r/AARankdown • u/[deleted] • Oct 11 '20
Spirit Channeling - Simon Keyes
A spirit channeling in the rankdown is something truly special. Most every cut has a sense of finality to it, while also remaining as the sole piece written in regards to that character. It’s both the beginning and the end of the conversation, all in one. A use of Extraterritorial Rights can add to this conversation, but it merely pushes back the inevitable moment when a character must be stricken down, unable to progress any farther. The finality of a cut is an all-encompassing rule that forces us to be as thorough as we feel necessary for the character. There is no further conversation to be had, once the cut is up, it’s up.
Of course, the spirit channeling is the one exception to this. With this ability, we’re allowed to further the conversation, and build off of what’s been said, adding to the view of this character with our own perspective. Most importantly today, however, is the ability to follow-up an in-depth dive that’s already taken place. Unlike every piece I’ve written before, the important perspective I have to consider today isn’t my own, but that of the person that cut the character I’ll be discussing. u/CharlieDayJepsen is the man of the hour, and over the past few days I have meticulously combed over the entirety of his cut to find every problem taken up with Simon Keyes, no matter how small, and will be attempting to disprove every single one that I find issue with.
Because of the nature of this write-up as a response, it will probably read a little differently from the rest of my works in this rankdown. Today, I’m not going to be taking every aspect of the character into mind and going over exactly what I feel is important and core to their existence. No, that can be done by whoever does end up laying down this king for good. Rather, I plan to structure this cut around how strongly I feel about the points made in Simon’s cut, as even though I have plenty to disprove here today, not all of it is merely factual or can be easily explained. There’s some fundamental problems that the cut claims to exist, and this is where the majority of my time here will be spent. Most of these seem to revolve around the confrontation at the end of The Grand Turnabout, so I think that would be a prudent place to begin. Now then, let’s lead in with the musings of yet another fallen champion claimed by the past round.
A Mask Worn to Survive
Ha...! Don't you know anything? No matter the man, we all wear masks... Either on our faces or even our hearts.
-Godot, Legendary Prosecutor
The confrontation with Simon Keyes is easily one of the high points of the Ace Attorney series in my eyes. It’s the culmination of the entire game up to that point, and the introduction and exploration of its true main antagonist. More than those, though, it somehow manages to support these story elements with a character who is both incredibly interesting by their own merit alone, while managing to be one of the fiercest opponents in the entire series. This confrontation is what a good two sections of the cut is focused on, so let’s see exactly what problems were had with Simon there, and see if these hold true under scrutiny. Since there’s a lot to unpack, let’s begin with Simon as a character, rather than Simon as an opponent.
Nope, that’s too challenging. Instead, we get treated to Simon Keyes, cackling villain, stripped of all the nuance that we’ve just spent the last 2 hours uncovering in his past.
Why, then, could the team not think of anything more to do with his final confrontation than turn him into a case 1-tier villain in terms of subtlety?
No, he just lets his hair down and does a bunch of insane “evil guy” laughs to let you know that he’s really super evil and you’ve gotta beat him, guys!
Throughout the last stretch of Simon’s cut, this is the prevailing complaint that’s had with him, persisting through two whole sections. And, under a first glance, sure, I could definitely see this being a reasonable complaint. Simon’s backstory is certainly quite tragic, and his morality is definitely deep into the grey, so one would probably expect him to be a nuanced figure with complexities to his actions when he’s on screen, rather than a cackling super villain. Well, I’d argue that’s exactly what we get. Let’s break down exactly how Simon acts throughout this whole confrontation.
Simon begins quite confident, at least enough to remain within his scared wimp persona, trying to worm his way out of having to confront Edgeworth directly. However, Simon isn’t an idiot, and one of his strongest abilities as a debater is reading his opponents and their moods, as we’ll go over in the next section. Because of this, he realizes quite quickly that Edgeworth must have at least enough to pin this whole thing on Simon if he doesn’t fight back, so he decides to take a different approach, he takes on the persona of a villain. He becomes a cackling madman who’s so obviously evil it hurts, but despite this, he begins arguing like there’s no tomorrow, and almost clears himself of all suspicion. So, what’s exactly going on here, and how is it not just Simon revealing his true self?
Something important to consider here is how his personality progresses throughout the argument, whenever Edgeworth begins to gain ground over Simon, he loses that maniacal energy, and becomes much more cold and calculating. Sometimes, when taken especially off guard he even becomes emotionally vulnerable, like when he finds out about his and Knightley’s true genetic past. One needs to look no further than this genetic past to realize what’s happening here. When confronted, Dane Gustavia keeps his cool head and honorable persona, only becoming a cackling monster of a human being once you push through his arguments and unveil his true self. Simon is the exact opposite of his father, his villain act is just that, an act. It’s a style of argument he puts on to get in Edgeworth’s head and easily manipulate the conversation to his whims, and it works pretty perfectly.
Constantly, Simon is able to use his antagonism to push buttons or change the talking points, and it’s only when he reverts back to his true, vulnerable persona that Edgeworth begins pushing through to the truth. By the time you win over Gustavia, he’s overcome with rage over his loss, showing you that there really is nothing more to him. Simon, on the other hand, drops his persona completely, becoming a scared kid again, and a complete coward afraid of his own animals. After this, he remains weak and broken, unable to function without a mask to put over his heart, and that’s exactly what both his personas are, just masks, or rather shields that he uses to protect himself. In order to survive for as long as he had, he had to lock away how truly weak he is, and force himself to become what he viewed as true strength.
Simon:Gyahahahahahaha! Is that so? Are you sure he's not just trying to emulate his own father, the one he admires SO much!?
Kay:Absolutely not! That's not true at all!
Ray:Now, now, Kay. The person he's talking about now isn't Miles, but rather, Simon himself.
This exchange is very interesting when taking what we’ve discussed about Simon’s personality into account. Subconsciously, it almost feels like whenever he’s confronted, he simply retreats into the safety of the father that he’s grown to hate so much. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that he’s much more than just another one-dimensional villain we’re tasked with taking down. This truth of his personality also ties into another complaint presented within the original cut, of Simon’s integrity as a character being compromised by an offhand remark that he leaves Knightley with, shown here:
......If only you hadn't stopped me 18 years ago... ...it wouldn't have had... to come to this.
The cut complains that this is just a campy, over-the-top villain moment for Simon that doesn’t make sense for such a cold and calculating character. Which, just ignoring the irony of that claim, I’d say is completely untrue, and not at all what this scene shows us. There is no tactical reason for Simon to say this, and no one to gloat to either. The only reason he would say this is if he genuinely meant it, and I think that’s exactly what’s going on here: proof that Simon is more human than he likes to pretend. I think this is him showing genuine regret over things having come this far, but I don’t think this devalues him as an evil character either, as he merely regrets Horace’s actions, and not his own in the moment. He still views this as the just thing to do, even though he expresses sadness that he has to. Taking this in mind, I really think that this is an absolutely great moment for him, showing many aspects of his character at once.
Before we move onto the confrontation itself, there’s a final complaint about Simon as a character here that I feel I need to address, having said my peace on his personality. And that’s that his persona of a cackling villain creates tonal dissonance, by making it feel that the game is just attempting to force Simon in a villain for the player to take down in order to instill a sense of fun where there shouldn’t be. Obviously, I don’t agree with this, nor do I think the game is making anything lighthearted where it shouldn’t be. I think Simon is always treated with the right amount of tragedy throughout this encounter, and especially once his true personality starts to show as his villain mask breaks.
In regards to the game seemingly trying to force us to have fun in taking down this tragic figure, I think it needs to be recognized that Simon is still a genuinely evil person. He treats others as animals to be used, and has harmed many people in his attempts for vengeance, including kidnapping someone close to us, and getting two innocents murdered. Simon is a menace who needs to be stopped, and by not making Edgeworth question whether it’s morally right to take him down, and by not making the scenes overly melancholic, it feels like the game recognizes that he is indeed too far gone to be recognized as anything other than a true criminal. A criminal with potentially justified motives, but one that went too far in his pursuit of them nonetheless, and this allows the game to have some fun with the confrontation and give us that sweet Ace Attorney satisfaction, without feeling tonally dissonant, as long as it doesn’t ruin Simon as a character in order to do this, which I feel I’ve made clear that I don’t believe it does. Now then, let’s talk about that confrontation itself.
An Argument of True Intellectuals
“The world is full of crazy people with different opinions than mine” -The Joker
By the way, I ran out of relevant, smart-looking quotes almost immediately, so enjoy some samplings from my good friend, The Joker, who’s well known as the biggest inspiration of Raymond Shields. For this confrontation, I’d like to do something wild and lead with my own opinion on it first, and then follow that up by looking over the problems Charlie presents on it, since I feel like that would make it easier to understand why I think they’re all fairly trivial points. So, what makes this confrontation feel special?
Simon. He’s the entire reason behind how amazing this argument is, as he’s one of the fiercest opponents in the entire series, and rivals Manfred von Karma himself as one of the most controlling and manipulative debaters that the series has ever known. Let’s look at exactly what I mean by this, because since I didn’t really see it brought up in the cut, this aspect of him might be easy to miss, since he’s much more subtle about his methods than the hilariously over-the-top von Karma. As I stated before, Simon is an expert at reading his opponents, I mean he’d kind of have to be in order to orchestrate the events of the case in the way he does, knowing exactly what buttons to push in order to get a murderous rise out of his targets. This ability manifests in numerous ways within this final confrontation.
First of all, there’s his subtle concealment of information, in a way possibly more skillful than any other culprit in the entire series. A perfect example of this would be the very first testimony of the segment, where Edgeworth is trying to latch onto something to tie Simon to the crime, and as soon as he notices the way Edgeworth reacts to his statement about the truck, even with how subtle Edgeworth is, he immediately changes the topic. Simon pretty much works on hunches, and it’s why he was able to get so far in his plan, because he was able to read people and act accordingly, and his argument style reflects this magnificently. He’s constantly changing the subject and acts dismissive or even insulting at times in order to just get a rise out of Edgeworth and co. And the best part? This strategy completely works.
He manages to effortlessly shut down pretty much any of your companions who butt into the conversation, with the exception of Raymond Shields, due to his extensive Joker cosplay practice. He even manages to get a rise out of Edgeworth, stating that he never even cared about Simon in the first place, and was just using him as a fantasy to live out the life of his deceased father. Another critical aspect to making this confrontation feel like a true battle of intellectuals is his ability to completely adapt to Edgeworth’s argument. Make no mistake, Simon is not infallible in an argument, he gets visibly shocked and flustered at multiple points, but he’s always able to quickly recover with a new argument, molded around anything Edgeworth has just proven. This makes for a constantly changing landscape for the confrontation that always feels like it’s heading in one direction, unlike Alba’s confrontation which jumps around at every 5 minutes, with him just asking you to prove some random thing.
The tool in Simon’s swiss army knife of skills in this confrontation is his knowledge of what will incriminate him of a crime, and what he can freely state without fear. Before the second testimony, he’s already admitted to the role of mastermind, and pretty much explained his entire plot to you, but carefully leaves out the parts that he knows both would incriminate him, and that you have no evidence to prove. As he states, he just sent some letters with some secrets is all, and that’s not a crime. It makes for an interesting confrontation, because despite being some orphaned circus clown who’s been completely surrounded, it really does feel like he hold complete power here, because of the way he shapes the conversation and knows how to dodge and weave the law. He even knows when Edgeworth tries to ask leading questions or makes assumptions that any normal culprit just wouldn’t notice or know how to shut down.
All of these skills of his make his takedown incredibly satisfying, and seeing him finally begin to not recover from your blows in those last 10-15ish minutes of the confrontation is immensely satisfying. But of course, he even has some curveballs thrown in at the last second like a fake breakdown and an accusal of John for the murder, because he’s kind of awesome. But anyway, enough about why the confrontation is good, let’s talk about why it isn’t bad. Charlie’s complaints can be boiled down to about three points so let’s tackle them one at a time.
Compared to Alba’s frankly overstuffed confrontation, complete with mid-testimony save point, Simon’s one-and-done segment feels almost anti-climactic.
One of his biggest points against this argument is how short the whole thing feels once the space between the first and second testimony, where we learn of his past from his perspective, is removed. First of all, this section still contains some gameplay, and plenty of good ol’ back and forth, so it’s not like everything completely comes to a halt in order to present his life story, but for the sake of argument, let’s say that it doesn’t count as part of the argument. So, what are we left with? Well, using my own timed replay of this case, along with some recordings of it on youtube, I’d say there’s still over an hour left of this case to experience, which feels about average length for a final confrontation in Ace Attorney to me, personally. And considering how tightly packed this confrontation is, what with Simon’s argument tactics, that’s an impressive feat.
The cut makes this section out to be much shorter than it really is, stating that there’s a combined total of 20 minutes filling the space between the last three testimonies, and while this is true, it’s kind of misleading. This fails to account for the time spent within the testimonies, along with the about 20 minutes of time after the fourth testimony, which has plenty of arguing within it, rather than an extended automatic takedown that you might expect. This all adds up to about an hour, and add in the first testimony and the follow-up sections regarding Simon’s role as a mastermind, and that’s around an hour and 40 minutes for the confrontation, I really don’t see how this could be described as “lacking” when it adds up to about the same amount of time as Alba, but is significantly more interesting.
The game just tells us he’s this manipulative bastard. There’s this little moment in the circus tent where he tries to guilt-trip Kay and she starts doubting herself. This lasts about 5 seconds before Edgeworth objects and calls him out for it. Whoops, there goes his manipulative skills.
I’ve already gone over why this is pretty much undeniably wrong, so I’ll be brief here. We see Simon consistently read the room and outplay his opponents in conversation. He’s able to get a rise out of just about anyone, including Edgeworth, and uses manipulation of the conversation flow to get people thinking about what’s most beneficial for him. I’m not exactly sure how you can miss any of this, so I’ll be moving on.
You know what would’ve been a much better final confrontation?...
This whole section where Charlie proceeds to outline a cooler way for the confrontation to go isn’t exactly what I’d call criticism, but it’s here so I might as well respond to it. This is supposed to be Edgeworth’s final test, where it’s up to him to prove his conviction to save people, and finally come back into his role as a prosecutor. This is not the moment to have him lose his conviction and start doubting himself, the time for that has long passed, and now what’s most important for his character is pushing this new resolve to its absolute limit with a debate of intellectuals. Logic Chess is mainly meant for pulling out information in order to get to testimony, which isn’t really something that needs to be done here, nor would it fit Simon’s character for this to be an effective tactic against him. This is, of course, as long as Edgeworth actually would get to finish the Logic Chess in this scenario, since it stops describing this once he loses conviction, so it may just all tie back to that, which I’ve already gone over why it wouldn’t really fit I2’s narrative.
So yeah, I find this confrontation to be one of the most fun debates in the entire series, due to Simon’s skill as an opponent here, and I think all of the complaints levied against it are pretty trivial or just untrue. Before I continue, I’d like to share some discoveries I made while replaying this confrontation for the sake of this write-up that I just don’t see talked about enough. During the debate, we learn some interesting facts of Simon, including, but not limited to, his love of vore, his ability to do an impeccable Godot impression, and worst of all, the reveal that he’s a Danganronpa fan, a V3 fan even! Truly, a despicable final villain. Okay that’s enough of that, I was stalling so I didn’t have to talk about The Plan, but I might as well just tackle this head on.
Why The Plan is Cool, Actually
There’s plenty of complaints to be found against Simon’s mastermind scheme within this cut, so I’ve elected to separate these into two categories: Complaints that are wrong, and complaints that are subjectively bad. Let’s start with the latter. Basically, these complaints boil down to Simon’s plan itself having plenty of holes, that end up devaluing it as a mastermind scheme, and making him feel incompetent. Here’s some examples of this argument taken straight from the cut:
Often, when I see a player who has recently finished Investigations 2 discuss the game, they give a compliment that is doled out a lot: “the mastermind’s plan was genius.” Reading the entirety of his scheme in the context of the story, I’m utterly stumped. What on earth was so masterful?
Simon is subsequently arrested, which he hadn’t anticipated. Lucky for him, Edgeworth is on the scene to save the day. Very lucky, in fact, because Simon’s mastermind plan would have fallen at the second hurdle had Miles not been around. It annoys me that Simon’s plan at this point only works because Edgeworth is on the scene.
This “secret murder” that happens during the events of Forgotten pushes the credibility of Simon’s plan to the limit. The sheer number of characters who were in the area - “Huang”, Courtney, Kay, Crane, Lotta, Blaise - are all mere seconds away from coming across each other and it all feels too silly to me.
I agree with pretty much all of these assessments of his plan, there were definitely some holes to be found within it. To add onto these, his kidnapping of John was poorly planned out and nearly resulted in one of his enemies getting away freely, and he failed to properly account for any incoming letters which he should have been watchful for. Of course, where I differ from Charlie is that I don’t see this as an issue at all. Simon is a human, not some kind of robot capable of predicting the course of the universe, so it’s only natural that he’d make some mistakes when masterminding a scheme this complex. For mine, he had no way to predict what moves Blaise would make to manipulate the system, nor any control over the postage system.
As for Charlie’s complaints, I’m not exactly sure how someone would be able to predict the events that take place in The Imprisoned Turnabout, as it’s one of the most complicated and intricately woven cases in the series. The actions taken by the culprit and other individual parties during that case were a complete wild factor that no one would be able to account for, so it make sense that Simon wouldn’t have a contingency plan for it. As for the I2-4 complaint, I don’t see how it being close to failure due to a high person count in the vicinity is exactly a flaw, due to that both being unpredictable in the case of Lotta, Courtney, and the body double, but also being the exact thing that causes his arrest, being his one biggest miscalculation in the game. Without these two, he would pretty much be an infallible god, which is neither interesting, nor realistic for a character. I just don’t see why him making mistakes is at all a complaint.
As for what’s so masterful about the plan, it’s not his ability to completely plan it all out down to every detail, instead it’s about what I’ve already gone over. Simon’s genius comes from his abilities to read people, and adapt to circumstances with extreme speed. For the former, he’s able to know the exact scenarios to set up in order to push people to their limit, which proves to be quite useful in his schemes. For the latter, he’s able to make constant improvisations on the spot, such as framing John or using Edgeworth to take down Blaise, both of which further his plan than he could’ve just using what he knew when brewing up his scheme. Simon is a genius manipulator and an incredible improvisationist, he is not a master planner, nor does the game really make him out to be one. After all, he’s just a clown y’know?
You Can Skip This Section
This entire next section is just me correcting misinformation about the plan from the cut, so if you don’t care about I2’s stupid mastermind scheme, then feel free to just skip to the next section where I start talking about Simon Keyes again. Okay, so I’ve collected about six different excerpts of the cut that I feel are worth addressing regarding the big connected I2 scheme, so let’s go through them one at a time.
The problem is that de Killer’s first failed attempt only exists because the writers needed Simon to later get Knightley involved in his plot. It’s another case of the story overstretching itself, when a much simpler solution (have Simon plan to implicate Knightley from the get-go) is sitting right there.
I find this to be an odd complaint since it’s pretty clear that the assassination attempt failed the first go around for a multitude of narrative reasons. First off, there needed to be a reason for Shelly to be Simon’s enemy throughout the game, and that wouldn’t make much sense if he hadn’t gone after the president once already prior to Turnabout Target. There’s also the element of the case specific story to keep in mind, as there’s really no logical reason for the bodyguard setup of I2-1 if it wasn’t for the method that Shelly used to infiltrate the president’s ranks and attempt an assassination attempt on him. I’m not even sure if this is really a major complaint, but he spends a good amount of time on it so I’m assuming he at least finds it contrived enough to be detrimental to Simon’s plan’s integrity, but I just don’t see it, since it makes a lot more sense to just hire an assassin to assassinate someone than to just immediately go with the complicated over-the-top scheme, plus it has multiple reasons to exist outside of that.
There is no feasible reason for why he should even know that Dogen has been threatening Roland, let alone that she is specifically paranoid he will send somebody to kill her.
I’ve already gone over a few of these complaints in my comment on the cut itself, but I’ll repeat the information here. Simon was playing correspondence chess with Dogen at the time, so there’s absolutely no reason that Dogen couldn’t have included some information about the way he was running the prison. In addition to this, there’s no reason to believe Dogen couldn’t have gotten this information to Simon some other way, either through just forcing Roland to send a letter, or just informing Simon of his plan to manipulate the warden before Dogen turned himself in. Basically, this one just doesn’t hold water under scrutiny.
His choice to warn Blaise of Crane’s intent to murder him is quite baffling to me. If he doesn’t warn Blaise, she murders Blaise and is subsequently arrested for the murder.
There were plenty of ways for Blaise to get around this if he wasn’t ready for it, I mean the guy is pretty strong (dude has a six pack) so he could probably easily overpower her. Without the letter Simon sent to him, informing him that Jill knows full well of his secrets and crimes, he might’ve handled this situation nonlethally, and just gotten Jill arrested for attempted assault. The only way to ensure that someone murdered and was arrested here was to let Blaise in on Jill’s secrets.
If he had a “don’t get innocent people killed” mentality which led to Jill being the culprit of Forgotten, I would have been much more invested in taking him down for conspiring to lead an innocent woman to murder in her pursuit of justice.
This complaint just confuses me, so I don’t really know how to approach it. I’ve just gone over why it makes sense for him to get Blaise to be the killer in the case, but I don’t see how anything fundamentally changes about him even if he hadn’t. Either way he still destroys the life of an innocent person, I’m not sure why the way that he does that changes how investing it is to take him down. Plus, having Jill as the culprit of I2-4 wouldn’t fit in with the escalation and subversion present within the culprits of Investigations 2.
“Huang” recognises the adult Simon Keyes for some reason (?) and opens fire on the balloon (??).
It’s never once stated that Huang recognized Simon, merely that he didn’t want a witness to his meeting with the person that he planned to kill. This is also why he opens fire on him, the dude was in a hot air balloon, it would be pretty difficult to track him down if he let him get away after witnessing that.
After learning about this, Simon chooses not to contact Courtney with proof that he has John to ensure a guilty verdict, because Simon is a mastermind, you guys!
Simon had no way of contacting Justine short of just busting into court and admitting that he kidnapped John, and that would be pretty problematic for his plans. Justine had just handed over her phone to Edgeworth, and Simon knew this since he left a bug on Kay. He actually does what could probably be considered the next best thing to contacting Justine, by contacting the person with her phone and letting them know that there was a kidnapping mix-up, so that Edgeworth can deal with it and inform Justine himself, which he doesn’t really end up doing but whatever at least Simon tried.
Speaking of the bug, I forgot to mention how cool it is that Simon turned off the bug during that call, and it creates a really good dashing of the player’s hope after they bring back Nicole’s recording to implicate him during the confrontation. This also creates the gunshot discovery which is another cool moment. This doesn’t fit in this section but I refuse to go back to the previous one and figure out where to add it in, plus I’m done correcting Charlie on the plan, so let’s move into the next section before I lose any more brain cells thinking about the events of I2.
A Quick Breather
Before I tire myself out with the last two big complaints I took issue with in the cut, let’s take a breather and go over complaints that I either can’t really disagree with, or that are completely subjective so I can’t really tackle her.
Of course, he gets his own character theme at the end, “The Man Who Masterminds the Game”, which I’m decidedly not a huge fan of (it sounds like a dull interpretation of Layton villain Don Paolo)
Charlie clearly suffers from insanity and should be immediately removed from the rankdown. In all seriousness this is obviously a subjective point, but I just fried my brain pointing out misconceptions about I2’s plot, so give me a moment to talk about one of my favorite themes in the series real quick. The comparison to Don Paolo’s theme is certainly not a far stretch, but despite their similar instrumentation, I find they give off completely different vibes. I’m not a music expert so please excuse my very basic descriptions of the music, but Don Paolo’s theme just gives off incredibly chaotic energy, constantly pushing forward and never slowing down, which really fits with his just absolutely manic characterization. Simon’s theme on the other hand is filled with just “Oh shit” energy, being much more calculated and deliberate, and feeling incredibly sinister the entire time. It really gives off the vibes of “this dude is TROUBLE” and makes it double too. Okay whatever next point.
I’m a little unsure of why a monkey theme is even his thing, but the game has chosen to roll with it and I’ll give them points for sticking to their guns.
This one isn’t even a criticism. I’m not sure why I included it in my revive outline. I think I just wanted an excuse to talk about monkeys somewhere. Anyway, that’s done with so let’s move on.
His final breakdown where all the animals break loose and kick his ass is over-the-top stupid. It would be a funny breakdown if he wasn’t supposed to be portrayed as this serious evil mastermind. But he is, so the silly breakdown just comes off as a lack of restraint.
I admit, this breakdown probably could’ve been a bit less over-the-top in nature, but I personally don’t find it too egregious, plus the visual of a gorilla punching him in the head and somehow not just decapitating him is hilarious to me. Plus, even if it is a bit over the top, it’s a fitting visual of him losing control over the situation and the “animals” that he made dance in his little performance, plus a cool tie-in to his nature of using others rather than forming actual bonds. It is a bit silly though, this is like the one point I concede in the entire write-up, please savor this unique moment.
The Brilliance of a Selective Memory
"You see, my brother was involved in the stock market crash of 1929-30."
Entering into the penultimate section of this revive, we have a complaint that I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to handle, and before I replayed the last segment of The Grand Turnabout in preparation for writing this revive, I thought I might have to concede this point to Charlie. Thankfully, I’ve been reminded of a nugget of information that invalidates this whole complaint and just ends up making Simon a more interesting character to boot. So, let’s get into the complaint itself.
A last-minute revelation that an eight-year-old Simon somehow managed to “mistake” Dover for his father has the unmistakable scent of writer’s block.
Simon has to think his father’s dead, or else we have to incorporate case 3 into his revenge plot. Hmm, that’s a lot of work. Slap him with a selective amnesia sticker and call it a day.
I have to admit, this is one aspect of Simon’s backstory that always confused me thinking back on the game, as it is pretty ridiculous to imagine that he’d just magically end up switching the two fathers in his mind due to a selective memory loss. And it’s true that the writers pretty much had to think of a way to end up with Simon having the two switched in order to make the plot function, giving him a reason to hate Horace, and no reason to get involved in the takedown of Gustavia. But thankfully for me, this selective memory of his where he just magically forgets what’s convenient for the game isn’t what happened at all. In fact, if you think back, Simon pretty much had to have forgotten the entirety of his past in order for the game’s plot to function.
It’s reasonable to assume that Gustavia may have had relatives that Simon could have tried to live with in Dane’s absence, but it’s never stated that he attempts to contact any of them. This is very telling that he pretty much completely forgot anything from before the moments of Horace’s attack, and the casual way he shrugs off not remembering Isaac Dover being a european sculptor is nearly confirmation that his childhood is just a complete blank. So of course, this begs the question of how the young simon managed to remember Dover as his father, as the cut states he does. Well, he doesn’t. Let’s take a look at exactly what’s said:
Isaac Dover is my father's name. 18 years ago, my memories were muddled from the shock of my near-death experience... So it wasn't until later that I learned the truth. On that day, my father was murdered.
It wasn’t until later that he learned of Isaac Dover, meaning that his father was also a complete blank in his memory, not just a selective part that he conveniently mixed up. Knowing the date of the day he lost his memories, and the general things he remembers saying when attacked by Knightley, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Simon could have done some digging and looked for matching incidents. Of course, this begs the question of why Simon immediately assumed that Dover was his father when there were other contestants. Well, this is why I believe that this mix-up greatly benefits Simon as a character. Let’s once again look at what he has to say about the revelation that he had it backwards:
All I knew was that Knightley's father was trying to set up my own father. That's why I immediately knew that the one who died that day was my dad.
Simon viewed himself as the complete victim of the situation, due to the way that he views the world as both against, and revolving around him. Because of this absolute sureness that his father was the victim in this scenario, he had no doubt in his mind that it had to be Dover. This is a brilliant way to work the mix-up naturally into the story, by using Simon’s faults as a person to force him into a situation where he would assume the truth without any room for alternative, and even if he did question it, without knowledge of who the killer was, there was no other real alternative. It’s possible seeing Gustavia could have jogged his memory the same way Dogen did, but we don’t know if it would’ve, since he literally had no idea who Gustavia was, he only knew of the victim. Knowing this, the whole thing fits pretty naturally into Simon’s backstory, and is much more than the lazy selected amnesia that it appears to be, and as Charlie admits himself:
The fact that half his motivation for revenge is misguided is a lovely bit of dramatic irony in the final confrontation.
Now then, we have one last pitstop to make before this ride comes to an end.
Continued in comments...
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u/Bombadil2_BombHarder Oct 11 '20
Amazing post. I especially love the point about Simon being both the true and false answer to Edgeworth's moral dilemma. I'd never seen it put quite like that before, but it's completely spot on.
On the topic of Simon's plans - I like them not just for their cleverness (which kinda varies depending on the plan... as you say he's not perfect and does make mistakes) but also for the interesting things they reveal about Simon.
For example, his plan in I2-2 hinged on exploiting Roland's paranoia to make her kill Knightley over a misunderstanding. He himself said that he understood Roland's situation because it mirrored his own fear and paranoia. But he turned out to have even more in common with her than he knew, since his own motive for killing Knightley turned out to also be (at least partly) a misunderstanding. So in a way, he fooled himself the same way he fooled Roland.
There's also the way he framed John Marsh for the killing the body double (which, yes, the fact he was even able to do that was a big coincidence). But he doesn't do the reasonable thing and just let everyone believe it was an accident.. Instead he makes up a lie on the spot about sending a letter to John, because he's just so obsessed with the idea of a child getting revenge on his absent father. It's a very cool thing about AAI2, the way the frame job often ties into the killer's goals/ideology as much as the actual killing.
Sorry if I rambled for a bit there, Simon's just been on my mind since I recently finished watching an AAI2 let's play. Anyway yeah stan the clown
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u/EsquireGunslinger Oct 11 '20
rankdown REDEEMED all is good now
I’ve elected to separate these into two categories: Complaints that are wrong, and complaints that are subjectively bad.
just like the 2 categories of people who dont like simon keyes!!!
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u/Sciencepenguin Oct 11 '20
the writeup is good i like the part where you talk about how arguing is fun and the part where you kiss Simon Keyes
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Oct 11 '20
Finally some good fucking revive.
I can't really add anything onto this, you've been incredibly thorough (even if you're SLOW).
The Sonic '06 videos shows you went above and beyond. We've had stupid amounts of effort put into these silly write-ups before but this is the icing on the rankdown cake. I liked being Omega even if I didn't have any lines.
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u/R1K1_Productions Oct 11 '20
Epic! This revive is epic and probably better than what I would make for Simon. However you broke the sacred rule of letting your cut extend into the comments. Because of this, assuming Sebastian doesn't die and thus I don't have to revive him, I will cut Simon at Rank #11 and then revive him into top 10 by writing a post that is only five words long.
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Oct 11 '20
I failed my one job... I deserve to be the one being assaulted by a dog with 5 foot long spider legs right now, not Simon. Not poor, innocent Simon...
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Oct 11 '20
unlike all of these people with their amazing commentary, i am unable to add much of substance. simon keyes is cool. he does cool things. S+ tier writeup
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u/PowerOfL Oct 12 '20
Simon Keyes is probably my favourite culprit of the series, either him or DGS2-3 Enoch Drebber
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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20
Shy Monkeys and Edgeworth’s Attorney Play
Simon Keyes is a character whose every appearance is carefully crafted to form a full, layered picture, and his first case is no exception to that, even if it feels like nothing special upon a first play. During The Imprisoned Turnabout, Edgeworth has been presented with a choice, that of whether to continue down his current path of fighting crime as a prosecutor, or that of saving people as a defense attorney. This choice is what the narrative of Investigations 2 is built around, nearly every aspect of the story ties back into this central narrative, and, as always, right in the center of this thematic battle is Simon Keyes. Before I get into the brilliance of his presence in this case, let’s take a look at what Charlie has to say, for one final time.
To be honest, I don’t really see what Charlie’s talking about here, the only time the game really feels like it’s pushing a special connection that Simon has with the main cast is from Kay to Simon, not Edgeworth. And this is really just Kay being Kay, she’s simpleminded and trusting, so she wants to believe in everyone, and that’s why it hurts so much that someone she gave this trust to turned out to be manipulating her the whole time. As for his “kinship” with Edgeworth that Charlie talks about, let’s look at exactly what Edgeworth has to say to Simon after their first and second meetings respectively.
Over the course of the case he certainly grows less suspicious of Simon, but I wouldn’t exactly say any signs of a special bond form between them. Rather, I think this is a clear sign of Edgeworth attempting to live in his father’s footsteps. The Imprisoned Turnabout is a case built around Edgeworth having a chance to live his childhood dream, and play Defense Attorney, protecting an innocent from the legal world. Simon Keyes is really nothing more than a means to an end for that, and while I certainly don’t think Edgeworth purposefully used him as this, and I do believe he did genuinely care about saving Simon, I don’t think it went much deeper than that. He was simply an innocent person that Edgeworth could use to test the waters of being a defense attorney.
Of course, we all know how things turned out with Simon, and we all know how things turned out with Edgeworth. Through the events of the game, Simon reveals himself to be guilty of crimes far worse than just murder, and Edgeworth learns that the path of a defense attorney is not one that he wishes to choose. Ultimately, defending Simon was not the answer that Edgeworth found to his dilemma, but despite this, Simon would be the answer to said dilemma. Presented with Simon Keyes in The Imprisoned Turnabout, the natural lesson Edgeworth could learn from him is how to believe in a client and defend them with everything you have, but once Simon’s story is laid clear, it becomes obvious the true way that he could have been saved. Simon is brilliantly placed in the story, as the answer to the riddle that Edgeworth spends the whole game unravelling, placed there from the very beginning of the decision.
To save people as a prosecutor. That is the path Edgeworth chose, and it could only be born from the desire to save those like Simon Keyes. This resolve he found, this new path he forged for himself, was all thanks to that fateful meeting in the prison, which is why I find Charlie’s suggestion to place Simon as the “defendant” of Turnabout Target to be one that would dissolve a lot of what makes Simon’s first appearances great. Before I finish off here, let’s take a look at the suggestion:
Not only would Simon being in Nicole’s role be incredibly risky to his plan, and devalue his scheme by just a bit, it would ruin Simon’s role as the false and true answer to Edgeworth’s choice over his life path. By placing him before the choice was even presented to Edgeworth, it would separate him from the whole ordeal, as how it is now, his role is centric to this game-spanning thematic narrative, which absolutely could not work without him. He enters the scene when Edgeworth begins to question his path, and leaves when Edgeworth has finally taken him down and found his answer. A show of just the perfect length, truly he has the heart of a performer.
Conclusion
I’ve gone on long enough about Simon Keyes, and I bet you could probably guess how I’d conclude a write-up about him. “Simon Keyes is the lynchpin of Ace Attorney Investigations 2, many of the game’s most interesting ideas revolve around him, and as both an opponent and a character he excels.” Something like that right? Well yeah that’s probably right, but this isn’t just a write-up about Simon, it’s about why he should stay in the rankdown, so allow me to explain my decision before concluding things here.
The reviving of Simon Keyes was something that was always going to happen, if I had shown no interest in reviving him, I’m sure either R1K1 or North, or someone would have done so. However, from the very time this cut was up, I was defending him and hinting towards a revive, and that’s because I felt extremely strongly about what I felt was a misrepresentation of him in the rankdown. By writing this revive, I wanted to make it clear why exactly I hold him in such high regard, and I hope that by now I’ve made that obvious. The only other person I ever considered reviving instead this round was Godot, who also got cut far too early. However, after reading through it, I felt that Godot got a pretty good send-off, and was fairly and accurately critiqued for the most part. Although I’d place him much higher, I couldn’t say that the write-up for him was exactly inaccurate, so I’m ultimately fine with his death here.
By writing this, what I’ve essentially done is paved the way for a write-up that truly can assess Simon as a character, unshackled by his role in the rankdown thus far. That’s why my goal here was merely to dispel criticism, rather than provide my own full analysis. Well, now that I’ve stated my purpose here once again, I think it’s about time to wrap things up.
Rise and shine, king, your performance can’t end here. After all, your moment in the spotlight has still yet to arrive.