Turnabout Sisters

Turnabout Sisters

Transcript

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Turnabout Sisters V · T · F
Incident overview
Dates	Sept. 5-9, 2016
Time of incident	Sept. 5, 2016, 8:57 p.m.
Victim	Mia Fey
Weapon / cause of injury	Blow to the head with a statue/clock of "The Thinker"
Related persons	Marvin Grossberg Misty Fey
Related locations	Fey & Co. Law Offices Detention center Grossberg Law Offices Gatewater Hotel Defendant Lobby No. 1 Bluecorp
Evidence	Attorney's Badge The Thinker Glass Shards Receipt Maya's Memo Mia Fey's Autopsy Report #1 Maya's Cell Phone Wiretap Floor Plans Mia Fey's Autopsy Report #2 May Testimony Photograph A Photograph B Newspaper Clipping Receipt Mia's Memo
Trial data
Courtroom No.	1
Presiding judge	judge
Defense team	Phoenix Wright
Defense team assistants	Maya Fey* (co-counsel on second trial day)
Prosecutor	Miles Edgeworth
Defendant	Maya Fey Phoenix Wright
Trial witnesses	Dick Gumshoe April May Bellboy Redd White

Miles Edgeworth

"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.

Episode 2: Turnabout Sisters is the second case in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. With his mentor Mia Fey murdered, it is up to Phoenix Wright to clear the name of the prime suspect: Mia's little sister Maya. However, in order to do this, Wright must defeat the undefeated "Demon Attorney", Miles Edgeworth.

This case marks the death of the major character Mia Fey, as well as the first appearances of Maya Fey, Dick Gumshoe, Marvin Grossberg, and Miles Edgeworth. It also introduces investigation chapters and reveals some information about the Fey clan.

Sept. 5

The crime

At 8:57 p.m., a man came into Mia Fey's office to take some papers that would damage his business practices if revealed. To keep Fey from revealing his secrets, the man grabbed The Thinker, a gift given to her after a recent case, and smashed it over her head with a strong blow. Fey murmured, "Red... White... Blue", then collapsed to the ground.

Arrest

"*sob* Sis..."

Phoenix Wright, having received an earlier call from Mia asking to meet her, arrived late to the office and smelled blood. Fearing the worst, he rushed into the office and found Fey's corpse, with a strange young girl crying over it. The girl then collapsed out of shock. Wright took her out to the couch in the front of the office before returning to investigate the crime scene.

"(Her body was still warm... I could feel it when I held her shoulder. Then, all too quickly, it began to fade... Until finally she was cold.)"

Wright found that the murder weapon was the "Thinker" clock that his friend Larry Butz had made. He also found a receipt with the name "Maya" written on the back of it in blood, as well as a shattered glass light stand next to Mia Fey's body. Wright showed the receipt to the girl, who happened to be Maya Fey, Mia's younger sister. Just then, Detective Dick Gumshoe arrived with the police and arrested Maya, citing the bloody writing as well as a call from a witness in the building across from the office.

Sept. 6

Despite not getting any rest the night before, Wright went to the Detention Center to meet with the suspect. Maya Fey asked Wright if he could get a veteran lawyer to represent her in court. To this end, Wright headed for Marvin Grossberg's office to find it empty. A painting of a fisherman was prominent on the wall.

At the Fey & Co. Law Offices, Wright met the detective in charge of investigating the crime scene, Dick Gumshoe. Thinking that Wright was Maya's attorney, Gumshoe gave him the victim's autopsy report and the news that Miles Edgeworth, the undefeated "Demon Prosecutor", would be prosecuting Maya Fey tomorrow. Wright asked Gumshoe for Maya's cell phone back, in order to review its recent calls, and received it.

At the Gatewater Hotel, Wright met Edgeworth's key witness, April May. In May's room, Wright noticed a screwdriver in one of her drawers, but May did not allow him to touch it.

Wright then headed back to Grossberg's firm to meet him. He was present, but he refused to take Maya's case without giving a reason. Wright went to the detention center to tell Maya the bad news. During the ensuing conversation, Maya revealed that she was born into a long line of spirit mediums. The Fey family, including Mia, had had these powers ever since the first Fey was born. Fifteen years ago, the police consulted Misty Fey, the mother of Mia and Maya, to find the culprit of an unusual murder. However, the suspect was acquitted, and a man named "White" found out about Misty and sold the information to the press, making Misty and the police the laughingstocks of the nation. Misty disappeared soon afterward, and Mia became a lawyer to investigate White and the incident. Wright, feeling sorry for Maya, agreed to defend her; he could not abandon her, for he would be betraying the reason he became a criminal defense attorney in the first place: to look out for those who had no one to believe in them.

Remembering that May reacted adversely when he reached into her drawer, Wright returned to the hotel room and found a wiretap in the same drawer.

Sept. 7

Trial

The trial began with Miles Edgeworth's assertion that decisive evidence and a decisive witness would prove the defendant's guilt. Dick Gumshoe was called to the stand first and he laid out the facts: the victim's body was discovered by the window, and she died from a single head blow by a blunt object: the Thinker clock found lying on the floor.

Gumshoe testified that he arrested Maya because of April May's witness account. However, after pressing, Wright pointed out that her testimony wasn't the "hard evidence" Gumshoe claimed it to be. Gumshoe then corrected himself, testifying that the arrest was because he found a piece of paper with the name "Maya" on it and concluded that before she died, Mia wrote her killer's name in her own blood. The blood match was affirmative, and blood was indeed found on one of Mia's fingers, seeming to confirm Gumshoe's suspicions. Wright countered with the autopsy report, which stated that Mia died on the moment she was struck, and therefore did not have time to write anything. Edgeworth then presented a modified autopsy report that stated that Mia did not, in fact, die instantly, which nullified the contradiction. Wright suspected Edgeworth of forging the report, but had no proof.

April May then took the stand and claimed that she saw Maya attack Mia with the Thinker, but accidentally referred to it as a clock. Wright objected that there was no way she could tell if the weapon was a clock by looking at it. May claimed that she had heard the clock from her hotel room, but a recorded conversation between Mia and Maya found on Maya's cell phone proved that the clock mechanism had been removed prior to the murder. Wright suggested that May had heard it was a clock while she was tapping Mia's phone with the wiretap he had discovered in her apartment. Having nowhere else to turn, May confirmed Wright's accusation, but she was still adamant about not killing Mia; she had an alibi that a bellboy at the hotel could verify. This bellboy was called to the stand.

The bellboy's testimony revealed nothing important about the case. However, during the cross-examination, Wright pressed him until he let slip that May had checked in with another man, and that Edgeworth told him not to mention the man in his testimony unless specifically asked to do so. With the possibility of a new suspect, court was adjourned, and May was arrested for tapping Mia's phone.

Investigation

Wright first went to the detention center and questioned April May, with little success. He then went to the Grossberg Law Offices and found two photos with the name "DL-6 Incident" on the backs of both. He also noticed that the painting on the wall was missing. He took the photo of a grinning, purple-haired man labeled "DL-6 Incident - Exhibit B" and showed it to the bellboy, who confirmed that the man in the picture was the man who checked in; he even wrote an affidavit for Wright, swearing that he was the one.

Wright went back to the detention center, showing May the photo of the man and the bellboy's affidavit. She finally revealed that the man was her employer Redd White, the President of Bluecorp.

Wright went to Bluecorp headquarters and met Redd White. Wright recognized Grossberg's painting in the headquarters, but when he confronted White about it, he was warned that White controlled the police and the courts, and that Wright was a nobody who was powerless to stop him. White even punched Wright with no provocation, just to demonstrate the extent to which he was free to act because of his influence. 

Wright then confronted Grossberg, who admitted that he could not defend Maya because White was blackmailing him. Grossberg had told White about the medium in the DL-6 Incident in exchange for riches, and now White was threatening to reveal this fact to the press unless Grossberg did his bidding. In fact, blackmail was the whole basis behind Bluecorp's "business". Back at the scene of the crime, Wright discovered that some papers (in fact, the entire W section) were missing from Mia's files, but he also found suicide articles with the word "White" written on top of them in pencil. White had blackmailed various powerful figures over the years and driven them to suicide. Phoenix Wright decided to confront his mentor's killer again. He showed the suicide report, claiming that White had blackmailed the politician into suicide. He accused the man of killing Mia Fey to keep her quiet, using May as an accomplice. In response, White called the Prosecutor's office, informing them that he would testify against Wright, implicating him as the killer. White promised Wright that he would receive an incompetent lawyer from the state, and then he would be found guilty; Wright would be unable to do anything about it. Gumshoe then arrived and arrested Wright.

Sept. 8

At the detention center, Wright refused his state-appointed attorney, saying that he had a plan to represent and defend himself. Maya was released, and Wright was incarcerated in her place. He explained everything to her, and she - infuriated by the number of lives White was intent on ruining - assured him that she would be at court the next day to support him, even though Wright could think of nothing useful for her to do. Wright vowed to avenge his mentor. 

Sept. 9

Trial

Prosecutor Edgeworth met Wright in the defendant lobby and assured him that he would do anything for a conviction, and that everyone would be on White's side. He justified his conviction to have every defendant convicted by referring to the uncertainty of any given defendant's guilt or innocence. Wright replied that Edgeworth had changed; he knew him from years earlier, but would not elaborate to Maya. 

Trial began with Redd White on the witness stand. He testified that he was reading some business papers until he heard a loud noise outside his window. He claimed to have seen Phoenix hit Mia Fey over the head with a blunt object. Wright asked White to state the direction in which Mia ran. White replied that Mia ran to the left and the killer gave chase, but Wright pointed out that this contradicted the floor plans of the office and April May's testimony, unless White witnessed the crime from the killer's point of view. White testified further by saying Wright hit the victim twice, claiming that Mia had used the last of her strength to run to the right before being hit a second time, but the autopsy report had already established that Mia died from a single blow. White then claimed that he heard a glass light stand falling over, which caused him to look through the hotel window and witness the murder. Wright countered that White could not have seen the light stand from the hotel window, so he should not have known that it even was a light stand unless he was the killer. This nearly cornered White, but Edgeworth intervened; he objected to Wright's conclusion, advising White to admit that he was the one who placed the wiretap into Mia's office one week before the murder; he would have seen the light stand then.

Mia's memo in the court record.

Unable to find any more evidence, Wright accepted defeat, but then he saw Mia next to him, telling him not to give up, and then he passed out. When he woke up, he saw that Mia was in Maya's clothes. She informed him that Maya was able to channel her spirit and told him to look at the front of the receipt with the word "Maya" on it. It was a receipt for the purchase of the light stand, bought the very day before the murder; it would therefore have been impossible for White to have seen the light stand in Mia's office a week prior, as it had not even been bought yet at that point. Wright pointed this out when court reconvened, once again implicating White as the killer. Edgeworth persisted, requesting one more day to investigate Wright's claims, but Phoenix knew he could not let this happen, certain that Edgeworth would corrupt the trial with new (and probably false) evidence if allowed the time. Edgeworth's objection was sustained, however, and White was about to leave when Mia gave Wright a note to read aloud; it was a list of well-known people that White blackmailed. Mia ordered White to confess to the murder if he did not want the list revealed to the media and, having no other options, White conceded. Phoenix Wright was declared not guilty, marking Edgeworth's first defeat.

Maya and Wright becoming partners.

Aftermath

Phoenix Wright inherited Mia Fey's law firm, forming Wright and Co. Law Offices, and Maya became Wright's assistant at Mia's posthumous request.

Development

• Turnabout Sisters was the first scenario created for the game and was originally intended to be the introductory case. However, this was changed when it was deemed too long to be a lead-in, and to enable Mia to interact with Wright more as his mentor before her death.

• April May and Redd White were some of the first characters created and they set the standard for all the witnesses that would follow them, in terms of both eccentricity and pun-based names. Their names were actually chosen together in the original Japanese version of the game where the naming theme between the two characters is more obvious (May's Japanese name means "high, middle and low ranking" while White's means "small, medium and large").

References to popular culture

• If, while Wright is trying to remember Gumshoe's name, the "Detective Suedeshoes" option is chosen, the detective will comment "That's me! Don't step on my blue suede shoes..." before angrily realizing "Wait! That's a song, pal!" This is a reference to the song "Blue Suede Shoes", most famously performed by Elvis Presley.

• The Gatewater Hotel's name is a reference to the Watergate complex and scandal, which also involved wiretaps.

• If the window in April May hotel room is examined after her arrest, the bellboy will speak of the hotel's plans to install a telescope in the window so that for $5.00, visitors can have three minutes of a "view to a kill", which is a play on the title of the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill.

• At one point White claims that his motto is: "Don't worry, be happy!", which is a famous quote by the Indian spiritual leader Meher Baba that in turn inspired the song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin.

Notes

• Both April May and Redd White accused individuals whose surnames rhyme with their own; April May accused Maya Fey and Redd White accused Phoenix Wright.

• Redd White works at a company called Bluecorp. Red, white and blue are the three colors of the U.S.A.'s flag ("The Red, White and Blue" being, in fact, one of the nicknames the flag is known by.). This idea is backed up by Mia Fey's final words, which were "Red... White... Blue", with her losing consciousness before she could finish saying "Bluecorp". Although many other flags are red, white and blue, the probable intent of the English localized names are to reference the US flag.

• In Rise from the Ashes, Miles Edgeworth is asked by Damon Gant to transfer a blue screwdriver that was evidence in an incident labeled "AI-16" and resolved half a year before. Turnabout Sisters occurred half a year earlier and involved a blue screwdriver, namely the one in April May's hotel room. It is not made clear if they are the same screwdriver or case.

• This case is one of only a few in the series in which the killer is clearly shown in the introductory cutscene actually committing the crime (with the others being The First Turnabout, Turnabout Visitor, The Monstrous Turnabout, and The Foreign Turnabout).

• This is the first case in the Ace Attorney series in which the killer attempts to frame another individual by making it seem as if the victim wrote the defendant's name in their dying moments. Apart from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and Gyakuten Kenji 2, this particular method of manipulating the crime scene has occurred in every game in the series to date. Turnabout Sisters actually lampshades the improbability of a victim writing a name as they die, with Wright questioning Gumshoe as to whether he gets many cases where this happens, to which Gumshoe eagerly replies that it "happens all the time in books and the movies!" Wright tells him to stick with reality, to which the detective reluctantly admits that he hasn't heard of many such cases. The entire exchange is somewhat ironic in hindsight due to the number of times "victim writing their killer's name as they die" appears in the series.

• Although completely unintentional, Wright's scolding of Gumshoe for considering books and movies reliable sources for examples of victims writing their killer's name as they die by saying "This isn't a movie, Detective" is somewhat ironic in hindsight, since the events of Turnabout Sisters would go on to be part of the 2012 Ace Attorney live-action film adaptation.

• A good number of the words White uses to make himself seem smarter than he actually is are ones he has made up, including: cogniferous, inquirably, roundature, beautacious, fantabulistic, magnificentatious, perusifying, abso-posi-lutely, ridiculosity, and impossachievable.

• During Gumshoe's first meeting with Wright (namely while arresting Maya), the detective never ends his sentences with "pal" like he does throughout the rest of the series (including the next time Wright meets him while looking for Maya's cell phone). In fact, he actually uses "see" in a similar way instead (e.g., "Alright, I'm Detective Dick Gumshoe, see?" and "We received a report from the building across the way, see."). This may be a leftover from an earlier attempt to keep the detective's distinct style of speech from the Japanese version (where he slurs the end of his sentences), and is reminiscent of the way that actors like Edward G. Robinson would pepper their dialogue with heavily accented "yeah!" and "see?" for emphasis while playing gangsters.

• Once Wright worked out that Redd White was the one who murdered Mia, White calls the "Chief Prosecutor" to have Wright arrested. However, this title is a mistranslation, and the position mentioned in Turnabout Sisters is in fact different from the one that Lana Skye held. The "Chief Prosecutor" in question also acts far more emotionally than Lana would at that point in time and is insinuated to be male, judging mainly from the "male" (deeper) blip sound displayed when they are speaking.

• Unusually for the normally linear Ace Attorney series, there are actually two methods of discovering White's identity. After showing the bellboy's affidavit to April May, the choice of two options is given: "Ease her fears" and "Push her hard". Choosing "Push her hard" makes Wright threaten to take what he knows about her employer's involvement in the murder to the press, causing her to give up and reveal who he is. However, if "Ease her fears" is chosen instead, then May will call Wright's bluff and refuse to cooperate, prompting him to crumple up the affidavit, deeming it worthless. If this happens, Wright can still find out about White by returning to Grossberg's office and presenting White's photo to Grossberg, prompting the latter to reveal White's identity and give Wright directions to Bluecorp.

Typos and errors

• During the opening phone conversation in the prologue between Mia and Maya, there is a part labeled as being spoken by "???" (i.e., Maya) that, judging from the context, should really be labeled as being spoken by Mia instead ("Hmm, well... there's a possibility that it might turn out that way, yes"). It is correctly labeled as Mia's part of the conversation later in the court record under Maya's Cell Phone.

• After Wright presents evidence to April May in her hotel room, she comments, "Me... "the witness"! It's just like the movie!" While this does make sense grammatically, it does seem odd that she says "just like the movie" instead of "just like the movies" or "just like a movie", especially since no particular movies are mentioned in that conversation. In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy HD, this is corrected to, "It's just like in the movies!"

• During the first day of the trial, Edgeworth says "You may call your first witness" after making his opening statement, which is a line more suitable for the judge than Edgeworth. The remakes for the iOS and Nintendo 3DS (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy HD and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, respectively) correct this by changing Edgeworth's line to "If we may call our first witness, Your Honor".

• When May first introduces herself to the court, the judge tells her off for winking at the courtroom audience. However, due to a spelling error, instead of telling her to "refrain from wanton winking", he instead refers to it as "wonton winking". Despite the single letter difference and sounding similar phonetically, the two words have very different meanings; "wanton" means "lewd" or "impulsive and unpredictable", while a "wonton" is a kind of Chinese dumpling. This error is corrected in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy.

• The section of the recorded conversation between Mia and Maya that Wright plays in court is different from the same part in the prologue and under Maya's Cell Phone in the court record, in that some parts are missing (although this may have been deliberate on Wright's part), while others are changed (e.g., Maya never says "So you just want me to hold on to "The Thinker" for you, then?" in any version other than the version Wright plays in court).

• Even if the player has already found out about White from May, she'll continue to state that her "lips are sealed!" when presenting White's photograph to her.

• After bragging about the control over the legal system that he exerts, White mocks Wright by saying "I don't expect you to understand. It is a world beyond your compensation" (instead of "comprehension"). This is likely a typo, as otherwise it would be the only instance of White using a word incorrectly, rather than his usual gimmick of unnecessarily complex or made-up words.

• Presenting White's photo to Grossberg even after finding out about him will still lead to Grossberg refusing to talk about his blackmailer.

• Despite potentially having just seen the painting in White's office, Wright will still try to remember what it looked like if the space where it used to reside is examined in Grossberg's office.

• Upon finding himself accused of Mia's murder, Wright muses that he never expected that he would be in the defendant's chair himself at some point. The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations episode Turnabout Memories retroactively contradicts this, as Wright was the defendant in the murder of Doug Swallow in that case. This error is corrected in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, where the line is changed to have Wright instead muse that he didn't expect to be accused of Mia's murder.

• While giving false testimony about seeing Maya murder Mia, White will initially say, "I called Miss May over at once. She, too, was flabbergasted of course." However, during the cross-examination, this changes to: "I called Miss May over at once. She, too, was surprised of course."

• During the second instance of White's "The Wiretapping" testimony (namely the version after Mia gives Wright the receipt for the glass light stand), Edgeworth will say "Now, Mr. White. Tell us why you went to the Fey & Co. Law Offices", with no period at the end (despite a period being present during the exact same sentence during the previous testimony).

• Despite being a crime scene, Mia's office is actually tidier while the police are investigating it than during her murder (e.g., Charley is upright again and the room no longer looks ransacked).

• The movie poster in Mia's office actually changes between the night of her murder and the following day.

Other languages

• Japanese - 逆転姉妹 (Gyakuten Shimai; lit. "Turnabout Sister")
• French - La Volte-face des Sœurs (lit. "The Turnabout of Sisters")
• German - Wandel der Schwestern (lit. "Change of the Sisters")
• Spanish - El Caso de las Hermanas (lit. "The Case of the Sisters")
• Italian - Un Caso Paranormale (lit. "A Paranormal Case")
• Korean - 역전 자매 (Yeogjeon Jamae; lit. "Turnabout Sister")