Is this in the right section?

Am I the only one who thinks he wasn't a horrible parent? Sure, he seemed pretty hard-ass, but he doesn't come off as the type that would of sexually abuse and beat the children(I'm going off from what I've seen other places, so, I haven't really heard people on C-R's opinions.). Miles and Franziska both seemed to respect him quite a bit, and I remember Miles himself saying something along the lines of, "I'll still think of him as my mentor, despite what happened." (But, don't quote me on that.)

To me, he always seemed more like the 'teacher parent' type. Not an amazing parent, but not a horrible one either.

I'll type more later, I have to leave for school really soon, and I don't want to end up saying anything I'll regret later, due to me still being partially asleep.

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This probably should have gone into the defense lobby, but because it has the potential to get into spoilers I'll leave it here.

Karma never struck me as the abusive parent type. In fact I don't think he did much "parenting" of either child, at least not while they were still young. Edgeworth refers to him as a mentor, not as a father figure. And I think I remember Franziska referring to him as "papa" in the Japanese version, which is a little childish; if she were around him much, you'd think she'd adapt to something more formal as she got older.

One of the old interviews even refers to the Karma house having a maid that took care of the kids growing up, but it's that same wacky interview where the creators made things up as they went along.

Anyway, neither Edgeworth nor Franziska seem "battered" to me, in a way that would suggest they were abused as kids. Strict upbringing, sure, and maybe emotionally neglected, but I don't think Franziska got the whip from her dad if you know what I mean. In fact, her "whip until I get what I want" behavior seems more like that of a spoiled child.

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Say Croik, do you have those "interviews" you were talking about? I've never seen them...

Now about Manfred von Karma, I don't think he was an abusive father, as I said in another topic. As you said Miles does not seem to be full of hate towards his mentor, when he returns in Justice for all.

I'm sure that he wasn't often there when Fran and Edgeworth were children, he was travelling for his perfect record, between America and Germany. I agree he's not the parental figure, that could explain why Fran is a spoiled child. Don't get me wrong, that's her character, however I can't help but think that Fran would have been less the spoiled child if her father had been there more often.
That does mean Fran's mother wasn't there. I often wonder how were the interactions between Manfred and his wife. Why they did marry, if it was an arranged wedding...

I think this is actually one of the more interesting things about his character. He's definitely done evil things (and he's certainly not a friendly guy), but the mere fact that he's a father with kids seems to humanize him more than the other big, bad villains.

Actually, now that I think about it, his situation that way is (at least as of now) totally unique. Not one other guilty party in the series has had children that we know of, excepting Morgan Fey.

Tying this in with the actual topic, I agree, he's definitely not the worst parent in the world. Not the best, but far from the worst.

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One of the very facts that made me sympathize more to Franziska was the, er... person she had as a dad. Sure, she resembled her father in her ways to prosecute, but, she seemed more human than him, though Manfred seemed like the type of single father who lost his wife in a tragic incident.

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I agree with everything people have said here. Manfred may have been intimidating and emotionally abusive, but I never saw him as raping or beating his kids.

I agree. They're the two villains with Children, that's why I love that pairing.^^


Yeah but I don't think that Fran did not love him. I'm sure she did in her special way, because after all, he was her dad! And moreover he was her mentor, the man who was the epitome of perfection in her eyes I'm sure, or at least when she was young. She must have felt some sort of betrayal, because he taught her to be a prosecutor to fight crime, murderers, and all, but he was one himself...



Yeah sometimes I think that it's what really happened, but did he love her??

I love that Franzy calls him Papa. But I dunno manfred is manfred and he seems to be strict but I also didn't get a abusive vibe from him. Why? Well look at Franziska. She's a little princess!!!!

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Yeah, I didn't exactly think of him that way. Everyone's opinions basically summed it up.
Though, his "evil" ways must be reserved for the courtroom. I don't think he truly physically abused his charges, for that matter. Maybe he's sort of like the protagonist from Shark--Richard Stark, was his name?--who's ruthless in court but can be softer when dealing with his daughter.
Perhaps, one of the reasons why people are so sure von Karma is abusive is because of all the fanfiction that goes around...

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I like to think of him as having been done with parenting after the older daughter. Franziska's sister is so much older that I feel like Manfred might have gone through two phases: "yay I have a kid" and "o wait I want my kid to be a WIN." Not to say that I think he was unhappy with the older child, but that he thought he could "do better." Once he was past the sentimentality of having a kid (I do think he's human!), he got more interested in the "achievement" angle of raising a child. Hence, I thought that he would be more calculating and cold with Franziska, but because he's so successful, she idealizes him anyways. I got the sense that he kind of dumped Franziska in Germany and then kind of didn't care and was completely hands-off...


I haven't played AAI, but I don't mind if I'm spoiled for this: a couple of people on different threads have mentioned Manfred traveling to Germany to prosecute. Does AAI make explicit reference to this, or are people presuming this from the fact that Franziska was in Germany?

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Haha, naw, there was probably no way that Manfred was abusive in the "beating" sense. Though one could argue that abused children hardly ever go against the will of the parent and may even defend their abuser, but that's just being mean.

But I really do think Manfred was abusive in the mental sense, especially when dealing with Miles. I mean, Miles already had his nightmare thing going on at night, but I believe Manfred fostered the self hatred that Miles had for himself. Pfft, for all we know, Manfred could have known about the nightmares (Young Miles probably cried out in his sleep), and used the info to push Miles along into drilling the idea more into his head. Subtly of course, cause Manfred is totally a ninja with psychological warfare.

Well, except when he was killing people and such.

My headcanon is that he was extremely manipulative towards Miles and there was a level of neglect (due to him being busy with work) going on with BOTH of them.

I can't see him "needing" to be physically abusive: he's imposing enough without throwing physical assault into the mix, and he's legally switched on enough to know what he could get into trouble for as well-- psychological abuse is difficult to prove whereas physical abuse leaves visible marks in a lot of cases. (Yes, he has the taser, but he used that in a moment of panic when he was unexpectedly cornered.)

I see him as being something of an academic slavedriver towards both his kids, making them feel that to earn his respect, attention and love, they have to be perfect... and because perfection's impossible (unless you're him, of course :) ) those kids were forever reaching for an unattainable goal.

The relationship that also comes into play is Franziska and Miles'-- in the second and third games she comes across as conflicted about him, whereas he seems coolly aloof towards her. It feels like Franziska resented Miles for turning up, yet at the same time, she had a kindred spirit and a likeminded soul. That said, I can see MAJOR competition between them, and I can see Franny in particular feeding off it and wanting to best her "little brother."

And I can see Manfred watching it and possibly telling himself that his "childrens'" striving for perfection and competition was a good thing because it was giving them that killing urge they'd need in court, and making them work hard.

Even though it seems to have had lasting and damaging effects on both of them as adults, I'd argue. I mean, both of them have had issues with perfection-- one of the things I love about Miles is that he seems so perfectly characterised early on in the series-- beneath the perfectionist is quite often someone who is terrified of failure, who can't even enjoy their best achievements, and who lives in crippling fear of being found out-- and whose identity and self-worth is measured by standards so high that they're unattainable. (Then again, canon also suggests that Miles had such tendencies as a child, so I suppose when he got taken in by Mr. Perfection himself, that got amplified.)


As for other kinds of abuse-- I'm really not sure. I see Miles as having had a really weird and close-to codependent relationship on Manfred (particularly in his older teenage years) and I think if Manfred wanted to have exploited that either for his own amusement or to foster more dependance from Miles-- or even to just break down his barriers and get trust-- he definitely was in a position to do that.

I think some of Miles' behaviour comes across as consistent with being an abuse survivor. The extreme guardedness, the fact that he's a workaholic and seems to have really fried self-esteem, the need for someone to look up to (ie. Manfred) and his serious trust issues (which I sort of had an inkling about before knowing what had happened) around just about everyone else.


The thing I can't get from my mind is Manfred's action towards him and the eventual sell out. If he'd been planning that all along, it's safe to suspect that the role he had to Miles was pretty much faked to win his trust and keep him alive so he could sell him out and get Yanni to do his dirty work.

Then there's another theory-- that something made him change and he saw the date approaching and went through with the plan which he could have feasibly halted if he really cared about him. (One version of my headcanon goes like this: "Notice how this happened AFTER Phoenix reappeared in his life. I wonder what Manfred thought about that...")



Yep; agreeing here wholeheartedly. He used Miles' own weaknesses against him... classic psychological abuse trick.



Dammit, I've been talking about this for a couple of weeks now with people, and have been wanting to do a big massive headdump on my LJ about the von Karmas. Dammit, this is just pushing me closer to doing that. :D

I dunno, that description seems a little exaggerated to me. I don't recall Edgeworth "needing" someone to look up to. Edgeworth was very conflicted in 1-4 but it didn't really have anything to do with his relationship towards Karma--he was struggling with the decision to confess to his own father's murder. And in 2-4 and beyond Edgeworth is nothing like that.

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He struck me as really codependant in terms of his relationship with Manfred-- I think a decent part of that would have been about his father's death, but... He had a lot of other shit going on at that time. His mentor was trying to get him sent to death row. That must have been fucked up for the guy and despite his stoicism, I can't just see him not being affected on any level by it.

Looking back at younger!Edgeworth, too, his mannerisms and dress sense were far more Manfred than he was in the start of the first game; that was where I started thinking 'damn, this guy REALLY looked up to Manfred and was shaped by him so well.' (Which made 1-4 all the more sad for me.)

It wasn't anything directly stated (as with Adrian's issues) but when they came up, it struck me that Miles had his own issues with codependency and that case was bringing up things for him in a major way. I wouldn't say it was terribly blatant, but one of those things I noticed and ascribed significance to. ;)

And... I clicked that but I didn't read it properly-- am trying to not spoiler myself too much for Kenji. I'm just going on what I've seen so far. :)

Edgeworth adapted a lot of Karma's court mannerisms, but I think that's a far cry from being codependant. And even assuming he was that like Manfred at the age of 20, by 24 he's grown away from that. He didn't even take it personally that Karma was prosecuting him in 1-4 (until he found out the truth of course). Canon talks about how devastated he was by his father's death and that's what he focuses on all through the time Karma is prosecuting him. I'm curious where codependant even comes in.

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While I don't think Miles was codependent per se, but simply understanding it was a little too much of a stretch of canon for me (I'm talking about 2-4 and Adrian). Miles had too much of an understanding and how it affected people if you ask me. But I guess that's just hearsay.

GK probably explains Manfred's parenting and such (I refuse to look at spoilers, nuuu!), but I bet GK doesn't say everything that went behind the scenes.

Yeah, I think it is very "open to interpretation," but that was mine. I'm like that about him with regards to mentions of suicide, too.

By itself in 1-4, it is a fairly long stretch, but then in combination with 2-4 and his earlier mannerisms and the fact that he did lose his major parental figure/male role model at such an early age, it's not that out-there of a theory.

I honestly think Manfred took them out for Ice Cream every friday night, hell I think he did it up until he got convicted. :L

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I'm wondering if Franziska's sibling will appear in a future AAI game? If this particular game doesn't answer our questions, the next one should.

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She probably won't, but I'd love if she did. She was only invented because Manfred made a joke about his granddaughter's dog in AA, when the writers didn't think there'd be a sequel to the game. When JFA was made, they'd probably forgotten about her, and introduced Franziska. Since they couldn't say the granddaughter was Franziska's child, they just gave Franziska a sister. It's a real pity though, I'd love to know more about this sister.


...I wish I was Manfred's kid...*sigh*

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I've always thought that Manfred would be a father that would be more obsessive over Miles/Franziska's grades. If they had anything short of an A he would instantly spend more time with the one with the more promising grade, I.E. Miles.

Also, referring to the discussion between Phoenix and Franziska, she doesn't seem to harbour many grudges against Phoenix for jailing her father. She habours grudges, as she believes that it was Phoenix's fault that he "chose death" despite her refusal to believe it.

In everyday life, I don't think the two ever saw much of Manfred, since he was prosecuting one or two day trials, including the Investigations, so I'm agreeing with Ramika, here. They probably saw him only at dinner, didn't have much of a discussion, then straight to doing homework, then bed.

I think that in the time between 3-4 and 1-2, maybe closer to 3-4, Edgeworth decided to distance himself from Manfred's teaching skills, seeing as he may have blamed his own arrogance for Fawles' suicide. Therefore he changed his von Karmic fashion sense, (Hanging his old suit on the wall of his office), and changed his prosecuting tactics, and stopped behaving like Manfred.

Then with the Statute of Limitations looming, I think Manfred decided to carry out his plan after seeing that Edgeworth had blown his chance of a perfect record. Twice. Because of a childhood friend. I guess Manfred saw no more use in him any more and decided to take up his revenge.

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Same here. :D I was looking through the sprites, saw younger Franziska and made probably the most fangirlish squeal I have ever made. Though I suppose my neighbours are already used to that.
"KYIAAAH~! <3"
"Somebody get that computer away from her, we're trying to sleep here."

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Not sure 'bout the innuendo, but I would've loved to see Phoenix.

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Last edited by Karmi-Sempai on Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

Guys please be careful about spoilers, especially spoilers not related to the topic.

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Indeed... which led someone taking the bull by the horns and creating a certain character for one of the competitions here viz

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I think that's a cool one...But I never thought VK's sister looked like this...

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I don't think that Edgeworth hates Von Karma. He was part of his life, part of his essence. Maybe after taking the proper time to reflect about his behavior so far and the meaning of his profession, Edgeworth became pragmatic enough to understand that both her father and Von Karma taught him useful things. And, of course, my opinion is that he was born to be a prosecutor, not a defense attorney. A defense attorney is committed to his client, but a prosecutor has a wider concern. Since the state is his only client, the prosecutor must work for public interests, what means to expose the true offenders. In fact, it's so Edgeworth... Without Von Karma, he wouldn't be able to find his natural path.
Of course, I agree that Von Karma had mentally abused Miles and Franziska by constantly demanding perfection from them. He wanted them to be the best students in their classes and, later, ruthless prosecutors.
Indeed, Manfred was a kind of perfectionist psycho. I think he adopted Edgeworth because he realized that the boy was pretty intelligent and truly handsome, what means, following his logic, perfection. Probably, he also thought that his revenge against Gregory Edgeworth would be bigger if he turned Miles into a cold monster, a man without feelings. He set up that trap to Miles because he realized he didn't fulfill his goals, since Edgeworth demonstrated that he still have feelings and didn't forget about his father morality.
Franziska seems to be very fragile, even she hides herself behind her whip. Edgeworth must be the single person in the world that she really trusts. But, since Miles decided to abandon Von Karma's teachings, Franziska lost her ground and became confused. She loves both her "papa" and her "little brother", but she found a huge contradiction in this situation. Edgeworth could be nicer to her, but even he has left his past behind, he continues to have serious difficulties to express his feelings.

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I agree. I don't think Manfred abused Franziska or Miles. I just think he was strict and just wanted them to be perfect.

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He does actually seem like not so very terrible a parent, but I think we can be relatively certain that he'd been planning his crazy revenge scheme for quite some time before the start of the original Ace Attorney. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that that's the only reason he decided to take Miles in in the first place. But my main reasoning is that there were a couple Manfred lines in AAI case four that were just dripping with creepy foreshadowing. I don't remember all of them, but he definitely said something along the lines of:

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He certainly wasn't the best, even though by all standards he probably was driving them to be the best they could be. Some people would argue that's the best you could be for your kids, because you don't want them to waste their talents, their lives, their intellect.

The real issue is driving them to be MORE than that. He was force-feeding them an ideal that they would have to suffer for with their entire being, and not balance a healthy work-and-home relationship. The whole point of learning to be at your best is learning to be at your mental best; if your self-esteem is shot to dependancy, how do you expect to bounce back after a setback and learn to look things through rationally themselves, instead of having to mask constant panic and unease?

Let's not forget that Manfred was, in all likelihood, forging evidence behind the scenes (hence why he was penalised), and the immense, absolute perfection he was driving them to meet was a FALSE REALITY. Something that in adulthood, neither of the children would be able to erase and start over. Sad truth.

I suspect that there's more to von Karma's plan than we saw, and I will now support my headcanon with Logic! Spoilers for the first game ahead, obviously, but this whole thread's a first-game spoiler so...

Evidence tampering: Manfred von Karma tampered with or destroyed evidence regularly, and with extreme care. This is a man who re-educated a parrot.

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DL-6 evidence: Found in the evidence lockers by Wright before von Karma arrived to destroy it.

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A special exception: Why was the evidence there at all? von Karma had years to destroy it, and it was possible to solve the DL-6 case using only this evidence and Edgeworth's knowledge.

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A special exception

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Demon Prosecutor Edgeworth: von Karma raised Edgeworth to be a perfect prosecutor.

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von Karma must have known that the possibility of Edgeworth investigating DL-6 himself was high. If he left there untouched, it raises one inescapable conclusion...

von Karma battle: Manfred von Karma was prepared for Edgeworth to charge him with murder. If he won, Edgeworth might take the fall... but what if he lost?

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von Karma battle:

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von Karma legacy: Edgeworth and Franziska were told, in no uncertain terms, that they had to continue the von Karma legacy.

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Miles von Karma: A von Karma allows no criminal to escape. If Edgeworth had the nerve and audacity to accuse his own mentor, and the skill to bring him down in court, he would be a true von Karma - even if he denied it to his dying breath.

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But Edgeworth's fear of the incident and his unwillingness to think of von Karma as a suspect meant that he ran out of time, and von Karma executed his backup plan, and Hammond. At that point, it was time to destroy the evidence; he would not, under any circumstances, be destroyed by Phoenix Wright, a defense attorney. That would be a nightmare.

Until Wright showed up the whole plan was a win-win for von Karma, in a twisted way. Either he humiliates and destroys Edgeworth, the living reminder of his crime, or a criminal who has eluded justice for years is put in jail by a von Karma heir - the son of the victim.

We can go even further, and suggest that, on some deep, unconscious level, von Karma preferred the second possibility to the first. There was no way he was going to confess to DL-6 - such a humiliation would be unthinkable! What if Payne ended up prosecuting? Could a von Karma possibly face THAT indignity? If he was going to be convicted, it could only be by von Karma Perfect Justice.

And there was one person on Earth who deserved a chance to deliver that justice more than anyone else.

I'm going to cite the AAI quote above as indirect support for this:



(Edgeworth bow.)

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