It’s taken a while but I did mean to get on this, so here I am-
As I mentioned in the reply I gave first, I have a lot of thoughts on this, and I’ve spoken about it before, but I’ll try and compile everything a bit.
First of all, I’ve spoken in anime-related posts about how how the class trial defined him. At one point I also mentioned how he, Miles, and Larry were all outsiders in their class - Miles is the obvious one, being above his learning age, while Larry is the joker I don’t think anyone really took seriously, who everyone knew, but no-one knew, and Phoenix…
Phoenix before the class trial, I think he had acquaintances. He had people who he interacted with and he’d refer to as ‘friend’ but there’s a difference between knowing someone and being their actual friend, and I don’t think any of them ever reached ‘friend’ level. He seems to be a bit of a loner but not by choice, to me. He isn’t outgoing, and he doesn’t go out of his way to be around people on purpose, it seems. So I suppose there might be a basis for depression always being there in potential, if he’s unintentionally already ostracised from any potential friend groups.
Then the trial happens, and he realises that no one actually likes or trusts him. Everyone sees him as capable of being Bad, of being Untrustworthy, and he is forced by a teacher - someone in a role of responsibility and leadership over the class - to apologise for the thing that he did not do.
He is taught from that age that unless someone speaks up for you, your word alone won’t be trusted. He’s taught that it’s that easy to have people turn on you. And it’s going to be in his mind that if Miles and Larry hadn’t been there, they would still think what they had, and maybe they still do.
What people think of us and how they see us is important, and especially as children, it shapes us.
I think next I’m going to mention that after this, came Miles leaving, and even in the anime although it’s easier than ‘he just disappeared one day without a trace’, it’s still a traumatic thing for a child to go through. And while most children have a larger friend group, Miles had two people. Now, he only has Larry, who is hardly the most mature for his age, sulks, and was (knowingly or not) the instigator of the class trial itself. And he’s left wondering what Miles is up to, and trying to get back in contact even if it’s just emails or letters, and… it doesn’t work. No response.
He’s going to feel abandoned, forgotten, left behind, and as though he’s being ignored. Even if he knows that these thoughts are intrusive and illogical, Phoenix is an emotional person, not a logical one when it comes to his feelings. And on top of everything else, it’s going to start piling up. And this lasts well before he even sees what Edgeworth is up to.
I can’t remember if it’s ever explicitly stated that he begins wanting to be a lawyer at the age of nine; it is stated in an interview that originally, he was actually taking theatre as his major, not actual painting art, and that he was going to study abroad in England, I think, which leads me to believe that he wasn’t bad. But he was studying law at the same time, which would make things harder.
And on that subject, I’m reminded of something else I’ve once stated - the sheer number of times when Phoenix has acted incredibly selfless to the point where I worry about him.
He changes his entire career because a friend needs help. He might have really wanted to go into acting, but he chose not to. He might have loved law, but his first choice did seem to be the arts.
He keeps putting others above himself, in the small things - such as constantly paying for Maya’s food - to the bigger things, and it isn’t just specific things, but a general gist of ‘hang on, this happens a lot’ in his attitude.
As I’ve stated on some posts before, he frequently double-guesses himself, which I’ve theorised is why you sometimes get more choices of which direction you want to go, whether you’re going to continue the line of questioning at all, etc., in the earlier games.
Then, there’s ‘Dollie’ - and the fact that I see his relationship, whether Iris loved him or not, as manipulative (because it was; Iris couldn’t let him go without getting that necklace back for Dahlia, so he was being controlled) and afterwards, I wonder if he probably saw that, even if he does keep thoughts of it not being the ‘same Dollie’. That’s got to do a number on him, because yet again, he’s been shown to have had his friendship used and abused, and that isn’t even starting on the effect Dahlia’s words (of ‘being so useless’ would have on him.
This is all well before he becomes Mia Fey’s apprentice, and it’s all had plenty of time to settle in and take root.
And on the matter of depression - it’s still depression regardless of whether it’s related to a removable or source-able cause or not. And clinical depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, of sorts - which can be caused, and I see no reason why everything that happened to Phoenix before even just the first game would create an imbalance just like that.
No one trusts me. No one believes me. I’m not worth talking to. No one will stay with me if I’m just myself. If I have this, then I can remind myself that someone else loves me, even when they’re not nearby. I can’t understand why she loves me. She never did. She used me. She tried to kill me. (Would it have been better if I’d not gone to talk with Doug and just- no, because then she would have gotten away, and that would be worse.) I’m really not good for much, am I? I keep inconveniencing everyone.
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