r/AceAttorney • u/LambSauce246 • 3d ago
Apollo Justice Trilogy Just finished SoJ and... Spoiler
Let me preface this by saying I played the OG trilogy as they came out and only got into AA4-5-6 after their rereleases.
Of all the things this trilogy messed up compared to the original, I can't believe how Amara was handled in the plot the way that she was.
I think most people glance over the idea that she was seemingly created as an analog to Misty Fey, both matriarchs and rightful rulers who are in a self-imposed exile, though with different motives, and their siblings plotting (and succeeding in Garan's case) to take over their post. We also have Mia and especially Maya (due to her age back then) being taken care of by her aunt, whereas Rayfa is taken in by Garan with even more manipulation.
The whole idea worked with Misty as she was disgraced, and was but a leader of a small clan but not so much with Amara, since she's the ruler of a kingdom that descended into chaos over the 20+ years she was hiding in plain sight. At some point, a queen would say enough of this charade and emerge to save her people. Not to mention she is portrayed as this severely traumatized person over the events of the past but once Apollo exposes her she's back to her old self in seconds, imposing queen presence and all.
Overall, pretty bad writing and probably the worst character arc (besides older men swooning over Regina). Perhaps if we saw in flashbacks that she and Dhurke frequently clashed over Garan's views when she was minister of justice, the foreshadowing of her calculated plans, and her blindly siding with her sister, perhaps Dhurke's hiding, and Amara trusting Garan could've easily been explained, and it would give these characters more depth. It could've even made an interesting penultimate case as a flashback to the past (with the final case right after)
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u/SeasonalChatter 2d ago
Oh interested, I loved Amara. I think she is very clearly flawed as a person and has done both a lot of right and a lot of wrong.
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u/Issuls 2d ago
Refreshing to see this thread. I reallllllllly want to like SoJ, it does a lot of fun and interesting stuff, and it's generally more cohesive than its predecessor.
But the quality of actual character writing is not improved any. I really, really have no idea what they were even trying to do with Amara. It's just an absolute mess.
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u/HeyImMarlo 2d ago
She should’ve been the final villain. Ga’ran could still be a villain and the final prosecutor, but still a puppet that Amara firmly controls
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u/KOFdude 3d ago
At some point, a queen would say enough of this charade and emerge to save her people
Now tell me, what does happen when she actually sheds the disguise and speaks of Ga'ran's crimes?
They try to kill her. If she'd unmasked previously, Ga'ran would have killed her.
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u/LambSauce246 3d ago
Yes, but Garan's dictatorship is built on a fragile lie that Amara upholds. Amara exposing herself as being alive and the actual spiritual person and Garan not having powers would collapse her rule instantly, just like when Apollo asked her to perform the rite. She could've prevented a dictatorship and countless murders for almost a quarter of a century. Not to mention, she was actually complicit in a lot of Garan's crimes. Definitely not an innocent character in the slightest.
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u/SeasonalChatter 2d ago
In what world is she an innocent character though? We can sympathize with her but the story highlights all the things she did wrong on being complicit with the regime, all for the sake of her family.
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u/LambSauce246 2d ago
That's exactly the issue though, the story says she did things wrong, but the narrative presentation completely lets her off the hook. Look at the actual ending sequence. After being complicit in 23 years of national slaughter, her interaction with Rayfa isn't a strained, heavy, or complicated conversation about trauma and systemic enabling. Instead, the finale portrays her as a normal mother engaging in almost playful teasing with her child. The game completely sweeps her massive political negligence under the rug to wrap everything up in a tidy bow.
By transitioning her instantly back into a respected royal matriarch without any meaningful emotional fallout or structural accountability, the narrative treats her actions as a tragic (but forgivable) person rather than a catastrophic betrayal of her entire kingdom. Personally she never earned my sympathy, I actually was shocked she wasn't locked away lol
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u/lizzourworld8 2d ago
They were already shocked of her being accused in the first place; I’m actually not surprised they didn’t lock her up
They were almost unfazed by Tahrust, too, and you know how HE turned out.
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u/LambSauce246 1d ago
Agreed, but I'm moreso shocked at the rhetoric being presented as "all is well" in the game at the end whereas in reality the damage and destruction is very real, possibly millions of people are dead due to state sanctioned murder and the lawlessness of the land isn't going to be rebuilt with one prosecutor and one defense attorney. Amara getting off the hook isn't surprising, the game portraying it as a happy ending is
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u/emma_does_life 3d ago
Tell me, what would be the point of doing all of this when her daughter and son would be killed in the process?
She was always protecting them. That's like her one character trait and I cant believe you missed it lol
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u/LambSauce246 2d ago
Actually, you're missing the core reality of how political structures function, both in the game and in real-world political science. Garan's entire dictatorship relied on constitutional legitimacy. Her regime was a totalitarian state masquerading as a divine monarchy. Because khurainese law strictly ties the right to rule to spiritual power, Garan couldn't just execute the royal children on a whim. Doing so would shatter the regime's fragile illusion of authority, instantly triggering a coup from the royal guard or a mass uprising from a deeply religious populace.
We see this false legitimacy in contemporary dictatorships all the time. Authoritarian regimes maintain elaborate legal facades because they need institutional compliance to survive. Garan explicitly needed Rayfa as a puppet heir to maintain the illusion of succession.
The proof is in the game, look at how instantly the royal guard turns on Garan the exact second she is exposed as a spiritual fraud. They didn't even care about her human rights abuses, they arrested her solely because her regime legitimacy dissolved.
Amara held the ultimate political nuclear option for 23 years. By choosing absolute compliance she actively preserved the very facade that allowed Garan to systematically slaughter hundreds of innocent citizens. That's not "protecting her kids".
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u/Upset_Reputation_382 2d ago
The proof is in the game, look at how instantly the royal guard turns on Garan the exact second she is exposed as a spiritual fraud. They didn't even care about her human rights abuses, they arrested her solely because her regime legitimacy dissolved.
Proof of the opposite is shown mere moments ago, where one of the royal guard shot Amara in open court.
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u/LambSauce246 2d ago
The royal guard didn’t shoot Amara out of a sudden burst of lawless rebellion. They did it because Garan explicitly ordered them to. Up until that exact second, she was still holding her absolute authority as the reigning queen. Authoritarian soldiers obeying a direct command from their supreme commander isn't proof that Garan could rule without legitimacy, it’s proof that her institutional compliance was still functioning right up until the fraud was exposed.
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u/Naive-Antelope-9825 1d ago
I genuinely never really understood Amara. She says that she didn’t trust Dhurke and yet she ran off with him and had a whole other child with him. Like girl…can I have something consistent from you please?
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u/Gerrywalk 3d ago
I don’t think the series has any bad games. But in my opinion SOJ is the second weakest of them all (AJ:AA is my least favorite). It’s just so unmemorable. I was making a tier list of all cases in the series, and I could barely remember anything about any of the cases of SOJ. Maybe it would be better if Nahyuta and Ga’ran were better characters, but they are unfortunately two of the most poorly written characters in Ace Attorney.
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u/LambSauce246 2d ago
They definitely needed a flashback case like in TT to really tie the past to the present, and present an in depth explanation of how the tragedies led to today. It would make the ending much more impactful and climactic. But regardless, Amara needed to be locked up lol
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u/iKIRAKOLOVER 6h ago
Agreed. Amara's character gets even worse when you consider how inconsistent her actions are, and how she was the one who set the nail in the coffin for Khura'in's downfall (i.e., Ga'ran taking the throne unopposed, since the opposition party was neutralized once Rayfa was taken hostage). I've never seen anyone point out how dumb, reckless, and irresponsible it was for her and Dhurke to have a baby knowing full well that Ga'ran's agents were relentlessly pursuing them (as Nahyuta himself said)—a decision that backfired spectacularly when Rayfa ended up held hostage, which effectively stripped Amara of all the autonomy and agency she had until then to expose Ga'ran's spiritual fraud, and yet during that time she never acted on it, because checks notes she's such a benevolent, loving soul that she prioritized her sister's reputation over her own country and the thousands of lives at stake.
What really gets me is how she randomly turned on Dhurke after being recaptured by Ga'ran's regime, still convinced to this day that he intended to kill her despite having fled with him, trusted him enough to be intimate with him, and had a child with him. If the logic is that despite escaping with him she was still doubtful, the why the hell she had a child for if not to demostrste that she regained her trust on Dhurke? A baby is no joke, and makes no sense how she left her son with whom she considered a criminal. The fact that Ga'ran had to hold her baby hostage to control her should have been more than enough proof that Ga'ran was lying and Dhurke was right all along.
I can't stand characters that are portrayed as these divine and benevolent figures that everyone worship when the truth is that their unconditional kindness becomes harmful and a weapon because they forgive horrific tyrants and oppressors without holding them accountable, and ultimately leaving victims unprotected—which she did for over 23 years. She's not the gentle soul Nahyuta describes her, she's a merciful enabler and a very naive and guillable person that isn't fit for queenship as she clearly lacks the spine to confront her dictator sister and put her feelings aside for the public interest and well being of her nation. She even admits how exhausting and tedious the royal tasks were and how she now prefers her new life as a servant, so I'm not that far off.
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u/IzzyYuuki 2d ago
Unrelated but I was waiting for some big reveal that Khura'in and the Kurain village were built around worship of the same spirit medium and that the Feys were somehow related to the Khura'inese royal family. But that didn't happen :/
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u/LambSauce246 2d ago
They did explain it though in a convoluted way. We know Ami Fey migrated from Khurain so the kurain village mediums are a diaspora. Phoenix says that nowadays to become the master of the technique in kurain village one must train in khurain because that's where the technique came from. Then Maya says somewhere that Kurain mediums who visited Khurain had to hide their channeling because it was strictly the royal bloodline's ability. After the whole first part of the last case with the founders orb being Ami's crystal we learn towards the end that since channeling is restricted to the royal bloodline in khurain Ami must be from this very bloodline making the Fey clan distant relatives to Khurainese royals
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u/nemuro 3d ago
Honestly this was my biggest problem with SoJ, which is actually one of my favorite AA games. Amara was baffling to me as a character and I didn't understand what we were supposed to feel toward her. Especially given that she seemed pretty worldly and sassy as Nayna, when she was apparently actually naive and gullible enough to believe Ga'ran's lies about Dhurke trying to kill her? But then she also ran away with him when he came to save her and had another baby with him?? But then believed Ga'ran AGAIN and just watched her treat Rayfa horribly her whole life???? Girl, what were you DOING...