This Is Further Evidence For My Point That That Edgeworth Has A “move On” Attitude Towards Trauma

Comparing some quotes from Farewell My Turnabout to AA1, you start to realize what Miles Edgeworth’s redemption arc is really about…

Turnabout Sisters: "Innocent"...? How can we know that? The guilty will always lie, to avoid being found out. There's no way to tell who is guilty and who is innocent! All that I can hope to do is get every defendant declared "guilty"! So I make that my policy. Versus Farewell, My Turnabout: It doesn't matter how many underhanded tricks a person uses... The truth will always find a way to make itself known. The only thing we can do is to fight with the knowledge we hold and everything we have. Erasing the paradoxes one by one... It's never easy... We claw and scratch for every inch. But we will always eventually reach that one single truth. This I promise you.

Rise From the Ashes: But in order to fight crime on my own, I'd need a "weapon." It's scary, but I've known that to be true for quite some time now.  Versus Farewell, My Turnabout: Working together is the definition of teamwork. It's the power to find the truth.

Edgeworth’s redemption isn’t about him gaining +100 morals. He turns his cynicism that used to blind him from seeking the truth into unflinching realism. He goes from being detrimentally independent to understanding the importance of teamwork. 

Miles Edgeworth is just as ruthless and unrelenting, but decides to use it to try to do good. He’s still overly focused on a singular goal, but instead of guilty verdicts, his goal is the truth. He’s still an insensitive prick. He acts condescending to the people he wants to help. He doesn’t fully comprehend how much his actions hurt the people who love him. But he does everything he can to help Phoenix save Maya. And he sees through Phoenix’s and Franziska’s misbeliefs when it comes to practicing law, and does his best to help them find themselves too.

today, you'll never guess what happened at gourd lake

I'm so tired of hearing that Phoenix saved Miles without hearing about any of its implications.

Because Phoenix's savior complex is a major problem not a solution. Because Wrightworth is not about Phoenix saving Miles, it's about them saving each other. Because in Farewell My Turnabout, Miles Edgeworth said "We aren't some sort of heroes. We're only human." and he was right.

(Edited to adjust my argument).

I think RTFA confirming that Miles Edgeworth didn't intentionally forge evidence aligns with his established character in the first four cases. It does take away some audience interpretation but personally I'm fine with that.

First of all I don't think the rest of AA1 ever confirmed it one way or the other. There are a few instances where Phoenix thinks of Edgeworth as an evidence forger but it's not like Phoenix would know for sure either. (Do correct me, with specific lines please, if I'm wrong though).

But more importantly, if you only look at the first four cases of AA1 Edgeworth being an evidence forger doesn't make sense with his character. Why would a prosecutor forge evidence? Not including reasons like being blackmailed. 1) If they don't care (enough) about the truth (prioritizing things like success over it), or 2) if they truly believe the defendant is guilty and are desperate for a conviction (aka the reason Adrian Andrews forges evidence in 2-4).

Does Edgeworth care about the truth, before the start of his redemption arc at the end of 1-3?

Yes... kind of. I don't think he prioritizes the truth or consciously cares about it. As the "Demon Prosecutor", Edgeworth cares about justice, and achieving it through punishment. However, convicting the wrong person would not be justice to him. Which is what makes Edgeworth change sides to convict the right person in 1-3. So in that sense, he does care about the truth.

You could argue that Edgeworth had already lost once to Phoenix and thought "screw this, my perfect record is already gone, another loss wouldn't change that fact". But compare him to two characters who are actually obsessed with their perfect records. Manfred, a perfectionist control-freak, getting a penalty (not even losing!) unraveled him so much that he killed Gregory in the heat of the moment. Franziska after losing in 2-2 declares that: "That spirit channeling trial was a sham! I refuse to acknowledge its legitimacy! It did not count!" She doesn't even want to admit that she lost. Edgeworth, on the other hand, doesn't act like someone who truly prioritizes his win record over the truth.

Because Edgeworth didn't just let himself lose in 1-3, he made himself lose. He made Vasquez testify again. She would have gotten away if Edgeworth didn't say anything. And after the trial he tells the judge "Will Powers was innocent. That he should be found so is only natural… not a miracle."

Okay but if Edgeworth does care about the truth (to some extent), and believed that every defendant being guilty was the truth, he could have easily gone down the path of forging evidence to ensure the verdict reflected what he believed to be true. That leads me to my next question:

2. Does Edgeworth truly believe that every defendant he prosecutes is guilty?

Actually no. He says this in Turnabout Sisters: "Innocent"...? How can we know that? The guilty will always lie, to avoid being found out. There's no way to tell who is guilty and who is innocent! All that I can hope to do is get every defendant declared "guilty"! So I make that my policy.

Yeah I think that line speaks for itself.

Miles Edgeworth can't bring himself to consciously care about or prioritize the truth, but the moment it's presented in front of him he also can't bring himself to ignore it. He doesn't think it would be just to knowingly convict an innocent person, but he's so disillusioned and distrusting of people that he's lost faith in finding the truth.

So, he commits himself to getting guilty verdicts because he believes that's the best shot he has at enacting justice, even if he accidentally convicts innocent people from time to time.

And to me that aligns with his reaction to finding out he unknowingly used forged evidence in 1-5. Edgeworth was so disillusioned with finding the truth that he has accepted that some collateral damage would inevitably happen as a result of his mindset. However, because he still can't let go of his dedication to the truth, he wouldn't want to lie or rewrite the facts to achieve his verdicts.

I love that phoenix is a bit of an asshole like he’s the most character ever

but i will not stand for goofy dumbass pathetic Phoenix erasure.

Bro canonically says “YEOWCH!” when he gets stabbed or hit.

He grabs the back of his neck and chuckles when he’s feeling sheepish.

He called himself “Sherlock Holmes II baby!” when sherlock holmes never existed. A HERLOVK SHOLMES DID

He gushes when something is cute or romantic. “You’re too cute to call you just pearl!” “*actively crying at the delite’s love story* thats so romantic…”

He copies his friends’s mannerisms bc he loves spending time with them. (also bc he has adhd. No this is canon and i’m correct about it no one fight me)

Feenie copies a lot of Larry’s mannerisms

Phoenix copies a lot of Mia’s mannerisms

Beanix has a lot of Dahlia’s mannerisms which i wont look into bc i value my mental health

In the anime he copies Ron Delite when he was yelling and that was so funny

theres more but i always write these when i’m half asleep

He loves to gossip with Maya, (like when gumshoe got a crush)

He loves to argue about pointless shit as well like ladders, which kinda leads into him trying to purposely be difficult bc he thinks its funny

idk i feel like people forget that this is the same dude who got amnesia twice and still went to work (once as his actual job: attorneying and once as a friggin baker 😭😭)

theres a TON of goofy cartoony shit that phoenix does! Yes he can be sarcastic, but he’s also a giant loser who is REALLY good at improv.

Phoenix is just as weird as everyone around him. He’s also a goofball who happens to be a big hater.

This is literally how I view the wrightworth relationship progression through the trilogy.

Phoenix is 100% more emotionally constipated than Edgeworth is and I will stand by that.

Space to share a headcanon you rotate in your brain like a rotisserie chicken

I have a very specific idea how the mitsunaru ship dynamic goes:

Also that one headcanon about Phoenix suppressing his college self means everything to me...

The idea of him getting back to that mentality for a moment and trying to backpedal out of embarrassment is just

That’s precisely why Farewell My Turnabout is so so important to their relationship. It’s the case where Miles saves Phoenix <3

I cannot overstate how important Phoenix and Edgeworth are to each other’s lives. There is something so beautiful about Edgeworth’s walls crumbling before the man who picked up his father’s legacy where he couldn’t. There is so much care in the fact that Edgeworth returns to guide Phoenix when duty versus personal circumstances shake the latter’s principles to their core.

They spend their lives reciprocating each other’s acts of kindness, and it is in this eternal dance that they find comfort, trust, and love in one another.

Thinking about AA role-swap AUs and if prosecutor Phoenix Wright would also “choose death” and then I remembered that in Farewell My Turnabout, Phoenix tells Edgeworth it might be time for "Defense Attorney Phoenix Wright chooses death". In the bad ending where Matt Engarde is declared "not guilty", Phoenix literally wanders the streets. Before I played this case, I thought Maya dies in the bad ending which prompts this reaction, but no he doesn't even see Maya again.

The more I look at canon, the more I realize Phoenix is as much of an emotional mess as Miles is, likely even worse. Phoenix's identity has always been so tied to being a lawyer, to saving people. He condemns one innocent person (Adrian Andrews) and he completely falls apart. And honestly, the same would probably happen if he got Matt Engarde "guilty" and Maya dies. Of course prosecutor Phoenix Wright would leave like Miles did.

Here’s our girl

Still not very good at digital art but I don’t mind how this one turned out :)

Click for higher res

I love this conversation so much.

It's clear in RFTA that Phoenix had an idea of how Edgeworth was supposed to heal after this. Kill the prosecutor in your OR let it help you grow... But Edgeworth did both. He had to kill off his old self before he could truly heal.

Do you think this conversation haunted Phoenix before Edgeworth came back