So I haven't tried starting a thread for a while, let's see if I know what I'm doing...

So hey, Ace Attorney has a lot of characters that range from attorneys to policemen, to defendants and other people. But what about the one people almost never talk about? The victims? Well, what's ABOUT the victims, most of them exist just to die. Sure, we got some quality victim characters like Mia and that one beloved SoJ character, but that's because they were written like actual characters that serve a purpose in the story.

So what about it? Are all the background victims really just grey flounders stuck at the bottom of the AA seabed? Well, maybe, but I don't think it stops there. As grey as the flounders may be, they are still fascinating creatures if looked into more adequately. And that's what we'll do here. Are there any victims in the series you find interesting? If so then let's talk about them. What sort of story can we draw out from what we know about their appearance, background, role and what little personality we know of them from witnesses.

So to start with something, let's talk about a man people prominently care about, Neil Marshall.



So yeah, brainstorm ahead, folks! I look forward to seeing what we can draw out from these mere portraits.

Sure! Here's a detailed analysis on one of my favourite victims.

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Deid Mann is a legend, may he rest in peace

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(Going through the victims of the series made me realize there are actually quite a few we get to meet/interact with in some sense.)

Gregory is an interesting victim because he died several years before the game taking place, and yet he and his death has a tremendous impact on the story. We don't get to know a lot about his personality besides his lawyer ethics and skill in PW, but having him as the player character for some of AAI2-3 added depth to him, and he seemed like a nice person, and a good mentor and father (hearing his concern about his son and Shigaraki saying he can be friends with Miles is just glorious). I think the AAI2-team did a good job with giving him a voice of his own and a personality that went well with what one could expect from what we learn in PW.

With Misty, we get to meet her, not knowing her true identity, which only becomes clear after she's already been killed. Introduced as a missing person in PW until we finally see her in T&T without initially knowing it's her, learning about her role in the events that led to her death - it answers some questions but also raises new ones. She seemed absolutely charming. Also, her actions doesn't always seem to make much sense. Such as the T&T-plan, and not telling Maya about who she was, barely interacting with her even though she had the opportunity, even though I get she was first and foremost trying to distract Pearl so that the plan wouldn't have to be put into motion in the first place, also out of respect for Maya's feelings - or shame to meet her? If I remember correctly she apparently left her town and responsibilities because she couldn't look her children in the eyes after having been tarnished by media after DL-6, I don't know whether honour and reputation is highly valued in Kurain village or if that came from herself, like feeling disgraced, or ashamed of herself, whether her decision was fuelled by hurt pride or other feelings. Whatever it is, there must have been a lot of pain and conflict within her.

Dead parent #3: Metis Cykes. Adored by Aura Blackquill and Simon Blackquill alike (with the former almost straight-out said to have been in love with her), and to some extent by Athena, but she also had mixed feelings to the point where she's not sure whether or not she was the one that killed her. Also note how Simon, her disciple who respected her highly, had no problems coming up with a fairly convincing story about how he killed her to set Athena free from her. I think Metis is interesting as a dead-parent last case-victim such as Gregory and Misty (although Gregory wasn't the actual victim of the case 1-4 is supposedly about, it's definitely more about him than Hammond, and the same goes for Clay and Metis in 5-5, although to a lesser extent) is that she has flaws. She isn't the idealized dead parent. She was supposedly cold, bad at expressing herself to the point where her own daughter pretty much doubted she loved her at all, but she sure did, and did express it in her own way, although Athena being a child couldn't really sense it. All in all, she feels human, and I would like to know more about her.

I like Cindy a bit because she's the first victim, and while it had been easy to make her this one-dimensional cheater in a fairly straight-forward case, we had the bit with the clock that gave her a little redemption, even though she seems to have been quite an asshole otherwise. (Possibly. It seems almost as likely that she had already broken up with Larry -she's just not answering his phonecalls... ever- and he's just too thick to comprehend it.)

Goodman seemed to have been... well, a good man. Not much to say about him but I wanted to mention him anyway because I like him.

Ini is a bit of a special case because we do meet "her", in a sense, if we are to believe Mimi's acting. If that's what she was like, then I like Ini.

Juan, because Matt is, rightfully, painted as one of the worst scumbags ever, but Juan seemed to have been horrible too, even if he didn't sink to actual murder. I mean, his plan to expose Matt's part in Celeste's suicide. I think that would mostly paint Juan himself as the bigger douche. Yes, what Matt did was pitiful, but Juan was the one who called off his planned wedding with Celeste only because she had already been... what, used up by Matt and was therefore disposable, tarnished? They both used another person as some tool in their stupid competition, but I definitely think Juan was worse in that specific situation.

Leading to Celeste herself. A sad tale of someone being stuck in the middle of two guys -measuring competition, and then thrown away by someone who was supposed to love her. What's worse, this was probably just one hardship and sorrow of many others since it led to her doing something as drastic as killing herself. What's even worse, even after her death Juan used her yet again, trying to utilize her death to destroy Matt. I'm also curious about her and Adrian's relationship, since she was so important to her.

I've always been fond of Valerie, I don't know why, but she's intriguing to me. All we know about her is that a) she helped her fourteen-year-old sister with a fake kidnapping scheme to get money from their wealthy dad, b) she shot Fawles for real during the transaction and c) she was planning on telling authorities about what had really happened that time, several years later. I just keep wondering what drove her to do what she did, what results she was after both with helping with the kidnapping and shooting Fawles (perhaps she found him icky going out with her teenaged sister).

Courte seemed really nice and apparently had a big influence on Klavier. I like that she was artistic and that she seemed to have strong values that she stood by.

I would like to know more about Clay's personality, mostly because he apparently was Apollo's super best friend. If he hadn't been connected to one of the main characters, I probably would have forgotten about him. Still, I get a good impression of what little we know about his actions and relations to Apollo and Starbuck. His role in the game, however, I do not like at all. We hardly know anything about him, we're just told how great friends he and Apollo are, how happy Apollo is to be buddies with him, we don't get to meet him, and next thing we know he's dead. It's like he was only made in order so that the writers could torture Apollo and make the audience feel bad. Compare this with other dead characters that are closely tied to a main character, whether or not we get to meet them beforehand or not. In those cases, it's sad, and painful for the character in question, and we can see that and feel that and we know who they were and their death had a strong impact on the character left, and on the story. With Clay, the whole ordeal just felt unnecessary. It's terrible for Apollo, and I'm only affected because I feel bad for him, not because I feel anything in particular about Clay's death. Apollo's odd and stiff acting in court in 5-4 was pretty interesting, but also pretty vague and didn't feel very authentic. I get that he was probably numb with pain and shock, but it failed to convince me. Also most of the impact it had on him, leading him to doubt Athena and leave the agency, happened off-screen and was explained later rather than showed. Just a brief interaction with Clay naturally wouldn't solve all these problems, but I still think that just that little bit still could have changed a lot and not leaving me so... frustrated.

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Last edited by Going for Miles on Mon May 01, 2017 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with Metis and Courte, they both seem like they'd be great to explore upon. And I really don't like how Clay got completely left out of Spirit of Justice, especially since it revolves around Apollo of all people. Dual Destinies have a lot of interesting victim characters really, but there is one that stands out to me under special circumstances.

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Let us give thanks to Glen Elg
But it's so sad. The guy just really loved horse racing.

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Another victim of interest came to mind...