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Not as not as much as you think my friend... :(

but she scares me when she goes into evil mode.

evil ghost mode with the writhing hair.

its so cute how was able to get the nice part that he knew of back, in a weird way, throught

Also what i have been thinking about is that if had been dropped off at the temple with , she might have been just as nice, and possibly a stronger version of . Its just the way she grew up.

(a fourteen-year old hatching a complicated fake kidnapping/ransom/double cross? That's some precociousness!) What makes her a great catch also makes her really dangerous. Poor Phoenix.

Although, personally, I don't know if Dahlia would have turned out well even if she had been with Iris. I sorta have the feeling that she would have turned to crime even if she was in Hazakura; after all, she was the one who suggested her father abandon Iris at the shrine (or am I remembering things wrong?) Sad as it is, I'm tempted to believe that she was just born bored with a "normal" life.

Anyway, as much as I'd like to believe that Dahlia would have been good if the family was together, I just can't. I think it's the premeditation and the betrayal at such a young age...just leads me to believe that it wasn't something her father impressed on her (although I don't doubt that the whole plot was a cry for attention). But I digress.

Dahlia is certainly not a trustworthy character in words or actions.

Honestly? I don't know if Dahlia would have turned out better if she had been with Iris at Hazakura, mainly because she did have a family influence in her father, stepmother, and Valerie. Her father was, from what we know, very unpleasant, but he did care enough to take her with him when she left Morgan (as a rich man, he probably spoiled her rotten, at least). That doesn't make him a good person, but to say that he didn't love Dahlia wouldn't be entirely true. She may have hated him, but that doesn't make him responsible for her hatred and her betrayal of him (which, considering she was so hurt by Iris' betrayal, seems pretty hypocritical of her). And I do think Valerie really cared about Dahlia (heck, the developers in both languages named her after a positive character trait! ). I disagree with your opinion of Valerie, but I'll get to that in a moment.

I mean, we'd all love to think that Dahlia would have turned out differently if she had been with Iris, including me. There's always a scapegoat. It's her father's fault for taking her away, it's Morgan's fault for letting them go, it's Valerie's fault for not loving her. At some point, we have to ask "When does Dahlia take the blame for how Dahlia turned out?" Actually, I think Dahlia herself wants a scapegoat. It's true that the Hawthorne family wasn't the most loving household, but that doesn't necessarily turn people into murderers.

Again, I can see how being in a loving situation would soften the blow, but I don't think it would change who Dahlia is. To me, the fake kidnapping and ransom was a cry for attention. Not because she felt she wasn't loved, but because she wanted the attention because she was bored. There are a few reasons she might want to target her father, the first being that, although Dahlia was the one who suggested abandoning Iris, she really did care about her; she was her family, and subconsciously she passed the blame from her actions to her father. "You abandoned Iris, father, it was you!"...so to speak (and, of course, he abandoned Morgan). About Iris: I also believe Dahlia cared for her sister; after all, why leave her at a mountain shrine and not on the side of the road somewhere? At the same time, I think there was a reason that Mr. Hawthorne chose to leave Iris and not Dahlia, and I think this is the major point. It was their personalities, even at that young age, that made Dahlia and Iris different (and thus, their ultimate fates). Dahlia wasn't completely sweet and innocent like Iris was, she was mischievous and fiery and took the initiative to convince her father to abandon her sister. She may not have wanted the family to split up (who does?), but she didn't seem to be losing much sleep over it.

The second reason for the plot was of course the money (not like she would have refused it, at least). Family is the reason Dahlia asked Valerie to help her; from what we've seen in her later murders, Dahlia is more than comfortable with carrying out her plans alone, but I really think she wanted Valerie to have a chance to help her. Same goes for Iris, actually.

That brings me back to Valerie. I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment that Valerie didn't care about her little stepsister. To me, personally, it seems as though Valerie loved her little stepsister and felt sorry for her. Losing a mother, coming to a new family, losing a sister...yes, Valerie was going to get a cut of the gemstone, but part of her probably knew that Dahlia would get everything in the end. After all, it was an uncut gemstone: hard to split up equally. Then, after the fact, Valerie helped her start a new life; Valerie wouldn't have gotten anything out of doing that herself. I think it was Valerie's sympathy for her sad little stepsister that led her to, against her morals, help her carry out the plot and then lie about it under oath to get Terry convicted. Five years later, the guilt weighed on her mind, and she called out Dahlia, not only for her own sake, but for Dahlia's. In other words, Valerie wanted the truth to come out. She wanted Dahlia to face her demons, and went to meet her, and, well...we know what happened.

Hmm...in response to what you said about Dahlia not wanting people not know she relies on them, I think that she wants people to think she relies on them and trusts them. It's a confidence game: Get close to people, and use them to achieve her ends. She did it to Terry, to Phoenix, and she probably tried to somehow sweet-talk Diego into letting his guard down ("Cute girls never lie"). It worked, unfortunately. :( But her reliance on others and her sweet-talk are part of her act; deep-down, I think what she said when she had nothing to lose (i.e. when she was dead and being channeled) was closest to the truth: She only cared about herself and her very personal revenge and had no need or want to rely on anything else. I don't see any reason to not believe her, especially since she never used any one person as her "pillar of reliance"; she bounced from one place to another (who knows what she did during those five formative years as "Melissa Foster"?) using people as she went.

Anyway, the main reason I think that Dahlia wouldn't have turned out better in Hazakure is because she might have had a loving blood sister and Bikini, but that boredom, that desire to do something would have still led her to do wrong, because she had that singular desire for notoriety. I just think Dahlia has that spiteful, manipulative personality that makes her unwilling to listen to anyone beneath her, not if she's getting nothing out of it. We've seen her hate and hurt, and we have to reason to believe that this side of her would have disappeared if she was in Hazakura. Remember, Dahlia was in contact with Iris for six months, and Iris urged her sister not to do anything rash, and Dahlia wouldn't listen. I really like Dahlia as a character, but I feel that if anyone is to blame for Dahlia's cold heart, it's Dahlia. That was ultimately her choice and her sin and I don't know if her environment would have changed that.