SPOILERS AHEAD FOR WHOLE SERIES.




My claim: In Ace Attorney, anybody over 45 is:

a) Scatterbrained, airheaded, or senile
b) Incompetent
c) Obnoxious
or
d) Outright evil

Evdence:

The following are the only characters in the initial trilogy who are over 45:

Winston Payne: 52
Marvin Grossberg: 64
The Judge: ??
Wendy Oldbag: ??
Manfred von Karma: 65
Robert Hammond: 48
Yanni Yogi: 52
Damon Gant: 65
Dr. Hotti: ?????
Moe the Clown: 46
Bruto Cadaverini: 78
Victor Kudo: 68
Shelly de Killer: ??
Kane Bullard: 48

Morgan Fey: Unconfirmed; may be over or under 45. She's drawn with age-lines under her eyes.
Ami Fey: Doesn't count as a character.
Gregory Edgeworth: A canonically good, noble person who might be over 35! Oh, wait. He's dead.
Russel Berry: See above.

Misty Fey: 46. The sole exception to the rule! BUT SHE DIES.

Sister Bikini: 48. Okay, there's an exception, assuming you don't find her obnoxious.

If we include Apollo Justice, things look a little better, but not much:

Drew Misham: 56
Guy Eldoon: 46
Zak Gramarye: 45
Magnifi Gramarye: ??, but old.
Winifred Kitaki: 56
Pal Meraktis: 46

Question:

Is this coincidence, or does it reflect a deliberate ageism? Is it a reasonable way of pleasing a young audience base, or endearing silly, or just disrespectful?

I can't be the only one who winced at the name "Oldbag." I don't think it's a huge deal, but it's unpleasant to think that in a game about lawyers, you'll never actually meet a good, competent lawyer who's actually old enough to merit that reputation.

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If we extend the age cutoff to a generous 35... it still doesn't help much:

Valant Gramarye: 44 <- Coward, frame-up artist
Furio Tigre: 42 <- MURDERER
Plum Kitaki: 42 <- Ex-Mafia leader.
Lamiroir: 40 <- Exception! She just had to be shot in the head and blinded to pull it off.
Redd White: 39 <- MURDERER
Jack Hammer: 37 <- DEAD AND BAD.
Frank Sahwit: 36 <- MURDERER
Bruce Goodman: 36 <- DEAD.
Spark Brushel: 36 <- Obnoxious, but a good guy
Turner Grey: 35 <- DEAD AND BAD.
Romein LeTouse: 35 <- DEAD.

Dee Vasquez, 34, just misses the age cutoff, as does Luke Atmey.

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Last edited by FerdieLance on Wed Apr 29, 2009 7:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

Wow, you've put a lot of thought into this. Anyway, I doubt this was intentional. It's probably a lot like the accusations of racism that Capcom have recieved over Resident Evil.

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Good list, but...

If Hotti is considered over 45, then Morgan should, too.
And how do you know Hammond is evil/obnoxous/incompetent/airheaded?

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Also, OlderNick is more ambiguous than the younger one.
There indeed seems to be an idea that experience makes you corrupt...

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Lind L Tailor: No thought required; just a scanning of the character list on this site. It gives the ages right there.

Is it unintentional? Maaaaybe, or maybe it represents a different set of social values or comic tropes. Maybe it's normal for all old guys to be wacky in Japanese games, I don't know. But whatever the cause, it's screwed up on some level.

Banoon: I was being generous with Morgan's age. She could have had kids early. But if she is over 45? Wow, that really fits the pattern, don't it?

We have Grossberg's word that Hammond was Not a Nice Guy. He cared only about winning, and was willing to ruin a client's life in order to win. Even if he weren't a lousy person, he'd still be a convenient victim.

Ping': Good catch. And the older Gavin brother is, of course, the bad one.

Here's another list, of all the people who canonically have saved the day on at least one occasion. I don't count people who saved the day by being caught in a contradiction (Wesley) or admitting some dark secret/mistake (Grossberg):

Phoenix: 24
Mia: 27, but she saved the day when she was younger - or dead.
Maya: 17
Edgeworth: 24
Larry: 22
Gumshoe: 30
Ema: 16
Franziska: 18
Pearl: 8
Godot: about 30, and it was... dubious.
Ron: 23
Trucy: 15
Klavier: 24
Eldoon: 46 <- Subtle.

RULE: Only people under 25 are allowed to save the day.

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If Misty is 46 (49 by T&T's timeline), then we can assume Morgan, the elder sister, is also over 45.

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Judging from 3-5, I'd consider Misty pretty incompetant, too.

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How so?

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Hey, in order to counter Morgan's assassination attempt, instead of warning Phoenix or Maya or Pearl or burning Morgan's letter or doing anything else that would make sense, I'm just going to try to distract Pearl with STORITIEM. ...Oops, guess that brilliant plan didn't work, so I'll just channel Dahlia instead. That way, either I'll kill Maya myself or Godot'll run me through with a sword. Whichever happens first.

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YAY FOR TIGRE 8DDD

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Stereotypes, maybe? In fact, most of the characters are what I would consider stereotypical.



The whole 'summoning Dahlia's spirit thing' comes to mind. All she had to do was slip Pearl a strong sedative at dinner, destroy Morgan's letter, and then sit around twiddling her thumbs until Maya had finished her training. But given that would make too much sense, she instead decides to summon Dahlia's spirit, thereby getting herself killed as a result.

EDIT: Damn, Franzise beat me to it...oh, well.

Wait, wait. Spark Brushel... Obnoxious!? Whaa...Whhaaa? H--How so? If anything, he's more scatterbrained.

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Because of the whole "Insert something in the form of a newspaper headline here" End quote, business.

I dunno, there are several of the younger characters that I would consider to be just as scatterbrained and obnoxious as their elders. And as for evil, all the killers in JFA were in their twenties. None of the killers in AJ were over 35 either.



Totally agree with this though. The only one who comes close is Gregory, but we never got to meet him!

In terms of prosecutors I think it's probably a good thing such a character doesn't show up as a rival - anyone in that role *has* to be wrong a lot, so it's easier to give them excuses like "they're a genius, but inexperienced" or "their judgment is clouded by the desire to win" etc. If Phoenix or Apollo ever had to go up against a composed, intelligent, experienced prosecutor either they would just lose (oops) or they'd win, and then how could you believe that prosecutor was as good as they seemed? If they were so good, they should have solved the case before it went to court.

Which is why I think it would be nice to have a couple lawyers running around as witnesses. Can we have a positive role model in the profession who isn't a ghost??

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