I've said this before elsewhere but it bears repeating: the Mr. Hat hostage situation is one of the AA4 Moments Of All Time for me. The involved characters' actions and reactions says so much about each of them as people.
We see Trucy's impeccable observation skills + intelligence at play when she notices that Stickler is hiding something, her cunning and quick thinking in coming up with a scheme to not only delay the verdict but to create an opportunity for herself to convey this information to Apollo privately, and her boldness + confidence to fake her own kidnapping in the middle of a courtroom in the first place regardless of the consequences
It's been pointed out before, but Apollo is so empathetic in the way he bursts into tears out of fear for Trucy's safety, but also in his righteous anger towards the "gangsters" he thinks kidnapped her ("There's some things you just don't do! I'm pressing charges!"). Then, when he's back in the courtroom, we see his brash confidence in how he proclaims to the judge that he "settled it". I would need to replay the games to see if the rest of the canon supports my reading of him as a bad liar, but his awkward claim that it was an "out of court settlement" in this moment certainly isn't a good lie.
And this is one of the moments I always point to when discussing that Klavier is very intelligent and not the blonde himbo he gets characterised as in fanon sometimes. He's the only one in the courtroom that knows Trucy's "assailant" is just a magic trick, and he isn't fooled for a second. I also find it so interesting that he goes along with the scheme and even plays into it ("I see no reason to further aggravate this gentlemen"), but at the same time, makes it very clear to Apollo and Trucy that he knew exactly what they were up to ("Perhaps Fraulein would have us believe it was nothing more than a passing dream... a fantastic illusion, now you see it, now you don't"). Prolonging the trial serves his desire to better understand the attorney that had his brother arrested and that's most likely what his motive is here, but I also like to interpret Klavier as someone who likes to be entertained as much as he likes to do the entertaining, and Apollo and Trucy both are an endless source of amusement for him.
It's such a good moment, and a nice little encapsulation of what I like about each of these characters <3
