No Worries! It's Pretty Easy To Miss.

Comparing some quotes from Farewell My Turnabout to AA1, you start to realize what Miles Edgeworth’s redemption arc is really about…

Turnabout Sisters: "Innocent"...? How can we know that? The guilty will always lie, to avoid being found out. There's no way to tell who is guilty and who is innocent! All that I can hope to do is get every defendant declared "guilty"! So I make that my policy. Versus Farewell, My Turnabout: It doesn't matter how many underhanded tricks a person uses... The truth will always find a way to make itself known. The only thing we can do is to fight with the knowledge we hold and everything we have. Erasing the paradoxes one by one... It's never easy... We claw and scratch for every inch. But we will always eventually reach that one single truth. This I promise you.

Rise From the Ashes: But in order to fight crime on my own, I'd need a "weapon." It's scary, but I've known that to be true for quite some time now.  Versus Farewell, My Turnabout: Working together is the definition of teamwork. It's the power to find the truth.

Edgeworth’s redemption isn’t about him gaining +100 morals. He turns his cynicism that used to blind him from seeking the truth into unflinching realism. He goes from being detrimentally independent to understanding the importance of teamwork. 

Miles Edgeworth is just as ruthless and unrelenting, but decides to use it to try to do good. He’s still overly focused on a singular goal, but instead of guilty verdicts, his goal is the truth. He’s still an insensitive prick. He acts condescending to the people he wants to help. He doesn’t fully comprehend how much his actions hurt the people who love him. But he does everything he can to help Phoenix save Maya. And he sees through Phoenix’s and Franziska’s misbeliefs when it comes to practicing law, and does his best to help them find themselves too.

Oh 100% Phoenix has major abandonment issues and a massive savior complex. He isn’t a defense attorney for himself, and he probably has little to no identity outside of it.

Comparing Phoenix’s issues to Adrian Andrews’ “dependent nature” is quite fitting really. The parallels between them are so interesting.

They both obsessed with someone close to them and modeled part of their career after them (Adrian acting like Celeste as a manager, Phoenix becoming a lawyer to save Edgeworth). They are both devastated when said person leaves them. They both forsake the truth because they are too dependent on someone else (Adrian forging evidence and Phoenix trying to get Engarde acquitted). And at the end of 2-4 they are both saved by the truth (when Edgeworth shows them the meaning of trust and finding the truth).

the more I think about phoenix wright the more convinced I am of how deeply fucked up he is

Feel free to explain your reasons in the tags! (I'm very curious)

Sincerely yours,

Phoenix Wright.

Phoenix is the one good at performing and Miles is the authentic one, right? It doesn’t fit them 100% of course, but I cannot see it the other way around.

Phoenix is an “insufferable emotionalist”, yes, and his emotional reactions are very genuine. But when he’s expressing emotions it’s almost always about other people; saving other people, believing in other people. When it comes to his personal issues, he is a closed book. He never says a word about Miles’s disappearance or Dahlia’s betrayal to anyone. Phoenix might not have multiple masks but he’s the one who took this piece of advice from Mia to heart: “for a lawyer, the worst of times are when you have to force your biggest smiles”. That’s his performance: the defender, the savior.

Phoenix is so driven by his attachments to other people that it feels like he doesn’t have an identity outside of it. He became a lawyer for Miles, twice. He pretty much only takes cases because Maya drags him to or one of his friends is the defendant. He doesn't function well when he's alone. You can't tell me he has a stable sense of self.

Miles suppresses his emotions, yes, and in the first game has a crisis over who he was as a prosecutor. But he doesn't perform. He holds himself to personal standards of perfection and doesn't care as much what other people think of him. And he's always authentic in his morals. He always tries to do what he thinks is the right thing, even during his "Demon Prosecutor" days. He thought getting every defendant a "guilty" verdict was the only way to get justice. It's the truth that makes him change his ways. It's pursuing the truth that becomes his main motivation. And isn't that the definition of authenticity?

Miles also 100% does see through Phoenix: "We aren't some sort of heroes. We're only human, you and I". Miles sees past Phoenix's performance. I think he might be the only person to ever address it.

Phoenix Wright is not the excruciatingly authentic and bright sunshine. He is the mirrorball who only shines so brightly because he reflects everyone else’s light.

But it's mutual. They see through each other. And that is probably my favorite part of wrightworth.

One core trait of Phoenix Wright as a character that I rarely see discussed is how utterly evasive he is about his private affairs. It sticks out the most in AA4 when we see Phoenix from the outside, but "Phoenix won't tell anyone anything important unless he absolutely has to (and even then, he probably won't)" is by no means a new development for him.

From AA1 onwards, we see Phoenix dodge people's questions about his personal life time and time again. In part, this is by narrative necessity - Phoenix knows more than the player is meant to know in order to achieve the optimal tension curve. But AA takes his narrative shortcut and turns it into a real character beat.

Phoenix Wright is the most cagey fucker on the planet.

At the end of 1-1 Mia asks him how he came to befriend Larry and Phoenix dodges the question with a vague promise to tell her later - this also means that in all of his time working with Mia, he's never actually disclosed his full motivation for becoming a lawyer to her.

In 1-2, Maya asks him how he knows Edgeworth and he dodges, because of course he does. The same song and dance repeats at the end of 1-3. And despite Maya's repeated prodding by 1-4, Phoenix still has not told her a thing about his past. That's from October until December that Maya is left going ??? and her questions go nowhere.

Then, between AA1 and AA2, Edgeworth is presumed dead by suicide. Does Phoenix tell Maya about this? Absolutely not. He does not tell her in letters nor is he clear about it when they see each other again in person, months later.

What Maya gets once it's inevitable to talk is a vague 'he's gone' and no elaboration other than the request to not speak about him again.

This is Phoenix's default coping mechanism.

In AA3, there are numerous instances where he mentions forgetting Dahlia, not speaking her name again, etc. Edgeworth is 100% getting the 'person who hurt me too deeply to think about' treatment here.

But to not even tell Maya a vague overview on the matter, when Maya knew him too? Rough. And it just keeps going.

It's six months between telling Maya that Edgeworth is 'gone' in 2-2 and her finding out that 'gone' seemingly means' dead' in 2-3.

Maya complains about it, too. This isn't a matter of 'she never asked again', it's a matter of 'Phoenix is dodging all questions'. Gumshoe has to intervene in order for Maya to finally find out.

And finally in 3-5, does he tell anybody why he's going to Hazakura temple and why he seems interested in Iris? Absolutely not!

At this point we get Edgeworth openly acknowledging that Phoenix keeps his emotional cards extremely closely to the chest. When he states that he wants confirmation on whether or not he has met Iris before, this exchange happens:

Even as Edgeworth directly calls him out on being evasive and never actually speaking to people, all Phoenix can do is acknowledge that this is how he is by apologizing - but he won't change his ways.

AA4 Phoenix is really just a natural evolution of Trilogy Phoenix - Trilogy Phoenix is already evasive, already hates telling people about his struggles or accepting help... It's really no wonder that he'd isolate himself instead of reaching out once he gets disbarred.

This. Is absolutely perfect. “This isn’t a fairy tale, Wright” !!! I feel like people are forgetting something about narumitsu most of the time. Edgeworth dismantling Phoenix’s misbeliefs and savior complex in 2-4. It’s equally as important and Phoenix dismantling Edgeworth’s misbeliefs and guilt in 1-4. You cannot just have Phoenix saving Edgeworth all the time.

savior complex

Thinking about AA role-swap AUs and if prosecutor Phoenix Wright would also “choose death” and then I remembered that in Farewell My Turnabout, Phoenix tells Edgeworth it might be time for "Defense Attorney Phoenix Wright chooses death". In the bad ending where Matt Engarde is declared "not guilty", Phoenix literally wanders the streets. Before I played this case, I thought Maya dies in the bad ending which prompts this reaction, but no he doesn't even see Maya again.

The more I look at canon, the more I realize Phoenix is as much of an emotional mess as Miles is, likely even worse. Phoenix's identity has always been so tied to being a lawyer, to saving people. He condemns one innocent person (Adrian Andrews) and he completely falls apart. And honestly, the same would probably happen if he got Matt Engarde "guilty" and Maya dies. Of course prosecutor Phoenix Wright would leave like Miles did.

(Edited to adjust my argument).

I think RTFA confirming that Miles Edgeworth didn't intentionally forge evidence aligns with his established character in the first four cases. It does take away some audience interpretation but personally I'm fine with that.

First of all I don't think the rest of AA1 ever confirmed it one way or the other. There are a few instances where Phoenix thinks of Edgeworth as an evidence forger but it's not like Phoenix would know for sure either. (Do correct me, with specific lines please, if I'm wrong though).

But more importantly, if you only look at the first four cases of AA1 Edgeworth being an evidence forger doesn't make sense with his character. Why would a prosecutor forge evidence? Not including reasons like being blackmailed. 1) If they don't care (enough) about the truth (prioritizing things like success over it), or 2) if they truly believe the defendant is guilty and are desperate for a conviction (aka the reason Adrian Andrews forges evidence in 2-4).

Does Edgeworth care about the truth, before the start of his redemption arc at the end of 1-3?

Yes... kind of. I don't think he prioritizes the truth or consciously cares about it. As the "Demon Prosecutor", Edgeworth cares about justice, and achieving it through punishment. However, convicting the wrong person would not be justice to him. Which is what makes Edgeworth change sides to convict the right person in 1-3. So in that sense, he does care about the truth.

You could argue that Edgeworth had already lost once to Phoenix and thought "screw this, my perfect record is already gone, another loss wouldn't change that fact". But compare him to two characters who are actually obsessed with their perfect records. Manfred, a perfectionist control-freak, getting a penalty (not even losing!) unraveled him so much that he killed Gregory in the heat of the moment. Franziska after losing in 2-2 declares that: "That spirit channeling trial was a sham! I refuse to acknowledge its legitimacy! It did not count!" She doesn't even want to admit that she lost. Edgeworth, on the other hand, doesn't act like someone who truly prioritizes his win record over the truth.

Because Edgeworth didn't just let himself lose in 1-3, he made himself lose. He made Vasquez testify again. She would have gotten away if Edgeworth didn't say anything. And after the trial he tells the judge "Will Powers was innocent. That he should be found so is only natural… not a miracle."

Okay but if Edgeworth does care about the truth (to some extent), and believed that every defendant being guilty was the truth, he could have easily gone down the path of forging evidence to ensure the verdict reflected what he believed to be true. That leads me to my next question:

2. Does Edgeworth truly believe that every defendant he prosecutes is guilty?

Actually no. He says this in Turnabout Sisters: "Innocent"...? How can we know that? The guilty will always lie, to avoid being found out. There's no way to tell who is guilty and who is innocent! All that I can hope to do is get every defendant declared "guilty"! So I make that my policy.

Yeah I think that line speaks for itself.

Miles Edgeworth can't bring himself to consciously care about or prioritize the truth, but the moment it's presented in front of him he also can't bring himself to ignore it. He doesn't think it would be just to knowingly convict an innocent person, but he's so disillusioned and distrusting of people that he's lost faith in finding the truth.

So, he commits himself to getting guilty verdicts because he believes that's the best shot he has at enacting justice, even if he accidentally convicts innocent people from time to time.

And to me that aligns with his reaction to finding out he unknowingly used forged evidence in 1-5. Edgeworth was so disillusioned with finding the truth that he has accepted that some collateral damage would inevitably happen as a result of his mindset. However, because he still can't let go of his dedication to the truth, he wouldn't want to lie or rewrite the facts to achieve his verdicts.

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but I really disliked the way the Careers were characterised in sotr. They felt like more of a caricature than in thg1, even if they were the minor antagonists in both. But they seemed more believable in thg1, although they had less lines. More competent? Like, if they trained for the Games for years, why would they be so airheaded? If it were up to me I'd make sure my volunteers were both strong and bright. And teach them how to prepare for the interviews!

And them always being the bully stereotype misses out on really interesting topics. For sure fame is one of the motivators, they're teens made to believe the Games are the highest honour, but why do they always have to be fame seeking brutes? Why don't we ever see them from the angle of training to protect the younger or sick kids from their district, even if it's just implied? If someone is guaranteed to volunteer each year in the career districts, the non career kids have stress-free teens (unless there's a QQ twist, I guess). They can take all the tesserae they need because it doesn't really matter how many times your name is in the bowl, their parents need not worry, no one's starving...

Idk, I guess all these things can be implicit because we know the system, and it makes sense they're minor antagonists because we seem them from a non career pov. But. I feel like there's a lot of missed opportunities world building wise when it comes to Career districts; not in a way that woobifies them (they're not the most oppressed district if such a thing can be compared, although, they're still district yk) it's just!!! interesting stuff that makes sense and I wish it was more present. I have more to say but this post will be more of a jumbled mess than it already is lol.