Turnabout Beginnings

Hallo, alle miteinander, and welcome back to Wright Wednesday. This is the weekly series where we recap, analyze, and review the various cases of the Ace Attorney series. Today we're in for a special treat, another case we can cover in just one article! But oh what a case it is, because we're talking all about Turnabout Beginnings from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney-Trials & Tribulations. I am champing at the bit to discuss this, but before we can start some introductions are in order. My name is Roy, and I would argue that Lost has the best flashbacks of all time.

My name is Sam, and...do the 1000 Years of Memories in Lost Odyssey count as flashbacks? Because if so, them.

I mean, I haven't played the game, so I don't know. How does this case begin, Sam?

The case opens with a scene on a broken bridge, as a woman holds a man at gunpoint while he threatens to kill a girl he’s holding hostage. The woman says he won’t get a chance, fires the weapon, and a figure drops off the bridge to splash into the water below. We then see Phoenix, going through old files on a computer; he’s looking into Mia’s first case, a full year before he met her. She defended a death-row escapee after he was charged with kidnapping and murder of a woman. Then we jump back six years to see the trial for ourselves.

Mia is understandably nervous. Her client, Terry Fawles, is an intimidating but kind-faced man in prison clothing. He was sentenced to death five years ago, and now has tried to escape. She tries to make conversation, which sends him into fits of apologies and denial. Despite his hysterics, he does coherently claim that he didn’t kill anyone, and “that woman” lied in her testimony to get him convicted. But to make matters worse, he escaped a few days ago after a police car crashed, and before he was caught an officer named Valerie Hawthorne (note the last name) was murdered. The police suspect Fawles of the murder, but he claims she’s the reason he escaped, and she was alive when he left her.

There's clearly a lot going on here already, and we haven't even really started yet.

And there's about to be even more! A strikingly familiar man shows up; it’s Diego Armando, Mia’s senior and rival from the office, here in Grossberg’s place. He encourages Mia, albeit somewhat snarkily, and tells her the prosecutor she’ll be facing is also brand-new at this. But unfortunately, he’s also been hailed as a genius. Mia is nervous and uncertain, but took this case because the defendant’s overflowing eyes and childlike voice just…gave her a feeling. That he was telling the truth. And so, she heads into her first court session as a lawyer.

Man, this Diego guy sure looks familiar!

Court begins with a different judge, the one we briefly saw in the trial of Luke Atmey. And, sure enough, the genius new lawyer is a fresh-faced but reliably haughty Miles Edgeworth. His opening statement refers to the trial of five years before, where Fawles was convicted of kidnapping a young girl and throwing her off a bridge, killing her. His guilt was decided based on the testimony of one person: the police officer at the scene, Valerie Hawthorne. The very officer Fawles supposedly killed days ago. This forms a rather straightforward picture: Terry escaped, sought out the woman who got him put on death row, and murdered her. Pretty open-and-shut.

I love how Edgeworth's sprites here actually make him look so much younger, it's a really great job at differentiating him.

I was shocked seeing him. It's really impressive.

I do have to say, this judge did not make a good first impression for me. He pretty much immediately decides the defendant is guilty, and when Mia speaks out against the judge deciding his opinion before the arguments are even presented (a legitimate and serious red flag), he gets mad at her for speaking to him in such a tone. Which comes across as both bad judicial reasoning and possibly a degree of sexism.

Nothing makes our usual Judge look better than spending five minutes with this guy.

Our first witness is another familiar face: a newly-promoted Dick Gumshoe, the homicide detective in charge of this case. As is often his role, he outlines the facts of the case. The victim is Sergeant Valerie Hawthorne. An unknown caller asked her to meet at the bridge, and she met with the defendant there. She was stabbed in the back with a knife, and died of blood loss. The victim and defendant met on the same bridge of the incident five years before. Fawles supposedly stabbed Hawthorne in the back and carried her back to his car, stuffed her in his trunk, then was caught at a police checkpoint as he tried to escape. No blood was found on the bridge, which Gumshoe attributes to the thick coat she was wearing.

As awesome as young Edgey's sprites are, I am a little sad that Gumshoe just...has a different color coat.

He's not quite so fresh-faced. I think Gumshoe has just always been 40 years old (I know you probably know his actual age shut up).

Just to be facetious, I will not shut up, Gumshoe is 26 in this flashback case, so 32 in Trials and Tribulations proper. Nyeh~

Edgeworth lays a trap for Mia first thing, having told Gumshoe to say the caller was unknown. When Mia asks for more information, he brings up a note Hawthorne left on her desk, which clarifies that the caller was indeed the defendant, Terry Fawles. The note says it’s Fawles, mentions “‘that’ bridge,” and says to wear a white scarf for identification. It also says, “Talk to Dahlia. Tell her this time, the whole truth must come out.”

There’s also a photo of Hawthorne in the trunk of Terry’s car, which Mia notes does not have the white scarf the note mentions. Apparently the police did not find it, which presents an open question of what happened to it. But Edgeworth swoops in and ruins everything, having apparently gone to the bridge before the police and conducted his own investigation. He took the scarf, which apparently is legal for some reason, and Presents it to the court like he should have done before the trial. The scarf isn’t quite white, but does the job, and has mud on it.

What further proves the prosecution’s theory is a picture taken by an eyewitness; a photo of Fawles and Hawthorne on the bridge. They’re facing each other, with Hawthorne’s back to the broken side of the bridge. The eyewitness themself is a college student, and she is not there because she refused to testify and the prosecution’s case doesn’t rely on her testimony beyond the photo she took. In Edgeworth’s words, she is “very delicate.” In case this terrible picture isn’t becoming clear yet.

Yet, they still use some of her testimony through Gumshoe which...uh, Objection?!

Are they not allowed to use testimony without having the witness up on the stand?

I am not a legal expert, but generally speaking I don't think testimony can be given second-hand like that, it's hearsay without an exception to the hearsay rule. But again, not a lawyer, could be wrong. They could have her statements as a deposition, which is evidence, but that's like a signed piece of paper and it has less weight than testimony.

It does seem a little shaky. Not that Ace Attorney is generally super legally solid.

Thankfully, the photo of Hawthorne's body in the car easily contradicts Gumshoe’s version of events, because despite the rain and mud, the front of her coat isn’t muddy. Edgeworth tries to dodge this by saying the bridge may only have been wet, not muddy, but Mia points out the mud-stained scarf Edgeworth supposedly found on the bridge. Diego simplifies things for us; one of the pieces of evidence we have--the photo of the crime scene, the photo of the body in the trunk, or the testimony of the eyewitness--is false. The correct choice is the testimony itself, since it doesn’t seem to match up with the facts, and it gives Mia a reason to call in the eyewitness herself to testify. Edgeworth already has her ready, and seems confident she will expose “the brutal truth.” She is, of course…Dahlia effing Hawthorne. Except her name is, apparently, Melissa Foster.

If you select that the false evidence is the witness photo, Edgeworth asks who the people in it are, LARPers?

...I have trouble with the revelation that Edgeworth knows what LARPing is.

Dahlia pulls the same act we saw in Turnabout Memories; fragile, beautiful, delicate. So of course the judge goes all doe-eyed, and mildly creepy. What’s more, “Melissa” seems to recognize Mia, but doesn’t get a chance to explain why. In her testimony, she says she was out with her camera to photograph wildflowers on a nearby ridge, when she saw the two on the bridge. They started fighting, so she took her photo, then called the police. She also brought her camera, which is admitted into evidence.

You say 'mildly creepy', I say 'deeply disturbing'.

“Melissa’s” innocent act makes it difficult to cross-examine her. Whenever a tough question is asked, she starts crying and acts like she’s being accused of something. But she can’t dodge the fact that the photo merely shows the victim and defendant standing on the bridge together, despite “Melissa” saying she got a picture of “the crucial moment” after they started fighting. She explains that she had used up all the space in her camera, and the picture she took was the last one. Edgeworth confirms this, saying the rest of the photos were of “Melissa” herself frolicking among the flowers. This is made possible by a tripod and timer feature on the camera.

But without a photo of the actual moment of the murder, or even any kind of fight, “Melissa” is left to testify about it. She claims that Hawthorne turned to run away, but didn’t get far before she was pushed down and stabbed in the back. But based on both the photo and the previously described version of events, Hawthorne was on the broken side of the bridge. There was nowhere for her to turn and run. But Edgeworth pulls one of his…let’s say extreme technicalities, claiming that while the bridge is broken in the diagram, and we know it's been that way for at least the last five years there’s no evidence it was broken during the incident itself. This flies somehow, pretty much rendering that Objection moot and leaving “Melissa” to describe the rest of what happened.

It's one of those tricks of "well, you can't prove that this map is accurate for anytime before right now, so suck it" and like...yeah, as the prosecution he should be on top of that?

This is a young Edgeworth, after all. It shouldn't be surprising that he only does his job properly when it helps him.

"Melissa" says Fawles carried the body to the car to hide it, before theorizing about how he couldn’t leave it on the bridge or it would be discovered, then apologizing for talking about more than simply what she saw. But thankfully, that conjecture gives Mia an opening; why would he hide the body in the car when the murder took place over a river famous for pulling bodies down in an undertow, never to be seen again? Let alone when he himself supposedly used it for that purpose five years before? But again, Edgeworth comes in to point out that how much sense it makes is irrelevant; the body was found in the trunk of the car, so “Melissa’s” story is consistent with the evidence.

That's actually kind of a good point. Like, there's only so much room to argue in terms of "X's actions make no sense" when the prosecution can just say, "But that's what happened though."

She reiterates what she said before, this time claiming that the victim didn’t fall on the ground at all, but was picked up before she could, then put in the trunk of the car after Fawles broke into it (since the car was stolen). Problem is, based on where she took the picture, she could not have seen this; there’s a ridge between her and the bridge. She had line of sight to the bridge itself, but not to the side of it where the car would have been. Meaning she could not have seen these things. They try to wiggle out of this by claiming the ridge isn’t very tall, but it’s visible on the left side of the photo and is, indeed, more like a cliff. So she simply says she may have misremembered things, and since she has the judge wrapped around her finger and Edgeworth is invested in having her proven right, this slides.

With Dahlia, letting thing slide is turned up to 11.

I. Have. Feelings. About this.

But Diego Armando helps out here; regardless of how she might have misremembered things, she had to know somehow that the killer broke into the trunk despite being unable to see it from her vantage point. She claims she knew because there were scratch marks on it from his attempts. Indeed, the photo of the body in the trunk supports this claim. But, Mia points out…how would “Melissa” have known about that? She hadn’t seen the photo of the trunk. So, Mia posits, she could only have seen it when she put Hawthorne’s body in herself! After all, Fawles had stolen the car from a couple that had been stopped at a red light; he had the key, and could have just unlocked the car.

It's a pretty good Objection. How will Edgeworth slip out of that one?

What’s more, since the camera has a timer function, she could have set it to go off while she was elsewhere, easily explaining how “Melissa” might have been elsewhere entirely when the photo was taken. So then, the question becomes, “Where was ‘Melissa’ when the photo was taken?” And the correct answer is…in the place of the victim. Mia posits that “Melissa” killed the victim, put her body in the trunk, then met with the defendant in disguise, after which Fawles left in the car without realizing the body was in the trunk. Edgeworth says the victim would have recognized the woman who put him in jail, but after five years in prison Mia believes he would not have, and points out that she wore the scarf for that very reason; to identify herself since Fawles didn’t remember what she looked like. “Melissa” is so stunned by this that she faints, and the judge declares a recess to allow her some time to recover.

During the recess, Mia and Diego realize they’re going to need more information if they stand any chance at winning the case. Finding out more about the witness doesn’t seem possible, so instead they ask the defendant to tell them more about the incident responsible for this case, the murder that put him on death row. Terry admits to kidnapping his girlfriend at the time, Dahlia Hawthorne. Neither attorney misses the name, and he explains that she was Valerie Hawthorne’s little sister.

Yep. Yeeeeeeep.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

But there’s a lot more to it than that. When Terry talks about Dahlia, it becomes clear that he did anything she told him to, and that included the kidnapping. It was a plot, a fake crime, and it was planned by Dahlia, Terry, and Valerie. However, something changed, and Valerie actually shot Terry during what was supposed to be a faux encounter with the police. After Terry was shot, Dahlia jumped into the river from the bridge, Terry never pushed her. But during his trial, Valerie took the stand and told the court that Terry killed her, which is what put him away for so long.

Gives me the impression that Dahlia's whole family is like this, on one level or another. Which is horrifying.

The Hawthorne’s are apparently involved in jewelry, so the ransom was a diamond worth 2 million dollars. They were going to split the money three ways, but obviously that never ended up happening. Diego asks about what happened to it after the crime, but Terry doesn’t know. Dahlia was carrying it in her backpack, so it disappeared with her body. Yes, even though her case was treated as a murder, no body was ever found, and so Mia makes the critical connection. Hearing from Terry that Dahlia was 14 at the time seals the deal, meaning both she and Diego are pretty sure of some valuable evidence going into the next part of the trial.

Also though...14??? And Terry was dating her? Once again I have to wonder if this is intended to be creepy as hell, or if this is a matter of different age of consent values in Japan (and why it wasn't adjusted to reflect that if it's the latter). Or maybe if Terry is just younger than he looks. I don't know, it's weird.

Terry was 20 at the time, we will get to that in the analysis portion.

Oof. Yeah.

By the way, it's obvious that "Melissa" is Dahlia, so I'm just calling her that. Back in court, everyone is all up with Dahlia being super innocent and cute again, and the idea that Mia is accusing her of being the criminal is quite alarming. Still, the witness wants to make sure no one thinks that of her, and so offers a testimony on why she isn’t really the criminal. Because we should always trust people with prepared testimony about how preposterous it is that they could have killed someone. Well, said testimony is just her saying that until recently she was out of the country, had never been to the area, had no reason to kill the victim, and that the defendant is an evil monster, so it’s not that prepared.

I don't think she expected things to get this far, but soon enough it'll also be obvious she has an extreme fallback regardless.

What’s important is to dig through the testimony with Presses until you can get Dahlia to say something about the defendant’s memory, and how it’s a good thing she hadn’t worn a white scarf that day. There’s where the contradiction arises, as there’s no way Dahlia should have known either that Fawles couldn’t remember the victim’s face or that he required Valerie to wear that exact article of clothing for identification. Edgeworth has been letting similar contradictions be ignored by just saying someone must have shown the witness it at some point, but this is a bit too far. The note was apparently kept quite secret, so Edgeworth didn’t give permission for it to be shared with her.

It's always satisfying to catch lying witnesses in those slip-ups.

Dahlia tries to weasel out of it by saying that she had guessed that was the case by observing the meeting, but that won’t work either. After all, the scarf used was a light blue, not white. Close enough to work, but not the color that Dahlia has been saying. This proves that Dahlia knew what was written on the note. Things are getting rough for Edgeworth, and Mia drives it home with an explanation: there was one person who should also have known what the note says. Actually reading it reveals a line saying that Valerie was going to “Talk to Dahlia. Tell her this time the whole truth must come out”.

Which means it's time to realize just how much of a bastard Edgeworth is at this point in his career!

Of course, Edgeworth points out that Dahlia Hawthorne is supposed to be dead, even making an ironic joke about Mia trying to bring the dead back to life. Mia brings up that isn’t necessarily true. With no body recovered, it’s not certain that Dahlia actually died.  Since she fell into the river when she was 14, Dahlia would be 19 by the time of the trial, the same age as ‘Melissa Foster’. In no uncertain terms, Mia claims the witness really is Dahlia Hawthorne, which stirs the audience into a frenzy of discussion.

Oh, I said the Edgeworth thing too early. Okay well now is when we find out how much of a bastard Edgeworth is at this point in his career.

In a surprise move, Edgeworth actually confirms Mia’s claims. The witness truly is Dahlia Hawthorne, and the Prosecutor’s Office knew all along. Still, he claims that there’s nothing suspicious about her hiding the fact she was still alive for five years, or that she just happened to witness her own sister’s murder. In fact, Edgeworth Presses hard against Mia’s claims, going full sympathy for Dahlia as the survivor of a supposed murder attempt and the sister of the victim in their current case.

Like I said. Bastard.

Okay, actually I don't agree there. From his perspective, protecting her privacy now that she's trying to escape her family situation does feel like the right move, even kind of the compassionate one. After all, Edgeworth doesn't know Dahlia is the killer, he thinks Terry Fawles really is the bad guy.

That's fair, but it's hard to escape the fact that he hid absolutely relevant information from the court to make his Guilty verdict easier. As he is wont to do. I find it hard to interpret this charitably, all things considered.

That's fair, I'm just willing to give Edgeworth a bit of reasonable doubt. Things are rough, and as the whole court starts to turn on Mia, Diego tells them all that the defense has evidence to prove their theory. Mia freaks at that, because she doesn’t think she has anything, but he just tells her that this is the moment of truth, and the case is riding on what Mia does next. Forced to think of something, Mia brings out the victim’s note again. After all, it mentions Valerie confronting her sister about the “whole truth”. The motive Dahlia had was to silence Valerie before she told the world that they were both culpable in the scheme.

Makes sense. Even without knowing what the actual scheme was, this is a very plausible motivation. And Dahlia would have to give details even to deny it. Good move.

Mia requests a new testimony from Dahlia, one all about the kidnapping, as a way to get to the secret at the heart of the case. Of course, Dahlia just gives the expected story about being kidnapped for ransom and managed to survive the fall into the river. There’s also a detail after the testimony about how, with Valerie’s help, Dahlia “left the Hawthorne family” which...interesting? Also Pressing for more details with the testimony has Dahlia claim that Terry was her tutor five years ago, but how true that may be is obviously up for debate, considering the source. Dahlia also claims that she hid her identity out of fear of being kidnapped for her family’s wealth again.

Plausible enough, but still not true.

The contradiction here is a bit...strained. Dahlia claims that Terry pushed her from behind, but you have to Present the map of the bridge to Object to that. Because if that were true, Dahlia would have fallen onto the rocks, and not the river? But...she didn’t say she fell through the hole in the bridge, she just said she was pushed off? That’s actually what Edgeworth brings up to rebut it, that maybe Dahlia fell off the sides, which the witness confirms. Mia counters with Dahlia’s photo from earlier, which shows the sides of the bridge are high enough to make being pushed from the side impossible. Which...sure, I guess? But maybe they should have just had Dahlia say in her testimony she fell through the hole, since that would have been a more understandable contradiction.

I have this issue in my notes as one of the few times this case flubbed me up. It all checks out by the end, but it's unclear exactly how we're supposed to take issue in the moment.

The logic gets a bit shakier as the argument continues. Edgeworth claims that the defendant could have lifted and thrown the witness off, but Mia points out that Terry had just been shot in the arm. Like, that’s a good point, but I don’t know if that disproves Edgeworth’s point? The better argument Mia uses, though, is that Valerie still had a gun trained on him from a short distance away, so doing something like that would have gotten him shot again.

I don't know how easily one could lift a girl with a bullet in his arm, but he definitely couldn't have done it before he got shot again.

Anyway, Mia hits the big point: Dahlia wasn’t shoved into the river at all, she jumped. When asked why she would do that, Mia brings up the missing diamond. Dahlia wanted to escape with it, and risking death in the river was the only way to do it. Mia goes even further, claiming that escaping in the river with the diamond had been Dahlia’s plan from the very beginning. Edgeworth can’t believe a 14 year old would plan something like that, which is definite proof that Franziska was in Germany at that point and he didn’t have to deal with her as much. (She is 14 at the time of this case.)

Oh yeah, she absolutely would have had the brains and wherewithal to try something like this.

Seriously, 14 year olds have no sense of self preservation and are beings of pure chaos.

Moreover, after Mia explains Valerie’s involvement in the plan, Edgeworth is shocked at the idea a detective could do something like that. Oh, Edgey, you have quite the future ahead of you. But yeah, Valerie was planning to spill the beans on everything that had happened, and Dahlia couldn’t have that happen. By killing her sister and framing Terry, she was getting rid of her accomplices so she could escape scot-free. And this is finally enough to make Dahlia let go of her mask, and reveal her true self to the court.

Which means yet more discussion about my abiding hatred for this excellent villain character.

That doesn’t mean Dahlia is ready to give up though, only that she’s gettin' serious. She asks Mia point blank if she has any evidence to back up her story. When Mia admits she has nothing, Dahlia condescends to her, and it seems like Mia’s momentum has slowed to a crawl. But Diego gives some advice to her: if there’s no evidence to rely on, they can try testimony. There’s one person who can give them everything they need to win, and it’s their own client.

Shaky in terms of believability, since he's the one on trial, but it's a lawyer's job to compare such stories to the evidence and determine the truth. So why not.

Edgeworth has no objection to the idea, so Terry is brought out to the stand. At first, there’s a big problem: Terry doesn’t want to believe that Dahlia is still alive, he thinks she’s still dead. Not only that, he doesn’t want to think their relationship was a lie, that he was used as a scapegoat so Dahlia could get rich. He says they promised to never, ever betray each other. But when he’s asked to testify about his experience on the bridge, he starts to think that maybe the girl in the courtroom really is Dahlia, that she is still alive. She basically confirms it to him, while asking him if he doesn’t trust her any longer. Dahlia manipulates him, making him feel like he has to keep quiet to protect her.

I. Have. THOUGHTS. And FEELINGS. About this. And her.

The judge makes it clear this is the last testimony of the trial, we only get one shot at it. Before his testimony, Terry freaks out and asks for some water. No one has any available, but Diego offers his coffee, which the defendant accepts. Oh, and Diego literally says the exact words that Godot introduced himself with, calling coffee “Darker and bitterer than Hell itself.” Terry says he got to the bridge early and waited. The woman approached him, they talked, she left. Oh, and that it was definitely Valerie and not Dahlia.

Immediately, Mia asks him to stop covering for Dahlia, but Edgeworth stops her and we head to the final cross-examination. The contradiction is pretty simple: the photo clearly shows that Terry was the one on the near side of the bridge, meaning he got there second, not first. When Mia calls him out, Terry starts making a weird sound, and we get a new sprite of him with his hand over his mouth. In fact, as Mia explains exactly why his story is impossible, he’s having even more trouble speaking than he usually does.

The bridge thing is a contradiction I'd noticed from the beginning, but hadn't become relevant until this point.

When Mia just asks him to tell the truth, Terry does. He did get there early, but he didn’t wait on the bridge. Instead, he went to an old temple about 15 minutes away from the bridge. It was there that he and Dahlia had made a pledge to never betray each other. They’d left behind a memento, something that was supposed to symbolize their love. He pulls it out, having retrieved it from the temple: a very familiar looking heart-shaped necklace, with a bottle in the middle. Oh, and the bottle is empty.

Ugh, this is actually hard for me, I hate it.

As Mia starts explaining how Terry was away from the scene for half an hour to retrieve this bottle, and how it gives a window of time for Dahlia to kill Valerie and hide her body, Terry starts coughing really badly. Right when Mia finishes her argument, Terry starts hacking up blood. He asks Mia to stop, mentioning that he promised Dahlia that if they ever stopped trusting in each other, they would drink what was in that bottle. Edgeworth immediately sees what’s going on and tries to stop the trial, so they can rush Terry to get medical help.

Terry admits that he drank from the bottle before his testimony, because he doubted Dahlia, even as Mia starts to freak out at what’s happening, at how close they were to saving him. But Terry says he didn’t want to be proven innocent, because he doesn’t trust himself. Because he actually isn’t sure if he ever killed Dahlia, and that he can’t believe he isn’t capable of doing it. Terry thanks Diego Armando for the coffee, and dies on the witness stand.

...yeah I have no snark for this, it's horrible.

From there, we back out a little to Mia’s narration about this trial, how her first ever case ended so tragically. The trauma of what happened hurt her deeply, and she thinks the same has to be true for Edgeworth. But there was one person that day who quite enjoyed the outcome, the real criminal Dahlia Hawthorne, who left the court smiling.

...okay so are we out of summary now, then?

Nope. We get back into the moment, as Mia is blaming herself for what’s happened, and Diego is getting angry, even as he’s still smiling. When his words aren’t getting through, he drops the nickname and calls her “Mia”, just as Godot’s theme music kicks in. He tells her she can’t cry yet, and that the only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s over, as he crushes his coffee cup with his bare hand, cutting himself in the process. In other words, it’s a promise that no matter how terrible they feel, they can’t cry, because they still have to bring Dahlia to justice.

Oh, and I'm crying through all of this, I should mention.

I'm seething actually. Just waiting until it's time to talk about it.

We cut back to Phoenix on a laptop, discussing how the events of Mia’s first trial led into her second, when he entered the picture. After Mia finally caught Dahlia there, she got a trial of her own. Dahlia was pronounced Guilty, even as she was smiling. They thought it was all over, but Phoenix thinks that was wrong. In whatever present he’s narrating from, something has happened that’s caused him to dig into these case files, to arrive at a deeper truth. What is that? We’ll see next week. Until then, we have analysis to get to.

Yes okay good allow me to state once again that I have a bottomless pit of hate in my soul for Dahlia Hawthorne, and if it wasn't clear at the end of Turnabout Memories it sure as hell should be now.

We're starting with her then? Okay, I can roll with that. But yes, you hate her, but why do you hate her?

Well, on the more objective side of things, she's at this point shown to be one of the worst people in this series. The original plot was one thing; it was bad, but fairly typically bad. Murdering her own sister to save her own ass was on an entire other level. But then she commanded such authority with this guy that she not only convinced him to take poison rather than put her at risk, but actively continued that manipulation by telling him before his testimony that her life was in his hands. And she feels no guilt or remorse about it, just leaves with a smile on her face because the people who cared about her lost their lives, as she planned them to, for her own benefit. Awful, awful person.

More subjective/personal? I've have my share of experience with emotional/psychological abuse, as both the target and someone close to the target. It's not a pretty thing, and I have very little grace for people who use dishonesty and manipulation to make others ruin their own lives for the benefit of the abuser. That's why Terry's death here hits so hard for me.

So yeah, there's a case to be made that Dahlia Hawthorne is the worst person in the series. But there's also a personal reason why her particular brand of evil reserved a special spot in my heart just for hating her.

Which also means she is, as we said before, a fantastic villain. Absolutely stellar. And I hate her guts.

I'm not going to disagree on...any of those points? Like, yeah, Dahlia is the Ultimate Manipulator, and the thing she does are completely awful. That said, while still keeping the focus on Dahlia, I did want to highlight a take I've seen before online. Namely, that considering the age difference between her and Terry when they started dating, that he was a pedophile grooming her, and therefore deserved all the stuff that happened to him.

Y'all, I am not exactly the best person in the world to be talking about these kinds of issues, so please let me know if anything either of us say around this topic stinks. I can definitely see that interpretation, I can't really say it's wrong, that's absolutely one way to look at what happened. That's largely because, like a lot of backstory stuff in Trials and Tribulations, the game only defines the broad strokes, and lets the audience develop it themselves from there.

That all having been said, it isn't how I read the situation. Partially because...it definitely feels like Terry Fawles is meant to be someone with some sort of learning disability or a similar mental disorder. At least, that's how his character reads to me, I'm sure not everyone sees him that way. I know some folks read that part of his character as him being traumatized by prison. Either way, I can't really personally see their relationship, even with the age gap, as pedophilic or grooming, because I don't really think it was sexual.

I'm not trying to infantalize people with disabilities (but the game doesn't seem to mind doing that, with how Terry is constantly called 'childlike' and similar terms), but I think what the game is trying to get across is that Terry was being manipulated, being used, from the first second they met. I understand that for a lot of people who have been groomed, the idea that a young teenage girl can manipulate an older man like that, especially when they're dating, sits weirdly for them, and that's totally fair. These characters are stepping on some really dangerous ground, and this is another occasion where they really should have made Terry like...15 or 16 when they were dating, so it didn't rub people that way, because I do think that's completely unintended. But intended or not, the text is there, and the interpretation isn't fallacious.

I hope I covered that well? It's just something interesting I've seen bandied about before, and it's a really rough topic that I don't want to sound like I'm trivializing.

The age situation there certainly does make things a little complicated. At the very least, I think we can agree that the game means for Dahlia to be the manipulator and Terry to be the manipulated. It seems rather clear to me that the age complications are incidental, the kind of thing we can use in our interpretation, but not without being at least a little extra-textual. Which is valid, but something to be done carefully and in context.

It seems clear that, between this and the issue brought up before, about the potentially sexist tropes of manipulative women Dahlia may reflect, there are some elements of this character and her story that rub people the wrong way, and may be a bit off-putting. But I honestly don't think they significantly change the meaning of the character and her actions, nor do they particularly lessen the power of the writing surrounding her. They're worth considering, absolutely, I just don't think they really ruin anything.

I'm not sure that's something that ruins that case for those people, necessarily, as much as they personally find Terry Fawles an unsympathetic character, even while still seeing Dahlia as generally really evil. But I'm done speaking for people who are not me, Imma talk a bit about Dahlia through my own analysis.

There's some stuff I'm going to have to save for later, because even the lore we got here isn't everything, and the whole point of this blog is that we wait to spoil stuff for later. What I can say now is something I saw for the first time here: how Mia and Dahlia interact with Femininity.

Dahlia is, clearly, a very ultra-femme character. She dresses and speaks in a way that purposefully makes her seem as innocent, weak, and charming as possible. As a character, she is clearly aware of the expectations people put on her gender, and she uses those expectations to make sure no one realizes how evil she is.

Meanwhile, Mia...isn't quite as feminine. Not saying she's masculine or butch, but Mia clearly doesn't care as much about being polite or sweet, she likes to stand out in a way that doesn't fit societal expectations. But that also means she faces a lot of judgement from the other characters, especially when Dahlia shows up. All of a sudden, Mia gets compared to Dahlia a lot, always in a way to emphasize how "uncouth" Mia is. I'll want to get more into Mia and gender later, but I thought it was fascinating how those characters play with femininity.

That...is actually very interesting. And I'm not sure what to make of it yet. That kind of commentary on gender roles and expectations can be tough to nail, and I feel like that could go either way based just on that information, though I'm tempted to say it's an interesting commentary on how a sexist society views women who match their expectations for femininity vs. women who defy them? Though as much as I love this series, that's giving it way more credit than its past handling of women and gender has earned. I'll look forward to seeing if this gets expanded on as the game goes on.

Oh, I'm definitely not saying that's necessary intentional, it's just there to read anyway. But one last Dahlia thing I had: there's a moment where Diego specifically notes that Dahlia is using one of his lawyer rules better than Mia does. Namely, that she can smile even while under all that pressure. I just thought it was interesting, the idea that Mia's archenemy was using techniques that Mia herself would have to master, then pass on to Phoenix.

It certainly paints her as a powerful enemy. Also could maybe play into the gender commentary, what with all the men telling women to smile more, but it's definitely intended to play more into the idea of leadership, and how people in charge have to give hope to the people who rely on them. That's been the recurring meaning throughout the series, at least, and for that matter is a very common theme in Japanese media.

Did you have any other Dahlia stuff? Or should we move on to one of the other characters?

Honestly, not really. Mostly I just think this case was extremely effective at upgrading her from "villain" to "irredeemable monster," which will prove important to the rest of the game. Having Terry kill himself onscreen rather than pose a threat to her getting away with murder was an inspired, and surprisingly dark, move on the writer's part, and makes this case a lot more than just filling in blanks.

It's definitely one of the darkest moments in the series. Seeing his dead body, slumped over the witness stand, is just haunting.

Not to mention the bloody cough. This series has its share of murder mysteries, obviously, but usually when we actually see violence in Phoenix Wright it's the aftermath. A dead body, blood on the floor, etc. To actually see violence happen to someone is surprisingly rare, and hits hard when it happens.

Speaking of filling in the blanks, let's get to talking about Diego Armando. We heard this character's name in the first case of the game, and thanks to that we actually know a little more about him. There, it was mentioned he was poisoned while interviewing Dahlia Hawthorne in the courtroom cafeteria. And that he was dating Mia at the time, which was six months after this case ended. They're clearly not dating here, so when they got together can be anywhere from right after to shortly before the poisoning, we dunno.

Oh, and we know him from somewhere else too. If it wasn't obvious when we first met him, where he had a very familiar looking hair style, facial hair, skin tone, and style of suit, then later on when he starts drinking coffee, nicknaming people animals stuff, talking about his 'rules', and having literally the same theme song, at some point you have to realize this is Godot. At some point, post being poisoned, he put on a mask and became a prosecutor to challenge Phoenix Wright. Why, we still don't know, but we did get a much more through look at who he once was in this case.

Fun fact behind the scenes of Wright Wednesday: before we started this case, Roy asked if we should be open about whether we know Diego is Godot or not. My first thought, having not played the case in years, was that we should keep it close to our chest so we don't get ahead of ourselves. But the moment I saw him in the case itself, I realized there was no point: he's obviously Godot from the moment he appears onscreen, let alone when he talks about coffee and Godot's theme plays.

But what did you think of seeing him like this, Sam?

Well, mostly it helped humanize him. Helped nail home that he had been, at one point, a real person with more to his life than hating Phoenix. Which also implies there's more tragedy to the character than the game has previously let on (explicitly, at least), so I look forward to it revealing more of that.

I'd also argue that this case shows that his style seems to strange and ineffective as a prosecutor because, well, he was originally a defense attorney. And his methods and strategies work far better there. Combining what we've seen of him in the past to what we see in the present, I think it's easy to say that Diego was probably a very good defense attorney.

That's fair. It makes me interested in seeing a more detailed analysis of his prosecution style and how it more resembles the in-game role of a defense attorney, because that's very much not the kind of thing I pick up on naturally.

Of course, the bigger revelation is seeing how he interacts with Mia. I am not going to lie, I am not a huge fan of this character, but this case helps me see why so many people are. For all his faults, and we will be getting to those soon, no doubt, he comes off in this case like he's actually doing his best to help Mia. He's still snarky and...again, we'll get to that soon, but that moment in the end works so well because it's a sign that, behind the cocky smile, he is as traumatized by this as anyone else, and he has to see justice done.

True, I like Diego much more than I like Godot. I don't know if this revelation of who he once was will make me care more for who he is in the present, but it's nice to see that there was once a good person somewhere in there.

But how about how he and Mia relate? What did you get there, Sam?

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but Grossberg indicated in Turnabout Memories that Mia and Diego date at some point, right?

That is correct. But like I said before, we don't know when or for how long. Just that he gets poisoned 5 or 6 months after this. And they're clearly not dating here.

But it does affect my read of their connection a bit, knowing what it blossoms into. And I think it's a cute dynamic! The older, more experienced one who snarkily but genuinely cares for the sincere and inexperienced one. I kinda wish we could see more of them as a couple considering how important that connection is.

That is very interesting...because I am kind of on the extreme opposite end. As much as I enjoy what this case does with Diego, on the whole, it's also kind of a key part of his worst traits. I've mentioned in past weeks the low-key sexism he's been exuding this whole game. He loves to talk about captial-m Men and portrays women in very scurrilous way whenever he can. His habit of referring to people by animals nicknames is something else we've seen, and his use of 'Kitten' in particular is...

A lot of people have issues with their romance, and I'm kind of on that side of things. Yes, you can absolute read Diego's use of 'Kitten' as a silly, cavalier nickname and nothing more, a sign he sees Mia as cute. But there's another way to read it that rings more true, both in-universe and out.

If you don't know, workplace sexual harassment is a pretty major issue in the United States and in many other countries throughout the world. Diego is Mia's senior counterpart, she's far below him in the firm, so the way he teases her, using a nickname rather than her real name for most of the trial, reads to many fans as less 'cute hint at them being a couple later' and more 'sexist man using his power to demean her'.

Diego spends a lot of the trial talking down to Mia, emphasizing how new she is and how experienced he is, and some folks have read that as negging. The fact they started dating after this trial reads as pretty weird. I hope it's a sign that Diego grew up a little, actually started treating Mia as a person. But for reasons we'll get into in later Wright Wednesdays, I don't think that's likely.

I get that, but I guess I read Diego and Godot as...pretty different people. These could be negative traits turned up to 11 later on, but could just as likely be less nefarious tendencies that turn toxic after whatever happened to him (which we'll find out in the final case). I'd been seeing this as a before-image of what this character was, and interpreting his behavior independently of Godot's. But admittedly, that might be the wrong way to go about it.

I think it's a different way of going about it, but not at all a wrong one. I just think it's important to note that, for a lot of fans, his behavior in this case, irrespective of Godot's later behavior, reads far too close to a genuine real world harmful behavior.

That's entirely fair, and an angle I didn't notice while playing. I'll be interested to see what I think when we get through the next case.

Let's finally get to the actual protagonist of this case: Mia! Clearly the first important thing to mention: Mia calls Edgeworth 'cute'. Does anyone ship that? I mean, I don't, I headcanon Edgeworth as asexual aromantic, but c'mon, I know most people don't.

Uh... no? This might be because this case is pretty much the only time they interact (that we've seen), but yeah I don't see it.

My favorite part of playing Mia's cases is how they put these cases far enough back that she's relatively inexperienced, because otherwise she would be too competent for the types of shenanigans we're used to perpetrating as Phoenix.

I'm not sure we get a ton of new insight into her character from this, particularly since we already got a vision of a less experienced Mia in Turnabout Memories. But we do see what was no doubt a formative experience for her; her first case ending in the guilty party manipulating the defendant into suicide and getting away with it is...a hell of a start to a career, that's for sure. And it grants important context to her motives in Turnabout Memories, too.

It definitely does. I'm of a mixed opinion on how the trauma she experienced in this case affects her character, however. Not that other protagonists haven't had traumatic backstories, all of them except for Phoenix do, but it seems the women have their trauma impact their characters the most heavily, and their traumas are the most graphic. Edgeworth's father's fate is bad, sure, but we never see him get shot in the same way we are forced to watch as Terry Fawles dies on the witness stand. It's a powerful scene, but is the choice to give that kind of scene to just female protagonists a bit sexist?

Perhaps, though it would be easy to argue that the reason we see Terry die on the stand is because it's an event that happens in court. The other traumas are all in the past, while this one takes place during a trial we participate in, so we see it directly.

Not that this series deserves the benefit of the doubt where sexism is concerned, but I feel it's at least reasonable to interpret that differently in this case.

On the positive side, I do enjoy how this case recasts some of Mia's thoughts and actions in the first flashback case with her. The parallels between these cases are strong, clearly on purpose. It's more than just the Dahlia thing, remember what Phoenix did? He ate the bottle necklace! Mia freaked out at the time, which seemed understandable...but now knowing she lost her first client to that same poison, that same kind of necklace, it makes replaying that case so much more interesting.

I'm sure. Those bottle necklaces are some real interesting recurring props, both times representing her false love for someone she was using.

I mean, now we know that the Hawthorne's are into jewelry making, maybe that's where Dahlia is getting the necklaces? There's also the way that Terry decides to trust Mia just before he dies, and the link from there to Phoenix's trust in his case.

Yeesh. That's...kind of a dark one, actually. Really highlights the need not only for trust, but for the person you're trusting to be legitimately trustworthy, which I suppose falls in line nicely with how Farewell, My Turnabout messed with the "trust your client" concept.

As much as I have issues with the whole "Kitten" thing, and how Diego treats Mia in general, I absolutely love her response to it. At no point in this trial does she swoon after him, nor is she cool with his jerk behavior. She frequently bites back, if only in her internal narration. That, for me, actually helps the dynamic a lot. It makes me feel like maybe she was actually able to get Diego to settle down on his worse behaviors, as opposed to just accepting them because he's so cool.

That is very true. I'd definitely have been disappointed if she got the Other M treatment here.

A much less important Godot note is that we can now see where name comes from. If you didn't know, it's pronounced "Goh-Doh", like the unseen character in the famous play Waiting for Godot. But his name has less to do with that, and more to do with the fact that it's a clue we've had since we first met him to who he really is: DieGO ArmanDO.

...how did I never catch that. I kind of hate how simple and misleading it is.

Why don't we move on from the main characters to a more secondary one. Namely, the Canadian judge. Who I do not capitalize the title of because he is not our Judge. You mentioned in your recap a little about the differences between him and our dear old Udgey, but holy moly that part where Dahlia shows up? What he says about her? It made me Uncomfortable.

He...just, in general, he manages to make our Judge look good. He's bad. At everything.

He's a jerk, he is more unfair to the defense, and his patronizing of Dahlia is just baaaaaaad. It makes you wonder if most judges in this universe are like him, and our Judge is the exception.

I hated him the moment he got snippy with Mia for calling him out on his bad judgment. The judge of a case should never just declare his intent to declare a guilty verdict before the evidence has even been fully produced, and threatening to penalize her for calling out his severe lapse in judgment was messed up.

And somehow managing to fall for Dahlia's act worse while simultaneously treating her worse than our Judge did? Yeah, I dislike this judge.

Aside from just how this case sets up the next one in general, there's also some gentle foreshadowing. I wonder how many people playing their first time through noted the 'small temple' not far from the bridge, or the idea that spirits lurk in the area?

I was wondering if that would be related to the next case. Probably didn't even think twice about it the first time though.

Back when I played this before, I used to laugh at people acting like Edgeworth and Mia were super young for being 20 and 23 respectively but nowadays...yeah they're babies.

I'll just be in the corner dying of old age real quick, don't mind me.

Hey! We must both be old, because I think we've gone this whole analysis without talking about the central theme of this game: fakes and masks! I mean, it's a weak theme, but it is still present in this case.

True! And as usual, the case brings a new aspect into play. Dahlia plays the theme straight, of course, as she always does. But Terry is forced into a role he doesn't want to play, and ultimately manipulated into playing it to completion. He's an unwilling fake, and his mask is only on because he's been tricked into donning it.

Not only that, but we also have the false kidnapping in the past, as well as a fake murder. Two crimes that never happened, both of which chained Terry Fawles and put him on death row. This is also when we see Godot, a literal masked character, with his mask off.

True, and more true to who Diego is than I suspect we'll ever get out of Godot.

I think we've mined this case pretty well, ready to move on to review?

Sounds good, let's do it!

For the first time since Rise from the Ashes, it’s time to introduce a new kind of case! Now, the bare essentials to an Ace Attorney game are simple, and I’ve talked about them to death: Tutorial Case, Establishing Case, Filler Case, Finale Case. Rise from the Ashes was the first Bonus Case, an optional piece of story that is either something added on with a rerelease or DLC.

Turnabout Beginnings is something else: an Accessory Case. These are the fourth cases of their games, but they’re clearly not the Finale. Instead, they’re smaller stories, usually somewhere between the length of a Tutorial Case and a Establishing Case, that hype you up for the upcoming Finale. They tie in deeply to the story leading into the Finale Case, and basically exist as preludes to the coming story, while also being cases in and of themselves. Like with Bonus Cases, not every game has one. Of the six main entries in the series and the two Investigation spin-offs, there have so far been four Accessory Cases, which is actually more than we’ve had Bonus Cases. There are also two subtypes of Accessory Cases, though they all do the same job, just in different ways. This case is a flashback, as is another later on, while the other two Accessory Cases...well, we’ll get to them when we get to them.

So, what is important in an Accessory Case? Well, obviously the entire reason they exist is to set-up what’s to come, so their most vital role is in doing that job both literally and figuratively. What I mean by that is, an Accessory Case should be used as exposition without you realizing that’s what it is, teaching the player about characters and pieces of backstory through a new story, when they’re really there because they’ll be important very soon. They also invest you emotionally in what should be essentially the same story as the Finale Case, even if the connections between them might not seem as obvious at first. This is usually also where some big revelations start to come into play for the main story of the game. In addition to all that, these cases should also just be a good experience in their own right. So, Sam, what did you think about how this case handled those goals?

Well in terms of its role as an Accessory Case, what really elevates this one for me is that it doesn't just set up information for the Finale, it also recontextualizes the entire game up to this point, infusing meaning to the whole game in hindsight. The introduction of Godot's past self and the reveal of Dahlia's continued importance ensure that the case resonates with us and affects our feelings about the whole game we've played so far, not just sets us up for understanding the next one.

Of course, in doing so it's also set up some very important information, not to mention significantly raised the emotional stakes. It gives the strong impression that Dahlia's significance is not over, and Terry's horrifying onscreen death goes a long way toward emotionally investing us in her schemes. And overall, the information in the case just feels significant. There's a clear sense that this matters, and will factor in to what comes next. So yeah, I'd say it pulled off those goals pretty splendidly.

I agree on every count. This is perhaps the only time in the series' history when their first time using a Case Type also kind of outshined all later ones. It's also the first time, chronologically, that series creator Shu Takumi messed with his four case system, and he did it flawlessly.

As a case in and of itself, I am not going to pretend it is perfect. There is some wonky logic at points, and a few plot elements are a little clumsy in terms of how they get across what they're meaning to (looking at you, weird age difference).

But I can agree with you that those are problems until I am blue in the face, and it does nothing to erase how impactful this case is for me. It's the second moment in the series at that I would cry at every time I replayed it (I didn't always cry at Franziska's scene in Justice for All like I do now), and it still works for me. On story and character levels, this is one of the most wonderfully executed cases in the series.

It really is one of those cases where the problems, however real, don't do all that much to affect my opinion of it. The overall case is just too damn powerful. It's a compelling story in its own right, its gameplay irritants are few and mild, and it fits into the rest of the story wish such palpable significance and emotional resonance. And while it's short, that mostly just means it doesn't overstay its welcome; it's no secret Ace Attorney's trial segments are significantly better than its investigation segments, so a self-contained, well executed story told through a single, tightly paced court case is just a real treat.

We rate these cases on what appears at first glance to be a pretty standard 1-10 scale. However, we aim for it to be one of relative quality, rather than anything objective. 10's are the best cases in the series, 6's and 5's the average, and 1's are the least interesting. Turnabout Beginnings is, without question, one of my favorite cases in the series, enough that it's in my personal Top Three and above anything we've covered so far. Which is a longer way to say that this is the first 10/10.

This is gonna be another one where we agree. I think a 10/10 is appropriate for a case with so few flaws and brilliantly outshone by such high quality, concise, and impactful storytelling.

Look at that! We're in-sync this week (hah that rhymes), but what about next time? Well...it's the start of something big, in a lot of ways. Next week, we are beginning our coverage of Bridge to the Turnabout. The Finale Case of this game, the final case of the entire original trilogy, and one where I am fairly certain there will be some controversy with our opinions. We'll start that soon, so until then auf wiedersehen!

I look forward to it! See you all then!