Yes, yes, I know, I probably should feel insane rage towards Dahlia, but I love her wickedness. Sure, I felt awful for Terry. DDD: So devoted, and he had to die like that... I mean, Dahlia betrayed him, but she's a villain; she's supposed to be vile and whatnot. And for that reason, I like her, on top of her sad history which gives meaning to her ways.

Mia, however, is supposed to be the protagonist we look up to. So her moving on from Diego that was cryptically mentioned at the end of 3-4 really hit me kind of hard. At the end of 3-4, after Diego's last line, the screen fades to the old film-type effect that plays through the majority of that case, but this time it's Diego who's been faded out, like a memory. Mia's last line is something along the lines of "...And eventually, all memories fade. You file them away, and forget about them."

It's *supposed* to be about the case, of course, but the timing is done on purpose, to give it a double meaning; it's supposed to suggest that she moved on from Diego, too. Now, that makes sense, I guess. I mean, he was in a coma, not expected to come out alive, all that... But when she appears in 3-2, she seems visibly angry at Godot. It's probably because he's an absolute douche who's less interested in his job and more interested in pissing off Phoenix... But at the same time, I mean, could she have been angry about him not moving on? Angry that she moved on, and then he came back alive after all? I know I shouldn't be mad at her for that, but...

I suppose, after seeing a case about so much devotion, and having gone through two cases of Godot visibly angsting about her... It's cold, and it hit me the wrong way. I may not like Godot, but at least he's adamantly loyal.

hate her. godot kill someone because of her.

shes pure evil and thats cool. but she poisoned godot and because of that i hate her.

godot did everything he could to protect her and she didn't do anything in return. in case 3-5 i think she helped him by getting him the guilty verdict (just like mia and phoenix said) but for me it doesnt help at all.

He killed mia. And because of that godot is sad. He makes godot sad, so i hate him.

you make godot guilty, Trite!! You made a serius fatal mistake there, i'll never forgive you!! But i still like hobohodo

But when her five locks were all broken by that damn autograph and even then she didn't have much information to tell me... that pissed me off.

for what she did she deserves more than just death, the end serves her well - eternal defeat.

#1: This doesn't really concern Iris's personality so much as the way in which she is presented in the game, but it still bothers me. For someone who is given such an important role in Phoenix's life, she hardly appears in the game. Really, I mean, Wendy Oldbag appears more than her for goodness's sake, and Iris had a huge impact on Phoenix's life: she was his beloved "Dollie" for over half a year in college and is the sister of the woman who tried to kill him. That alone makes her pretty important, and yet, she appears so little onscreen. In all, these are all the times I recall her appearing.
1. Phoenix meets her at the Inner Temple/Phoenix meets her right before she rings the bell (both of these encounters are rather short)
2. Edgeworth talks to her in prison/ a little bit before and after the court proceedings
3. Right before the earthquake Phoenix meets her
4. After Dahlia is unmasked, Phoenix quickly speaks with her in the court house lobby
5. When she divulges her love for Phoenix on the stand
6. Her few lines in the credits
I think I got it all, but even if I missed a few points, Iris still doesn't appear a great deal in the game. Even worse is the fact that she is a very relevant character in relation to Phoenix, but he speaks with her very little (#1,3,5,6). She doesn't even get to testify! Overall, I feel that since the developers went out of their way to create Iris and give her such an important role, they should at least allow the player more interaction with her.

#2: In a way, Iris downplayed my love of Dahlia as a villain, and that strikes a nerve as well. For one, there are very few evil female villains in PW (Morgan Fey is portrayed as being somewhat pathetic, Dee Vasquez acted in self-defense, Mimi Miney is given a tragic backstory). The reason Dahlia was, to me, such a great villainess was the fact that she was so cruel yet clever. I loved the notion that she managed to fool Phoenix into believing that she loved him and strung him along while planning to murder him. To me, she was Von Karma’s female counterpart: biding her time to strike and being remorseless when doing so. That effect was marred, however, upon the discovery that it was actually Iris that had been with Phoenix for those months. While it didn’t ruin Dahlia’s character completely, it just bothered me that she was made to seem less cunning and self-reliant. Personally, Dahlia just seemed more interesting to me when I thought that she had been Phoenix’s girlfriend.

#3: In general, I don’t like how Iris really doesn’t show to have grown or evolved as a character from the days when she was with Phoenix. Obviously, we never met her when she was playing the part of the college girlfriend, but Feenie still gives us a pretty clear description: she is kind, sensitive, caring, shy, and sweet. In 3-5, she still seems that way, despite all of her experiences. After witnessing the attempted murder of the man she loved by her own sister and then learning of that sister’s sentence to death, one would think that Iris would grow and become wiser, less trusting, maybe even assertive, and would be more cautious. No, instead, she seems unnaturally similar to how she was five years ago. I realize that she has been living in secluded Hazakura Temple for those long years, but a few distinct changes in her personality or disposition would have been nice. Mia, for example, changes dramatically in five years; at first, she is a nervous, uncertain rookie who has difficulty asserting herself but she eventually grows into a calm, self-confident mentor who can be critical and hard-hearted at times, but is trying to help those she cares about. Phoenix changes even more dramatically, from the overemotional, childish college student, to a (usually) responsible, coherent, and grounded man. Miles transforms from Von Karma clone to a self-assured, but humane individual who discovers that the truth is the highest goal anyone can aspire to. And need I even mention the changes that occur in Diego Armando? It just seems to me that Iris, when compared to the others, hardly sees any growth in her character.

#4: My biggest problem with Iris, though, would have to be her personality itself. She just doesn’t seem real to me. I understand that there are subtleties to her character (such as her unnatural loyalty to Dahlia), but, IMO, she comes across too much as a stereotype and reminds me more of a Victorian-era doll than a round, well-developed character. For one, she has no overt flaws compared to the others (Maya’s immaturity; Edgeworth’s rather cold, somewhat anti-social demeanor, Mia’s bossiness and sometimes dismissive behavior; Phoenix’s sarcasm and occasional tendency to be judgmental). Iris is pure and sweet; she is kind, caring, helpful, obedient, and hard working. She may be shy and easily manipulated, but this doesn’t demonstrate flaws in her character as much as it does those of those who take advantage of her. In essence, she just doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the PW cast. I could imagine her in a fairy-tale type setting, but not in the more realistic world of these games. She reminds me far too much of another beautiful woman who made big mistakes that others had to clean up: Princess Zelda from Ocarina of Time. Even if you haven’t played OOT, it’s easy enough to imagine how the story goes: beautiful, wise, kind-hearted Zelda tries to prevent catastrophe from befalling her nation but inadvertently causes just that to happen, leaving Link to clean up the mess by confronting and defeating Ganondorf. Iris fits that profile rather well. She gets caught up in disastrous situations and often aggravates the problems before someone has to come and bail her out, such as when she is an accomplice to Godot in 3-5 and Phoenix and Miles are left to sort things out. I can easily picture her as a princess or damsel in distress in a fantasy world, but she needs more personality and flaws to pass in PW. As evidence, you can look at her animations: not one of them makes her appear angry, jealous, nervous, or any other negative emotion. In one she stares straight at the screen with no particular emotion; in another she tilts her head down while resting it gently on her hand gracefully; another depicts her blushing while staring shyly at the screen; and the last shows tears forming in her eyes. She has no shocked, angry, or detrimental expressions. She always looks perfect, composed, and calm in every animation. Most of the other characters have at least one that shows them looking silly, angry, shocked, irritated, or some other ridiculous expression. Not Iris: there may be an animation of her scowling and another of her desperation, but these are only applied to Dahlia pretending to be Iris.
Finally, I’d like to wrap this up with a little question that has been bugging me for a while about Iris. Iris says at the end that she loves Phoenix and would have gladly sacrificed her life (or her sister’s) for his, but then why didn’t she get the necklace back from him? I understand that she “tried” asking him to give it back for several months, but, she never did get it despite the stakes. Dahlia had asked her to retrieve the necklace for her and Iris knew that Dahlia was prepared to “deal with Phoenix at a moment’s notice.” She knew about what her sister had done to Terry, Valerie, and Diego, and she must have known that not getting the necklace placed Feenie in terrible danger. So why didn’t she retrieve it? It would have been simple, really; she could have told him that it was a family heirloom and that a relative wanted to see it or some other simple lie and then, when he asked for it back, she could have told him that she’d lost it. If she was afraid that Dahlia would kill him after, well the simple solution would have been to go to the police or tell Feenie the truth. Honestly, I can’t find a legitimate reason for why Iris didn’t get the necklace back from Feenie. If she loved him as much as she said, she should have been willing to do anything to protect him.

I also don't like Thalassa. If she had been my mother I would hate her to the ends of time and back for obvious reasons. ._.

in jail at the time. But I did think it was harsh of her to say that an evil had taken him, especially without knowing why he wanted the money.