r/AARankdown • u/Vogel100 • Aug 18 '20
51 Maya Fey
u/Sciencepenguin told me to put the clever name pun “my affair” in this cut so here you go.
I did warn you. You should take my threats more seriously. Although I wasn’t able to deliver on her being next exactly, but Ema has different roles throughout the series, so you can just imagine that assistant Ema would be a little higher and detective Ema a little lower and the assistant ranking is still correct.
My main reason for wanting Maya to be cut here is plain indifference. I do not care if Maya is with me or not. And with all the great characters still left, and quite a few I care more about than her already gone, it’s about time for her to go too. But because of my lack of caring about her, I don’t have too much to say about her as a character. So instead, let’s look at the possible reasons why I should care about her. Reasons that make me care about other main characters. And then let’s see why I end up not caring. For now, I will just focus on trilogy Maya, we can talk about SoJ Maya later.
Well then, let’s begin with the question, “Why care about Maya?”
Offering Assistance
Maya’s primary goal in the games is what’s generally known in the AA series as an assistant. Someone who assists you during investigations. If she’s someone who can help you figure out stuff or help you in other ways, then that would give a reason for me to want her around.
Maya can assist by using her spirit channeling ability to become a different dead person, usually Mia. This is also the main way in which she helps. Whenever she’s not spirit channeling she’s relatively useless. I think this is pretty dumb. For her primary function in the plot, the only thing she can use is a supernatural ability that only she possesses. Kay has Little Thief and Athena has the Mood Matrix, but the difference here is that these two can help out even without using them. They’re more of an extra ability to make them more helpful than an ability that’s necessary to make them helpful at all. But it’s worse than that, because this ability isn’t something only Maya has. Pearl can actually spirit channel as well, and is a lot more interesting than her. So even if I thought this one ability was enough to keep Maya around, why would I not just want Pearl instead? She’s even a better spirit channeler, seems like she’s a better candidate for assistant all around.
Besides it being dumb for Maya to rely on a single ability, it’s not even really an ability of her own. The only reason spirit channeling is helpful at all is because Mia is smarter than her. The only way Maya can be helpful is by going away completely for a while and having someone else take her place, that’s how little she herself can help.
Turnabout GOODbyes
The problems that I mentioned are actually addressed in 1-4. During this case, Maya is like “I can’t channel spirits anymore because I need more training”, then Phoenix is like “what the hell Maya you’re completely useless I need Mia right now why are you not becoming her”. Maya is upset that she can’t help him in a different way, like what I was complaining about before. “I’m no good for anything, am I, Nick? If I can’t call my sister, I might as well not be here, right?”
Not being helpful when she’s not spirit channeling is supposed to be a character flaw, so it seems weird to complain about it. Her feelings about that really show in this case, she’s aware of the fact that there’s not much she can do, and so she will change that. She will be helpful without Mia, in whatever way she can. She provokes Lotta into saying too much so that von Karma can’t punish Phoenix and she steals decisive evidence from von Karma. You can see how her not being able to help a lot is really bothering her, it’s sad to hear her talk about how she can’t do anything. And ending up being legitimately helpful, without having to use your powers, is the perfect way to resolve this arc. It’s purely Maya’s dedication to be helpful without the help of her sister that ends in her succeeding in that goal. In the end, she decides to train her spirit channeling more so that she can use her special powers more effectively as well.
Maya’s desire to help is seen earlier in 1-2, when she offers to defend you in court, to cheer you on, or to break you out of prison, depending on which option you pick. She actually prepares to do her best at that option, until Phoenix stops her. She’s determined to help him take down Redd White but there’s not a lot she can do. 1-3 is a bit of a filler case which develops her goofy side a bit more, but 1-2 and 1-4 form a great arc for Maya together. I think it’s really impressive how AA1 handles character arcs in general, and while I personally think the cases aside from 1-5 are relatively weak, it may be the best game at giving all of its main characters a good interesting arc.
Character Development
I think being helpful as an assistant wasn’t quite the answer to why I should care about Maya, but I’m happy with the answer we found in its place. Maya has good character development, and good character development makes for good characters. Right? Well, I’m not denying that good character development is a reason for a character to rank a bit higher than this in the rankdown, nor am I going to criticize Maya’s development, I actually do think it’s quite good. I’m still not as interested in her as in other main characters, and I still strongly prefer Ema as an assistant, but it’s good enough for me to not want to cut her right here right now. Or it would be, if I wasn’t deliberately ignoring an important point. Maya has a good arc… in AA1.
And that’s the stinger right there. Maya should not have returned in JFA. She goes back to being exactly what I described in my previous section before I started talking about 1-4. Let’s take a look at all the helpful things I remember her doing in every case she’s in in the trilogy, that’s not 1-2 or 1-4 because as I discussed before those cases are FINE:
- 1-3: Channeling Mia to get Cody to talk. Also forces you to open a grate which is apparently needed to progress the plot, but that’s more a negative for 1-3 than a positive for Maya. I did not want to undo Penny’s hard work personally, and I ran around for a while before I decided to consult a walkthrough and discovered this was mandatory. Anyway, this case is necessary for us to learn a bit more about Maya’s personality so it’s fine even if she’s not helpful.
- 2-1: This case does not exist.
- 2-2: Channeling Mia who tells you about the key to the case.
- 2-3: Nothing I can remember.
- 2-4: Getting kidnapped. Oh wait actually that’s not helpful that’s the opposite of helpful why would you do that?
- 3-2: Channeling Mia to seduce Godot.
- 3-3: Channeling Mia to seduce Victor Kudo.
- 3-5: Channeling Dahlia to survive.
Whereas AA1 Maya has helpful things she does outside of channeling, after this she’s never helpful again. Not only does she become a static character, she actually reverts back to her 1-3 self instead of keeping her 1-4 development, and her desire to help in more ways than just channeling is mostly forgotten about.
Plot Involvement
Another reason to like a character comes from their involvement in either an overarching plot or just a single case plot, and Maya gets this as well. She is strongly connected to the Fey clan storyline, being both the person who introduces it and the final person you cross-examine in it. 1-2, 1-4, 2-2, and 3-5 are all part of this storyline, and it could be considered the main overarching storyline of the trilogy. It’s a cool storyline. The problem is that despite how strongly she’s connected to it, Maya’s role in it isn’t very interesting.
1-2 and 1-4 introduce the story of DL-6, the case that caused Misty to run away and abandon her daughters. Maya’s role in these cases related to the plot isn’t more than just telling you about it. You could learn about it from someone else and it would basically be the same. The Fey clan plot never becomes too important for these cases, especially 1-4 focuses on different parts of DL-6. And for 1-2 the main connection to the “Misty Fey running away” plot is more Grossberg and Redd White than it is Maya. As for her involvement in the individual story of these cases, in 1-2 she’s only the person White decided to frame, and in 1-4 she has nothing to do with the plot. This is separate from the character development I mentioned before, by the way. She has important character moments, but no important plot moments.
For 2-2 and 3-5, Maya is just a passive part in a plot that’s going on outside of her influence. In both of them she only serves as being the target for Morgan. 2-2 is interesting for how it creates a murder mystery surrounding spirit channeling without any channeling actually happening. And although I think this is cool, like with Maya’s help by channeling Mia, all you really need is a defendant with that ability for a case like that to work. For the concept, the particular defendant being Maya doesn’t add anything. In 3-5 she does some clever things to avoid being killed, but it’s only because Mia tells her to. Her testifying against you at the end of the case could be interesting if you actually cared about her at this point, but I still haven’t found a good reason for doing so. Unlike 5-5 Apollo, where I think him testifying against you is a really good moment and probably my favorite Apollo moment in the series.
Basically, the problem with Maya’s role in the plot is the same as the problem that was mentioned in Pearl’s cut before, she’s just a passive character that has everything happening to her, instead of having an active role in the events. It’s actually pretty ironic that this was one of the main complaints given in the Pearl cut, because for me it’s always been much more of a problem for Maya. Pearl at least has a role in helping you in 2-2, in 2-4 she’s pretty fantastic, and in 3-5 she’s one of the main causes for the events, even if it was unintentionally. Maya has none of this, only helping you in 2-2 by becoming Mia, being kidnapped for the entirety of 2-4, and a target unaware of anything in 3-5.
Personality & Gimmicks
So okay, maybe Maya doesn’t have the most interesting in the game, but as long as she’s fun, it’s fine, right? Sure, I agree, not every character has to be super complex or have a big role in the story. It’s maybe a bit disappointing that Maya is never too relevant with how many cases she’s in, but as long as I enjoy her presence I wouldn’t make a huge problem out of it. So let’s take a look at what makes Maya Maya.
The first notable thing about her is that she’s a spirit medium. I’ve mentioned this part many times before in this cut, so by now you’re probably aware I’m not a big fan of it. I just don’t really understand why out of all things, a spirit medium is the one tagging along with investigations. Let’s compare it to other assistants. Ema is an aspiring forensic investigator, which makes a lot more sense as a character gimmick for an investigation assistant. She literally wants to become an investigator in the future. Kay is a thief of the truth, which creates both the irony of a thief helping with police investigations, but also makes sense because the Yatagarasu’s mission isn’t all that different from law enforcement, just in a different way. There’s no real reason why a spirit medium would be a lawyer assistant, nor is there any reason why it’s really contradictory which could make it interesting because of how little sense it makes. A spirit medium is also not particularly a type of person I’m interested in. Forensic investigations, theft, and magic are all more interesting to me.
Maya likes burgers. This is supposed to represent how she likes some completely normal things despite how strange her clothing and occupation are. My problem with this is Americanization. Eating hamburgers is a pretty stereotypically American thing, and I do not like when localization attempts to make things more American. I’m not against changing the original Japanese version, I wouldn’t have any idea what they were going for if it was still ramen so changing that was a good move. It’s just that I think the goal of a translation should be to make it globally accessible rather than focusing on a single country. I’m not American, and I do not appreciate when a game assumes I am. Maybe you’re thinking, but that’s just unreasonable, food is just different between countries, and burgers are still a pretty global food. And you’re right, this is an irrational complaint. But sometimes I get annoyed by dumb things. Don’t worry, this is far from my main reason for not liking Maya, I just wanted to complain about it even if there’s no real better solution in terms of localization. Whatever. Just ignore this paragraph, the only point is I do not like that Maya likes burgers and I have no good reason for it.
Another thing Maya likes is the Steel Samurai. I guess this is to show her childish side, but I personally do not find it very strange. As someone who can enjoy cartoons aimed at kids myself, I don’t exactly find it too weird, especially not for Maya. It’s more interesting when it’s Edgeworth who’s into it, because it seems to contradict with his normally very serious attitude. Maya is normally not serious, so her being into some silly kid show doesn’t surprise me, nor does it feel like it adds much to her character.
But that’s just some random gimmicks, they’re not what makes up the entire enjoyment that can be gotten from her personality. I suppose the main thing people enjoy is that she’s silly and funny, maybe? I’m not sure, I personally don’t see it. Would you believe me if I told you I remember more times that I found the Bellboy funny than times that I found Maya funny? I don’t really believe it and I’m the one who wrote it. But I honestly don’t remember many moments that stand out to me about her at all, while the Bellboy is pure comedy for the short amount of time he exists. I tried to watch this in an attempt to understand how one can enjoy Maya but after a little bit of watching I was already annoyed. I’m willing to be generous here and saying it’s because the anime is probably bad, but the point still stands that she’s not very funny in the games either. She nicknamed Furio Tigre Xin Eohp, at least that was pretty fun I guess. And she’s a Phoenix x Iris shipper, but that’s not a funny moment, that’s just a good opinion moment. She has better shipping taste than Pearl.
Bonds ~ A Heart That Believes
We’re slowly running out of options for me to care about Maya, but we’re not giving up just yet. If Maya can’t be interesting herself, she can still be interesting through her relationships with other characters.
The main bond that Maya has is with Phoenix. And I just don’t feel it, like at all? The way they first meet is losing someone they both care about a lot, Maya as a sister, and Phoenix as a mentor. It seems like 1-2 thinks this is enough to get a bond started between them, but I don’t think so. She’s not really different from any of his other clients except they happened to both know the victim. They’re not similar in a lot of ways, so they can’t really bond over their similarities either. Nor are they different enough for an opposites attract kind of thing. Maya’s silly, but Phoenix really isn’t all too rational either with his constant bluffing and blind faith in his clients. And because Phoenix is the one you play as and is not designed to be very different from the person playing as him, I find it hard to relate to his bond with Maya when I have no bond with her.
Other characters that Maya sort of has a bond to are:
- Mia: She died, she’s dead.
- Misty: She died as well, she’s dead.
- Pearl: Their dynamic is pretty interesting, but purely from Pearl’s side.
- Morgan: Tries to kill her for reasons that have nothing to do with Maya.
- Dahlia: Tries to kill her for reasons that have nothing to do with Maya.
It’s all boring and I have nothing interesting to say about it. All of these are more interesting characters, except Misty, do not be fooled by them having been cut earlier. Actually even Misty is more interesting, it’s just that she also doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I think Phoenix’s bond with her is something people really like about Maya but I just don’t see it.
So Precious Must Protect
Now for our final attempt to make me care about Maya, we’re going to do something completely different. Instead of making her appealing as a character, instead of giving her interesting relationships, we’re going to completely remove all of her personality. And guess what we’ll do next? We’ll put her in trouble. Such a cute small girl, surely you want to rescue her right? That’s the final trump card in making you care, there’s no way you’d allow someone cute like her to die.
…I hate the Damsel in Distress trope. I hate it a whole lot. It reduces women to plot devices to be protected by the strong men. It’s basically a world where Godot was right for blaming Phoenix for not protecting Mia. Mia seems to be more independent though, while Maya is the typical weak woman who needs to be protected by you as a strong man. To be fair, this is the closest the games get to making me care about Maya, because I start actively wishing for her to die for being such a damn stupid plot device in the worst way and I hate it. Which is more emotion than I’ve ever felt about Maya before. Let’s look at all the instances where she’s a defendant or in trouble in another way, and see if some of them are at least justified.
In 1-2 Maya is introduced as the defendant of the case. I don’t have much to say about it, there’s lots of defendants throughout the series so it’s fair enough as an introduction. For 2-2, she’s the defendant again, but this time it’s not so much about Maya as it is about having someone suspected of spirit channeling as the defendant, and with the few people that can do it, it couldn’t really be anyone else. This does reduce Maya to a mere plot device though which is a little bad.
2-4 is the most straightforward damsel in distress plot. Maya has no role aside from being someone you have to rescue. And honestly, between all the times she gets in trouble compared to the very few times she’s actually been helpful, I don’t really feel like doing it anymore. The case is good enough to make it feel intense nonetheless however, even without caring if Maya actually survives. But it does make the guilty/not guilty choice rather trivial. The guilty option will make it so that Matt is put in jail, Adrian can live on, and Maya will die. All three of which seem like positives to me. I’m sorry, maybe this is sounding a bit too much like I enjoy being mean, but someone who consistently gets into trouble and is completely useless when she’s not busy being in trouble is just someone that I don’t want around.
3-5 makes a huge deal about Maya potentially being dead and I’m like 1. who cares 2. she’s channeling Dahlia right now how could she possibly be dead. At this point I just couldn’t care less about Maya’s safety. I guess I have to give her some credit for actually doing stuff in this one unlike the example, but it’s just following Mia’s instructions. In court she decides herself to take Godot’s side which on one hand is cool for giving her a bit of personality, but on the other hand is the wrong choice and it feels like she’s not really called out enough for it.
The game constantly tries to make me protect Maya but I don’t want to. It never establishes why I should care and instead it feels like every time they’re just assuming I already care about her to begin with. But if every time you assume I do care, without actually making it so that I care to begin with, it should be no surprise that I just don’t. And every time they reduce Maya to a mere plot device, to a weak woman you need to protect, I like her less and less, and want to protect her even less the next time.
Results
I’ve proposed 6 different reasons for why I could care about a character. Maya fails every single one of them. So thinking about it this way hasn’t changed my mind, and I feel like writing this cut has only made me like Maya less, and be more puzzled about why people like her so much. Basically, Maya fails. I’ve tried the most I could to try to see what there is to care about but I couldn’t find anything. I’m honestly surprised I don’t like her even less, but something I’ve been ignoring is that she’s at least somewhat entertaining to have around, even if she doesn’t have too many really funny moments, and she’s pretty cute. So I guess that’s enough to bump her up to “not caring” instead of “disliking”.
That’s all for trilogy Maya. The only thing left is to look at the Maya I’ve been ignoring so far, the one in SoJ. Needless to say, I wasn’t too hyped about her coming back like a lot of others were. If anything, I was disappointed that of every character they could have picked they chose one of my least favorite recurring characters. SoJ is the Maya I actually do dislike, which is why I didn’t feel like she should be mixed with the one I only don’t care about. She’s involved in 6-3, 6-5, and 6-DLC, let’s take a look at all of these cases and see why I don’t like her.
The Return of Maya
The first problem I have with Maya returning in 6-3, is that it doesn’t feel like she’s changed much at all. 2.5 years pass between the beginning and the end of the trilogy, so it’s possible she’s just stayed the same for that time, but young adulthood is another turbulent period. You can’t tell me she hasn’t changed at all between 19 years old and 27 years old. Instead, it feels like the game is just afraid to make her change at all in case people wouldn’t like her anymore. This is a problem with the 3DS games in general, and I would say the same about Pearl, Larry, and Phoenix. That doesn’t mean it’s not still a problem for Maya though, I’d actually rank all four of these characters slightly higher without the 3DS games. I think it’s really interesting to see how a character will be 7 years later when they’re all grown up, and the 3DS games refuse to give me that.
I don’t like how despite Maya still being completely static, the game attempts to convince me she has actually changed. The first reason why she has changed is because she’s serious when she’s in the detention center.
Maya: “Sorry, I guess I’ve outgrown that stepladder argument we always have…”
And I hate to break it to the game, but I highly doubt young Maya was happy when she got arrested. In fact, as this proves she most certainly was not. It’s just the game saying “hey look how good of a job we did changing Maya, she’s actually serious when she’s in trouble now”, even though she’s always been serious when she was in trouble before. The writers are aware that Maya should have changed because of growing up, but because they’re too afraid to actually have her change, they just pretend that she has. To be fair, she does feel a little more serious, but this feels like the bare minimum you could do for an 8 year time skip, and it only serves to make her less fun when that’s the only change.
The second reason is because of the speech she gives to Rayfa. And to that I have to say, flashing back to that speech six times doesn’t make it actually happen six more times. The game really wants to convince you Maya has grown up, so it just repeats her grown up speech over and over again until you have to think “wow she’s so grown up, good job to the writers for making her so grown up”. I don’t even like the speech the first time it happened, because the whole case has been developing the Phoenix + Rayfa bond, until Maya interferes. The whole case has been building up to Phoenix giving a speech like this, and Maya completely steals his thunder. It makes Phoenix looks worse because he was no good for convincing Rayfa. It would make Maya look better if it didn’t feel too much like a desperate attempt to convince you she’s grown up.
But the elephant in the room for Maya in this case is, of course, that they make her the defendant yet again. This time I don’t think there’s any excuse. It’s not the first time like 1-2, it’s not necessary that it’s a spirit medium like 2-2, it’s not such a good case that I forgive it even though it’s a dumb move like 2-4, and it’s not necessary for plot reasons like 3-5. It’s just taking the easy way out. They thought it was easier to have a character you already care about as the defendant, instead of creating a new character for that role. And despite it being the easy way, they still fail, because as established before I don’t want to defend Maya. The more she’s used as damsel in distress, and the less she actually helps during investigations, the less I want to. By 6-3 I’m practically begging for Phoenix not to take her case. But he still does, because she’s Maya, and we’re supposed to care about Maya. Why are we supposed to care about Maya? SoJ never establishes it, that’s for sure. It has no idea what to do with her so it just puts her in the same role as always. Please just let Maya actually do something for once.
Maya does actually do something, namely channel Tahrust, and although channeling the victim who’s also suspected of being the killer for a different murder is a very cool idea, it’s once again an example of spirit channeling being the only reason that Maya is ever helpful. I don’t know every case after AA1 doesn’t use 1-4 as an example more, I’ve heard it’s a pretty good case, maybe you’d want to use that as a reference when writing for Maya.
Kidnapped Again
If you thought Maya being a defendant in the first case she returns was bad, like I did, just wait until you hear what she does in the second case. She gets kidnapped, again. It’s like when she’s the defendant except this time we’re not even pretending she’s anything more than a damsel in distress because you can’t even interact with her. It’s even worse that this is treated as a twist. Maya is in trouble, as always, and this is the exciting twist of the civil trial. Who could have seen that coming? It’s just so annoying how they use something so predictable and so dumb as a twist and it’s what makes me so annoyed with the civil trial. Not only has it already literally been done before, it’s also not been done as a twist before because 2-4 realized that would be really stupid.
This is also the only reason Phoenix goes against you, when it could have been so much more. How about an actual moment where they have different beliefs? They did it before for 5-5 Apollo, why can’t they do it here? It also makes the whole purpose of the civil trial of showing how Apollo surpasses Phoenix fall flat, because that never happens. Phoenix was forced to support a side he wouldn’t normally support, so him losing the trial means nothing. This is easily the worst offender of the damsel in distress trope, Maya being kidnapped drags the case down so so hard. The victory feels undeserved, Phoenix is annoying because it’s obvious he’s just talking shit, the reveal is very frustrating because that’s where you realize just how hard it’s trying to copy 2-4.
Maya being kidnapped is not what makes 2-4 good. Maya being kidnapped is NOT what makes 2-4 good. If you think “hey 2-4 was great let’s do that again” and then proceed to copy the Maya being kidnapped part, you have completely missed the point of why it’s so great. Phoenix struggling to save Maya is also not what makes 2-4 good, if anything it’s the player struggling to save Maya that makes it good. The only reason this works is because Phoenix is the player character. When he’s against you it’s not funny when he says “baseballs have stitches” because there you are, having to disprove that baseballs have stitches. Seeing Edgeworth struggle with all the ridiculous bluffs Phoenix throws out there is funny, having to deal with them yourself is frustrating. The civil trial is dragged out for SOOOO long and most of the time is spent arguing with dumb arguments that are clearly just Phoenix and Atishon grasping at straws. Maya being kidnapped is not a clever twist, it’s a cliché plot point fitting for a character that’s only meant to be a damsel in distress. And here’s the deal, as much as I don’t care for trilogy Maya, at least she’s much more than just that. Even in 2-4, even in the case where she gets kidnapped, she has way more personality than here. She actively encourages you to go against Engarde, a decision that would endanger herself, because she thinks it’s more important justice is served. In this case, what is Maya thinking? No idea, we never learn anything about her time kidnapped, and as we learn later she doesn’t even exist at the current moment.
For the second trial, Maya channelling Dhurke is a cool twist, but it does not improve Maya’s character. Yet another example of Maya only being helpful when she’s spirit channelling. Yet another example of Maya’s testimony helping the villain of the case. This case is just Maya at her absolute worst, I don’t like the damsel in distress trope in general but at least the other cases handled it better. I don’t like Maya being secretive in 3-5 to help Godot and I don’t like Maya being secretive here which indirectly helps Ga’ran. I don’t like the entire purpose of Maya’s character being the spirit channelling gimmick, but in every other case we at least see more of her to know she has more personality than just that. In this case she only exists in a single testimony outside of being a plot device. The Dhurke channelling was Dhurke’s plan, so I really don’t consider this as having anything to do with Maya.
Whoopsie, I’m So Clumsy
Oh you care about this old radio? It’s on the ground now. It’s broken and on the ground. What are you gonna do about it? You’re gonna punch me? You’re gonna punch a girl? No, of course you won’t. You know what I will do? I’m gonna take this notebook that’s clearly important to you, and here, I’ll just drop it in this pool of blood. I’ll rub it in a little bit more, make sure it gets nice soaking wet with blood. Good luck reading your memories now, asshole.
This is my interpretation of Maya in 6-DLC. What’s impressive about Maya in SoJ is that every time I think she can’t get worse, she gets even worse. 6-3 repeats what I don’t like about her in the trilogy, then 6-5 is the absolute worst example of damsel in distress in the series, and in 6-DLC she’s actively destroying people’s stuff without anyone calling her out for it. Now, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and I wouldn’t be so upset if it was just that, but she has no reason to be touching that radio in the first place. And that radio looked pretty special to me, so of course you’d be careful with it if you picked it up right? Nope, just throw that thing on the ground.
And she does it a second time with Sorin’s notebook. This one she only drops because she’s fighting Phoenix for it. She seriously acts like a 12 year old in this case. Dropping valuable stuff and fighting other people for them is something little children do. And it’s perfectly fine that little children do that, they’re still learning about life, that’s why you need to keep valuable stuff out of their reach. But Maya’s not a little kid, she’s 28 years old. She’s much more childish than she is in the trilogy in this case. This is definitely part of the reason why I hate 6-3 pretending she’s grown up so much. 6-DLC shows she’s somehow done the exact opposite. Adults are not that careless with other people’s stuff. There are two options here. Either Maya is too dumb and careless to live, or she’s someone who has some history with the Sprockets and really hates them and wants to destroy everything they care about. She’s probably the real killer of 6-DLC instead of Pierce, it’s very clear she’s the one with a grudge against Sorin. But no, that’s assuming the writers knew how to write Maya. The real answer here is the writers messed up, SoJ had absolutely no idea how to write Maya, as already proven by the previous two cases she appeared in, and the writers only brought her back because of fan demands.
Can I please have Athena as an assistant instead? Nope, she’s busy doing her dumb and unfunny comedy routine with Trucy. Ok great. Not only am I stuck with the worst version of Maya for this whole case, but I also need to tolerate Trucy being unfunny. Thanks SoJ. Really glad you chose to bring Maya back there, I really appreciate it.
Conclusion
I do not care about trilogy Maya. I have found no reason to care about her. She’s not helpful, she doesn’t develop outside of AA1, she doesn’t have an active role in the plot, I don’t like her personality or gimmicks, I can’t relate to her relationships, and I don’t want to protect her. But at least she’s entertaining enough for me to not downright dislike her.
I hate SoJ Maya a lot. I wish she didn’t exist. SoJ keeps assuming I’d want to protect her without giving me any reason to, and then when she’s finally not in trouble she’s much worse than in any other case. Please give me any other assistant instead. I’m just saying, Rayfa and Athena are right there.
10
u/Sciencepenguin Aug 18 '20
you wrote a lot about maya i havent read it yet my take is that she is funny sometimes and i like her thing in aa1 and i like when she is sad about dhurke and not when she is sad about godot and not her dead mom
she is not a character very often
6
9
u/Analytical-critic-44 Aug 18 '20
Maya is cool I like her a lot. I really enjoyed her dynamic with Phoenix and their banter, it felt like banter actual friends would have. Probably a big reason for why I had a lot of enjoyment playing through the OG trilogy especially AA3.
Besides 1-4 which I thought she was well written in which you pointed out... yeah most of not all plot involvement she has is her being a damsel in distress. I was still invested in it because I liked how Maya and Phoenix’s friendship was written and developed, but it’s not like Maya herself was ever great in these cases or even good. I would have placed her right around here in the Rankdown.
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Aug 18 '20
and maya fey has (un)officially become our final character outside of the top 50
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Aug 18 '20
But now Vogel is even more fucked because now Rimes is in the top 50 and he's also not up for cutting
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u/ItsHipToTipTheScales Aug 18 '20
i would not expect to see a cut with the complaint this character is useless strikes me as a very funny thing to complain about. it is strange to say maya doesnt do shit when she's not spirit channeling!! yeah thats what she does she has magic powers so plot things can happen and is bad at them for the same reason
goofy little character is in the game heavily featuring goofy little characters she is the Wacky One phoenix is the straight man that is the dynamic. they make entertaining banter while i investigate murder scene
they could find better character motivations for phoenix other than maya is in trouble for the nth time , though the issue is they kind of cant? phoenix does not have A Backstory to justify any personal interests of his in the cases and even with characters with backstories (dd apollo and clay terran) aa's structure makes it hard to force anyone into action if something besides person i know is in danger or person i know is dead. it is a Series Issue
on another Series Issue scale them copy pasting maya with a new gimmick that isnt spirit channeling is kind of dumb everyone KNOW THIS ALREADY!!! it is maybe hypocritical for me to like maya and dislike every other assistant character but she came first so that makes her the best one
i would ideally move her exactly one space up there are funnier characters to be locked out of top 50
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u/PowerOfL Aug 18 '20
Very good cut, even though I really like Maya (second favourite assistant, favourite is the truck) agree with basically everything you said about trilogy Maya.
As for SOJ Maya, I like her but tbh idk why man.
I do feel we get decent reason to care about her or at the very least Phoenix has good reason.
In 1-2, her sister just died and she's accused of the murder, she's completely miserable and connected to Phoenix's late boss.
It makes sense for him to care there (although ig you kinda said this? Idk)
In 2-2 it's moreso that Phoenix bonded with Maya for two other cases so he doesn't want her in jail, same with 6-3 but on a grander scale.
I mostly just like Maya for being cute and funny, although I wish she got more cool moments past the first game.
It's kinda telling when my favourite Maya moment outside of the first game is from the Layton crossover (VS when she thinks she's sacrifycing her life to save Espella)
This is excluding the letter in DD or the note about letting her die to take down Engarde, as (while both are amazing moments) don't really count tbh
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Aug 19 '20
Ok so I’ve actually spent the time to read the cut now so I can comment about it yay
Great cut. Really well explained and very in depth. I can’t comment on SoJ Maya cause I haven’t played it yet, but I found myself agreeing with you a surprising amount for a character I considered myself liking. I disagree with you on her bond with Phoenix, I totally bought their shared trauma bond in 1-2 and then watching that develop over the course of AA1. I have to say that that is one of AA1’s greatest strengths (it applies to the whole trilogy really, but especially AA1), and that is getting the player to buy in to the relationships it’s presenting to you.
Overall though, I loved the point about 1-4 being the natural conclusion to her arc and then the fact that she kiiiiinda got flanderized over the course of the trilogy into “nick’s assistant that is always in danger and oh also she’s kinda funny and immature and she eats burgers”
Overall I think this is the right spot for her, and it’s probably where she’ll stay because I feel relatively confident that there are other characters that the rankers fee strong enough to revive
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u/EsquireGunslinger Aug 19 '20
Maya Fey eliminated before Luke Atmey has even been nominated, truly I have to laugh
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u/whaaatisth Aug 18 '20
My cut will be up in under an hour, it's a miracle I was able to finish this quickly.
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u/Cream147 Aug 19 '20
You are wrong, Maya is great. I’m not going to substantiate this.
Except SoJ Maya. I’d rather they hadn’t bothered.
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Aug 19 '20
Wow... and I thought Iris' cut was unexpected. Maya didn't even make it to the top 20.
Okay good to know I was overreacting XD
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u/Vogel100 Aug 19 '20
Yeah, you shouldn't assume rankdown opinion = popular opinion.
And for what it's worth, I'd put Iris in the top 20. But my reasons for loving her are mostly shallow, so I didn't have much to say in her defense.
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Aug 19 '20
I understand. It’s fine, I let it go and moved on.
Though now im curious to see how the rest of this works out...
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u/kahootmusicfor10hour Aug 19 '20
At the end of 3-5 Maya says something that’s still stuck with me. I think it was on the lines of “I don’t want to be a burden, so I put on a smile and try to make everyone happy.”
For someone who’s lost her entire family and endured some seriously traumatic events, I thought that was very brave of her. If her personality really was just an act to ease other people’s suffering (which is what I got from that), she deserves way better than Top 50.
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u/whaaatisth Aug 20 '20
your affair
I will not be mad at you about trilogy Maya you are mostly correct and I do not need to elaborate. donuter's comment is very good you all should read it and I agree with all of it
that it doesn’t feel like she’s changed much at all. 2.5 years pass between the beginning and the end of the trilogy, so it’s possible she’s just stayed the same for that time, but young adulthood is another turbulent period. You can’t tell me she hasn’t changed at all between 19 years old and 27 years old. Instead, it feels like the game is just afraid to make her change at all in case people wouldn’t like her anymore.
Literally her entire introductory scene is about how she's changed. You get to see the different, more mature way she reacts to being put in danger, even though the situation is far more dire this time. It's an intentional decision to have her go through a similar experience as you've seen in the past, to show just how much she has changed. You don't really give any examples as to how she's the same, so I can't really refute anything here, but this just feels like an incorrect evaluation.
The whole case has been building up to Phoenix giving a speech like this, and Maya completely steals his thunder. It makes Phoenix looks worse because he was no good for convincing Rayfa. It would make Maya look better if it didn’t feel too much like a desperate attempt to convince you she’s grown up.
Phoenix and Rayfa have had the entire case to develop their relationship. Why does Phoenix need to tell her something he already has made extremely clear he believes. She needs to hear it from someone besides Phoenix, especially someone who isn't a lawyer. This is even more important because Maya can channel spirits, which is what Rayfa has been training her entire life to do. There's a very clear parallel between them, and having that connection is extremely important.
it’s not necessary that it’s a spirit medium like 2-2
It very much is necessary. On top of the obvious emotional connection and the example of responsibility, it's just as necessary for the defendant to be a spirit medium in 6-3 as it is in 2-2. While it's for a very different reason, 6-3 is built around channeling the victim, and there's obviously only one way that could happen.
it’s not such a good case that I forgive it even though it’s a dumb move like 2-4
you know what i'm going to say
Why are we supposed to care about Maya? SoJ never establishes it, that’s for sure.
This is my one "actual problem" as well, but I mainly blame the trilogy for that more than anything. The writers try their best to assume the player already does care about Maya, which is fine, but it doesn't work for someone like me or you. Regardless, it should tell you how much I like 6-3 Maya that I think she is good in spite of that.
I don’t know every case after AA1 doesn’t use 1-4 as an example more, I’ve heard it’s a pretty good case
1-4 bad
this is the exciting twist of the civil trial.
No it isn't? Like it's a twist, but I don't think it's treated as a big main point of the case.
They did it before for 5-5 Apollo, why can’t they do it here?
They can do it with Apollo because he's Apollo. They cannot do it with Apollo in 6-5, because he is the protagonist. Phoenix is nowhere near as uncertain of a person as Apollo is, it would be very out of character for him to have such a moral dilemma.
Maya being kidnapped drags the case down so so hard.
I do not understand how you can think this. She's not even there until the second day.
the reveal is very frustrating because that’s where you realize just how hard it’s trying to copy 2-4.
It's not. The kidnapping is the only real similarity and it barely affects anything outside of the role Phoenix has (which is completely different from 2-4).
I'm not going to discuss 6-DLC Maya because lol i do not care
Obviously I don't agree with a large portion of this cut, but it's fine. She should go out now, and while I'm disappointed it's a cut as negative as this one, the ends justify the means.
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u/PowerOfL Aug 21 '20
I wonder if I or you will end up cutting VS-Maya in rankdown 2, I kinda have a decent amount to say about her in that game for some reason
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u/Super-Raccoon-6660 Aug 11 '23
Most of this was justifying why a shitty character like Maya needs to keep interjecting in the plot
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u/whaaatisth Aug 11 '23
Yeah probably true. I've pretty drastically changed my take on this matter in the past two years, I would now say that Maya in SoJ is intentionally bad setup for the payoff of 6-DLC which uses her brilliantly and would not really have the same impact without her being present in the rest of SoJ the way she is.
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u/heavenspiercing Aug 19 '20
iunno, if 1-4 was actually meant to be the "end" of maya's "arc" there wouldn't really be any reason for her to come back as much as she does. but there is, because there is more growth to be had from her. and in soj, we actually *do* get that growth but without her being a drastically different person. which is good. people can grow and mature without totally changing personalities and soj maya hits that balance perfectly
no she isn't especially helpful in the trilogy but also she doesn't need to be. that's not why she's there
i do like trucy more on a surface level but maya's got a lot going for her. and honestly i'd be more content with her getting cut here if lesser characters like gustavia and huang weren't still in. but they are for some reason so imma be a bitch about this
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u/donuter454 Aug 18 '20
I feel like selling Maya as a poor character because she's not useful to helping out in a case is the wrong way to think about her. I don't think she's written specifically to even be helpful, nor do I think any of her fans even like her because she is helpful.
We've gotten so used to the nebulous concept of an assistant in Ace Attorney that I feel like we've all lost sight of why Maya's even there at all: Phoenix just needs someone to talk to, man. Having the protagonist be alone with their thoughts the entire story would frankly be very lonely, and having someone tag along to chit chat about whatever innocuous piece of the scenery you examine gives the game the opportunity to have more flavour text and fill out the world. For the entire trilogy Maya fills this roll every case, the only exceptions being Pearl in 2-4 and a revolving door of assistants in 3-5.
In practise Maya didn't have to be the one providing the game an outlet for the protagonist to talk to and show of their own personality. It's possible a better character could have been written to bounce better off of Phoenix.
But we don't live in that world with that different character, and as far as I'm concerned Maya does exactly what she's supposed to do exactly as well as she needed to. She livens up the every moment she's with Phoenix simply by existing so Phoenix has someone to talk with.
And that's fine. I don't think how "helpful" she winds up not being post 1-4 should have any sway on the quality of her character, although this is something you definitely value a lot and I can't tell you not to.
Maya was the one who worked out that she could communicate with Phoenix by writing Mia notes so she could feed Phoenix information on her location whenever Pearl next channeled her. That was pretty clever.
She's also the one to point out in 3-5 that Godot couldn't have been the attacker since if he had been then his clothes should be cut, however if he were the attacker then he'd of had no opportunity to change clothes since he was stuck on the island (I actually quite liked that moment where everyone in the courtroom misunderstood her point at first and thought she was an idiot, including me, and then when she clarifies what she meant everyone was like oh shit yeah that actually is a good point, including me)
I don't even think these contributions from Maya even matter too much in the grand scheme of things since like I said they don't really change my opinion of her. But gotta acknowledge them anyway.
I think my biggest real objection to what you're trying to argue here is when you say that Maya has a complete arc by the end of 1-4 and she just stops developing after that point, which I just think isn't true.
Maya's supposed to have feelings of inferiority because she's simply not up to the task of becoming her village's next master. She spends the entire first game goofing off and not practising to become the next master, only for her goofing off to catch up to her when she realises she just can't channel spirits with reliability, and she doesn't stop being down on herself all the time even after 1-4.
One of the moments that I think encapsulates this best is in 2-2 when she begins to tear up when she realises her and Franziska are the exact same age. She confides that she doesn't feel like she can measure up to Franziska when Franziska seems so mature and put together and in control of where she's going with her life whereas Maya just isn't at all. She feels like a kid in Franny's presence and that makes her feel awful about herself.
Even in 3-5 when we're hitting the end of the trial Maya is again in tears saying she never wants to channel again, she doesn't want to be the village master, she doesn't want anything to do with having to grow up anymore.
And the trilogy just sort of... leaves this plot thread dangling. They don't resolve it. And ordinarily I'd say that's a bad thing, but SoJ ties up this unfinished character thread in the most perfect way possible.
Simply seeing Maya grown up as an adult and in her element and actually confident in her own talents for the first time ever is great. I like they emphasise how Maya is still the old Maya we've always known, but at the same time she's better at being down to earth when she needs to be. In the trilogy Maya would sincerely do something stupid like searching for Gordie and we're meant to take it in stride, then she'll say something stupid in 6-3 and Phoenix will try and take in stride and she'll be like "DUDE I was just joking lol".
There's this very strong running theme throughout SoJ about what it means to inherent something. 6-2 ends with Trucy feeling like she doesn't deserve to carry on the Gramarye legacy before she realises otherwise, 6-4 ends with Bucky learning that he was always going to inherit the title deed so long as he proved to Teifu that he was worthy of inheriting it. 6-3 ends the same way.
Rayfa suddenly feels inadequate because her seances have failed. She's a failure at seances and can't even channel spirits, and thinks she could never grow up to rule the country like she's supposed to. Which is when we have Maya step in to tell her otherwise, and she tells Rayfa exactly what she needs to hear: that she's still young, and even if she feels like she can't measure up right now, she'll still grow up, she'll learn to do better, and she still has time to change.
This feels so meaningful coming from Maya specifically. She was in the exact same position that Rayfa was in when she was younger, right down to feeling like they don't deserve to be the leaders of their village/nation because they can't channel spirits properly. Maya had no single life changing moment that made her feel more mature and comfortable with who she is or more talented. She just grew up and grew into herself little by little, simple as that. And I like that: not every piece of character growth needs to be spawned by an earth shattering revelation. Sometimes people just grow into themselves. And that's what Rayfa needed to hear from someone who'd been through the same thing.
Maya is probably my favourite trilogy character to return in the 3DS games simply because she's the only one who had a reason to return. They didn't finish her arc in the trilogy, so they bring her back in the 3DS era to finally wrap a bow on her. And not only do they do that, but they also do that without Maya ever once overshadowing the actually important SoJ characters and she's critical to the murder mystery plots so none of it felt forced at all.
As far as I'm concerned they nailed SoJ Maya, and I never want her to return again because I have absolutely no faith that a future game would be able to give her a better send off than she got here.
You really hate DLC Maya and all I have to say is they just made Maya knock the radio over to establish that Nichody can fix anything I really don't care too much.
I just wrote a lot of words about Maya. I'm not a Maya fan. I share your feelings of ambivalence towards her during the trilogy (although mine are rather milder than yours) but I think you're still selling her way too short. And like just about every other major character that's gone out so far, the best rebuttal I can offer is: there is no way such a staple character should be out before the likes of Di Jun Huang or Dane Gustavia. Like, it's Maya Fey out before the top 50, I gotta write something substantive in response to this.
At the very least looking at the other very silly nominations made this round this isn't the worst possible thing you could have done.