The Great Ace Attorney Replay: Continued Thoughts on Mia, Nick and Godot
Another thing that occurred to me during the replay is how utterly Godot FAILS at being Mia’s “avenger” whereas Mia like. successfully avenged his poisoning within a year no problem. And Godot would have been unable to do that if it had been Mia who had been poisoned. Imagine him in the same position.
One scenario is Godot would have, in his rage, tried to go after Dahlia himself and been murdered by her.
But imagine if it had been him trying to nail Dahlia for the thing with Phoenix . He would not have been able to win that trial for Mia precisely because he would have had zero patience with or trust in Phoenix. Like can you imagine hypermasculine Godot putting up with a boy who cries every five seconds. Older Phoenix already isn’t “manly” enough for Godot, younger Phoenix would absolutely drive him up a wall. He’d berate and scare Phoenix off within two seconds and the case would be over.
Mia has a hard time being patient with being Phoenix too, but she was able to trust him and establish a bond with him and because of that he trusted her in return and that’s why they were able to win. Godot could not have bonded with Phoenix or won his trust, even with avenging Mia on the line. Godot’s intolerance would have lost them the case. In fact, we don’t see much indication Godot values trust in his clients the way Mia does. The stuff about believing in your client all came from her, he was mostly just like “lol ok” whenever she bought it up.
So Mia was able to successfully avenge Godot because of her willingness to reach out to her clients, her tolerance of her client not being the stereotypical epitome of masculinity and the fact she didn’t feel the need to make some big macho spectacle in order to corner Dahlia. She also didn’t act like Godot being poisoned was a personal failing on her or anyone but Dahlia’s part. Her goal was not simply to avenge Godot, but the save Phoenix and prevent Dahlia from hurting more people. She actually CARED about Dahlia’s victims besides the one she was involved with.
Meanwhile, Godot comes back, and Mia has already been avenged. Phoenix, Maya and MIA HERSELF successfully put Mia’s murderer away. And Phoenix did this the same way Mia did with Dahlia- believing in his client (Maya), relying on Mia’s guidance, not making her death about HIM or getting carried away in anger, but focusing on cornering the culprit. Phoenix’s first thought on Mia’s death was not “I have to avenge her to prove I’m a man” but “I have to help her little sister, she’s all alone and I know Mia would want me to” and THAT’S what saved the day. Actually caring about what Mia would want and the living people who were in trouble.
So when Godot comes back there’s nothing for him to do. But he HAS to avenge her for his own ego so he fucking decides to torment the person who is ACTUALLY DOING THE THINGS Mia actually WANTS someone to do to honor her passing- continuing her work, providing emotional support for her little sister in her passing- he willingly puts her sister in danger (RATHER THAN FUCKING TELLING HER WHAT WAS GOING ON, OR PREVENTING THE PLAN FROM BEING COMMUNICATED SO NONE OF IT COULD HAPPEN) so he can “save” her, gets her mother killed and forces her sister to witness it and was willing to let an innocent get condemned for murder. So instead of avenging Mia, he ends up killing her family, putting her sister through severe trauma and berating and utterly wasting the time of the person who actually helped Mia the way she wanted him to.
I don’t know how much of it is purposeful- I think at least some of it was because the game does contrast Phoenix and Godot at the end and Godot acknowledges he did all this for himself and would have been better off being like Phoenix and continuing Mia’s work. I think we’re not supposed to find Godot as UTTERLY CONTEMPTIBLE as I do, and I can’t fathom that. But Godot’s storyline in Ace Attorney, contrasted with Mia and Phoenix in similar situations, is one of the starkest examples of how utterly pointless, stupid and harmful traditional masculine revenge stories are and how they ultimately have nothing to do with honoring the deceased or protecting living people. And also a very stark demonstration of how rejecting anything that’s “not manly enough” or “too emotional” can be your undoing.
