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Franzise did a pretty good job summing a lot of this up, but I'll add my thoughts as well.

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I forgot to mention this this morning.

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Sorry in advance for all the nested quotes

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Last edited by Writer Awakened on Sat Feb 16, 2008 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

At first I thought it was epic, but I'm concerned there may be something terribly wrong if you have to carry on an entire conversation in spoiler boxes (and nested quotes, to boot). x_x

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It is a little bit annoying, but the title isn't spoiler-marked, so someone could accidentally walk in and be spoiled otherwise. XD

The fact that there's so much great discussion and there are almost no words actually visible at first glance is somehow kinda awesome :D

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It's testament either to how deep a character Dahlia actually is, beyond being a mere villain, or how batshit insane fans like us are to microanalyze these things. I've thought long and hard about this particular subject myself, but I hadn't considered Valerie's position quite as deeply as you two have.

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Fix'd.

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Well, the other "main" villians are neat and all, but Engarde killed a guy for writing up a fake note about how badly he treated his ex, and von Karma shot a guy for getting him a penalty in court because he thought God told him to do it. Dahlia was definately more fleshed-out and believable.

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I'm done arguing about this. I don't have the time or the energy for this. Besides, this weekend and next week are going to be very busy for me, so let's end this here. If someone wants to pick up where I left off, they should feel free to do so. Anyway, we are not going to solve the nature vs. nurture debate here as it has been going on for a long time and that is what this is turning into. I thought the game went out of the way to stress the nurture aspect multiple times, but read the game as you wish. My last point is though...

You keep saying we hear that Valerie didn't get the money, but where is this line in the game? The only time we her about her apparent righteousness is in the very beginning of 3-4 where Edgeworth is trying to make the crime seem even more heinous and as the truth trickles out, so does the truth about Valerie. She is never referenced as being good later when we find out the truth about the kidnapping. Valerie agrees to frame an innocent man and then stays silent for five years. Considering she knew where Dahlia was, there is no way Dahlia could have avoided her and if she had tried to cheat her, Valerie could have turned her in probably without any danger to herself. Who is going to believe a fourteen year old and her accomplice against the word of a respected police officer? And Valerie is a common name and if you want to read into it then it makes more sense from what we see from her that its referring to finally deciding that the truth needed to come out even if it meant trouble (And it could be to throw us off at the beginning of 3-4 where we are supposed to believe she is the courageous police officer. The real truth comes out later). There is nothing to indicate that Valerie did this because she loved her sister (She certainly doesn't seem worried about Dahlia jumping from a bridge or about what will happen to Dahlia when she turns her in) or that she didn't get her money. Also, remember that the meeting on that bridge was meant to be with Terry. She had simply informed Dahlia first and then Dahlia decided she couldn't allow her to live. There is no indication that Valerie was concerned about what would happen to Dahlia. Her only concern at that point was relieving her own guilt.

Genetics alone don't make a person. Environment plays an important factor as well. Is Dahlia at fault for her actions? Yes. Did her father force her to do those crimes? No. But she would not have turned into a monster in a better situation. Dahlia alone is responsible for her actions, but the point is that Dahlia was created.

I'm officially done here. I've made my point and I think it still holds. Everyone reads the game and its characters differently. Now I'm off to figure out how I should coordinate everything I need to do next week without falling behind in any of my classes.

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some pics are sad some are cute but some I dont like

Yeah, Matt was an egotistical sociopath, von Karma was just an ass, and Gant was...well, Gant. XD But with Dahlia, you really can see the progression from lonely, angry girl to petty criminal to killer. Plus we have three cases to see it, so it makes sense that Dahlia's the best-developed villain personality-wise.



All right. Good luck with your classes! For what it's worth, it was fun having an intelligent debate

The last thing I have to say is, there's nothing that indicates Valerie is a morally corrupt person. Where's the evidence that she tried to retrieve the "lost" gemstone? It seems like a "leap of faith" to automatically assume that she would have ratted her sister (whom she helped conceal) out if she didn't get her money. Also, you talk about her confessing to the crime as if it were a bad thing; personally, I feel that fessing up to the crime even though it gained her nothing but a trip to jail is the right thing to do. It would be more disturbing to me if she had just kept hiding her secret (she easily could have), if her conscience hadn't told her to confess and get Dahlia to confess. I don't think having a conscience is a strike against her, in other words.

Anyway, we really just don't know, so I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt, that's all. I guess on this matter we'll have to agree to disagree, so to speak.

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Thank you. Hopefully everything will work out with that. Debates can be fun and I'm sorry I have to cut this one short.

I talk about Valerie confessing like its a bad thing because in Dahlia's mind, it was the worst possible thing that could happen. The plan was for the kidnapping consisted of Dahlia "dying" and then starting her life over as Melissa Foster. If Valerie came out with the truth, not only was her new life over with but Dahlia was also going to jail for a very long time. Her first crime was far from minor and there would be no escape if Valerie testified against her. So in Dahlia's mind, this was a disaster. One thing that is clear is that there was only supposed to be one crime originally, but things fell apart after each crime and Dahlia then had to commit more crimes, each more heinous then the last, to cover her tracks. She kills Valerie to cover up the kidnapping, tricks Terry into suicide to cover up Valerie's murder, poisons Diego to cover up all three of those, tries to kill Phoenix to cover up Diego's poisoning. The only crime she commits that was not an attempt to cover her past actions was her attempt to kill Maya which was an a simple act of revenge. Nothing excuses Dahlia's actions, but I don't think anything excuses Valerie's actions either. Her crimes were not minor and there is no evidence that she made any attempt to do the right thing until five years later when she finally couldn't live with the guilt anymore (all that time Terry suffered on Death Row for a crime her didn't commit). There is no evidence that she didn't receive her portion of the money or that she agreed to the plan because she wanted to help Dahlia out of the goodness of her heart. On the other hand, both Valerie's and Dahlia's motivations are left a bit vague, so there can certainly be multiple interpretation that work. As you said, we shall agree to disagree. I think we can all be satisfied with that. Now I'm off. Thank you for the nice debate.

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This is getting a bit off topic, but I'm with Mia. I can't agree with the idea that Valerie was just this good, kind person who was conned by Dahlia.

First, you say you're not serious about the whole Valerie/Yuuki = strength/courage thing, but you've mentioned it twice so I'm starting to wonder. Willpower indicates having great inner strength, but Will Powers is rather meek and apologetic and *sniff*. Actions speak louder than names, thus, the name theory is rejected.

If Valerie did indeed risk her career and life by taking part in a fake kidnapping, single-handedly sent an innocent man to prison for murder, and didn't get ANYTHING out of it other than the warm feeling inside that she helped her little stepsister alleviate her boredom for a while, that wouldn't make Valerie a nice person, that would make her a damned idiot. Valerie did not agree to the kidnapping because she loved Dahlia; you don't agree to a plot in which someone you love jumps off a bridge into a river infamous for sweeping bodies away to never be found, and you sure as hell don't agree to shoot a gun in the direction of someone you love. Of course Terry wouldn't have harmed Dahlia, but what if Valerie had missed?

Dahlia needed Valerie's help to make the kidnapping plan work. If Valerie was truly concerned about her stepsister, all she had to do was refuse, but she didn't. Valerie did it for the money. There's no indication whatsoever in the game that she didn't get her money or turned it down; there's no solid evidence that she did get it either, but what were they going to say? "Shortly after Fawles was convicted, a million dollars mysteriously appeared in Valerie's bank account. Gee, wonder how that got there? "

Valerie did eventually decide to confess, yes, but it was after Terry spent five years on death row, and after he broke out of prison solely to beg her for an explanation as to why she betrayed him like she had. It's more likely the guilt was eating her up than it being the desire to "do the right thing."

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Ouch. "Rejected"? Well, we all have our own opinions.

Firstly, I was sorta being facetious about the "name" thing...but let's think about it. A lot of the characters do seem to have names that fit their characters, and the translation team has done a pretty good job IMO of keeping most of the spirits of the puns intact. For example, Edgeworth, for being sharp and unapproachable; Phoenix Wright, obviously; the DeLites, for obvious reasons; the Cadaverini family, etc. So for a character (particularly an entirely unseen character!) to have an intentionally punny name probably says "something" about their character. In Will Powers' case, well...that seems like intentional irony to me.

Now you could make the case that Valerie's name is intentionally ironic too, but we never get to see her on-screen. All we know of her voice is what she says during the staged kidnapping, and her note that "the whole truth must come out". So we have to imagine that this rather minor character's name is accurate to her personality for lack of solid evidence to the contrary. When does the game ever even hint that Valerie might be a heartless person? In fact, it seems to me like the game was setting her up to be "the reason Dahlia first kills."

Also, when did I ever say that Valerie was "conned" by Dahlia? Valerie knew what she was doing, and she obviously knew it was wrong. I could argue that Valerie did it for the same major reason Dahlia did: to get back at her stepfather. After all, if Mr. Hawthorne treated his blood daughter like crap, then how would he treat someone who wasn't even his? She knew that Dahlia's idea was crazy and that she wanted to fake her death, but she did it anyway, which is why five years later she wanted her and Dahlia to confess. She wasn't innocent of her crime, but I don't think she would have helped just anyone. It wasn't even her idea to begin with- she didn't even know Fawles.

The game says that the gem was lost in the Eagle River and to my knowledge there was no reason for someone to lie about that until the end, so as far as we know, Valerie didn't get the money. "Melissa" took the stand and did everything she could to shift the blame off herself...so why didn't she suggest that Valerie had ulterior motives for speaking with her and/or Fawles? What proof is there that Valerie was in it only for the money, got her money, and five years later was only trying to save her own hide?

I see where you're coming from, but I'm sorry, I just can't buy a Valerie character-assassination to make Dahlia look better. But that's just me. IMO, "innocent until proven guilty" or in this case "righteous until proven immoral".



She did want the money, of course; no one would turn down the money...but I also don't think she would shake down 14-year old Dahlia for the money once Dahlia said she lost it in the river. And Valerie was an idiot. Well, maybe "naive and gullible" is more accurate. She trusted her aim enough to hit Fawles in the shoulder and trusted Dahlia that the plan would work out well. That's bad on multiple levels, but she shows remorse for it, and that's at least a start. Maybe she's not a saint, but she has enough of a heart to own up to her mistakes. I'm not saying you're wrong in disliking Valerie for what she did, but I'm not going to throw Valerie under the bus to make Dahlia look less culpable.



Dahlia could have found someone else. She tricked Fawles into going along with him, and he may have been an idiot, but there's enough fools around that Dahlia could have found another one to play Valerie's role. There was a reason Dahlia wanted Iris to help and there was a reason that Dahlia wanted Valerie to help; it wasn't a coincidence that it was her stepsister. There was a reason that the character of "Valerie Hawthorne" exists in-game, in other words. Also, if you ask me, it was because Valerie was "truly concerned" for Dahlia that she helped her; how was she going to turn her back on her stepsister's request when to her that was like a betrayal? (Dahlia certainly thought that when Iris didn't show up). Maybe if she was thinking more clearly then (she wasn't), but she was thinking clearly enough to do the right thing five years later, and it ended up getting her killed. Also, maybe if the game had even hinted at Valerie getting the money, but again, correct me if I'm wrong, but the last thing we hear (and no one disputes this) is that the gem was lost in the Eagle River, and we don't hear anything about Dahlia buying new stuff or otherwise having a lot of money. Actually, that's probably because, again, the gem wasn't the main reason for the kidnapping.



Now, here's the thing that's really been bugging me. You two have been saying that Valerie confessed because of the guilt, to make herself feel better, and that she's selfish because of that. But that doesn't make sense!

People confess for a certain reason. Sometimes they have something to gain from it. Valerie had nothing to gain from it, and even less to gain from wanting both herself and Dahlia to tell Fawles the truth! The other reason people confess is because they feel remorse. They feel bad about what happens. Having that guilt inside tells us something. It tells us that we've done or seen something that conflicts with our personal sense of morals. Valerie confessed and wanted Dahlia to confess because she felt remorse and because she wanted to be punished somehow for what she did. She honestly felt remorse for what she did and wanted to confess the "whole truth". That's a good thing. If she really was so immoral, she wouldn't feel guilty at all!. In fact, I think it would be more reprehensible had she felt guilty and did nothing about it. This is a really important distinction to make, and something that's important to me at least. There's a point where you do have to say "All right, serve your time and we forgive you" if the person was truly penitent.

I'll say it again: Valerie could have easily kept her mouth shut and gotten off clean. Dahlia wasn't going to say anything, and no one in their right mind would believe Terry when he says he's innocent. There was only one reason for Valerie to agree to talk with Fawles and Dahlia: She wanted to tell the truth, as bad as it made her and Dahlia look. And if you ask me, that's both the ultimate proof of both her sense of morals and of her love for her sister. Valerie tried to convince Dahlia (whom she hadn't even seen for five years!) to tell the truth knowing that they would both go to jail because then Dahlia would be morally free. Because Valerie felt guilty and wanted to relieve Dahlia of that guilt. That's a beautiful, beautiful gesture, especially for someone who believes in the law, as she obviously did during her five years serving as a police officer.

Whew. Sorry for rambling on, but that's a point I feel particularly strongly about.

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I starting to think you have a crush on Dahlia :/

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I was being mostly fatuous with the "rejected" comment, hence the smily. Regardless, my point stands; I'd rather take actions and comments as proof of a character's...character than a name that may or may not be ironic.


During the staged kidnapping:



Again, this was staged. Valerie knew damn well Terry would never try to kill Dahlia, so her words at this point are meaningless. As for the note:


Valerie wasn't asking Dahlia to confess. She said she herself was going to come out with the truth, whether Dahlia wanted to or not.


Well...



It's also stated that Dahlia's body was lost in the Eagle River. She had the gem in her pack, strapped to her back when she jumped. She didn't lose it.


You mean why didn't Dahlia bring up the diamond? Because she didn't want to mention the diamond, she's the one who took off with it.


“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” I've already explained why Valerie didn't go through with the kidnapping for Dahlia's sake. The only remaining motive is money.


I'd really like to think Valerie isn't dumb enough to believe Dahlia lost the diamond when she jumped in the river just because she says so, but whether she did or not wouldn't change the fact that Valerie agreed to the plan for the money.


If Dahlia had asked someone else to make the transfer, there would have been a very good chance the police as a whole would get involved.


I'm pretty sure Dahlia's view of Iris as a traitor was more because of the deal with Phoenix and the necklace than the fake kidnapping. If Dahlia thought her sister would betray her, she wouldn't have agreed to let Iris get the necklace back, let alone give her half a year to do so.


Realistically, how is a 14-year-old supposed to support herself without any money? And again, whether Valerie actually was paid off or not does not change Valerie's motive. It's highly implied that she was though, the diamond was supposedly the entire motive for the kidnapping at the time; Dahlia wanting to get back at her father wasn't even brought up until 3-5.


It was selfish as far as Dahlia goes. Valerie wanted to confess because she felt badly for taking part in the kidnapping and wanted that weight off her own shoulders. I'm not saying that she was wrong for wanting to come clean, but she didn't want to do it for the right reasons, and she definately wasn't doing it for Dahlia's sake. If Valerie wanted to confess just because it was the right thing to do, she wouldn't have waited five years to do it, and you can't tell me she just decided it was at the exact time Terry called her.




Doesn't everybody?

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Do I not get presents for Christmas if I don't?

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I took that 'Ziska smiley to mean that you thought you had me thoroughly whipped on that point ...pal. Hehe. Regardless, point taken. I see where you're coming from.



Right. We can't use this to judge her personality. And the note isn't enough to judge her character either, which was my initial point. All we have is the knowledge that Valerie was going to confess everything and get Dahlia to confess everything.



Those are Mia (the character, not the user)'s words. Note that Mia (the character) claims that Valerie was going to "reveal the whole truth", but the note says nothing of the sort. Valerie's note, by the "talk to Dahlia" line, indicates that Valerie was trying to convince Dahlia to tell the truth. Subtle difference, but a big one.



Again, that's Mia (the character)'s assertion that Valerie made Dahlia into a demon. I don't agree with that. That certainly isn't a proven fact, and when Mia (the character) was trying to convict Dahlia, it only makes sense that she would play every card in the deck trying to take her down, even if it meant playing a Joker.



"She didn't lose it"? Speculation. We know Dahlia's body wasn't lost, because she's in court. But no one ever challenges what happened to the gemstone. In a raging river, sometimes backpacks become unzipped or un-velcro'd and things fall out. Especially a river as violent as the Eagle River. Again, IIRC, no one challenges the whereabouts of the gem, not even Mia (the character) when trying to grill Dahlia. If there's a line that suggests otherwise, please tell me, but I don't remember the profile of the gem ever changing from "lost in the Eagle River".



If Dahlia wanted to smear Valerie somehow, she would have suggested exactly what you did: That Valerie was trying to get the gem. And Dahlia was trying anything to get herself acquitted, but the one thing she didn't do was claim any misdoing on Valerie's part.



How did you prove that Valerie didn't do it for Dahlia? I don't think there is any "proof" to that extent. I ask again: Why was it Dahlia's plan that Valerie was following? If Valerie really just wanted the cash, then why did she go through all the trouble to follow Dahlia's plan, fake Dahlia's death, set up a patsy and help Dahlia change her identity? She goes so far out of her way to unnecessarily help Dahlia when she could use her status as a police officer to leave her stepsister high and dry and no one would believe a 14-year old girl over a policewoman. I claim that there's a stronger evidence that she did care about Dahlia than evidence that she didn't.



Raging rapids. If Dahlia had claimed she lost it, why would Valerie have any reason to think Dahlia was lying? The Eagle River is renowned for its vicious, uncontrollable currents. Valerie did do it for the money, but that seems far from the only reason...and going through with the plan obviously weighed on her conscience for five long, long years.



But if Dahlia was so afraid of police intervention, then why did she ask her stepsister, a police officer, to help her? That makes no sense! Dahlia had to have believed that Valerie would help her and lie for her unconditionally. Dahlia didn't want a police officer betraying her and ratting her out to her co-workers. Dahlia trusted Valerie above and beyond just scheming, because if anyone knows about double-crossing, it's Dahlia, and she had to have some proof that Valerie really had a vested interest in cooperating! Otherwise, she would have tricked someone into helping that didn't have ties with the police. She didn't need a police officer to make the plan worked, she just needed an otherwise "upstanding citizen" as a witness to Terry's "crime". Again, why did Dahlia ask Valerie, her stepsister? Why Valerie Hawthorne? That's the million dollar (two million dollar, as it were) question.



I don't remember the exact phrasing, but I believe that Dahlia (as Iris) tells Phoenix in 3-5 that it was a betrayal "from eleven years ago" that hurt her. Which would be the kidnapping for which Iris didn't show up. Dahlia may have let Iris help get the necklace back, but it was only because Dahlia still loved Iris deep-down and saw no threat that would compel Dahlia to kill her. I don't think Dahlia thought the Phoenix deal was a "betrayal" as much as it was Iris just being incompetent and bumbling.



Dahlia's motive for the crime was the gem; no one cared about Valerie's motive in the case because as far as they were concerned in that trial, Valerie was just the victim and a former accomplice. They know that Valerie was involved, but her motive wasn't important in figuring out her death. And just because we don't hear about Dahlia hating her father until 3-5 doesn't mean it wasn't a motive for the crime.



"The right reasons"? Uh, I hope my last two-paragraph answer wasn't tl;dr worthy. XD. I claim that Valerie did do it in part for Dahlia's sake because if she couldn't live knowing she did wrong, then it would make sense for her to want to lift the burden from her stepsister's shoulders as well. If I knew that someone I cared about had committed a crime, I would want them to confess, not because I somehow would take pleasure in seeing them behind bars, but because, uh...it's the right thing to do. Why did Valerie want to talk to Dahlia? Please answer me this. Was there any reason to talk to Fawles and Dahlia if Valerie really didn't feel truly guilty? Was there any reason at all for her to do that? She wouldn't confess for no reason.

Also, I think that it was because of Fawles' escape that Valerie acted. Five years is too long to keep a secret, but once Fawles escaped, it was almost like a sign, a message to her. It woke her up from her little hibernation and she decided to face the music because she couldn't lie to herself anymore. She felt bad for Fawles because she lied to him, and she wanted Dahlia to admit her involvement as well. Admitting would send Valerie to jail, and Valerie obviously knew this. So why, why would she do that? What would be the "right reasons"? She did it because she felt morally responsible and wanted to be punished; sounds good to me. There was no ulterior motive to confess. No bad person would ever turn themselves in "because they felt bad", because a truly bad person would not feel bad about it, and a bad person certainly wouldn't reach out to others (Terry and Dahlia) in order to get the "whole truth" known. We know Valerie had a sense of morals even if she did act naive and stupid when she was younger.



Lastly, I posed two hypothetical questions before that I'm still wondering about.

1. If Iris had grown up in the Hawthorne family, do we really think that she would have turned out like Dahlia? Knowing what we know about Iris' personality, do we really think she could have been so completely different had she grown up in the Hawthorne household for six extra years instead of Dahlia? Would the kind, forgiving Iris really have been able to not forgive her father for treating her so unkindly?

2. If Dahlia had really disliked her angry, unloving household, and she really wanted to be with Iris, why didn't she run away and live with Iris? She knew where Iris was, and even at the age of 14, Dahlia was out and about on her own, being proactive. We know she could have gone to the shrine. Why, then, instead of leaving her father for Iris, did Dahlia stay and choose revenge over a loving household?

That's all I have for now. Sorry if I rambled on a little.

Also, agreed: We all have crushes on Dahlia, 'cause she's adorable. :D That's the intention, at least :P

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Saying you don't have a crush on Dahlia is like saying you've never cheated on a test...or thought about cheating on a test...or helped someone cheat on a test......or breathed air.

I'm just going to pick and choose on this because I've said most of what I wanted already and it's getting rather off-topic.


The note doesn't say "convince Dahlia to tell the truth." It says "tell her the truth must come out." I don't see any room for discussion in that message.


You said you wanted an example in which it's hinted that Valerie might be a bad person. To be honest, the only examples I've seen indicating Valerie was a good, upstanding person were her intent to finally confess and everything Edgeworth says about her to make Terry look like a prick for "killing" her.


IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DIAMOND. I personally think it's very unlikely that Dahlia went through with such a dangerous plan to steal an enormous diamond and then stored it in a backpack that wouldn't be sturdy enough to hold it, but that isn't the point. Nobody CARES what happened to the diamond because Mia isn't trying to convict Dahlia of stealing the diamond, she's trying to convict her of murdering Valerie Hawthorne.


And if Valerie failed to have Dahlia convicted, say goodbye to Valerie. Besides, you can't say that if Dahlia accused Valerie of splitting the profit from the diamond, there wouldn't be any sort of investigation just because Valerie was a cop.


I agree completely. Dahlia did trust Valerie, that's why she was so pissed when Valerie decided to "betray" her five years later.


You don't think Phoenix going around showing off damning evidence to everyone he met wasn't a serious situation for Dahlia? Phoenix didn't know Iris was involved in the necklace incident and Dahlia did not want to tell him about it.


I'll answer with another question. If Dahlia had been a hell-raising brat since birth as you seem to be convinced she was, do you think even Iris would be so dedicated to her and feel she could save her?


That's like asking why any children put up with abusive parents. She was eight when they were seperated; Dahlia was probably too scared and confused to run away and it's entirely possible she didn't know how to get all the way out to Hazakura at that age. She clearly knew how to get there by the time she was 14, but by then she was already a very different, broken person.

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All right, all right, let's not let this get uncivil. Cool heads prevail.

The debate seems to have naturally shifted from Dahlia to Valerie, so if that's where the discussion has gone, I'll go with it.



Well, what would be the alternative? The note doesn't say "Tell Dahlia to confess or I will". If Valerie was just going to confess herself, then why did she contact Dahlia about it? Of course if Dahlia wasn't going to tell the truth, Valerie would tell the truth for both of them. Because it was the right thing to do.



Valerie was going to confess. That's the single most important thing we know about Valerie. That was the reason Dahlia killed her. Because Valerie was going to admit what had happened, and she wanted Dahlia to do the same. Valerie's need to do the right thing after five years was the crux of the entire case!



Isn't that what I said?



They didn't need to discuss the gem, so they didn't. But that also means we can't know what happened to the gem. Even strong bags break and weird things happen in rivers. Whether she got it or not doesn't matter, though, it doesn't change what Valerie did, anyway. But as far as we know, the gem did fall into the river. No proof of that, but it's all we have, really.



Of course not. But who would be more believable, especially if there was no solid evidence? A policewoman or a fourteen-year old girl who orchestrated the plot in the first place? It was Dahlia's plan. Saying that much would be the truth.



Poor Dahlia. Valerie decided to tell the truth. I don't think either what Iris did or what Valerie did to be "betrayals". Dahlia committed the crime, it's only right that she pay the price, even if she didn't want to. I know that speaking ill of a victim is common practice in trials, but didn't Valerie want to do the right thing and didn't Dahlia do the right thing? I hope we can agree to that at the very least.



Of course. Dahlia was giving Iris one more chance, but it was obvious that Iris was on a short leash in Dahlia's mind.



Sigh. No answer? Anyway, I don't think she was evil at birth. I think she was an angry person by nature and it took a while for her to mature into the killer we see. I think the five years between the kidnapping and Valerie's murder were the main factors in turning Dahlia into a killer, but I don't think any particular environment did it to her.

And yes, I do think Iris would be so dedicated. She is so dedicated. By 3-5, Iris KNOWS Dahlia is a murderer and that Dahlia hates her and she still loves and cherishes her sister. She admits that a part of her believes Dahlia could be saved. It's only natural for a sibling to feel that way about another cherished sibling. But remember, Iris and Dahlia really only knew each other until they were separated, and only very sporadically after that. Dahlia wasn't completely murderously evil when she was a child, but she obviously loved Iris and Iris loved her unconditionally. That's the beautiful thing about Iris. She loves her sister even though she's a murderer. The game makes it clear that Iris had some hope for Dahlia's rehabilitation, but that it was a lost cause.



I...really don't know how to respond. Dahlia isn't an average child by ANY means. We know Dahlia was in contact with Iris. We know that Dahlia plotted a kidnapping. We know she didn't murder until five years later. Why she wouldn't...oh, I don't know. It just seems like the natural thing for Dahlia to want to do. So she was too far gone at the time of the kidnapping to throw it all away and live with Iris? If she did, she would have been in Hazakura for her most important formative years. If it really was her father's doing as you say, then it could have been avoided. But she didn't. Because she couldn't change who she was by nature.

Spending fourteen years in an unhappy household does not a murderer make, and it doesn't change the fact that Dahlia had control of her own fate. As far as we know, Dahlia's father wasn't physically abusive to her, and there's no using parenting as a viable excuse for becoming a murderer. In my opinion, the only person that deserves any blame for Dahlia's murdering spree is Dahlia, and I can't think otherwise.

You don't have to agree with me, of course, but do you at least see where I'm coming from?

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Not really, but I've said pretty much everything I wanted to already so we're going to have to resort to the old agree to disagree thing. Oh, look, a picture!



Source

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:< Lies

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Anyway, we need some more pictures.

Lazy, go find some then

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Aww, that pic is cuteness (O SNAP Dahlia and Iris with Shoe? Cuteness OVERLAOD.)

MOAR indeed.

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HAY MARIO, DID YOU MAKE THE PIC IN YER SIG?

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I made the sig, but not the pics.

This thread is made of 31 flavors of awesome.

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Oh, mumee wanted to know

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I'm not back into this to debate, but I am curious. You keep talking about physical abuse. If Dahlia had been physically abused, would you consider physical abuse over the course of six years (possibly more) enough to prompt such a drastic change in someone's personality? You keep referencing physical abuse, but dismissing the idea emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is not simply a matter of bad parenting and the household being simply "unhappy". It is behaving extremely cruelly and coldly to a person which breaks them down emotionally and mentally. It is very real and extremely devastating especially to a growing child who relies very heavily on the love of his/her parents. I said it earlier and I'll say it again, just because you can't see the scars doesn't mean they aren't there. Think about how you would feel if your parents suddenly stopped loving you (or never did) and you really didn't have any friends. You come home to people who don't even care that you exist if they're even home at all. There are no hugs or kisses and you have no one you can turn to in the end. I can't even imagine such a horrible existence (and we do have evidence in the game that Dahlia's father never loved her and was a truly horrible person. Iris mentions it and she would have had experience with him and known what he was like. Iris tells us that while she may have had a similar experience in the beginning, she later had Bikini who loved her deeply). Again, I am not excusing Dahlia for her actions. Dahlia and Dahlia alone is responsible for her decisions, but I can see in that kind of environment could transform a person into someone as cold as Dahlia. Remember this all started with one crime in which the end result was that Dahlia got away from her father. We don't know when Iris came back into Dahlia's life. All we know was that it was sometime before the fake kidnapping. So Dahlia takes a huge risk jumping from a bridge so she could "die" and start over as Melissa Foster. She then precedes to stay close to her sister, clinging to the one person who truly loved her. It's clear Dahlia only planned for there to be one crime originally, but then Valerie breaks down and threatens Dahlia's new life so she has to kill to protect herself and her new life. Then she has to trick Terry into suicide to cover up Valerie's murder and so on from there. Think about how hard it is for a young child to escape an abusive relationship. Hell, even some adults have trouble leaving without help, but Dahlia finally can't take it anymore and plans all this as a way to both get back at her father and to escape his oppressive grasp. Certainly being abused doesn't take away her guilt, but I can see how that could turn someone bad. Dahlia wouldn't be the first person to turn cold to survive in an abusive household.

Anyway, I'm done. Agreeing to disagree is good. Back to homework now.

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I don't want to open any can of worms, but you aren't actually saying that emotional abuse is the same as physical abuse? Don't get me wrong, they're both awful. But being in a house with an uncaring father (do we even know about Dahlia's stepmother? We can't even agree what Valerie was like, though I hope we can agree that she treated Dahlia with respect enough to warrant Dahlia's trust) is nothing like being afraid to live in that house. And no, I still don't consider that an excuse for murder, but it is something different.

And, if Dahlia really was so emotionally torn, locked inside herself, why didn't she get anyone to help? Why didn't she try to make new friends outside of the household? Why didn't she go somewhere for help? Why didn't she run away, to Hazakura or somewhere else instead of staging her kidnapping and killing her stepsister five years later? She was very precocious and very intelligent and she knew where Iris was, so why didn't she plead to Iris for help? It's all so thoughtless, and Dahlia could have done something about it. There's no evidence that "Melissa Foster" spent any time with Iris, and she killed her stepsister just to bury the truth. You don't just kill someone because they're going to tell the truth! Valerie had every right to confess, and Dahlia killed her for lack of a better course of action. It wasn't Valerie's fault that she was killed, and that's a horrible thing to even imply!

There's always love somewhere if you look for it, but even at the age of 14, Dahlia seemed to have given up on finding it. That's what makes Iris and Dahlia so different: Dahlia looks for hate even when there is love, and Iris looks for love even where there is hate. I still say that Iris would have forgiven her mean-spirited father and tried to find a solution. Iris loves her sister Dahlia even when she knows she's a murderer. That's a difference. That comes within, from the chemicals mixed around in one's body at birth; no one can teach that or imprint that upon anyone. Maybe her angry father is an explanation for why she is who she is, but it's not a valid reason, because even people with unloving parents turn out to be good people (sometimes because they've made a resolve not to treat their children/friends like their parents treated them), and people with loving parents become bad people for their own reasons.

Look, I know what you're saying, but here's my view: murder is murder. If the murderer is legitimately sorry for what they did, if they show remorse and apologize, in time you have to forgive them, even if they did do horrible things. Now, I love Dahlia to death as a character (look at the intelligent, productive debates we got out of her and Valerie!) but as a human being I despise her. She murdered someone who was like family to her, poisoned an attorney who was getting close to the truth, killed her ex-boyfriend, almost killed Phoenix, and came back from the dead to kill Maya for the sole reason of making Mia's existence miserable- just to see her suffer. And she didn't feel even an inch of remorse, not a drop of regret except for herself, wielding a cold callousness that disrespected everything she touched. She blamed everyone but herself and mocked the court that they were powerless to stop her because she was already dead and she was triumphant over all of them for all eternity.

I don't care how many times Dahlia's daddy yelled at her. No forgiveness. No sympathy. Not from me, at least. She's...terrible. Actually, I could make a case that because she was so cold-hearted when her "spirit" talked, it was her "spirit", the essence of her being, that was itself evil...but that only has credence in the game universe, of course.

Anyway, hope I didn't sound too forceful with anything I said. I don't go around trying to make enemies, just friends.

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Last edited by Writer Awakened on Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

Jesus Christ @ walls of text

Okay, we're not getting into this. And while we're at it, I don't forgive Dahlia for her actions, but this doesn't stop me from feeling some sympathy for her growing up with that. She was a monster, but she was created and her fate was avoidable if she had been loved or at least that is my reading from the game. While we're at it, you say she should have just made friends, but let's look at her life. She grew up in Kurain which is pretty secluded and its likely that any friends she and Iris had when they were young were any kids that they grew up with in the village so its also likely neither of them had to learn how to make new friends while they were really young. And if Morgan kept them as close to her in their early lives as she did Pearl (we know Morgan hoped she could use them in her plan originally only to discover they didn't have enough spiritual power), who knows how much time they really had to learn how to socialize. After being dragged to an unfamiliar place with all new people, you know Dahlia's father wasn't going to be holding her hand as she got used to navigating in this new world and now she didn't even have her sister. And of course physical and emotional abuse aren't the same exact thing, but they can both be very damaging in their own ways. Emotional abuse certainly isn't simply being yelled at, but being completely unloved (and it can be far worse than simply being ignored and neglected, but I will admit that I can't make a convincing case for it being worse than that in Dahlia's case). Emotional abuse and simply being yelled at are two entirely different things and I will admit that your dismissing it like that annoys me more than a little, but that is your right. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

As a piece offering, look it's Dahlia.

Source here

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My lord, it would seem that the text in this thread far outnumbers the cute Dahlia pics...

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Dahlia is the thinking person's babe.
Dahlia inspires more than mere squees and boners.
Dahlia is the default choice.

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