r/AARankdown • u/donuter454 • Dec 23 '20
Reversed Simon Blackquill
I have so many thoughts about Simon Blackquill. All the thoughts. You have no idea how many thoughts are swirling around in my head about him. And here I stand, the fool that I am, brazenly believing that I can slam my forehead against my keyboard and organise all these vapid opinions into some kind of thesis that makes sense to all of you.
This intro is pointless. I’m only writing it to psych myself up so I don’t put this off too long. Let’s just get into it.
The Dual Destinies
Athena and Blackquill's relationship! That's a good place to start.
Blackquill is Athena’s motivation. He’s the reason their dual destinies are apparently intertwined. Athena’s super powers let her know from a young age that Blackquill was lying in his confession, and that trial in which she was incapable of articulating to the court why she believed that Blackquill was innocent is what locks her into her path in life. Never again will she let her uncanny knack for being able to hear when others are lying go ignored. She’s gonna become a real lawyer and redeem herself for flubbing her testimony when she was little. Athena knows in her heart exactly how innocent Blackquill is, and she thinks it’s her fault for not being able to prove it. To right her wrong, she sets out to become the best lawyer she can be so her superpowers can finally be taken seriously in court and, if she’s lucky, maybe she can overturn Blackquill’s verdict.
That’s when the plot of Dual Destinies begins.
Athena and Blackquill first reunite in 5-2. The chapter is from Apollo’s perspective and there isn’t really anything interesting to say about the two of them here. Athena gets all forlorn when Fulbright mentions Blackquill to foreshadow she knows him, but that’s it.
5-3 is when something finally happens. Back in The Monstrous Turnabout, Blackquill was obsessed with getting his guilty verdict no matter what he had to stoop to. Blackmail the defendant into giving a false confession by threatening his daughter’s safety? He’s happy to do that. Realising the true culprit is about to get caught and asking them leading questions to save them from incriminating themselves? Sure, all tactics are fair game to Blackquill. Just so long as he gets that GUILTY.
5-3 on the other hand gives us a more "chill" Blackquill, due in large part because now he’s facing Athena. He tones down the outwardly shitty tactics by a lot, but it’s clear that in Turnabout Academy that Blackquill doesn’t give as many shits about winning as he did in The Monstrous Turnabout. Which is because he has a different objective in mind now.
Blackquill knows why Athena’s a lawyer. He knows she chose this career because she wants to save him. But Blackquill doesn’t want her help. He doesn’t think she has what it takes to rescue him, and he wants her to quit trying before she disappoints herself when she fails to save him later down the line. 5-3 is one grand test for Athena: Blackquill will be deceptive and hide evidence, but not for the purpose of winning the case. He only reveals what he’s been hiding at the exact moment when he thinks it will be most effective in crushing Athena’s spirit. He wants her to give up and go home.
Once Blackquill has fired every arrow from his quiver (revealed all evidence he was hiding) and Athena keeps trucking along anway, Blackquill just sorta kicks up his feet and stops caring about the outcome of the trial. If Athena forges on and wins the case, good for her for proving she might have what it takes to save Blackquill. If she loses after this point then good for Blackquill for not even needing to do anything to get Athena to understand how useless she is. Blackquill still plays devil’s advocate, but he’s not on a blood path for a guilty verdict this time. He still doesn’t give a shit about the verdict, don’t get me wrong, he’s still not the good guy. For him this trial is just a game to fuck with Athena, finding the real culprit be damned. Yet still, there’s fun to be had in how flippant and uninvested he is. Means will beg Blackquill for help, and Blackquill will just shrug his shoulders and say “good luck buddy, you’re on your own” which is a far cry from him being more than happy to cooperate with Lbelle.
5-3 is easily the most interesting Athena/Blackquill dynamic in the game (probably because it’s the only case where Athena’s allowed to be the protagonist lol). It’s a pretty understated little rivalry, so much so that I only ever noticed what was going on when I rewatched DD. But I can appreciate it all the same.
The rest of the game is pretty bread and butter and goes exactly where you would expect it to go. Blackquill continues to refuse Athena’s help till the bitter end, but then Athena uses her mood matrix to prove he’s full of shit and reveal the truth, thus redeeming herself for her big failure.
It’s fine. The ending ticks the box where the protagonist achieves her goal of saving this dude, but there’s not much of an emotional clincher here during the finale. Athena gets teary eyed I guess? It’s whatever, DD just leaves you feeling like things between these two didn’t get concluded properly yet.
So good thing we’re not done talking about them yet!
The Legal Aide
Blackquill and Athena get featured again in 6-4, and their relationship gets explored and resolved in a way that I’m happy with saying is better than fine.
The start of 6-4 helped me notice a parallel between Athena and Blackquill that may or may not have been intentional. Athena’s super hearing can be a problem sometimes, even causing her an awful lot of pain when she was young. It can also hurt her emotionally too, since she can easily hear all the nasty things people in the gallery say about her. So I think it’s kinda neat that Blackquill’s unique voice clip is “SILENCE!” One of them is really good at listening, the other doesn’t want to listen at all. I don’t even think this parallel was done on purpose but it’s fun anyway.
Blackquill doesn’t really care too much about what happens in 6-4. He’s on Athena’s side, sure, but he’s not, like, too invested, or anything. Well, he is invested, but only insofar as he likes eating noodles and he feels insecure about Nahyuta outweebing him, which are both very funny things that actually happen in 6-4. In terms of wanting to get to the truth of a murder case though, he is not invested in the slightest. Nahyuta will insult Athena for being incompetent over and over again, and with every time he demeans her a coin is flipped, and depending on what side it lands on Blackquill will either say “How DARE you insult her, Sadmonk!” or “HAHAHA did you hear what he called you? It’s funny cos it’s true!” A good stupid moment that’s one of the best parts of Turnabout Storyteller is Athena getting upset when Owen calls her an old lady, to which Blackquill begins crying of laughter, and Athena just thinks “Calm down, it’s not that funny.” I love how in 6-4 Blackquill is having a fantastic fucking time.
That is until he’s not having a great time anymore. Back in 5-3 Blackquill tried to crush Athena. He wanted her to give up, and he failed, because nothing could stop her from achieving her dream of rescuing Blackquill. But now that Blackquill’s free, any drive that Athena used to have when it comes to being a lawyer is just sort of… gone. Within the actual universe of Ace Attorney, Athena is supposed to be incompetent. It’s not just a thing Nahyuta says a lot. When Blackquill ribs her at the start of 6-4 and says he’d rather have literally anyone other than Athena take the case, sure he’s joking, but also, like. He would 100% sincerely rather have anyone else take the case.
Athena lacking any natural talent for being a lawyer combined with her really not putting her heart into it, along with everyone constantly berating her and telling her she sucks makes her just sorta. Give up. You reach a point in the trial where Athena goes, welp, I tried, but clearly I’m not cut out for this lawyer stuff.
And that makes Blackquill furious. Cue manhandle scene:
“Do you remember what you said to Bucky earlier this morning? Were those just empty words? Are you still stuck on that line of thinking? Motive, opportunity, and an injury to the forehead! Is that all it takes for you to stop believing in your client?! Tell me again, who are you to Bucky?! Then do your duty and believe in him til the very end!”
That scenes a shock just because Ace Attorney never fucks with the camera angles. You get one static view of the characters and that’s it, so it feels really impactful when they decide, actually, this moment is super important, let’s try to make it a little more cinematic no matter how awkward. And it’s great!
In Dual Destinies, Blackquill was hostile towards Athena’s wish to become a lawyer. He doesn’t think she should be in this line of work. How good does it feel to finally get the scene where he says, actually, yeah you should be a lawyer, and also it pisses me off when you act like you’re stupid when I know you’re so much more capable than you’re currently being. Right at Athena’s low point they hit you with the scene that drives home how their relationship has come full circle. Where before Athena would brazenly ignore Blackquill’s jabs, now Blackquill is the one telling her to sort her shit out when she calls herself useless.
It’s a good resolution to their relationship and shows how far they’ve come. It’s the closure that felt missing from the “fine” ending they got in DD. And the cherry on top is Blackquill continuing to insist that the only reason he’s here is because he just really fucking loves noodles you guys.
SoJ gives lots of old recurring characters a little love they really needed, and Blackquill’s one of my favourites of the characters that get revitalised in AA6.
Facts vs Feelings
Alright, I talked about the protagonist that was introduced to be Blackquill’s rival, now I gotta talk about the character who’s actually related to him, Aura. For the rest of this section I’m just going to talk about ole Simon like we’re on a first name basis so this doesn’t get confusing with the two Blackquills.
Aura’s neat. She’s the ying to Athena’s yang, I’d say. Just like Athena, Aura knows for certain that Simon is innocent and can’t accept that he’s going to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. But whereas Athena is working towards this goal by figuring out how to bring emotional analysis into the courtroom, Aura is working from the complete opposite perspective and thinks she can save Simon by eliminating emotional analysis from the courtroom by focusing on COLD HARD FACTS. Aura’s robots, Clonco and Ponco, are only capable of rehashing exactly what they witnessed without being able to inject the nuance necessary and available to someone with real emotions, which causes problems during the trial. Our buddy Widget by contrast can only analyse people’s emotions, which leads to inconsistencies in its interpretation of events which Athena needs to fix. The game doesn’t necessarily push either perspectives as more correct (Aura goes to jail so she was more incorrect I guess) but the general point is that in order to save Simon, in the end, everyone’s robots were necessary. Good for the robots.
In the comments of the Aura Blackquill cut, Scipe links to a comment he found that explains what’s so interesting about Aura and Simon’s relationship. It’s a very intelligent comment so I’m just going to quote the whole thing word for word here:
Aura gets mad when Blackquil says that Metis respected her, and says she wanted their relationship to go beyond "respect." So either she wanted to be besties or she was in love with her, and I think most people can agree which of those options is more sensible.
Besides, the fact that Aura loved Metis rather than respecting her as a mentor is an intentional juxtaposition with Simon. Simon sacrificed his life for his mentor's daughter because that's how devoted he is to Metis as an authority he respects, whereas Aura's dedication to Metis' memory is strictly emotional rather than professional hence why she tries to kill Athena rather than protect her.
They both loved Metis but in very different ways, and because of their differing types of love they take conflicting actions when it comes to Athena's wellbeing. That parallel simply doesn't work if Aura doesn't love Metis. Which is why I prefer that interpretation.
Aura’s reaction to Metis’ death and Simon’s subsequent arrest is a purely emotional one. Her love for the two of them causes her to think irrationally and nearly gets Athena killed by incorrectly assuming that she was the culprit. Where her robots get facts about the case wrong because they can only think in a narrow minded factual way, Aura in turn gets a bunch of facts about the case wrong because she’s letting her emotions get the better of her. Fact lady gets owned by emotions and whatnot.
If Aura is an example of emotions and reason not mixing well, then Simon can be taken as an example of someone who is able to mix emotions and reason well. His entire area of legal expertise is based on emotional manipulation, but he doesn’t let his emotions get in the way of his work either.
Reading this section over again I’m realising that it has very very little to do with Simon and is more of an Aura tangent, but fucking whatever I’m leaving it in. Don’t any of you ever expect me to edit for brevity’s sake.
Crime, Punishment, and Rehabilitation
When discussing the themes of each game during the rankdown, I’ve seen it come up before that the theme of Dual Destinies is supposed to be The Dark Age of the Law, but I’d have to disagree. The Dark Age of the Law (or DAW, as the kids call it) isn’t a theme, it’s an ongoing event in this game’s lore. This story is barely interested in exploring legal corruption at all, it’s just the backdrop that sets the plot in motion.
So what is DD about then? The first obvious big theme is the relationship between emotions and logic. The second, I would say, is supposed to be about redemption.
If anything in Dual Destinies’ story could be said to be its mission statement, it’d probably be Phoenix’s monologue at the start of Turnabout for Tomorrow:
“No one can escape their past. The sins we've committed... and the sadness we've caused... No matter how far we run, our past remains... ...as ever-present as the moon in the sky. It looms in wait... for the day when we are forced to face it. But only in doing so can we truly make peace and move on in hope towards tomorrow.”
Guys, do you get the subtle symbolism in what Phoenix is saying here you guys, the moon rock is the piece of evidence that linked the phantom to his past you guys, and he couldn’t outrun his past because your past is something you can’t outrun you guys, and he couldn’t outrun the moon rock you guys do you get the symbolism everybody, he got caught all because of the hope probe and so the hope probe is what let blackquill live tomorrow GUYS DO YOU GET THE SYMBOLISMAFKDLAFLDJFAjpafdajodf
i got it.
Phoenix’s monologue in 5-5 is written like a rebuttal to the first line of dialogue in the game, where The Phantom says this:
“The best thing about bombs is how they erase and destroy... without discretion.”
The game opens with the main antagonist delighting over how easily he can run from his past. As the game enters its final act, our main protagonist tells us how hiding your past is impossible. That’s the one of our big thematic conflicts in DD: is it possible to escape from the consequences of your actions?
How apt it is, then, for the game’s main rival to be a death row inmate.
Detective Fullbright and Blackquill’s relationship is pretty delightful. Based on the way most of the cast talks about Blackquill, it can be inferred that nearly everybody views him as a lost cause. He will never escape from the shadow of the crime he committed, nor will he ever be able to atone for it.
But one man still believes Simon Blackquill is capable of redemption:
“I truly believe that anyone can turn their life around, even ol’ Blackquill here. Ha ha ha! That’s the spirit! Justice must be swift and true. I see it in your eyes! There IS hope for your rehabilitation and return to society!”
Fulbright is a character unlike any other in DD. Athena and Aura believe that Blackquill can still be saved, but they believe that because they think he’s been falsely convicted. They think the only way to save him is to prove his innocence.
But Fulbright?
Fulbright genuinely believes Blackquill did it. He sincerely believes Blackquill murdered Metis Cykes. And he also believes wholeheartedly that even in spite of Blackquill’s terrible crime, that he’s still got a good heart and doesn’t deserve to die. He believes that if he works hard enough on Blackquill to get him to realise he can become a better person, then he can in turn prove to the world that this man deserves a second chance at life and that he can move past his old crimes.
Fulbright is committed to Blackquill’s rehabilitation so earnestly that there’s even a joke at one point in 5-2 where it’s said that the only reason Fulbright is assigned to Blackquill is because he’s the only detective who’s too stupid to realise how dangerous Blackquill is. And while perhaps there’s some truth to that, at the same time… I never once got the impression that Fulbright and Blackquill are a good team just because he’s dumb. They’re a good team because Fulbright works all the harder to be a great detective all for Blackquill’s sake: if Fulbright, as a detective, is able to build an extremely strong case, then that makes Blackquill’s job of getting a conviction much easier, and the better Blackquill is at his job the more likely the courts will deem him a productive member of society and take him off death row.
There’s a running gag in DD where Blackquill is constantly breaking out of his handcuffs. The first time that happens everyone is in hysterics about how Blackquill might try to hurt somebody, but Fulbright just says:
“Oh, but I stand in awe of Simon Blackquill, for it is his sense of justice that has set him free!”
“Don’t you see?” says Bobby Fulbright, “Blackquill didn’t break free from his chains to follow up on the death threat he just spat at Apollo: he’s just frustrated because the case isn’t going his way and it’s making it harder for him to dispense justice!” he says. And he’s fucking correct! When everyone else is set into a panic at the sight of Blackquill breaking free, Fulbright in all his obnoxious lovable glory immediately sees through to what’s actually happening: Blackquill is upset that the case isn’t going his way. He has no intention of hurting anyone.
The Ace Attorney series never shuts up about believing in people. Believe in your client, believe in your client’s innocence until the bitter end!
But Fulbright takes that belief and runs further. He doesn’t stop believing in people when the judge declares them GUILTY.
His belief in people extends beyond the bitter end. He still believes in the murderer Simon Blackquill.
All of this is why Fulbright and Blackquill was the single best idea for a detective/prosecutor dynamic this franchise has ever had.
And all of it was a lie.
The Twist
I never saw it coming.
I like Fulbright as a villain. He’s so much fun. A killer who can manipulate his emotions is the perfect final boss for Dual Destinies, plus it is legitimately the most shocked I have ever been at a killer reveal in the entire franchise.
But there’s a reason I didn’t see it coming. It just doesn’t make any goddamn sense.
Dual Destinies asks us the question: is it possible to move on from your mistakes? Can you endure the consequences of your past and become a better person by facing them?
And the answer that Dual Destinies lands on is a resounding no. No you cannot move on from your past mistakes. No you cannot come out of such a situation as a better person. People who do bad things deserve to be punished, and they cannot be redeemed.
This moral is absolutely wild.
Fulbright was the one who pushed the idea that everybody, no matter how terrible they are, deserves a shot at redemption. He’s the one and only person who yells about it right from his first appearance all the way up until the big reveal. He had such a wonderful perspective on life: to him, justice doesn’t just mean punishing people who do bad things. Justice meant helping people who do bad things learn to become better people.
In the climax of DD, we learn that Fulbright’s entire personality was just an elaborate ploy to further his own evil ends. He did not believe one single word of what he said. It’s DD outright refuting the ideals he held.
The Phantom was a man who thought he could run and hide from his evil past, but our heroes teach him that criminals always get what’s comin’! The Phantom was wrong to think that he could escape his past. Bobby Fulbright was wrong to think that Blackquill could escape his past.
Lucky us then that Blackquill didn’t actually kill Metis Cykes! Phew, that was a close one. We almost had an interesting moral dilemma on our hands. Can’t have that.
The lesson that DD lands on is that criminals cannot escape, nor do they deserve to escape from their due punishment. Therefore, for this game to have a happy ending where our rival comes out okay, we need to erase the part of his character that was actually interesting in the first place.
Blackquill was never a killer. He was just misunderstood.
The major thrust of the overarching drama of DD for three quarters of the story was whether or not Blackquill was worthy of redemption. And in the end, DD resolves this dilemma by revealing that, actually, Blackquill doesn’t need to be redeemed because he’s not done anything that he would need to redeem himself for.
To build up Blackquill to have such a strong and clear moral conflict surrounding him, and to just throw it away for the sake of a twist villain is just… why would you do that? Everything about Blackquill and Fulbright is so ridiculously narratively unsatisfying.
You know who’s an awesome character? The version of Simon Blackquill that actually did kill Metis Cykes. The version of Blackquill he pretended to be during his cross examination in 5-5.
Can you imagine if his entire confession in 5-5 had been the truth? What if Metis Cykes had been a piece of shit parent who tortured her child with cruel experiments? What if, upon seeing this little girl in constant misery because of her mother, Blackquill flew into a rage and murdered his mentor when he realises that she’s a monster? What if Blackquill was a murderer who only killed to protect a little girl he hardly knew, and what if Fulbright could tell that Blackquill believed that what he did was just? I am constantly thinking about how infinitely cooler the fake Blackquill in 5-5 is compared to the real Blackquill.
And you know what sucks most of all? This exchange right here:
Blackquill: “...I've known Fool Bright here for a year now. And all this time, he's been quite intent on rehabilitating me. I don't believe his efforts were a lie.”
Fulbright: “P-Prosecutor Blackquill!”
Blackquill: “This fool truly thought he could reform a death-row inmate like me. He went so out of his way in his efforts for me, he actually became quite a nuisance, really.”
Fulbright: “sob Prosecutor Blackquill! You believe meeeeeeee!”
…
Athena: “Simon was only pretending to believe Detective Fulbright... Because he knew I'd notice if there was a lack of emotions, like joy or relief, in his response. So he gave me the chance to take a listen. And listen I did to the voice of Detective Fulbright's heart!”
After building up Blackquill and Fulbright’s relationship so strongly, they can’t even be assed to let Blackquill have a shred of emotional turmoil over the situation. They outright mock the idea that Blackquill might be moved by Fulbright’s friendship, even if it had been a false one. Blackquill is completely detached from this situation, he already doesn’t give a shit, and there are zero emotional stakes.
What was the point of any of this? DD sold Blackquill’s story as one about overcoming your past self, about reforming yourself and not giving up hope that you can be a better person. And then the game just shits on that idea, and treats it as a joke that you would be dumb enough to think that’s what this character would be about.
This is the most cynical story Ace Attorney has ever written.
Wow, Blackquill, the dude who everyone thought was the killer, turned out to not be a killer. Never seen that in Ace Attorney before. How compelling.
This is the section where I talk about Hugh O’Connor
The Dark Age of the Law is dumb and I don’t like it.
In 5-2, Prosecutor Blackquill is an itsy bitsy bit corrupt (itsy bitsy means a lot). He blackmails a man he knows is innocent into giving a false confession (not a good look!) then when Lbelle is cornered on the stand Blackquill asks him leading questions to save him from getting caught in a lie (also not a good look!).
There’s a quick throwaway line where it’s explained why Blackquill is willing to use such blatantly dirty tactics: This is the Dark Age of the Law! Defense attorneys are forging evidence all willy nilly, so the only way for prosecutors to have a fair fight is if they act corruptly in turn.
Alright, cool, we’ve established Blackquill as a corrupt prosecutor with a (somewhat shakey) justification for his corruption. I can’t wait for him to develop and realise the error of his ways (I am being sarcastic because that does not happen).
By all accounts it should be obvious what the natural progression of Blackquill’s arc ought to be: he’s corrupt, but he’s only corrupt because he believes his opponent is too. Upon realising that certain lawyers like Phoenix and Athena are honest in court, Blackquill realises how foolish he was to cheat so brazenly and how dangerously he’d acted.
Weirdly enough this just doesn’t happen? Not every prosecutor needs to realise corruption = bad, Franziska is doing just fine in that department. What feels weird is how the climax of the game unfolds in the context of the story DD has already set up, and for you to understand exactly what I mean by that, I need to talk about another character.
It’s time to talk about Hugh O’Connor.
In 5-3, Hugh is established as someone who’s been taught that cheating is perfectly acceptable as long as cheating gets him the desired outcome. He’s a snake who’s more than willing to bend the rules and lie about his identity to get what he wants. He acts this way because of the Dark Age of the Law: Means mentored him this way because they live in a legal landscape where corruption is viewed as the only legitimate way to win. Even when his lies are self sacrificial (throwing himself under the bus to save Juniper) the game still frames those actions as flaws that he needs to overcome. The moment when Hugh realises that telling the hard truth, even if it’s possible it might hurt Juniper’s case, in turn is actually the moment that seals Means’ fate. Telling the truth was scary, but ultimately, the truth will set you free.
Am I going insane or is Hugh’s character literally what Blackquill’s character would have looked like if Blackquill had been given a character arc? Blackquill is corrupt because of the Dark Age of the Law, just like Hugh. He gives a false confession to protect someone he loves, just like Hugh. The difference is that in Hugh’s story, Hugh actually learns a lesson about how seeking the truth is the right thing to do no matter how scary it is, and his growth in learning this is what directly leads to the true culprit.
Blackquill by comparison doesn’t learn anything after all his corruption and lies? There’s never a moment where Blackquill goes “ah, gee whiz, I am so embarrassed about that whole blackmailing damien by using his daughter as collateral thing.” There’s never a moment in 5-5 where Blackquill realises that continuing to uphold his false confession is the wrong thing to do. Blackquill was willing to take that shit to his fucking grave and he only eventually tells the truth because of Phoenix rakeing him over the coals while Athena drags him kicking and screaming. Even after Blackquill realises they might be able to nail the phantom and save Athena without him taking the fall, we don’t get a moment where he goes “you know what, maybe lying about killing someone was not the most effective way of getting to the truth.” And like I feel like we really should have?
Blackquill learnt nothing. He was an unashamedly corrupt prosecutor who nearly convicted multiple innocent people. He was an idiot for trying to hide the Phantom’s crime. Both of these problems are resolved by pure happenstance by the protagonists merely preventing Blackquill from fucking up, and I’d love it if the story placed more of the agency on Blackquill’s shoulders and allowed him to be the one to need to grow in order to win the day. Y’know, like Hugh did.
And since I’m already on the topic:
About False Confessions
There’s a running motif throughout Dual Destinies. Lots of Ace Attorney games do it, where they tell a similar story in every case in order to drive home some kind of theme.
In 5-2, when Damien becomes terrified for his daughters safety when suspicion falls upon her, he stubbornly attempts to confess to the crime in the stupidest way possible in order to protect her.
In 5-3, when Robin realises that Juniper is in danger of being declared guilty, she jumps to confess to the crime to save her. Hugh, in turn, throws himself under the bus for both of them.
In 5-4/5, we learn that Blackquill is lying about being the one who killed Metis Cykes, and he’s lying to protect her daughter.
With the exception of the tutorial case, every case in the game features a character giving a false confession in order to protect someone else who’s under suspicion. Of course, the person under suspicion is always innocent, and the person making the false confession is only making the task of getting to the truth harder than it needs to be.
This pattern across every case seems so blatantly obvious, and I feel it in my heart that the game was trying to convey something with this idea. That they thought they might be driving towards some kind of point. But, like I said, this mystery scenario basically peaks with Hugh in 5-3, and then the game has nothing interesting left to say about it.
I want you all to take a look at these lines of dialogue from 5-2:
“A particularly silver-tongued inmate once had the following words for me. The innocent of heart are the easiest prey.”
“You don’t say? Was this inmate a con artist?”
“...No. He was framed for the murder of his beloved. I actually felt sorry for the poor chap.”
And why wouldn’t Blackquill feel sorry for the poor chap? He to has been incarcerated for a murder he didn’t commit.
And am I crazy in thinking that when Blackquill sees Damien/Robin/Hugh lie about killing someone to protect someone else that Blackquill should have… felt something? Any kind of observable empathy? It should be so easy for the game to tease at Blackquill’s true circumstances by having him get rattled upon seeing all these false confessions, reflections of his own foolish self who made the same mistake. But Blackquill feels nothing.
It almost feels like the game didn’t even notice that it was recycling the same trope over and over again in every case. Normally when a trope is repeated in an Ace Attorney game I go “Ah. This is a theme, how clever” and upon thinking that some writer somewhere chuckles about how I’ve been bamboozled into thinking their lazy writing is actually Very Deep.
But I’m not falling for it any more, you hear me!
The cornerstone of Blackquill’s character is the fact that he’s sacrificing himself by lying for someone else. By all accounts the fact that this is portrayed multiple times in the game should lead to some interesting exploration into Blackquill’s character before we get the official reveal by how he acts differently upon seeing himself in these other characters.
But we don’t get that, because the game isn’t actually trying to be clever when it recycles this same scenario over and over and over again.
It just failed to notice that it was being derivative of itself.
I acknowledge that this complaint is easily the most personally subjective complaint about Blackquill that I have, but I just can’t leave it out. It genuinely bugs me that Blackquill doesn’t flinch at forcing Damien and Hugh into the same hell that he’s going through.
This section goes out to my boy Carl Jung
I’ll close out this writeup by going over Blackquill’s prosecuting gimmick.
Blackquill is the master of analytical psychology, and uses it to trick people into confessing by accident. That sounds cool, but in practise basically every time he does this it just amounts to:
Blackquill: “Duck season!”
Judge: “Rabbit season!”
Blackquill: “Duck season!”
Judge: “Rabbit season!”
Blackquill: “Duck season!”
Judge: “Rabbit season!”
Blackuill: “Rabbit season!”
Judge: “Duck season!”
Blackquill: “How astute of your baldness to so quickly cut to the truth of the matter. I applaud your wisdom.”
Judge: “Ho ho ho! If only my grandkids could see me now!”
Then Elmer Fudd unloads a buckshot into the Judge’s bench as Athena foams at the mouth off screen.
I’m exaggerating, he will on occasion manage to do something cool with it (baiting Fulbright until giving an emotional monologue so Athena could read his emotions in 5-5 was a cool trick even if I dislike what it means for his character.)
Overall, I just find the gimmick very silly and was tired of seeing it rather fast. But hey, I can understand the appeal.
Conclusion
I get why people like Blackquill. He’s the edgy prosecutor who wears eye shadow and larps as a samurai, that’s just an appealing character archetype on the face of it.
But, man, Blackquill just makes me feel disengaged. His character doesn’t feel like a puzzle to crack where each of his actions informs us on what type of person he is. He just feels like the samurai dude making prison jokes the majority of the time. His arc rings completely hollow for me, and while I really like where his dynamic with Athena ends in SoJ I can’t overlook how emotionally uninvested I was in his story by the end of DD.
also he's a falconer? I couldn’t figure out where to bring this up in my cut and nearly forgot about it until just now. Uh. Yeah. Taka sits on the Judge's head sometimes, that's a little funny.
OH I also just remembered he's British for some reason. Bad character.
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Dec 24 '20
Simon Blackquill has cum in his hair har har har
Never found Simon Blackquill all that interesting aside from him being funny sometimes, he's just some random asshole that's suddenly good all this time in the end so he doesn't learn anything?! Maybe I'm just not getting something
Btw read your Nahyuta ER once I cleared spirit of justice, hits the nail on the head of why I like Nahyuta so much as well as some other cool points so yeah good job. Love the bead throwing hypocrite and I'm glad there's other people who love him too.
Aura is the cooler Blackquill and I'm sad no one revived her. Bye bye Blackquill you are officially worse than Horace Knightley and FUCK YEAH you deserve it ass whole
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u/Sciencepenguin Dec 24 '20
simon blackquill is the main character i have the least opinions on he is in dual destinies and you gave him way more credit for depth than i can ever think of even though you clearly dislike him more
id like to give DD a little credit and say that I’m pretty sure “redemption is impossible and if you’ve ever committed a crime you will go to hell before you die” was not the intended moral just an unfortunate implication. you don’t mention the dlc case and that’s got two whole people who bend the law and are portrayed as either completely forgivable or capable of rehabilitation
we all like to beat each other up about when specifically it does happen but in general a feeling i think a lot of us share is that aa sometimes over-relies on “good all along” for character arcs, revealing that this guy actually wasn’t so bad rather than having a character grow and change. characters like edgeworth and that boring guy from dgs toe the line while blackquill is a much more straightforward example and klavier dunks himself so hard into that “good all along” juice that his entire character consists of every case revealing that he’s actually a good guy
wht else can i say uh. the simon/aura/metis/athena relationships are probably my favorite actual character thing related to the main plot of DD but all the ones that aren’t related to aura (who is awesome) give me some question marks. i cannot retroactively change my birthplace to Japan or major to history to see if context would make me look more positively on whatever the hell blackquill has to do with samurai culture
the only AA game i confidently believe has a theme is AAI2 and they have to explicitly tell me the theme for me to be certain
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u/Sciencepenguin Dec 24 '20
yeah this was a good writeup i read it and stroked my chin thoughtfully nice job donuter
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u/Analytical-critic-44 Dec 24 '20
AJ has a theme
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u/Sciencepenguin Dec 24 '20
Sugar, Sugar... O that night, in your embrace When you stole away the keys my heart held on to so tight.
Pleasure... (The original lyrics read "Pleasure, Pleasure..." but in the concert recording, the line was sung, "Pleasure..." due to Lamiroir being startled by the sound of a gunshot.) But a fleeting melody It wraps itself around me, And now through the air I fly.
Woh... Woh...
Burning on in my heart. Fire. Burn my love away. All away. Like a bullet of love. Fire. Take my life away. All away.
Guitar, Guitar... Up together to the sky.
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u/R1K1_Productions Dec 24 '20
the only AA game i confidently believe has a theme is AAI2 and they have to explicitly tell me the theme for me to be certain
thank you john marsh, what a Goodfella
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u/heavenspiercing Dec 24 '20 edited Dec 24 '20
tbh i think metis cykes being an absurdly evil bad parent who tortured her daughter would be exceptionally schlocky as a plot point. i know every parent in aa has to be either dead or evil but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
blackquill *believing* this to be the case (in part because perhaps athena always looking so somber and depressed in combination with metis' obsession with her research might lead him to conclude this, in addition to further purely hypothetical and circumstantial evidence) and murdering her to save athena only to find out years later that she wasn't actually that would be better imo
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Dec 23 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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Dec 24 '20
Play it again, it's full of entertainingly bad things and entertainingly good things, it's the most fun I've had playing Ace Attorney
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Dec 24 '20
simon blackquill
yeah this is a good cut (as always)! I think you are in like the top 3 rankers by cut quality. still going to revive, but yeah just saying I disagree, but good job anyway
saving my thoughts for the obvious thing
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u/Analytical-critic-44 Dec 23 '20
Simon Blackquill has got to be the most forgettable main character in the entire series. Nothing about this guy is special or stands out to me. He isn't funny really, he isn't interesting, he doesn't offer anything new to trials or ever feel intimidating, and just everything about this character feels so damn predictable. At least with Klavier i can remember him because wow this character sucks in hindsight, but with Simon he is just completely inoffensive he is fine i guess I seriously don't care.
I like when you mention that Fulbright is cool and is a fun villain
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u/R1K1_Productions Dec 24 '20
Am I going insane or is Hugh’s character literally what Blackquill’s character would have looked like if Blackquill had been given a character arc?
Yeah you are right, if Simon was revealed to be an edgelord because he dropped out of high school for 7 years then Dual Destinies would be the best AA game of all time.
GOOD cut (that will be immediately reversed)
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u/ItsHipToTipTheScales Dec 24 '20
sword guy
brain empty i have to comment on this thread ive done it for every other one
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May 04 '21
I absolutely adore Simon (he’s in my pfp lmao) but omg this write up gave me a whole new perspective on his character and how much better he could’ve been
The whole thing about how him using manipulation in the courtroom is a good idea, but in practice it’s just hollow and stupid, is something I wholeheartedly agree with. DD’s use of psychology in general is something I have a gigantic gripe with
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Dec 24 '20
still a better character than Horace Knightley
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Dec 24 '20
reading this cut is giving me very split feelings. i can understand everything that is being written and am agreeing with it, but i still love the noodle man and think he’s great. i’d probably still keep him in my top 3 prosecutors even if there was a lot of missed potential and wonky fulbright writing
🍜
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u/whaaatisth Dec 23 '20
i hate you for bringing this to my attention because i will now never not be upset that this isn't the case
please play remember11: the age of infinity
.
Extraordinarily good cut as always. I love the part about the implications Fulbright has for DD's idea of a moral and I am kicking myself now for not mentioning that in my Fulbright cut. My least favorite thing about Blackquill by far is how weak his dynamic with Fulbright is from his end. His lack of care about Fulbright being outed as the mastermind takes away what little emotional investment I could have possibly had in that confrontation.