manfred von karma is truly such a fascinating character to me and i truly hate how fanon has done his character. he is a cold, vindictive, narcissistic man who will stop at nothing to enact his vengeance and bring edgeworth down with him, yes. but, considering the fact that he is not a 2d 'i'm evil just because i want to be evil' villain that i see many people (especially on twitter but i'll get to that later) depicting him as. are his actions malicious and unforgivable? yes. but that makes him a far more interesting and satisfying villain than one who has committed a less relevant crime. what makes manfred interesting is how important his crimes are to the story, how they still affect edgeworth, grossberg, the feys, yanni yogi, robert hammond, and everyone else swept up in that case. he is my favorite villain in the entire series because of how cataclysmic he is and how much he makes me wonder. did he ever feel remorse for taking gregory edgeworth's life? did he ever truly come to care about edgeworth? what truly was his relationship to gant? was he blackmailing him? what did manfred know about sl-9? he was still a prolific prosecutor at the time that case was tried, did he ever have any involvement in it? what was his relationship to the other prosecutors aside from edgeworth and franziska?
now, i could do this for days, but first i'd like to talk a little bit more about von karma pride. the von karmas (i'm stating the obvious here i know) were obsessed with perfection. that ideal of perfection extends to court, also outward appearance as well considering how collected and smug the von karmas like to portray themselves as. manfred views a mere blip on an otherwise spotless record as enough to kill a man. but what that really makes me wonder is how that von karma pride came about. when and why? how is it ingrained? i'd like to take this as a segue to talking about why i don't personally think he would ever be abusive.
starting off, he is a good father to franziska. my personal view of them is that she looks up to him as an ideal of what she wants to be, and wants to surpass her brother just as much, to the point that she's willing to do anything to achieve her ideal of perfection. her journey to becoming the prosecutor she is in jfa was most definitely influenced by her father, but i'd argue it was influenced by her brother just as much. all she ever wanted was to surpass him and that made her try to become more and more like the man she idealized her entire childhood. i'd assume that after manfred's conviction, she merely dug her heels in further, wanting to achieve a level of perfection even he couldn't. she only finally came to terms with the fact that the level of perfection she wanted was unachievable after seeing her brother, the man who'd been her rival for so long, accept defeat in the name of justice. i appreciate that even with how cocky she was still acting in bridge to the turnabout, she was still actively working towards the truth in a way she wouldn't have in turnabout bigtop or reunion and turnabout. in short, i think franziska's personal ideal of perfection was not forced upon her by her father, but instead it was a mix of things. to go on a bit of a tangent about this subject, i never really saw the intrigue in making franziska's flaws and ideologies stem only from her father, especially since one of my favorite things about the original trilogy is how interconnected every single character's storyline is. why would anyone ever take away that point of why the story is so compelling?
now to talk about edgeworth. edgeworth himself said in game that the reason he became a prosecutor was because he was disgusted by men like robert hammond and not because von karma pushed him to be a prosecutor. whenever i read a fic that says manfred is the only reason edgeworth became a prosecutor, my first thought is always 'did we play the same game?' edgeworth would have become a prosecutor no matter what because of the grief he felt over his father's murder and yanni yogi not being convicted. another thing i see frequently that males me sigh in disappointment is that edgeworth has always needed glasses but manfred refused to get glasses for him because it would 'ruin the von karma image'. mvk has earrings and walks around with a cane. i don't think he gives a shit. but in my defense of him i also want to say that he did plot to get edgeworth convicted for a crime he wasn't guilty of and that is something cruel he did only for petty vengeance against edgeworth's father. which is interesting and impactful to the story. going back to my earlier point and adding on, there is really nothing i would change about mvk's storyline in turnabout goodbyes. you don't need the added pointless subplot of abuse to make him more compelling. his story--wanting revenge against an innocent child, taking a bullet to the shoulder and never getting it removed just so his plan would work, mentoring edgeworth down the path he thought he wanted leading to a complete mirrored flip of edgeworth's original ideals, and eventually having his plan foiled and true justice put back into place--is interesting and impactful. in that story you both pity and despise edgeworth, pity because his father was murdered by a man he admired, and hatred because he became almost exactly like von karma. edgeworth has always been a character i have mixed feelings about. there are multiple points in the story where i actively dislike edgeworth and don't see anything redeeming in him. but i'm always pulled back in by him because he's an interesting and complex character with the trauma he already has, adding more feels pointless and dull, considering how much there is to explore within the bounds of his canon characterization.
i have never seen manfred as mister evil guy who i have to hate. he's a complex and interesting character that is one of my favorite video game villains ever i think. if there's an aa villain i'm never going to like ever, it's blaise debeste, but that's a topic for after i'm done with aai2.
bye sorry for the rambling.
