I think it’s really neat how the original trilogy lawyers and the new trilogy lawyers think about secrets differently.
On one hand, you have Phoenix and Edgeworth. To them, secrets are an item, kept in a box and locked within your heart. In order to figure out what it is, you have to locate the box, find the key, and unlock it. Whether that’s with evidence and bluffing (psyche-locks) or logic and contradictions (logic chess) you use concrete details to unlock the truth.
On the other hand, there’s Apollo and Athena. They view secrets as a feeling, hidden behind a wall. Something that you repress but still seeps through, however small. They use more subjective tactics based on psychology and an understanding of people as emotional beings. They find the cracks in the wall, and they knock the wall down. Perception finds where the nervousness slips through, and the Mood Matrix sees a person’s emotions as they truly are, not as they intend them to be.
I haven’t quite worked out how this relates to their characterization and worldview yet, but I know it makes sense in Edgeworth’s case, having been raised in a household where emotions were a weakness, evidence was everything, and logic and perfection always ruled.
@turnabout4what any thoughts?
Duuuuuuuuuuude.
One notable thing about Apollo and Athena is that they don’t seem to view secrets as an enemy. Edgeworth and Phoenix treated them as something to be defeated– obstacles to the truth. They both reacted pretty negatively to seeing psyche locks. Gumshoe, too– “If you hide anything from Mr. Edgeworth, I’ll arrest you on the spot, pal!”
Apollo and Athena developed their friendship by uncovering secrets together, which made it quite fitting for Apollo to bandage his eye when Athena was hiding something about Clay’s death. There’s a relational, emotional aspect to secrets that they pick up on.
With Apollo, a lot of the secrets his bracelet picked up on revealed parts of a person’s character. Wesley Stickler’s intense curiosity. Alita’s apathy toward her fiancee. Kristoph’s paranoia. And then there was Turnabout Serenade: “Machi! I believe you didn’t do it, really! I trust you! But you’ve lied to us twice. And now you have Lamiroir lying on your behalf! (…) If this is going to work, you have to trust me, too. (…) Your two lies cover a simple truth. You understand English. You have to!”
At the end of the case, Lamiroir tells Apollo that she was afraid of getting an eye operation because she was afraid of the truth. But it was through her getting to know Apollo that she decided it was time to uncover the truth. (and promptly not share it, gdi capcom)
To Athena, secrets are something to be earned, like relational currency. A lot of the secrets she exposed were for the other person’s benefit– She calmed Juniper enough to uncover her memories, Jinxie’s fears of yokai faded, Robin got to be her true gender, and Betty got to act with her own personality. Athena rarely used her ability to trip up criminals (with the exception of the phantom)– she used it to coax witnesses into telling the truth.
It’s a stark contrast to Edgeworth’s interrogation of Adrian Andrews in Farewell, My Turnabout for sure. Edgeworth viewed the truth as something to be pulled out of a person, while Athena viewed the truth as a part of a person. Phoenix viewed the truth as a tool to help people, and Apollo viewed the truth as a tool to understand people. Interesting stuff.
gummycore
