okay so i feel like a lot of people tend to think franziska's main motivation in jfa is to prove herself against miles and be competetive and i just think it's so much deeper than that! i really think it's because she yearns to matter! and to be recognized and remembered by the people she genuinely cares about!
I think one of franziska's most vulnerable lines was said to miles at the end of JFA:
You've always left me alone and walked on ahead without me. Miles Edgeworth... I've always hated you.
i think this line really speaks to what torments her the most: the feeling of being left behind. Obviously this cropped up from a young age; her insistence this was "always" the case paints a picture of her and miles' shared childhood (and is definitely shown in aai, if you've played that!). then this compounds with her recent abandonment: in the last year, she'd lost the two most influential people in her lifeâher father after he was found guilty in december 2016, and miles when he fled in february 2017. To me she is hurt and vengeful because she'd never gotten to say goodbye to either of them; she was once again 'left alone', as she'd always been as a little girl.
von Karma hates to feel like a child. It undermines her and everything she's worked to establish as a career woman. And I'm sure it makes her feel small.
So she wants to prove that she doesn't deserve to be left behind. And I feel this sort of abandonment is especially tormenting for her because she is such an effortful person. She admits she is "no genius" and that failure was "not an option". She has had to maintain her perfect win effort through sheer determination alone. So the idea that she cannot win the respect and time of her father and brother, even if she worked herself to the boneâŠyeah.
it hurts her so much that it becomes the basis for her revenge:
And then... Finally, my chance to take my revenge on you arrived. If I could win against that man... If I could make Phoenix Wright bow down in defeat... Then this "girl" you left behind would have risen higher than you! That was supposed to be my "revenge"...
in all probability, she is convinced this is what she wants: to get some revenge on Miles for having left her. I bet it feels good to think that. Underneath, i think, is the desire for Miles to see her as an equal. Someone who could be just as capable as him. Someone whom he would have told he was going to disappear (jesus christ, gumshoe knew he was alive before franziska did). Someone who he would've stood alongside to unpack the weight of the von Karma name. But she was left to do it alone. Like she did most things.
i am not even sure if she is aware of this desire to be seen as an equal. in all probability she convinced herself she is merely pissed at miles and wants to bite his head off. granted she has EVERY right to be pissed. miles fucked off and pretended to be dead literally two months after the image of her father shatteredâŠshe should've been angier imo. why takumi didn't let her whip him a million times is beyond me! put that thing to use!
anyway. she blames her own abandonment entirely on phoenix, in Turnabout Big Top:
"Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death?" Of course he did! You ruined his reputation as a prosecutor! You effectively killed the prosecutor in him.
I think she does this to comfort herself. It's easier for her to think that a man had ripped her brother away from her than the fact Miles chose to leave. Because the choice was clear: he'd written it in black and white. But she can't bear the thought she'd been left behind again. This is pretty much exactly how she rationalizes the loss of her father as well: phoenix's "victory muddied the honorable name Von Karma", she asserts, even though Manfred himself chose to value his career over his children. even though manfred himself was the one who muddied the name and left Franziska with nothing. Just. the idea that the ones she held dear once again did her dirtyâŠbetter to make a boogeyman out of Wright than truly let that seep in.
so really franzy is still the girl trying to get the attention and respect of her family. still. she makes me ILL
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