judge to allow it? |
| 212 | ** At this point, the diary was the decisive evidence in Klavier's favor. It would have been useless to just say that "a page has been ripped out," because Klavier could easily counter that by saying there's no way to prove when the page was torn out, or what it was torn out for. The only way Phoenix could swing it back his way was by showing decisive evidence of his own, basically, "what was on that torn diary page." |
| 213 | *** Klavier's argument was basically "this is the last thing he wrote, and the fact that it's the last thing he wrote speaks volumes". When you consider that the most obvious thing to write would be the recipient of the rights, and that at that point in the case, both magicians would have equal motive depending on what happened at that meeting, the fact that the page couldn't be found wouldn't establish either one's guilt. |
| 214 | *** No, if the last page couldn't be found, regardless of whether it was ripped out or not, Zak would be the only suspect, since it couldn't be proven that Magnifi was alive when Valant came over. |
| 215 | * How did Vera reproduce the diary page exactly, down to the torn side which Phoenix calls "a perfect match" to the tear in Magnifi's diary? It's pretty hard to rip a straight line down a piece of paper, let alone copy an uneven, random one in a diary you've never seen before. |
| 216 | ** Kristoph presumably showed her either the diary itself or a photograph of it. I think she even says that she was given the diary. She could have used scissors to reproduce the cut's exact shape, or made some kind of outline of it. In any case, it's implied that she's a prodigy. |
| 217 | ** She used the high-tech equipment on the opposite side of her father's studio (microscopes, rulers, etc) to reproduce the evidence, as well as all the other forged artworks. |
| 218 | * Phoenix presents forged evidence without being aware of his crime and loses his attorney's badge. Edgeworth presented forged evidence without being aware of his crime in SL-9, three years before the events of ''Rise from the Ashes'', and his crime is overlooked. Okay, this may be due to bias toward prosecutors or something in the Ace Attorney-verse, and Edgeworth did nearly kill himself over his mistake. Still, what am I missing here? |
| 219 | ** First off, Edgeworth's crime isn't overlooked; he is investigated for it, as stated in that case. Remember how the mounting pressure is one of the reasons why he chooses to resign? Second, while it was established that Edgeworth presented fake evidence in court, no one had any proof that he had a hand in its forgery like Klavier did regarding Phoenix and the diary page. |
| 220 | * If Zak performed the correct action (which is to shoot the clown in the head), what happens if Valant did the same thing Zak does? Does he inherit half of the rights? Or does Maginfi say that "Only Zak gets them.." |
| 221 | ** Magnifi was pretty clear that Zak would have first dibs; only if Zak refused would Valant even have a chance. |
| 222 | ** Valant would have gotten the rights if Zak didn't show up at all, or if he showed up and didn't shoot anything. |
| 223 | * Uh, why does Phoenix forget what rifling marks are? Zak has to explain to him how they work during the 4-4 flashback. But rifling marks were a completely pivotal part of Case 1-4, which is arguably (besides maybe 2-4 and probably 3-5) the ''most important case of Phoenix's life.'' In fact, why do ''any'' of the lawyers have to explain to any ''other'' lawyers what rifling marks are? That seems like really basic lawyer knowledge, right? |
| 224 | ** Weren't rifling marks referred to as ''ballistic markings" during case 1-4? It's possible Phoenix was a little thrown off by the use of another name to refer to them, either that or he was just asking as a generic question, as in rather then his inquiry meaning "what are rifling marks?" it instead meant something like "The rifling marks? What about them?". Plus I don't think rifling marks are ever explained to a lawyer. In case 1-4, Maya is the one who asks what they are, then in 4-2, Trucy asks what they are and Apollo explains it to her. |
| 225 | ** It's either the alternate term, or it's simply for the sake of the player, since they may not have played a previous Ace Attorney game. |
| 226 | * Why does nobody ever bother to check the handwriting of the letter requesting the forged diary page? One little check would be all the evidence needed to prove that Kristoph requested the forgery, and then Phoenix wouldn't need to become a jerkish criminal hobo for seven years to get revenge. |
| 227 | ** You mean the letter that's been residing at Drew Studio for 7 years and we only see the handwriting of when Apollo comes investigating Misham's death? There are several problems with that. First: Phoenix never gained access to it during the past. Second: Ema's 'X-Ray Analyser' was needed to see through the the envelope, which I'm fairly sure she says is new. Third: Even if he did somehow manage to see it, how on earth would that prove anything at that point? There's no guarantee he knows what Kristoph's handwriting looks like to begin with, and even if he did, what could he do with that information? Go to the Bar Association committee and submit that the only man who voted against his disbarment was actually the one responsible? Even if Phoenix brings them the actual letter, all Kristoph has to do to deny the accusation is say that when Phoenix forged the diary (which the Bar Association already believe him to have done) he obviously had this forged as a backup plan. Or he could just say nothing at all and let them infer that. Kristoph was never officially registered on the trial, so in the eyes of the committee would have no motive. |
| 228 | * Zak tells Phoenix that the reason he fled before his verdict could be handed down was because of the paper that bequeathed the performance rights to him. As if to imply that being found guilty would rob him of those rights, but he never explains how that works. OK, he mentions Magnifi signed it without witnesses or a notary, but why didn’t Zak just asked Phoenix to get him a notary to validate his claim before they went to trial? That way, he wouldn’t need to run away and go into hiding to ensure Trucy’s inheritance. |
| 229 | ** Because there are laws that state you can’t legally inherit something from someone that you murdered. If Zak had been found guilty, it wouldn’t have mattered if he had the rights transferral notarized since he retroactively had no claim to the rights in the eyes of the law. |
| 230 | |
| 231 | [[AC:People vs Misham (And Investigations in the Present)]] |
| 232 | * How was Drew able to continue his forging operation for the next 7 years? I can buy that he might get amnesty for his testimony because it stopped a false conviction, but Phoenix, the judge, and Klavier, all pretty upstanding people, now all know his secret. And yet not one of them decided to keep a closer watch on him? |
| 233 | ** Given that he was disbarred, Phoenix could not be presumed as "upstanding" at the time. Klavier and the Prosecution Office, on the other hand, have no such excuse. |
| 234 | * Why did the under sketch of the paintings in 4-4 depict the cases that Justice worked on? This particular point, while being very mysterious (i.e. why, and how was Vera (or Drew) able to know the details of the crimes and redraw it), was never explained. |
| 235 | ** It was said that Drew Misham took an interest in Apollo after hearing about his connection to Phoenix. |
| 236 | * On the risk of being petty, how did the police ever come to the conclusion that Vera poisoned the RIM of the coffee mug? I mean, apart from the whole atroquinine-is-slow-acting contradiction, they (or at least, Ema) only found only a small stain of atroquinine residue on the rim of the mug in question. However, if I'd ever poison the rim of a coffee mug, I'd put the poison all over the rim to ensure that my victim would get the poison inside their body, and not just a small piece and hope that my victim would put their lips exactly over there. You would think at least someone involved with the investigation would have came up with this. |
| 237 | ** Consider case 3-3's coffee mug stain and it's not an unreasonable conclusion. They believe the culprit is Vera, and if the mug has exactly one handle, she would know which side Drew would drink from based on which hand he would use to pick it up, and given that she lives with him, of course she would know this. If she -was- the culprit it wouldn't even matter if he switched it up on her because he still wouldn't discover the poison on the other end of the cup, so she could just try again if it came to it. |
| 238 | * In 4-4, Klavier freaks out when he realizes that Vera was the one who forged the evidence in Nick's last case. Okay. Understandable. But given how, in that case, Valant was Klavier's main witness, and a good chunk of what triggered Klavier's freak out was the fact that Vera said the diary page was related to the Grammaryes, shouldn't Klavier have felt uncomfortable working with Valant in 4-3? |
| 239 | ** It wasn't just the connection to the Grammarye case that got him freaked out. It was that Vera admitted that she had seen the diary when the client requested the forgery. In the Japanese version, it was explained that when Kristoph was still Zak’s attorney, Klavier had let him borrow the diary along with the other evidence in the interest of a fair trial — whereas Phoenix never had access the diary until the day of the trial, so he couldn’t have been the client who showed it to Vera. Klavier freaks out because he realizes that someone had framed Phoenix and that the real client may have been his brother. |
| 240 | * Vera was a shut in who hadn't left her home in at least 7 years and her only companion was her beloved father. Did Gavin ever establish what her motive to want to kill him was or where she acquired the rare poison he died from? |
| 241 | ** Nope, they never did bother with a motive. As for the poison... well, it's a bit of a stretch, but it's possible they assumed she ordered it from somewhere; Vera could theoretically still get it without leaving the house. |
| 242 | * How did Kristoph Gavin know so much about the case? He was in solitary confinement, and even though he does get some news from the outside world, Spark Brushel said (or at least implied) several times that nobody had taken Drew Misham's death to press yet. I know his little brother is the prosecutor, but 1) the recess wasn't long enough for Klavier to be able to brief Kristoph about the case, and 2) based on Klavier's behavior during the first part of the trial and early on in the second, it doesn't seem like he'd be particularly trusting of his dear brother. |
| 243 | ** "Many things pass by my desk, and I have nothing to do but read". I believe he says this when you visit him in solitary. In other words, he's using his influence to get info on the case the same way he used it to get such a nice prison cell. |
| 244 | * What exactly is Kristoph trying to accomplish during the last trial day of 4-4? I mean, he had already been convicted of killing "Shadi Smith," thereby receiving life in prison and possibly even the death penalty eventually. What good will ensuring that he is not indicted for another murder going to do? Even if he ensured Vera's guilty verdict and thereby got rid of the last person who could rat him out for his evidence forgery, ''he's still a convicted murderer locked up for life''. What's the point of trying to protect your reputation when your reputation has already been ruined by your cold-blooded killing of another man? Is Kristoph just a troll/griefer who enjoys stomping all over Phoenix's and Apollo's efforts, even when he really has nothing to gain from it? |
| 245 | ** He probably knew that Phoenix had figured out his role in his disbarment. He probably didn't want Phoenix to reveal the circumstances of his disbarment and get his job back. He's a petty monster. |
| 246 | ** It's mentioned earlier in this case that he is still well-respected by his former peers, many of whom have a hard time accepting that he is a convicted murderer. He even [[SarcasticConfession sarcastically confesses]] to being a monster, showing that he doesn't take his incarceration particularly seriously. It's well-established at this point that he cares far more for his reputation than for justice, so being in jail may not bother him so long as he still has the respect of the lawyers of the world. Trying to shut down Phoenix and Apollo's attempts to tie him to another murder makes for a great opportunity to bolster his reputation by making the two who convicted him in the first place look like out-of-touch fools. Plus, having his plot to destroy Phoenix's career exposed really would damage his reputation beyond repair. |
| 247 | ** Plus, in ''Investigations 2'', doesn't Frank Sawhit show up as accomplice, and he gets an extension on his jail time? This would seem to imply that not all of the killers are actually getting the death sentence, so it's possible that Kristoph ''didn't'' get the death sentence for killing "Shadi Smith." He probably ''would'' get put on death row for Drew's death, or in the very least get a jail time extension, so he was trying to avoid that. |
| 248 | *** It may simply depend on the circumstances and the person. Kristoph managed to avoid getting the death penalty on his reputation as being a highly respected defence attorney, and Frank Sawhit may have avoided the death penalty by claiming that he didn't want to kill her, simply knock her out, getting convicted for man slaughter rather than murder so it may simply depend upon the circumstances of the murder and the person being convicted. |
| 249 | ** It's explicitly stated that he's still managed to salvage his fame and fortune as much as possible, allowing him enough perks and privileges to where he MightAsWellNotBeInPrisonAtAll. Additionally, he's most likely not on death row (which several games have established as not being certain for every killer, merely a risk factor for extreme cases), and he obviously doesn't want to push the envelope any more with another murder to his name. Also, he just wants the last laugh on Phoenix and Apollo. |
| 250 | * In case 4, you are unable to use the letter from Misham to prove Kristoph's connection to the victim, because it's just a copy created by Phoenix. Why was it not possible to obtain the real letter? Kristoph is in solitary confinement for murder. Is it not possible to just ask that his mail be confiscated? |
| 251 | ** By that point, Kristoph should have most likely destroyed the letter already, it'd be futile to try to get the original by then. Also he is in solitary confinement. But by his choice, and lives in luxury. As much as he can anyway. |
| 252 | *** Except that he already has stated that his mail is read before it gets to him. That there isn't a record of mail coming from Drew Misham to his cell is nothing short of gross negligence. Granted, given the conditions he lives in, this probably isn't surprising. |
| 253 | *** His mail is ''read'', not ''copied''. Whatever officer had the duty of reading Kristoph's mail that day probably read the letter, put it back in the envelope, passed it off to Kristoph, and then abruptly stopped caring about it because up until the point where it became required evidence to a murder trial, it was just another piece of mail, and if Kristoph is as well-respected still as the game seems to indicate, he probably gets ''all manner'' of correspondence from peers, fans, and well-wishers. |
| 254 | ** If they couldn't get the original letter, why couldn't Apollo present the video footage that Phoenix used to reproduce the letter? |
| 255 | *** They explain this in the game. A video recording of a letter alleged to have been found in Kristoph’s prison cell, by an ex-attorney allegedly disbarred for forging evidence, was too sketchy a premise for the court to accept the recording as legitimate evidence. And Phoenix wasn’t helping his case by trying to present a faked reproduction of the letter beforehand. |
| 256 | * What's the deal with Kristoph's black Psyche-Locks? Are they ever broken? |
| 257 | ** ''Duel Destinies'' reveals that black Psyche-Locks hide secrets so dark and personal for the liar that they don't even realize they're lying; in other words, some form of repressed-memory PTSD, like Athena with her mother's murder. So while that answers what the black locks mean, it also leaves more questions as to what exactly is so horrid that Kristoph's own mind is hiding memories from him. |
| 258 | ** Kristoph absolutely can't stand the idea of other people being better defense attorneys than him. He's "the coolest defense attorney in the west", so that means no one can even get close to his level. When Zak ditches him to hire Phoenix instead... no, he doesn't admit that the lawyer who beat "The God of Prosecution" and his two successors is indeed better, he instead tries to get Phoenix disbarred so that no one can best him. That's the nature behind his black psyche-locks: he will never accept the idea of not being the best lawyer. He forged the diary page so that his brother Klavier couldn't best him; he delivered the forged page to Phoenix and warned Klavier about it so that Phoenix couldn't best him, and tried to silence Zak and the Mishams to ensure that would not happen after the disbarment; he gets furious when he realizes Phoenix gave Apollo forged evidence to best him (just like Kristoph did to Phoenix seven years before); then in Case 4-4 he shows up in court so that he can have the last laugh over Apollo, Klavier and most importantly Phoenix. Notice that he rather calmly explains his plan to disbar Phoenix, and only violently bursts into his VillainousBreakdown after he realizes Phoenix bested him for the third time, even with Apollo and Klavier on his side. |
| 259 | * So why did Misham try to send Kristoph the letter seven years late? |
| 260 | ** He didn't. He wrote to Kristoph asking him to remove Vera's 'magic charm'. He'd already sent the letter (the diary page) seven years ago, just with a different stamp than Kristoph intended. |
| 261 | * Why, if the penalty meter runs out during the second day of Vera's trial does the judge do his regular 'the defendent will surrender herself to the court's care...' etc speech? Not only is she in intensive care, but the judge completely fails to consult the jury! The writers put in a whole bad ending where Vera dies that's only possible to reach on purpose but apparently didn't do the bare minimum of adding something to clarify this. |
| 262 | ** I guess because there's only three evidence presentations and one Perceive sequence, so they didn't expect many people would see this scene. |
| 263 | ** The green meter is identified as a “trust meter” in the game’s manual. It’s possible that if it runs out on the second day of trial, the judge loses faith in the Jurist System as well as the defense, and the ending is him dismissing the jury and taking back the authority to decide the case for himself. Like Phoenix said early on, Vera’s trial was a test for the new system, and that’s always risky. |
| 264 | * So Drew Misham's wife ended up leaving him because he was a StarvingArtist who couldn't sell a painting... and left Vera in ''his'' custody. Does this have to do with Japan's divorce laws favoring the father(or something along those lines), or did Mrs. Misham not care about raising her daughter? |
| 265 | ** Considering Drew’s idea of good parenting was to raise Vera as a shut-in rather than getting her therapy or something that could’ve helped deal with her issues, I’m inclined to believe he only retained custody of her because his wife didn’t want to seek it for herself. After all, the only other case of divorce laws “favoring the father” was in the case of Morgan Fey’s first husband — where he was a jeweler who could support their kids whereas she was a psychotic, washed-up member of the branch family of the then-discredited Fey Clan. |
| 266 | * Why is this case played up as Phoenix's decisive victory against Kristoph? Shouldn't the events of Turnabout Trump have already served all of his objectives? He outed "the coolest defense in the west" as a man consumed by spiraling madness who is unable to let little slights of years past go by unanswered and he exposed the critical flaws of the justice system by manipulating a trial -- two critical plot points that are repeated in Turnabout Succession. Turnabout Succession would have happened anyway since it's premised around a ContrivedCoincidence but it seems more like the coda rather than the punchline of Phoenix's grand plan (he gets to humiliate Kristoph one more time but by this point he's just kicking someone he thoroughly defeated already). The only lingering point that he didn't manage to fulfill in 4-1 is publicly reveal that Kristoph and his victim had crossed paths before, wihch would have been easy to do after the fact and also absolve him of the guilt of evidence forgery in the process. |
| 267 | ** … What do you mean, “it would have been easy to do after the fact”? Establishing Kristoph’s connection to Shadi was the most important part of taking him down, which is why the events of 4-4 were so important. As Phoenix says during the Mason System, all 4-1 did was put Kristoph in jail. They were never able to establish his motive, which is why Phoenix is intent to figure that out now. |
| 268 | [[/folder]] |
| 269 | |
| 270 | |
| 271 | [[folder:The MASON and Jurist Systems]] |
| 272 | * So what was Phoenix's original plan for the jurist system? He seemingly overhauled the legal system solely to get Kristoph to pay for his actions or to get himself freed from the forgery accusation that lost him his badge, but it was a mere stroke of luck that one of the Misham's died RIGHT at the time he was about to implement the system. He even says that he changed the original planned case in favor of the Misham case. But no case that didn't involve the Mishams would help him, so what could his original plan have been? |
| 273 | ** Phoenix probably was interested in reforming the legal system whether or not he was able to nail Kristoph for the forgery. He could’ve used any old case to prove that the Jurist System was a success, and then it would’ve been in place for whenever something did happen to the Mishams. Either that or he was waiting for something to happen to Drew or Vera and never had another case in mind before then, but that’s obviously not something he can tell anyone, so he had to act as though the timing of it was a coincidence. |
| 274 | * When did Phoenix acquire the ability to transport evidence across space and time? In the last case of Apollo Justice,[[note]]when you have the ability to look in both the past and the present to see the evidence that Phoenix has collected,[[/note]] Phoenix presents evidence that he can't possibly have at the time he presents it, and draws conclusions based on knowledge he will have in the future. |
| 275 | ** OK, so how about when you talk to Brushel about Thalassa? When you talk to Brushel after the death of Drew, he tells you about Thalassa's first husband, and Phoenix admits he didn't know about him. Flashback to him breaking Zak's Psyche-lock, six months earlier, and he's talking about Thalassa's first husband as if he'd known it all along! |
| 276 | ** The MASON system was supposed to just be a simulation of Phoenix's logic as he investigated these things over several years. He's put these elements together in his mind; what you play isn't really what happened. |
| 277 | ** The MASON system is not supposed to be an entirely accurate summation of Phoenix's memory in chronological order. He states at the start that it's to be played like a game, which is what it is - kind of a game allowing the jury to discover what happened instead of just infodumping. It is not chronologically accurate because it's easier to explain Phoenix's logic. The items are not taken back and forth from the future to the past, as this is not actually Phoenix's memory, it's a computer program. |
| 278 | ** First off, with the nail polish, Phoenix could have known Gavin before he talked to Vera, as he presumably saw him with that distinctive type of nail polish. Also, when you present the picture of Thalassa, you only talk about seeing a kid with bracelets who has a similar power to Trucy, which he could have done before talking to Zak. As for how Phoenix knew about Thalassa's first husband... Well, it's possible that Valant told him that. Long story short, any evidence we present that Phoenix shouldn't have he actually got elsewhere. |
| 279 | ** I was under the impression that the MASON investigation segment actually involves Apollo and not the Jurists, as it happens before the final trial day. Apollo definitely claims that he watched Phoenix's recording of Kristoph's cell visit and has all the evidence obtained from MASON. I don't think Phoenix would've rigged the Jury that much in his favor, given that a guilty verdict from Lamiroir that ends the trial with a "hung jury" is presented as a possible and realistic outcome (the same way Phoenix can realistically lose in 1-5 or 2-4 - a bad ending for sure, but a probable one). It's still possible to doubt Vera after only seeing the trials, but pretty much impossible after seeing the MASON investigation and learning everything that happened, especially for Lamiroir. Also, it would've been unfair to Apollo and quite awkward to have him conduct the investigation game along with the Jurists. |
| 280 | *** Apollo can't have been privy to the events of the MASON system, because if he had he would've learned from it that he and Trucy are half-siblings. Phoenix says at the end of the game that neither of them are aware of the relationship. As for the relative probability of a guilty verdict, there's nothing presented in the MASON system that can't also be gleaned from Kristoph's testimony; most of the simulation is devoted to solving the original Grammarye case rather than anything having to do with Kristoph's motive for Drew's murder. |
| 281 | * Phoenix uses his Magatama to crack people into talking and you lose some of your life energy when you screw up just like in the old games. I know that Phoenix says to think of this as a game, but it just makes no sense to have the LifeMeter system in place for this period since lost life doesn't transfer to Apollo once you play as him again plus nothing happens to Phoenix if you lose all your life energy during a psyche-lock. |
| 282 | ** It's for decoration. A callback to Phoenix's days. That's all it probably is. |
| 283 | ** Also, that's just how the Magatama works. Even if the life meter doesn't transfer over to Apollo (and I think it replenished itself before the next trial segment in JFA and T&T anyway), getting things incorrect in the Psychelock sections still costs you. Besides, not getting penalized in these parts would make them too easy. |
| 284 | * At the end of 4-4, Phoenix simply tells the jurors to vote "Innocent" or "Guilty", not something like "Push the left button for innocent, and the right for guilty." Juror 6's buttons aren't Braille labeled. Juror 6 is then revealed to be Lamiroir, who is blind. |
| 285 | ** Not quite. At the end of 4-3, it is suggested that she may get eye surgery. After this vote, it is implied that she ''did''. |
| 286 | ** Besides, it's not like nobody knew at this point that she was blind. Phoenix could have briefed her on how it worked beforehand. |
| 287 | ** Going back to the implications of the first rebuttal, I believe she says something to the tune of "I read in the handbook that [such and such]", signaling her eyes were working just fine now. |
| 288 | * Is the point of the Jurist System to raise the standards that are required for conviction, or lower them? Because it seemed like in case 3, the point being made was that Daryan is obviously the killer, but because the legal system is faulty, he can't be convicted except by wearing down Machi's reluctance to testify. However, in the final case, you never see whether or not Kristoph is convicted by a jury, all you do see is that Vera is acquitted by one. The thing is that Ace Attorney's legal system is ''not'' flawed because it's too difficult to convict the guilty, it's because it's too easy to convict the innocent. You'd think that the reason why Apollo would've been getting up in arms in case 3 is not that Daryan is too hard to convict, but that Machi is too hard to acquit even though he's such an improbable suspect. |
| 289 | ** Why would Kristoph need to be convicted by a jury when he was already convicted earlier? In any case, I believe the Jurist System was created because it was too easy to get the innocent sent to jail. |
| 290 | ** The two problems - too easy to convict the innocent, too hard to convict the guilty - are inextricably linked. Some cases in the series go as far as saying outright that no matter how conclusively you prove the defendant's innocence, if you don't [[ThePerryMasonMethod identify and prove the real culprit]], the defendant will be found guilty anyway. Cases where it's said "nobody will find him/her Not Guilty, not now" are a departure from the core logic of the game's setting, and don't seem to be thought through. |
| 291 | *** It still isn't too hard to convict the guilty. Seriously, given what we know about this court system, how often do you suppose a guilty suspect manages to get himself declared not guilty? It's merely too hard to convict guilty people ''who have framed someone else'', due to the difficulty of "turning the case around" from the initial suspect. All of this said, Apollo definitely ranted from the wrong angle at the end of case 3. In fact, his rant was on the Wall Banger page for a while before the section was cleaned up. (Only in ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' can the idea of a jurist system not only be supported for its ability to find people guilty without decisive evidence, but also be primarily backed for this reason by defense attorneys instead of prosecutors.) |
| 292 | *** The court also has absurdly high standards of evidence required to convict anyone other than the defendant. If you doubt this, check up on 2-1, when the Judge says that if Phoenix can't prove the witness's motive the defendant will be found guilty even though the only piece of evidence the prosecution still has that could implicate her implicates the witness just as much. So basically, as the Judge puts it: "Common citizens have something called common sense" which is otherwise completely absent from the court. |
| 293 | *** That was a problem I had with the system of PW and AP all the time. Think about Case 2-4 and Matt Engarde being tried for murder. Now, hiring an assasin to do the killing does not make you the murderer but an accessory to murder. So, once the assassin was revealed to be the real killer, the defendant should automatically get an acquittal because it was the wrong thing to try him for - he needed to be tried for accessory to murder. Same in 4-4 with Vera and Kristoph. ''She'' was the defendant and the trial was about what ''she'' had supposedly done, not the witness called in. We can't randomly convict a witness, who isn't even being tried for anything. |
| 294 | *** Unfortunately, it does seem to work that way in this series. Case 3-2 demonstrates this: the defendant isn't found not guilty until after the witness admits his guilt on the stand, and then the trial for the witness's guilt occurs the next day. It almost seems redundant. Also, regarding the subject of changing the charges without ending the case, Phoenix isn't given the option in 2-2 to argue for the possibility of a justified homicide charge against his client until her murder trial has already begun. |
| 295 | *** Actually, in the United States, at least, hiring someone to kill someone else is still first degree murder. You don't get any lighter charges for not doing it yourself. |
| 296 | * I can get how the MASON system is effectively a compilation/dramatization of Phoenix's investigations in this case.[[note]]The implications of which have been covered in a prior headscratcher.[[/note]] And I can see how he could have conversations with the people at their respective locations... What I ''can't'' see is how Phoenix's conversation with Spark Brushel at Misham Studios could have been ''uploaded'', let alone edited, given that the '''only''' time that that conversation could have taken place was ''during'' the Trial period; specifically while Vera was in the hospital.[[note]]Even if he had vised Kristoph and Valent only a week prior, he still could have "simplified" the data in that week's time.[[/note]] The ''only'' way that that could be reconciled is if the MASON system was used by the ''Defense'';[[note]]In conjunction with Apollo going to Misham Studio and Sunshine Colossium during an "Investigation" period,[[/note]] yet it's explicitly used by the ''Jury''! Just... HOW?!?! |
| 297 | ** As a bonus, this is the part of the MASON system sequence that reveals that Thalassa had a second child. Is Phoenix really trying to claim that he only found out about Apollo's parents less than 24 hours before? It kinda goes against everything he had ever said about Apollo's power in the first case. And it becomes even more confused when you realize that the MASON system sequence also claims that Phoenix met Brushel for the first time on the very night Shadi challenged him to the poker game, meaning he had no chance to talk to him about Apollo before his arrest! |
| 298 | ** While the part where Phoenix and Brushel speak in the Misham Studios being depicted in the MASON system has no explanation whatsoever (the Sunshine Colosseum can happen any time between Case 3 and 4), Phoenix could still assume Thalassa had two children. That's because of the bracelets (I doubt Brushel carries the only photo where Thalassa's bracelets are shown; Trucy likely had at least one showing them as well). It's supposed to simulate everything Phoenix found out in 7 years. Unless Phoenix and Brushel met again in-between Cases 1 and 4, and it's only depicted in the Misham Studios... to save on software space, maybe? |
| 299 | [[/folder]] |
| 300 | |
| 301 | [[folder:The Twisted Grammarye Family Tree]] |
| 302 | * A certain famous magician mysteriously disappears. Several years later, an equally famous musician with a mysterious past and amnesia appears out of nowhere. How come not one person has ever noticed that these two people look identical? |
| 303 | ** It's been about a decade since Thalassa's accident. She was reported dead, not disappeared. The musician is a recent sensation, and I think this tour is her first time actually being back in this country. She wears a veil and doesn't even speak English in public. All in all, someone of the "Elvis isn't dead" mindset and familiarity with both could probably pick up on the similarities... given time. But not enough time has passed... |
| 304 | ** And this will definitely be happening soon, considering Thalassa shed her veil and the Troupe Gramarye is back in the spotlight. |
| 305 | ** But even if nobody else recognizes her, Valant, of all people, should have. Considering the fact that he likes her and they spent so much time today. Especially since he must know how Lamiroir looks like very well, as he impersonated her for the magic trick. There's no way he didn't recognize her. |
| 306 | *** It's possible that he ''did'' recognize her and he just didn't mention it, given how she has amnesia and clearly doesn't remember him anyway. There was one line in the MASON system (in the present-day segment, outside the coliseum) where Valant muses that they never actually saw Thalassa's body after the accident or something like that, so it's pretty likely that he started putting two and two together at least by that point. |
| 307 | *** Besides, for all he knew, he could be the person who had shot her, so the last thing he'd want is for her to suddenly regain her memories and expose him. I think the hint that he drops during the mason system is proof that he did indeed recognise her, but making a big deal out of it wouldn't have benefited anyone! |
| 308 | *** Not to mention, Valant is on the cusp of inheriting the Gramarye performance rights once Zak is declared dead in absentia, and Thalassa turning up again would’ve thrown a wrench into that as well. As Magnifi’s daughter, she would be eligible to inherit the rights before Valant, and she might not be keen on letting him have them. So yeah, telling everyone who she was would’ve been super-counterintuitive for him. |
| 309 | ** During the MASON segment it's shown that Valant recognized the similarities but dismissed them as Lamiroir being just an IdenticalStranger for Thalassa. When Phoenix shows Valant the letter where Zak gives all the rights of his tricks to Trucy, proving he was alive until very recently, Valant tells Phoenix that Thalassa's body was never seen, implying he stopped considering Lamiroir's resemblance to Thalassa as a coincidence. |
| 310 | ** Up until the ending, Lamiroir’s hairstyle and outfit are both different than what she looks like in the Troupe Grammarye poster. Valant only would have encountered her wearing a hooded cloak and with half her face covered by a veil. It’s not impossible that he would dismiss the resemblance. |
| 311 | * Where was Apollo when Thalassa is shot? She's his mother, but there is no reference to him during Phoenix's entire half of 4-4. |
| 312 | ** Thalassa lost track of Apollo after the fire that killed his father, who he was with at the time, and she ended up assuming that the fire had killed him too. Unbeknownst to her, Apollo was rescued from the fire and raised in another country before returning to America some years later. This is referenced in this game when Brushel said that Apollo had “fallen through the cracks” or something, and explained in detail in ''Spirit of Justice''. |
| 313 | * How did Lamiroir wake up in Borginia after being shot when the group was probably in America/Japan during the rehearsal? |
| 314 | ** Magnifi probably smuggled her out of the country to maintain the illusion that she was dead and so his hold on Zak and Valant. He's the sort of person to know people that could take care of her there. |
| 315 | ** That's an unsolved mystery with no currently known answer, which means that it'll probably be resolved in a sequel. Apollo's backstory isn't done for yet. |
| 316 | ** They're traveling performers. There's no reason to believe they couldn't have ''been in Borginia'', rehearsing for a Borginian performance, when Lamiroir was shot. That seems to be the simplest explanation. The much bigger mystery to me is why Magnifi even saw fit to make Lamiroir disappear in the first place, instead of just getting her medical attention. Unless Magnifi didn't know she survived? |
| 317 | ** It would be impossible for her to have survived if she didn’t receive medical attention, so Magnifi had to have arranged for that, just without Zak or Valant knowing. Thalassa’s conservation with Phoenix at the end of the game implies she was conscious of the point when she left the troupe. She says she left her “family” because she’d lost her identity in the wake of the accident, implying that it was her choice to do so. Maybe she talked it over with Magnifi and made the choice to leave, in an exchange which she forgot about later? Something like that seems to be what the game is suggesting. |
| 318 | * Considering Trucy's father is [[AmbiguouslyBrown Zak Gramarye]], why is she not the slightest bit tan? I don't get how she could possibly be that pale. |
| 319 | ** She takes after her mom. |
| 320 | ** It's also possible that Zak has an acquired tan. |
| 321 | ** Even if Thalassa were as dark as Zak, it’s completely possible for dark-skinned parents to have a child who seems pale, and vice versa. |
| 322 | ** Trucy likely inherited some other features of Zak's that don't communicate well in anime style. She also could tan pretty dark in the sun, but she doesn't spend any time out in it where her skin is exposed thanks to her costume- her hat provides her face with shade, and her cloak covers a lot of her body (and would cast shade) plus her knee-high boots. |
| 323 | [[/folder]] |
| 324 | |
| 325 | [[folder:Turnabout Chessmaster?!]] |
| 326 | ''Not an actual case (yet), this is more about Phoenix Wright's actions overall'' |
| 327 | |
| 328 | * Phoenix's entire moral stance in the game. Yes, I understand he basically gained the attitude that "because he's not a lawyer he doesn't need to stick to the rules", but it's completely hypocritical. Why are we spending most of the game wanting to not believe that Phoenix tried to pass off forged evidence as legit in a murder trial, when we've just seen him do that exact same thing, and admit to it, in the first episode of the game? Why are we clearing the name of someone who is a knowing hypocritical forger, and someone who clearly doesn't think the rules of legal proceedings apply to those outside the lawyer profession, which is complete garbage. Why do they expect us to swallow the fact that Phoenix didn't do anything wrong just because he ''technically'' didn't do anything illegal? His daughter was the one who made the card, and he never once claimed it was THE fifth ace are just cheap ways of trying to make his forgery seem like it wasn't morally corrupt when it was by a long shot. For starters, even if he didn't forge it, he ORDERED HIS DAUGHTER TO, which was the same as him being suspected of ordering Misham to forge the diary page. And he knowingly got a strange girl to give Apollo the "fifth ace", so that he would present in the trial thinking it's real. This is EXACTLY the same as what Kristoph did. There's literally no difference, the only difference here is that this didn't result in Apollo getting disbarred. If you think back to Phoenix's final trial, he presents the forged page and never once claims it to be from the diary then either. He shows it and everyone just assumes that's what he was trying to point out. Not only does all this completely destroy Phoenix's personality, but it also makes him no worse then the game's MAIN VILLAIN. Phoenix's plan was literally exactly the same as Kristoph's apart from Kristoph did it for greedy reasons while Phoenix did it for the sake of the truth. But it's made pretty clear in Dual Destinies that even if a lawyer is doing it for legit reasons, it's still an unforgivable act. |
| 329 | ** Because we, the audience know that Phoenix is not the person to go forging evidence for defending a client when he can do the same defending by exposing the truth. The first three games bring up the theme of finding the truth, and forging evidence to protect your client is not how Phoenix rolls. He didn't even like ''defending Matt'' in JFA but had to because he had leverage against him. He does it here because he knows Kristoph is the culprit and that becomes more apparent as the case unfolds. It's not so much the Ace that is important but how Kristoph responds to it, which if he weren't the killer he shouldn't be protesting about evidence being faked. Not only that but it's implied that a Bloody Ace did exist, but was taken and burned most likely so this is more of a recreation of the evidence. |
| 330 | *** Honestly what strikes me is that in the original trilogy, we wouldn't even need the fake ace. Proving why it ''had'' to be taken, why it was replaced, who was the only person who could have taken it; that would have been enough in the original trilogy. There was no reason to suggest Kristoph wasn't the killer once he admitted to being there because he was the only person who COULD have done it- Phoenix and Olga could not have done without generating a lot of contradictions. The fake ace exists to show Phoenix has fallen very low. |
| 331 | ** Phoenix's actions against Kristoph are very similar to what he did to Furio Tigre in 3-3 - LyingToThePerp about a certain piece of evidence so that he would accidentally implicate himself in the murder, only that instead of claiming a piece of evidence is something else, he claims that something is a piece of evidence when it's not (And that if Kristoph pointed it out, he's gone). It was not the first time that happened. There's also the fact that Phoenix was sure Kristoph was the one who ordered the forged diary page - he could very well have also done it out of spite, giving a taste of his own medicine - just as how you pointed out how similar their methods of delivering the evidence were. |
| 332 | ** I'm fairly sure that this entire thing is meant to be intentional. As has been pointed out, the two situations with Kristoph and Phoenix parallel each other exactly. Kristoph is basically meant to be Phoenix's parallel. The difference between him and Phoenix is that Phoenix has a generally good-heart and wishes for justice. When his life was destroyed, he didn't get hateful, and go around murdering people (they even made the point of showing how much he didn't blame Vera & Trucy, the two girls who, for all intent-and-purposes, were the cause of the forged evidence). Kristoph is a greedy, and downright psychotic, self-fulfilling attorney. When his life got destroyed, he broke into psychotic revenge, murdered people, and blamed everyone else. Phoenix also wants wants a fair legal system, and purposefully implemented the Jurist System which incorporated common people into proceedings (whether his actions were out of spite or not, is up for debate). Kristoph was ''violently angry'' at the idea of a new legal system involving "common mouth breathers". Yet at the same time, Kristoph was a generally skilled lawyer, who was praised on par with Phoenix. He was basically the "Phoenix Wright" of the seven-years-later. The entire parallel is on purpose. Phoenix is the "good guy", Kristoph is the "bad guy", yet Phoenix's actions overlap with Kristoph's own, and Kristoph's reputation is just as good as Phoenix's. It's an example of [[GreyAndGrayMorality grey morality.]] |
| 333 | *** Kristoph didn't go into a psychotic rage over his life being destroyed. He did it for essentially ''nothing''. As for the Jurist System, if Phoenix really cared about a fair legal system, why does he ''rig'' the jury? |
| 334 | *** The jury wasn't "rigged" per se, but full of people Phoenix trusted to make the right choice, whatever that may be. Guilty or Not Guilty. He didn't stock it with people who would vote Not Guilty, but people who would be fair and rational. People who cared for and valued the truth. People who would make a fair ruling. People he knew were capable of seeing through the veil hiding reality. Though it does beg the question of who besides Lamiroir was on the jury, since it was clearly people Phoenix knew in some capacity. |
| 335 | *** Kristoph's rage is not due to his life being destroyed, but because Phoenix proved, without a shade of a doubt, that he's better. In his twisted mind, Phoenix was a second-rate lawyer, so he did all he could in order to keep his own image as "the coolest attorney of the west" (the reason behind his Black Psyche-Locks). After getting him convicted once, and manipulating the system to get him convicted of another murder without decisive evidence, Kristoph realized it was him, and not Phoenix, who was the second-rate lawyer. Cue VillainousBreakdown. |
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