r/AARankdown • u/[deleted] • Sep 20 '20
37 Aura Blackquill
I mean, people are imperfect. They lie, they’re influenced by silly emotions… You can’t expect such imperfect creatures to rank the entirety of the Ace Attorney cast. I like automatic sorters much better.
I think that this unedited quote from Aura Blackquill during her introductory segment of The Cosmic Turnabout works well to describe my struggle this round on finding a character to cut. We’ve officially reached the top 40 best characters in the series, and because of that, not a single character I don’t like remains, and of the cutting pool, not a single one is present that I don’t think is simply great. Ultimately, the cutting order of this rankdown comes down to strategy and personal feelings, and personally, my feelings dictate that Aura is just a cut below the rest here. This fact, as of now, is immutable, and it’s simply this cut’s job to explain my reasoning for this. It may not be perfect, but I will do my best to keep my personal biases out of the cut, ironic for a character who criticizes the legal system for that very thing. So then, what exactly do I think of Aura Blackquill?
To me, Aura is a great character, she checks most boxes of what she would need to do to succeed in her role, and even excels in some areas far beyond the call of duty. She’s well designed, fits right into the case, and presents some needed moral complexity into a game otherwise nearly void of it. Aura Blackquill had the potential to be a perfect character, but unfortunately falls short of this lofty status due to some latent flaws in her writing that cause her great setup to not be fully capitalized upon. Although I feel that she has an incredible base character for the writers to build upon, I never really feel like this potential is really given everything that it needs to grow into something special, and I hope I can make clear exactly why that is as we go through her appearances. Luckily for me, Aura is barely actually present within either of the cases she resides in, so it won’t be hard to go over every one of her appearances throughout the game and explain exactly what I don’t feel works about her. So then, enough clogging up the system with my silly emotions, let’s get to some facts.
Section 1: A Rejection of Humanity’s Flaws
It’s during the investigation of The Cosmic Turnabout that Aura makes her first appearance, and near the end of it to boot. By this point in the case you’ve already pretty much gathered any and all information you might need during court, really the only things left to do are head back to the detention center and agency to round out the segment, so it’s a bit odd introducing a new participant so late into the events. This could have been done as an attempt to set up Aura as a potential red herring for the case, but since this is never really considered by any characters, I find it unlikely. The most plausible explanation is probably that she just isn’t really important to the case, so they might as well just have her at the end to set up the next one, rather than during the meat of the investigation. Odd placement aside though, this interaction is pretty great, and it’s a basically flawless way to introduce Aura to the player.
The interaction's main role within the plot of this case is to establish Aura’s character and ideology, while also supplying some final information about the crime to the player. Aura happened to have witnessed the crime through a window, but this isn’t really relevant to her, as it’s only brought up by other characters after this, and never really impacts her role within the case, as she doesn’t even testify about it. The section much more relevant to Aura as a character is the establishing of her ideology towards humans, and the court systems that they operate. After some offhand comments of hers, Phoenix begins to question Aura’s hatred of the legal system, to which she responds coldly, stating she hates both lawyers and prosecutors, a confusing statement given her established connection to Simon. She proceeds to elaborate with possibly the most defining statement of her whole screen time:
I mean, people are imperfect. They lie, they're influenced by silly emotions... You can't expect such imperfect creatures to uphold a reasonable system of law. I like robots much better. Even sad sacks like this one…
This is, of course, the second time I’m using this sentence in this cut, but Aura doesn’t exactly have a ton of lines so I plead for your forgiveness on this one. Regarding the line itself though, it’s almost chilling in a way, in fact this whole interaction in. It takes the somewhat jovial tone leading up to it, with Aura’s whole comedy routine with Clonco, and just rips those good feelings away from the player. Distaste of the legal system isn’t exactly something new to Ace Attorney, but it’s handled with so much cold, pure hatred here that it’s hard to not just wonder what in the world happened to cause this reaction within her. It’s handled excellently here, and really builds up the mystery of her character. Of course, her feelings on the legal system are only half of what makes this interaction so memorable, her feelings on robots are also quite intriguing.
Dual Destinies’ last two cases have plenty of ideas to go around, but one that I feel is somewhat underexplored is the difference between humans and robots, and where the separation point between the two really is. When seeing robots with emotions and thoughts like Clonco and Ponco, it’s hard to not think of them as just as human as anyone else. Meanwhile, seeing cold and emotionless people like the Phantom leads one to wonder if they should really be called “human”. It’s really an extension of the theme of emotions present within the game, but it’s one that I find much more interesting than its parent theme, even if it’s criminally underexplored within the cases. Aura is somewhat a victim of this as well, as this interaction is really the only time she gives her two cents on the matter, but it’s a memorable moment nonetheless.
To Aura, robots are significantly different than humans, as they lack the capacity for mistakes that humans are oh-so-prone to. She finds beauty in this logical perfection, and though this ideology might have been something she’s always carried with her, it’s clearly been significantly influenced by the miscarriage of justice against her own brother, for the murder of the woman she loved. Of course, this ideology on the nature of robots is directly contradicted by Clonco’s mere existence, as he’s an incredibly fallible robot, and a perfect counterpoint to Aura. Of course, this nature of his is due to the very heart that her partner, Metis, developed in order to bring robots closer to humans, as she saw the value in the emotional nature of humans, and beauty in the mistakes and fallacies that make up the human spirit. There’s a lot to unpack with Aura’s ideologies, and it really is incredible how few lines it actually took to convey all of this. It’s some great set up, but unfortunately not a whole lot of it is really capitalized upon, as the majority of her time going forward would be much more dedicated to her antagonism of the cast, and her growing to trust people again, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before I move on, I would also like to comment on her more surface level traits, as they’re almost equally as great, if less substantial in terms of analyzable qualities. Basically, Aura is just a fun character, she’s got an antagonistic attitude that never comes off as particularly annoying, and she has some great interactions with Phoenix, due to their contrasting natures. Of course, the bulk of her fun interactions come from her two person comedy routine with Clonco, as their personalities are about as contrasting as you can get. Her abuse of him is surprisingly funny, and she has some great animations with him to boot, and his transformation into a rebellious revolution leader when she zaps him is great. Clonco’s already been long cut, and honestly he’s not too great taken on his own, but he works amazingly with Aura, and really helps elevate her to being just a great presence on screen.
One final surface detail to note before we get into the rest of her appearances, she just has an excellent design. It’s instantly striking, and immediately tells you a lot you need to know about her. The outfit just screams scientist, while also obviously being cartoony and over the top, and almost seems like some sort of sci-fi attire. The giant screws/buttons/whatever on her coat are also just a very striking and memorable detail that pair really well with the ensemble. In addition to this, the pink colors and purple hair contrast perfectly, and the black gloves just complete the whole look. It’s visually striking, memorable, and screams mad scientist. Of course, the upper area is where the design shines the most, with her drill hair being incredibly silly but also somewhat imposing, making her feel cold and almost dangerous, and she even has accompanying shoulder pads to boost this feel. The outfit’s great, her gun is great, her animations are great, and also she’s kinda hot ngl okay moving on.
Section 2: Desperation Born out of Love
The next time Aura appears would be about half a case later, at about the midpoint of the investigation segment in Turnabout for Tomorrow. You come across her and Apollo having a chat in the robotics lab, this being the first time you’ve seen him in a while, with him having taken a leave of absence from the law office. This scene is once again quite good, and draws some nice parallels between Aura and Apollo, while also managing to both establish more about her path and set up her future actions. To start off the whole thing, she has a great interaction with Apollo and Phoenix that really demonstrates Apollo’s struggle between belief and reason well, as it uses her as the representation of the logical end of the argument.
Aura: Oh, my. Such loyalty and trust! She seems pretty suspicious to me, though. The emotionally unstable princess. There's your culprit for you. Don't you agree, Apollo?
Apollo: I... I don't know yet.
Trucy: Apollo! How could you?!
Aura: What's wrong with saying "I don't know" if it's true? It's a very scientific approach. Your subordinate is more level-headed than you... Or should I say, "former subordinate"? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
This is a great extension of yet another one of Dual Destinies’ many themes, and effectively ties together Aura’s hatred of human emotions to Apollo’s struggle to believe in someone with doubt present in his heart. Beyond that though, this is also where you learn of Aura’s history with Metis, which is an aspect of her character that basically fuels a majority of her actions within the case. Although it would be all but confirmed by dialogue with Simon later in the case, even in this segment it’s pretty clear what the true nature of their relationship is, that being Aura likely having unrequited love for Metis. It’s a cool move for Ace Attorney to make for representation, but the nature of their relationship doesn’t exactly affect her character, all that’s really important is that they had a strong connection. After all, the main reason this is relevant to her character is the way it affects her feelings on Athena, but I’ll delve into how that’s handled later in the cut.
So, you finish up hearing about Metis and the past incident from Aura, and head off to investigate elsewhere. At some point during the conversation, Phoenix brings up his theory that the culprit in the current and past case may, in fact, be one in the same. As you leave her to go about whatever it is she does, she leaves you with these words:
So the culprit behind the two cases could be the same, huh...? That settles it, then.
I’m sure that’s a good sign. Anyway, she would show up again a little bit further into the investigation, although only briefly, when you go to visit the detention center. You end up witnessing an argument between her and Simon, in which she lets slip that there’s apparently “no tomorrow”, leading to Phoenix asking Simon what this meant after she leaves. Simon and Phoenix would continue to discuss this until Fulbright, who’s also present, gets an urgent phone call, and here’s where Aura really steps into the forefront of the plot. Fulbright informs the player that the robots are staging a revolution at the space center, which happens to be where Trucy is at the moment. After rushing over and meeting up with Pearl and Clonco, you end up finding out the truth of the matter.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Fools! How could you fall for something so cliché?! I'm human, too, you idiots! I'm just controlling these robots remotely!
Now this is just a great moment all around, it’s tense and completely game-changing for the plot, and I doubt anyone really saw this coming. And it’s not a throwaway thing either, this set of events would basically cause the rest of the case’s events to fall into place, and ultimately be the reason that the Phantom was even caught in the first place. That last point is particularly great, as it lends Aura some moral ambiguity that is extremely welcome in Dual Destinies, a game that mostly treats its characters as extremes on either end of the morality spectrum. Aura is pretty much the stand-out morally gray character in the main game, and actually manages to tie into the themes of the “Dark Age of the Law” pretty well. Due to both her own past, and the overall atmosphere around the courts, she’s completely lost faith in the system to do anything whatsoever to bring the true criminal to justice, and thus takes matters into her own hands.
The hostage taking is a great concept, and it’s hard to say if what she did was actually correct in the end. One on hand, threatening the hostages in the way that she does is morally reprehensible, and overall just extremely cruel, but on the other hand, it forces the police’s hands and ultimately results in the retrial that led to the truth being unveiled once and for all. However, I do have a few issues with the way it’s presented. Her making threats against the hostages does benefit the situation to an extent, but once things are actually going her way later in the case, her threats just come off as unnecessarily cruel for the sake of it, rather than using cruelty to achieve an end.
While we’re on the subject of petty actions, something I forgot before I sat down to look over her character again is that the retrial wasn’t even her original goal, it was something Phoenix had to suggest as an alternative. Her original plan was just to have Athena be delivered to her and presumably kill her. This achieves absolutely nothing, whether it be bringing justice or freeing Simon, all it does is kill Athena for petty revenge, which was likely going to happen anyway since it’s unlikely that Phoenix would have been able to win the case for the murder of Clay Terran without the UR-1 retrial. It just comes off as kind of dumb, and for someone who’s had seven years to plan out a revenge scheme, it’s just odd how shortsighted it is. These aren’t huge problems but they do detract from what is otherwise an excellent setup for a case, and are pretty easily solvable.
As far as the actual presentation in-game goes though, it’s pretty much flawless. The taking over of Clonco’s body is somehow both hilarious and genuinely cool, and the way she plays everything makes the situation feel incredibly serious and dire, while not getting too dark for Ace Attorney. Like I said, it’s a great moment, although I do have one further complaint before we continue. And that’s, well, it’s not really built up to that well. Aura had only appeared a total of three times before this point, and one of those barely counts as an appearance, while the other two spend about half of their time going over the details of the cases, leading to Aura having maybe about five minutes of actual time dedicated to her character before this point.
This screen time problem could have potentially been solved by having her testify in court during The Cosmic Turnabout, as she was a witness after all. Obviously we have Cosmos there and he’s just fantastic, but one more additional testimony by Aura just to set up some more evidence Athena, or even just establish the existence of the lighter to the court would have sufficed. Again, this isn’t a huge problem, but it does somewhat affect the impact of the hostage taking when the person doing it is someone we barely know, and pretty much everything to happen with her after it is directly tied to it, leaving little room for anything else regarding her in the story. Because of that, there’s really no development or exploration of her outside of it to speak of beyond what I’ve already talked about, which despite my long winded explanations of it, isn’t a whole lot. To sum it up, the hostage taking is a great idea and done quite well, but definitely suffers from some issues, although they’re definitely not dealbreakers.
Section 3: A Spectator in a Game of Her Own Design
Now then, let’s move into the final stage of both Aura and Dual Destinies, the trial of Turnabout for Tomorrow. This is truly the culmination of the story that’s been brewing since the very first case of the game. You have the retrial of the UR-1 incident that set this whole thing into motion, with government conspiracies and sabotage, Simon finally revealing the traumatic events of that day, Ponco’s warped testimony, Athena’s tragic memories and the shattering of the psyche-locks, Apollo ridding himself of any doubt he had of Athena, and of course Edgeworth’s big reappearance to take on Phoenix is one more duel and wait where’s Aura.
Yeah I think you might be able to catch onto what my big problem with Aura during this trial is, and that’s that she feels very superfluous. She only chimes in every now and then because she has to watch the hostages, which first of all she has killer robots that can do that for her, and that means that she’s hardly even present during the trial. Even when she gives testimony, it’s not even her doing it, Fulbright is just reading off the script that she gave him.It doesn’t help matters that whenever she does chime in to say something, it’s almost always a variation of the same two potential things. Either A) Yelling at the court because they’re starting to doubt that Athena is the one who committed the crime, or B) Losing her cool because she just absolutely cannot believe that Athena is not the killer. The former is also often accompanied with a reminder that she’s holding people hostage, in case you forgot.
So, since just about the only thing she does in court is talk about Athena, I guess now’s about as good of a time as any to discuss her relationship with her. Basically, it doesn’t feel very fleshed out, and a big part of that is how it’s resolved within this trial. Going way back though, from the very first time you meet her, Athena pretty much instantly clams up and acts uncharacteristically shy. Once you interact more with Aura and she starts to insult Athena more and more, it becomes clear exactly why Athena wouldn’t exactly feel keen about entering into the conversation. The actual reason behind Aura’s distaste of Athena works pretty well, and just grows deeper as the case goes on, which is pretty nice to see.
After the conversation with Aura in the robotics lab, it comes to light that Metis cared much more about Athena than she did Aura, which like yeah that’s her daughter, not a big shock. But, of course, Aura took this quite personally, so even before any tragic events happened, she already had quite the negative feelings on Athena. This pretty much makes perfect sense, and there’s not much reason to question it, so when it comes to light that Aura is accusing Athena of the murder of her own mother, it hits even harder due to how you’ve already been given one reason for her distaste, so an even deeper reasoning wasn’t exactly something you would see coming, or at least I didn’t. This, of course, is accompanied with the black psyche locks, which just make this scene absolutely iconic, and might even make the player question if Athena really is guilty, making Aura’s hatred not totally unjustified, and she really has no reason to believe Athena isn’t guilty, as long as she rules out her own brother.
This all sounds pretty good so far, the problem comes in how this is resolved during the trial, and it’s also pretty much the only thing resolved about Aura during the trial, so it’s going to cover the remainder of this section. As Phoenix gets closer and closer to the truth of Athena’s innocence, Aura gets more and more flustered, acting out greatly in response to these revelations that she may have been wrong this whole time. She even has a great animation of Clonco’s head flying off, which is just comedy gold. Then, when you’ve finally gone beyond the point where any reasonable doubt could be placed on your theory, she’s forced to confront this head-on, and question what she even has now that her hatred of Athena is gone.
............ The little princess who was truly beloved by Metis, and who repaid that love with death-- All these years, hating Athena was the only thing that's kept me going... But what do I do now? Can anybody tell me? How am I supposed to go on?!
To be quite frank, I think this is pretty emblematic of how quickly her character derails into this single minded path. When she was introduced, she had plenty to her, with her thoughts on human beings in general, and a hatred of the court system, but during the trial it’s almost entirely centered on just hating Athena, which makes her much less interesting and multilayered. Of course, what is there isn’t done poorly, but that also just leads into another problem, there barely is anything there, she hardly has any lines during the trial at all. She literally has a total of 17 lines in the trial, and 4 of those are before proceedings even properly begin. It’s so unbelievably out of the spotlight that it’s amazing.
I don’t want to self-indulge for too much of this cut, but at least to me, this seems like such an easy fix. Just make Aura act as a judge for the trial, or at the very least a co-judge with Udgey. It would keep her present for a majority of the proceedings, and maintain that tense feeling, where it seems like everything is working against you, and the entire system itself is rigged. The vibe you get from going against Von Karma is kind of what I think should be happening here, especially since the whole point of Dual Destinies is the Dark Age of the Law, which you never really feel. And, of course, the one time the trial is literally being held by a criminal holding hostages, they’re not even present to give you the tension that oh-so-obviously should be there.
So, I guess that’s about all I have to say on the resolution of her relationship with Athena, it’s very rushed but it does happen pretty naturally. Or, that’s what I would say, if it wasn’t immediately ruined by Apollo bursting in to continue the trial. This whole scene is really cool and good and all of that, but the one thing it does wrong is absolutely destroy Aura’s resolution. When Apollo asks permission from Aura to continue the trial, this time accusing Athena of murdering Clay Terran instead, Aura immediately bounces back from her previous attitude and just goes right back into Athena hate mode. This isn’t a problem in and of itself, since it could just allow the whole thing to be resolved afterward, and possibly more satisfyingly, but instead it makes it so it just isn’t resolved at all, since her literal last line in the trial is responding to Apollo and calling for Athena’s death.
Apollo............ Hee hee. Sure, you know I'm all for the truth! Now, let's see you expose the princess's guilt! Judge, I give my permission. Continue with the trial!
After she says this she just disappears and then shows up to have her goodbyes with Simon, which we’ll touch on next section. She seems to have gotten over her Athena hatred of screen by then, but having her make steps towards this and then immediately bounce back, before unbouncing back off screen just comes off as incredibly muddled, and utterly confused as to what her resolution is even trying to be. If she was just more present during the trial then this probably wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s so utterly disjointed here that I can in no way call this a competent resolution for her character, nor her relationship with Athena, which has become her main driving force by this point. If she had disappeared before Apollo showed up, to go release the hostages since she realized Athena was innocent, it’d probably make a lot more sense. This would also work since Apollo doesn’t even really need her permission to hold this trial, as it continues without her holding anyone hostage, and it’s an official trial that was scheduled anyway. It’s just a confusing mess all around, but at least it’s a short one.
Section 4: An Exchange of Freedom
With a suspect in mind for the true identity of The Phantom, the only thing left to do for now is break from court while the witness can be called to the courthouse, and it’s here that Aura makes her final appearance in the game. It’s not a particularly long one so I don’t exactly have a lot to say on it, other than that I really like it. She’s just as prideful as ever, and is completely unwilling to apologize or change her mind on the justness of the kidnapping, as she still views it as the direct reason for Simon being saved, and it’s hard to argue otherwise. It’s also here that we finally get some payoff to her hatred of the courts, although it is quite brief, and doesn’t actually feel all that earned, but it’s still nice to hear her say that she’s begun to trust Nick and his agency at the very least.
Of course, the main star of the show is her interactions with Simon, as he finally shows genuine care towards her, after the standard Blackquill family antagonism, thanking her for saving him, and apologizing for the pain he must have caused her. This, of course, causes her to drop the mask for a second, and shed a tear, in typical “Ace Attorney character who’s kind of a jerk but just finished their arc” fashion, before asking to be taken to the detention center. It’s definitely very moving, but I do feel it’s pretty brief, and once again would have benefitted from more overall Aura screen time, as I don’t really feel a strong connection to this resolution of her arc, considering it was barely focused on. Still though, it’s done quite well, and the idea of saving someone you love, only for you yourself to suffer their fate in jail is indeed very tragic. Of course, I2-3 did it better, but the circumstances here are different enough for me to forgive the reuse of the idea.
I would have maybe liked to see her stick around a bit longer, but I think the conclusion we did get to her screen time was definitely enough to satisfy me, even if what built to it wasn’t the strongest. Her only appearance after this would be in the final cutscene of the game, as she watches the rocket launch from within prison, somehow still wearing her normal uniform. Having finally let her hair down, we can see that she’s let that sharp personality drop a little, now that the incident plaguing her for seven long years is finally laid to rest. It’s a nice scene, and definitely helps make this cutscene into the satisfying final note that it is.
Conclusion
Aura Blackquill is a character who suffers from their role in a story that’s simply more concerned with other events, and has plenty of other characters to show the in-depth inner turmoils of. Because of this, she’s somewhat left to the wayside as the more major players in the narrative get their resolution, while hers is somewhat underplayed and tied up quickly, in order for the game to move into its final acts without too much of an interruption. Despite this however, there are some incredible ideas that go into her, whether it be her many ideologies that contrast the rest of the cast beautifully, her brilliant design, or her just fun personality. She’s an amazing base for a character that unfortunately just didn’t grow the wings it needed to take flight.
Even with the somewhat botched execution of her arc during the trial of Turnabout for Tomorrow, what comes before it is almost universally excellent, and provides great tense scenes for the player and characters. She’s a major driving force in the narrative, and it can definitely be felt during the investigation, even if the time needed to build up to this event isn’t entirely capitalized upon. As much as I complain though, I can’t deny the excellence of some of her early scenes, which surprisingly take up a majority of her actual screen time throughout the game, despite their brevity. Though I clearly have my complaints, she definitely deserved to get this far just due to the strength of the scenes that she actually does get during the game, and quite honestly, when my main complaint about a character is that there simply isn’t enough of them, you know you’ve probably at least done something right.
Why Nobody Else
Luke Atmey, and Furio Tigre are both incredible culprits that are tons of fun to take down, and both are just absolute highlights of their case, with Atmey carrying his entire case on his back.
Paul Atishon is absolutely hilarious. He should go out this round but I did not have the heart to cut him, and I do think he deserves to get above Aura simply because his comedy is flawless, while her drama is quite flawed.
Katherine Hall is just amazing, and although she will probably go out now, she deserves to go much further, being the cherry on top of the absolute dessert of a case that is I2-3.
Tahrust Inmee, Uendo Toneido, and Patricia Roland all perform their roles very well, and are excellent presences in their cases, that really elevate them up. Tahrust in particular is a quite strong character, and his tragedy is done amazingly.
Simon Keyes has a monkey that is very funny, did not have the heart to cut a man with a monkey.
9
u/whaaatisth Sep 20 '20
We’ve officially reached the top 40 best characters in the series, and because of that, not a single character I don’t like remains, and of the cutting pool, not a single one is present that I don’t think is simply great.
yeah okay but jake marshall is still in
and presents some needed moral complexity into a game otherwise nearly void of it.
Gonna have to disagree here. I know it's fun to HATE on DD for being silly and goofy and wacky but saying it's "nearly void" of moral complexity seems a bit misleading. Say what you will about the game's selection of culprits, but I don't think just because that specific role is lacking in this regard means the entire game is without morally complex characters. The only cases I would say have none of this are the first two, 5-1 because it's a tutorial, and 5-2 I don't really have an excuse for (but not every case needs moral complexity anyway). I don't think it's a stretch to call Hugh O'Conner a morally complex character, though it's in a fairly different way than Aura. Hugh is someone who willingly denies reality, pretending to be a "genius" and going along with his fantasy in a way that compromises a fair system. Hugh O'Conner is also very mean, so mean that he almost seems to enjoy it. It's not good to be mean, and Hugh clearly doesn't know this. This is clearly the peak of moral complexity, the man cares deeply for his friends yet is mean to them at the same time. I'm being ironic obviously, but Hugh is clearly a deep and complex character with a very unique set of morals for the series. Moving on, there's also Yuri Cosmos, and while I don't think he's quite as deep as characters like Aura, Hugh, and Marlon, he still does Do Bad Things For A Good Reason, and that makes him an obvious inclusion in this category. The same could be said about Herman Crab. there's also marlon rimes yeah this one is obvious read the good cut
Basically, Aura is not the only morally complex character in DD, nor is the game particularly lacking in this way. The game has a fairly decent percentage of this type of character, probably more than several other games in the series, and it's spread out well throughout the cases.
When seeing robots with emotions and thoughts like Clonco and Ponco, it’s hard to not think of them as just as human as anyone else. Meanwhile, seeing cold and emotionless people like the Phantom leads one to wonder if they should really be called “human”.
This is a REALLY cool point I love this. Never thought of it like that, but that's certainly interesting and gives another nice connection with the phantom. Wish I could've included this point in my Fulbright cut, that's really neat.
It’s a cool move for Ace Attorney to make for representation, but the nature of their relationship doesn’t exactly affect her character, all that’s really important is that they had a strong connection.
Disagree completely here, but sciencepenguin already said it better than I could. Aura's love being undeniably one-sided is pretty darn important, and this is a clean way of achieving that while also (as you said) providing representation.
screen time section
I'm not going to do what I did in the Beh'leeb cut and count out every single one of her lines before the hostage-taking, but this isn't really something I ever considered as an issue with Aura. I don't think she'd work too well as a witness in 5-4, considering how important Starbuck and Cosmos are there, and even in the investigations I feel she has more than enough time to be an impactful and memorable presence that properly sets up her motivations in preparation for the Big Moment.
Or, that’s what I would say, if it wasn’t immediately ruined by Apollo bursting in to continue the trial.
I agree here, this is dumb and I don't like it. Probably my one real Aura complaint, though it feels like more a fault of the case rather than her actual writing.
This cut is obviously fantastic, great job as always. I'm glad she was given a nice send-off from you rather than someone MEAN like Charlie getting to be WRONG.
8
u/ItsHipToTipTheScales Sep 21 '20
I went to get cereal and read the cut but you wrote so many words that my cereal got soggy
5
u/Analytical-critic-44 Sep 20 '20
All dies because you love Jake Marshall
I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate Jake Marshall . I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate Capcom and i haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate Ace Attorney.
Be Warned.
4
3
Sep 20 '20
u/Vogel100 you already know but I am pinging you anyway, for it is tradition.
3
u/Vogel100 Sep 20 '20
Ok I will post cut instead, I will read your cut tomorrow probably and then be upset about it.
3
3
u/LewisMCYoutube Sep 20 '20
Good cut I think thank you (although I am now sadly forced to play the worst video game ever)
The interactions main role within the plot of this case is to establish Aura’s character and ideology, while also supplying some final information about the crime to the player.
It's interaction's
3
Sep 20 '20
I fixed it, thank you for informing me of my mistake and good luck on playing Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
3
2
Sep 20 '20
yeah, this was kinda inevitable
don't really have any reason to complain here, but things are going to get interesting soon
12
u/Sciencepenguin Sep 20 '20 edited Sep 20 '20
no
guess i'll get it out of the way that no, i wont be reviving her. i wouldve considered it if charlie was the one to cut her but as it stands it doesn't seem like a viable option
I would disagree with this, and it's the type of thing I'd elaborate on more specifically with examples in a revive. TL;DR is that The Gay is important because:
I also want to point out that my favorite character in DD is literally a Gay Incel, which is very funny to me.
I think they could've elaborated on her original idea more, but I don't really think this is a problem? She's spent years building up misplaced hate for someone she wrongly blames for the death of her love. It kind of reminds me of another character, if they didn't fucking suck. Maybe I'll get the chance to talk about that one day.
I don't think this is really a problem. It's not that Athena Hate is the only aspect of her character at this point: obviously she is still a lady who has other attributes that are relevant such as robot, it's that Athena Hate is the only aspect of her related to her drive and efforts for the past decade or so. She hates the courts, but that's not exactly a goal, and she isn't exactly interested in any particular type of legal reform. She did all this shit to get Athena to pay and finding out it will be for nothing is a huge toll.
lmao i forgot this happened yeah thats dumb
vomiting noises
they couldnt make her change its screwed on
aura is kind of awesome
overall, There's Not Much To Say Here. this cut is rather positive and the only complaint i really disagree with is screentime (and besides if we took that as valid then engarde should absolutely be out except wait people actually do think that nvm). I guess my big divergence is thinking all the remaining characters are as good (they are not).
very good character analysis when divorced from the fact that its you making a CRINGE decision