Fridge / Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice

A reminder for editors and viewers: Fridge 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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Fridge Brilliance

• After at least two games of refusing to tell how a magician's trick works, Trucy finally breaks and just tells Apollo. For some players this may feel like an Anti-Frustration Feature. However, there is some logic to this. In all previous cases, the magic trick in-question wasn't hers. Like in the first case, the trick was Valant's. The reason why Trucy is willing to tell Apollo (with his promise of secrecy) is because the magic trick in-question is her trick. She won't tell someone about how another magician's trick works, but if it's her own, she's willing at her own discretion.
  • More cynically, one may also note that this time, it's her neck on the line if Apollo fails.
    • Not likely. If she were only concerned with saving herself, you’d think she’d have also told Apollo the secret behind Bonny’s teleportation trick since that creates another suspect in the case.
• Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin's Villainous Breakdown, where he smashes his dahmalan against the witness stand, is a reference to the Rockers Smash Guitars trope as well as a reference to how he slammed his previous dhamalan against Paht Rohl's head to kill him.
• Why was Gaspen Payne living and working in Khura'in? In Case 2, Ema mentions that Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth was working on reorganizing the Prosecutor's Office and that included firing basically every corrupt prosecutor there, including Payne! Becomes an In-Universe example when Phoenix realizes the same thing in the latter half of Case 3.
  • Actually, this might not really be Fridge. The credits of Dual Destinies heavily implied, although didn't outright state, that Gaspen Payne was corrupt somehow and Edgeworth made him face the consequences.
• Why was Archie Buff reading a psychology book? To help his daughter overcome her PTSD and fear of leaving the house.
• The fact that Mr. Reus is referred to as the "Masked Magician" (even his leitmotif once he's exposed is named as such) and has a darker theme in comparison to the happier Troupe Gramarye music, and the Mr. Reus persona could also be considered a shout-out to Val Valentino, aka "The Masked Magician", an American performer and illusionist better known for his masked stage persona, who had a television show where he revealed the secrets behind many famous magic tricks. Not only is revealing the secret to a magic trick a crucial part of the trial, Retinz also sees himself as the one to reveal the real face of the Gramaryes to the world, not to mention being a TV personality famous for his reality shows.
• The Mr. Reus mask appearing twice during Retinz's breakdown event could represent Retinz himself and the person posing as him, Manov Mistree, who helped him carry out his plan to frame Trucy Wright.
• Apollo gets Sgt. Buff to open up to him when he reveals he lost his father and doesn't know if his mother is alive or dead. In the trial segment, Athena is able to get through to Sarge and also empathizes with what Sarge is going through for two reasons that aren't elaborated on: Athena's mother is dead, her dad is a Disappeared Dad, and overcoming her own traumatic past was the basis of her Character Development in Dual Destinies, making her even more similar to Sarge than Apollo!
• Speaking of grief, when Apollo has a short father-son bonding time with Dhurke, who gets arrested for the murder of Justice Minister Inga throughout the second half of "Turnabout Revolution" (though Apollo is unaware that Dhurke was being channeled by his widow Amara at the time), Dhurke can't bring himself to tell Apollo the truth about himself, so Capcom's developers have a way to enact the Five Stages of Grief in a way that can get players emotional as follows:

1. Denial: When Dhurke tells Apollo that he is Secretly Dying of a disease, Apollo reacts in shock and tells him that he must be joking, that the disease must be preventable and treatable, and that Dhurke is going to get better soon. When Dhurke tells him that, sadly, there is no cure and that "the Twilight Realm is calling [him]", this leads to...
2. Anger: When Apollo hears that there's no cure, he gets angry and acts all, "Why can't I stay with you, Dhurke?! Why can't I find a way to make you better? I can't let you die with a guilty verdict! Not now!" He feels so frustrated that his adoptive father is going to die with no hope of clearing his name. This, in turn, leads to...
3. Bargaining: Apollo wants to clear his adoptive father's name before the latter dies, so he has to make a promise that if he can win the trial against Dhurke's prosecutor son Nahyuta (and Queen Ga'ran, no less), then maybe he can make Dhurke get all better. Dhurke warns him that the truth will be difficult to accept in the upcoming trial, but Apollo assures him that he will not fail. However, during Dhurke's trial and evidence presenting, Apollo discovers that the "mysterious" bloodstain in Amara's Tomb belongs to Dhurke. Not long after that, Dhurke disappears from the witness stand and his widow Amara takes his place. After some cross-examination, Apollo comes to the realization, and makes an assertion, that Amara was the one who channeled the spirit of her husband, whose body is laid away in her sarcophagus. This sends Nahyuta in a state of shock and has the judge order the sarcophagus to be checked at once. Ema eventually arrives with the evidence, prompting Apollo into denial mode again, when he hopes that his theory is wrong. Unfortunately, Ema brings up the Awful Truth about Dhurke, which leads to...
4. Depression: On hearing the news that Dhurke has been Dead All Along, Apollo goes into a Heroic BSoD with a Skyward Scream of a Big "NO!" before Head Desking in despair, depressed over the fact that his adoptive father had already died by Inga's hand days earlier. Nahyuta is also feeling despaired that he never got to bring his father to justice because he is already dead. Nahyuta's aunt, Queen Ga'ran, however, feels glee at her brother-in-law's death and lets out a crazed Evil Laugh, plunging both Apollo and Nahyuta into a deeper depression that they may never get out of. Apollo has doubts on who or what he was even fighting for, and he has a feeling that he may never go on with the trial (and likewise the Defiant Dragons' revolution against Ga'ran). But then, amidst all the despair, comes an assuring moment...
5. Acceptance: In Apollo's time of grief and sorrow, his adoptive father Dhurke is there in memory, reminding him of the Defiant Dragons' creed: "A dragon never yields." With that, Apollo is learning to cope with the loss of his adoptive father, knowing that he can't let the revolution die with him in vain, ensuring that the trial must continue at all costs in pursuit of the truth, and not only securing a posthumous acquittal for Dhurke, but also (because of a reminder that "the sins of the father are to be visited upon the children") making sure that Nahyuta and his mother and sister are cleared of the murder charge against them, and thus doing whatever it takes to bring down the Ga'ran regime for good. By coping with Dhurke's death, Apollo is able to move on and make peace with himself, ensuring security for his remaining stepfamily.

• Fridge Logic might strike as someone realizes Amara and Dhurke have different hair colors, so how did she manage to channel him (and Inga) without it being really obvious? The answer is quite simple though never directly revealed in the game. You find a bottle of Je Suis Le'Belle in Inga's room that she most likely used (as well as Ga'ran in preparation for her Dead Person Impersonation attack on Inga). Furthermore it's known for washing out really easily leaving her to go back to silver grey very easily during the trial. This also leads to some fridge hilarity as one imagines Nayna quickly washing her hair in the middle of the court case. Most likely in some random toilet. Additionally Amara probably has wet hair throughout the trial as a result.
• The title of the game, Spirit of Justice, foreshadows the fact the bulk of the story of this game is about Apollo, not Phoenix.
  • Also what was used to catch the final culprit was the Spirit of Justice, the soul of Jove Justice.
• The Guitar's Serenade was about Thalassa herself. It describes her love and happiness with Jove, how she lost him in a fire and then was shot and died herself, in a manner of speaking.
• Most, if not all, of the Defiant Dragons that the player meets are older - 40s or above. Many of the more vehemently anti-lawyer citizens of Khura'in are actually younger - Rayfa (at first), Ahlbi (again, at first), and Nahyuta (though he has his reasons). The judge may seem anti-lawyer, especially in case one, but it's clear he can set aside his (likely played up) prejudices for the sake of a fair trial. It's likely that the older folk knew quite a bit of virtuous lawyers in their time, and knew Ga'ran's song and dance about the inherently evil nature of defense attorneys was a load of bull. However, it is far easier to brainwash and mold the minds of younger people - especially those who only ever knew Ga'ran as the queen.
• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, the beginning of Apollo's story in the series, ends with The Reveal that Phoenix overhauled the flawed American juridic system (by introducing a jury system) just to make sure that Kristoph Gavin, the one who made him lose everything he had, couldn't escape justice for what he did. Spirit of Justice, which closes Apollo's past, ends with Apollo overhauling the flawed Khura'in juridic system (by dethroning the Queen and nullifying every single law she made) and at the same time made sure that Queen Ga'ran, who made him lose everything he had, couldn't escape justice for what she did.
• In the DLC case, the first glimpse of Sorin's feelings towards Ellen are how he tells her that he's lost without her. Cue The Reveal about his memory loss and her further statement about how they were in love even before the accident and his statement takes on a whole new meaning! His being in love with her is one of the few positive things he can genuinely remember and, if she did go to jail, he would have had nothing left.
  • There's also the fact that she knows the exact location of his blueprints from memory. The fact that she knows such a thing is proof of how much he relies on her to remember things for him, as well as how much he trusts her with his blueprints(a genius inventor's blueprints would undoubtedly be extremely valuable to a corporate spy for a rival).
• Dhurke's testimony at the start of the final trial is fantastic foreshadowing to his status. He says he entered the tomb, felt dizzy, and the next thing he knew he was standing over Inga's body holding a bloody knife. Apollo assumes he was somehow drugged, but players may recall Case 3, which established that the memories a person being channeled pick up right where they stopped, with no knowledge of any time gap. This explains Dhurke's testimony: he was being channeled by Maya when he entered the tomb, felt dizzy as his spirit was expelled from her body, then his memories picked back up when Amara channeled him.
  • There's even more foreshadowing back in Kurain Village. Apollo's thoughts when talking with Pearl include:
    Mediums and spirit channeling... I've heard all about it from Mr. Wright. He said that mediums will even physically become the person they're channeling. I wonder if even little Pearl would turn into a hulking giant if she had to channel one...
    • The text in bold above is even highlighted in orange in the game to point out its importance. The foreshadowing is that Maya is doing that exact thing, right now, right next to him.
• If one recalls the MASON system segment in case 4 of Apollo Justice, it's easy to see how Phoenix was able to find a way to get Armie Buff to open up to him since he had already found the means to do so with 12-year old Vera Misham, who Armie is an Expy of, plus his years of experience with Trucy only polished that ability.
• While investigating Amara's Tomb for the first time, you find that the four-bullet gun has been shot three times, yet there aren't any bullets to be found. Athena quips "...Maybe Dhurke ate them.". This foreshadows the fact that Dhurke was shot with those three bullets, figuratively eating them.
• Roger Retinz, after being proven to be the murderer, found (admittedly petty) solace in the fact that he had beaten Trucy (the heir of the Gramaryes) at her own game and that he had finally shown that he was better. Turns out that not even that victory is rightfully his- he was beaten by Apollo, who is secretly a Gramarye.
• When Athena acts as the assistant to Trucy she can't stand it and constantly escapes, while Apollo is able to tough it out. He must have inherited the talent for stage magic from Thalassa's side of the family.
• During Uendo's early testimony segments, whenever he was Kisegawa, the sound blips that signify talking use the high pitch reserved for female characters, before changing back to the lower pitch for male characters for his other roles. A subtle hint that it's more than a performance...
• Where did Rayfa learn all those G-rated swearwords and archaic expressions ("Heavens to Betsy!")? Amara was using them frequently around her in order to complete the old-lady act as Nayna.
• In The Magical Turnabout, the footage shot by the TV station focuses on Trucy when she opens the coffin, and Mr. Reus comes tumbling out, zooming in on her face. This strikes as somewhat odd since you'd expect them to focus the attention on the point of the trick, aka the supposed-to-be-empty coffin. At first you might assume it's a case of a badly executed Gory Discretion Shot (although this wouldn't make much sense in itself since they were already fine with showing his body before, and are fine with showing it countless times again). Either way though, this actually acts as foreshadowing to the fact that the TV station were playing a prank on Trucy. They were focusing on her to capture her reaction, candid camera style.
  • It also helps hide the fact that Mr. Reus hadn’t died when everyone thought he did. If the camera were to focus too much on the body as it fell out of the coffin, it might give up the ruse that he was just playing dead at that point.
• The intro movie of Case 2 has a line that takes on a whole new meaning after learning the truth of the case.
  Trucy: Shame on you, Mr Reus! Using magic for evil!
  • To elaborate, Trucy's "The Reason You Suck" Speech involves her calling out Mr. Reus on using magic for murder, and after he describes it as a means to an end, says that this is precisely why Magnifi kicked him out of the troupe.
• An inverted case of Fridge Horror with The Stinger. It seems like Apollo has once again fallen victim to his usual Butt-Monkey status when Rayfa strongarms him into taking hundreds of cases apparently for free... but if his clients aren't paying his wages, and he's working directly on behalf of the government... that makes him a public defender, which means his compensation comes out of Rayfa's pocket. Joke's on you, Rayfa — Apollo gets the last laugh this time!
• The Woolseyism of Phoenix's name is expanded upon: the phoenix is described in folklore as a "royal bird", because its supposedly purple-red feathers were a colour associated with monarchs. Given the retcon that Maya, Phoenix's best friend, is royalty...
• During and before the trial of 6-5, Phoenix has a habit of pausing with his dialogue boxes being full of ellipses. He's probably going through his usual inner-monologue and this is what it looks like from the outside. This can be taken further as during the moment where it's revealed he'll be facing off against Apollo he has a particularly long set of ellipses. Were we playing from his perspective his inner monologue would probably be along the lines of what Apollo himself is having as well as several of Phoenix's past darkest hour monologues.
• When Phoenix encounters Inga in Case 6-3, the latter seems to take a while to recognize Phoenix. At first, it looks like he's such a jerkass towards defense attorneys that he couldn't be bothered to remember them, but, after playing Case 6-5, it becomes clear what really happened: Inga can't remember faces, and he was actually checking Phoenix's clothes and hair to realize who he was talking to.
• When it is mentioned Edgeworth needs to hire the services of international prosecutors due to a lack of workforce, one would first wonder why Franziska is not among them, but then you realize that would involve Edgeworth being Franziska's boss, and she's too proud to be ordered around by her "little brother".
  • Put in a different perspective, Franziska could be working with Edgeworth, she just doesn't want to be against Wright and his proteges, she knows how much of a headache it is dealing with their cases.
• Apollo claims they can prove that Nayna is actually Amara by calling on Ga'ran to channel Amara's spirit. Ga'ran reluctantly reveals that she can't because Amara is still alive, but it foreshadows the climax of the trial, that even if Amara was dead, she has no spiritual power to channel her in the first place.
• Maya's channeling of Tahrust marks the second time in the series where a spirit medium channels the spirit of someone who wasn't expecting to be channeled (and in fact Tahrust had no idea why he was channeled in the first place). The other time was Misty Fey channeling Gregory Edgeworth after the DL-6 Incident. What these two instances have in common is that the spirit medium is a trained master, which gives the implication that it takes an incredible amount of skill and spiritual power to be able to channel spirits that aren't directly cooperating with the process. Every other time a spirit was channeled, the spirit itself wanted to be channeled - Mia several times, Dahlia due to the plan Morgan had orchestrated, and Dhurke as per his request to Maya (while Amara channeling him right after he left Maya's body can be assumed to either be because he thought it was Maya again, or Amara's own skill let her channel him against his will).

Fridge Horror

• While Edgeworth did remove corrupt prosecutors from home, that of course did not stop people like Gaspen Payne from taking their corruption elsewhere. How many other corrupt prosecutors were simply let go and not blacklisted/arrested, allowing them to begin practicing elsewhere?
  • It might be mitigated somewhat by how proud and reputation-focused Japanifornia prosecutors are, considering Manfred von Karma and his daughter's obsessions with "perfection" to the point that the former committed murder over it, and the existence of things like the King of Prosecutors award. The utter humiliation of getting fired for jerkassery could inspire some of them to clean up their acts or at least hurt their career enough to make it difficult to get hired somewhere else.
    • Except, mind you, that the Von Karmas are from Germany. This implies that German prosecutors are much in the same mold.
  • It could also indicate that while Edgeworth has enough grounds to fire prosecutors like Gaspen, he can't charge them with any crimes.
• Speaking of Gaspen Payne, you never see him in the game after the first case, not even in the end credits roll call like in Dual Destinies. Makes you wonder what could have happened to him in such an execution-happy state of Khura'in, being the first prosecutor in 23 years to let a not guilty verdict happen...
• Think about the implications of the trial system in Khura'in, especially with Rayfa; she is probably responsible for giving dozens, if not hundreds, of seances that resulted in executions while being told it's okay because she is always right. By the end of the third case, she realizes this. Even with Maya giving some words of encouragement afterwards it eats at her until she finds her resolve in the final trial.
  • Miles and Phoenix can find unsigned execution documents going back five years in their investigation. While that still HEAVILY implies a lot of people died unfairly, it also means that for many others, their sentence can be revoked and they can get a new trial in the new system with defense lawyers. It's not perfect, but it can be a help.
• The fact that Dissociative identity disorder is widely believed to come from and often attributed to a traumatic childhood experience just makes one wonder just WHAT happened to Uendo to develop DID... Although many reports about that are generally controversial, but still...
  • Assuming that that's the case, remember that Owen is five years old and is very timid and fearful. Could he be the original Uendo? Not only is it sad that that boy witnessed some horrible thing that made his personality split, but the fact that he hasn't aged in the 23 years since then while his personalities took over is kinda sad to think about in itself.
• In the final case we find out that the Defense Culpability Act is so vaguely worded that not only will the defense attorney share a guilty client's punishment, but so will anyone who does anything that even remotely helps a convicted criminal, to the point where every single person who protested Dhurke's imprisonment would also have been executed for doing so had he been found guilty, and Nahyuta would have been convicted for offering a false alibi to aid Ga'ran even though he clearly did so under duress. One can only wonder just how many people were too afraid to come forth with evidence that might have saved a guilty client... or how many people actually did, failed to prevent a guilty verdict, and were convicted themselves.
  • Take into consideration just how vague the wording actually is too... and the fact that it would basically literally cover anyone who ever says anything in defence for someone who ends up getting convicted, or who even protests in any way against their guilt. Remember in the first episode when Ahlbi protests that Rohl could be a thief? What about Payne effectively defending Andistan'dhin? The wording of the law also means that the person you've supported doesn't even have to be convicted, just proven by law to be a criminal. That means every single person in the courtroom in the third episode who denied that Inmee could be a rebel are also technically covered.
    • It goes to show how all-powerful Ga'ran made herself, as the DCA is so vaguely worded that it could apply to anyone if you twist the logic enough. On top of that, it's not consistently enforced: it being used to punish defense attorneys is well covered, but Payne effectively defended Andistan'dhin and you can argue that Nahyuta defended Beh'leeb by trying to prosecute Maya (and taking suspicion off of her). It's truly chilling that Ga'ran gave herself the power to legally imprison anyone while, for all intents and purposes, ignoring due process; especially when you consider that this is exactly the sort of thing that real-life tyrants do.
• Dhurke's murder is obviously horrific, but the more you think about it, the worse you realize it really is.
  • Within minutes Dhurke goes from being alive and well to having to free a hostage from inside her body while staring at his own corpse.
  • Maya has to sit there and watch helplessly as her would-be rescuer dies slowly at her feet.
  • This is arguably not even the worst thing that's ever happened to Maya. This is just how her life is.
• Here's one from The Magical Turnabout. Remember Roger Retinz? The guy who killed his biggest fan specifically to put the blame on Trucy so he can get her arrested and bankrupt the Wright Anything Agency just because he was kicked off a traveling magician group over a decade ago? Remember how he also owns a T.V. channel where he has his viewers laugh at other people's misfortunes? Remember how he brought some of his more toxic fans to come to court specifically to get them to harass Trucy, Athena and Apollo? I think you can see the picture of how many people had their lives ruined or were driven to suicide because of Roger and the rabid Take 2 T.V. fansbase just for sick kicks and fame.
• If Apollo fails to indict Ga'ran as the killer, he and Nahyuta are forced to escape and go underground to avoid her agents and continue the revolution. There is no mention of what happened to Phoenix, Edgeworth, Athena, Maya or Trucy.
  • It gets worse. Since The Cosmic Turnabout/Turnabout for Tomorrow takes place about five months earlier, that means that if the worst were to happen Apollo would've lost nearly everyone close to him in a span of five months. And Apollo keeps going on and joins the revolution to overthrow Ga'ran.
  • Except since Apollo failed to indict Ga’ran, Ga’ran would have no cause to execute anyone according to her new law. It’s extremely likely that Phoenix and the others were able to leave the courtroom and go back home safely, while Apollo stayed in Khura’in presumably by choice.
• What takes down Roger Retinz in the end is a video taken of Bonny that he couldn't have known about and a complete mistake of Bonny's. Were it not for those two factors, he would have gotten away with his actions. Roger Retinz, vengeful, sadistic, uncaring Roger Retinz, is probably the closest this series has to a perfect criminal.

Fridge Logic

• How was Athena able to use her super-hearing to sense the discord in "Sarge's" heart through voice alone, when the voice was so distorted through the drone's speakers that they couldn't even tell Armie's gender? This is explicitly pointed out as a voice modulator.
  • Without any hearing superpowers, Metis Cykes did the exact same thing eight years prior when profiling the Phantom — armed only with a computer, she managed to study the emotions (or in this case the lack thereof) of a voice too distorted to be identified.
• So, here's what happened offscreen before the beginning of 6-5. Inga takes Maya hostage, but she escapes, makes it back to Japanifornia and channels Dhurke. Phoenix also flies back, but by this time Dhurke has been hanging around with Apollo for a while, which means Maya left Khura'in before he did. If Phoenix had, at any point during the first investigation, just asked the kidnapper for proof that he had Maya (as he did in 2-4), Inga would have discovered or been forced to reveal that he lost Maya and he would lose his blackmail on Phoenix. The civil trial could have been completely avoided.
• In Case 6-4, when Athena makes a point that a sake-infused manju bun would allow a person to become drunk and pass out (in her effort to get Uendo to reveal his "Owen" personality), she orders Simon Blackquill to have Taka the Hawk deliver sake-infused manju buns for Uendo, and also for Simon, the Judge, Nahyuta, and Athena herself. The problem is, Athena is 19, and the legal drinking age in the U.S. is 21 (whereas the legal drinking age in Japan is 20, give or take). So by contrast, it's supposed to be illegal for Athena to eat a sake-infused manju bun, because it counts as underage drinking, no matter which country you live in. Shouldn't she have saved it for Apollo or Phoenix instead?
  • From the Headscratchers page: We should stop assuming that the laws of Japanifornia are strictly taken from either the US or Japan, and if both prohibit something, it's illegal in Japanifornia as well. There are plenty of countries where the legal drinking age as well as age of majority is 18. It's clear that the creators of the game consider it to take place in some sort of a parallel universe, even in the original Japanese script.

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