*U.I.C.S. stands for: Unnecessarily Intensive Character Study*

Well, I’ve said twice now that I would eventually get around to doing this article, so I suppose now is as good a time as any!

Dahlia Hawthorne is the main antagonist of Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, the final game in the original franchise trilogy. She’s the closest thing that the entire trilogy has to a single overarching villain, considering the influence she’s had on so many important characters, and the many lives she’s left ruined in her wake. She’s also my second favorite video game antagonist of all time, so I’m pretty excited to jump into this!

(And here’s a link to Dahlia’s impeccable villain theme, if you’re so inclined: LINK)

The Flower Blooms

Dahlia’s story begins in the famed mystical mountain village of Kurain. The denizens of Kurain are practitioners of the Kurain Channeling Technique, with the village being led by the woman with the most spiritual power. Said woman happens to be Misty Fey, a direct descendant of the village’s founder, Ami Fey. Misty, as the village master, enjoys the adoration and support of her people, and she happily raises her own daughter, Mia.

Misty’s older sister, Morgan, receives no such praise and love, and that causes an unstoppable festering pit of resentment and spite to grow within her. She was all set to become the next master of the village, only for it to be revealed that she was not granted enough spiritual power to lay claim to the title. Village tradition always trumps seniority, and thus the title falls to Misty, leaving Morgan embittered and dishonored, as well as despising her younger sister (even though Misty, of course, had no say over any of this and was herself thrust into the role).

Morgan’s humiliation didn’t end with losing the village master title, however. Having initially believed herself the true heir to the title, Morgan leveraged her impending fame and authority to lure an extremely wealthy jeweler named Mister Hawthorne into a relationship with her. The two were wed, and Morgan gave birth to twin girls, Dahlia and Iris. The truly shallow, loveless nature of their marriage became apparent upon Morgan’s denial of the master title, as Mister Hawthorne swept both of his daughters up, divorced Morgan, and left Kurain without hesitation.

Thus, Dahlia grew up in Mister Hawthorne’s mansion, living a life of extravagant luxury where everything she could have ever wanted was handed to her on a silver platter…save for love and affection from her father. Mister Hawthorne had never cared for children to begin with, and only fathered offspring with Morgan because he’d believed they would carry on his family name and legacy once coming of age and taking the title of master of Kurain. Since that future was now denied, Mister Hawthorne barely paid an ounce of attention to his twins.

It’s not easy to say that Dahlia started to morph into who she would eventually become because of the lack of love from her parents, her uneven upbringing, horrible role models, or even inherent latent evilness within her heart. Regardless, from an extremely young age, Dahlia gave in to her base impulses, her heart twisting her into a dark reflection of her own greedy parents, and yet mutating her into something even worse than they could have ever been.

After only a few years of living at Mister Hawthorne’s mansion, Dahlia grew tired of her twin sister, Iris. Iris was a meek and gentle soul who had a hard time standing up for herself, and could be easily swayed by the people around her. This contrasted sharply with the cunning and manipulative Dahlia, who was already smarter than almost anyone around even in her preteen years. With minimal convincing for the callous man she called a father, Dahlia convinced Mister Hawthorne to put Iris up for adoption at a local religious nunnery of sorts, Hazakura Temple.

With Iris out of the way, there was even more wealth and excess to go around at the mansion…but Dahlia still wasn’t satisfied. It can’t be said that Dahlia did not inherit Morgan’s spitefulness, because there’s nothing more in life that Dahlia grows to love than putting others down and getting her way.

Mister Hawthorne eventually remarries another wealthy woman, who already has a daughter from a previous marriage, Valerie. Dahlia and Valerie quickly bond, though not in a typical sisterly relationship. The two realized that their father’s wealth put them into a unique position to simultaneously screw their father over and get away with enough riches to forever live their lives comfortably out from under his shadow. They began to build their plan.

The first step involved setting someone up to take the fall for their actions. This was accomplished by Dahlia, then 14, luring her tutor, Terry Fawles, into entering a relationship with her. Terry was an honest, well-meaning young man, but an overly trusting one as well. Dahlia also took advantage of his apparent minor intellectual disability to further coerce him into believing she truly loved him, and that she was the only one he could trust.

Unbeknownst to Valerie, Dahlia acquired some poison that she proceeded to keep in a small bottle necklace. This poison presumably came from some of Valerie’s stored crime scene evidence (as Valerie was a police officer). Dahlia offered this poison to Terry, telling him to drink it if he ever believed that he might betray his love for Dahlia. By doing this, she further tightened her noose of control around him.

The trio then stage a fake kidnapping plot, with Terry pretending to capture Dahlia and bring her out to an obscure mountain bridge where there would be no witnesses. There, he demands a two million dollar diamond from Mister Hawthorne as payment to return Dahlia safely. Valerie, being a police officer, takes on the role of hostage negotiator, as no one realizes she is part of the plot too. Mister Hawthorne acquiesces (presumably at the insistence of his second wife), and Valerie heads to Dusky Bridge with the diamond.

Once there, the sisters reveal the true depths of their depravity and deception.

Valerie shoots Terry in the shoulder with her gun, and Dahlia (diamond in hand) leaps from the bridge and plummets into the icy river below. Valerie then arrests Terry, dragging him into court under accusation of him murdering Dahlia and resulting in the loss of the diamond. Terry, overcome with grief, confusion, and with the hinderance of his intellectual disability, is unable to explain the truth or defend himself, and he is convicted and sentenced to death row.

The only part of the plan that does not go off without a hitch is Dahlia’s escape from the freezing river. This is because, prior to the plan starting, Dahlia actually reached out to her twin, Iris, for the first time in years, and requested Iris’ help with the plan. Whether this was because of genuine intent in righting past wrongs, or simply squeezing her resources dry, it’s not clear. Regardless, too terrified to break the law, Iris refused to show up, infuriating Dahlia.

Regardless, Dahlia successfully fakes her death, and Valerie uses her connections in the police department to forge the necessary documents to give Dahlia a new identity. Dahlia begins living with Valerie (Valerie having been the one forced to pull Dahlia from the river after Iris didn’t show up), and the two sisters sold the diamond for a comfortable profit, content that they’d screwed their father over as planned. Neither woman had a shred of regret for putting an innocent man behind bars…

…or at least, neither of them did for the next five years, until the unexpected happened.

While being transferred to the facility that would carry out his death penalty, Terry’s convoy crashed, and he was able to escape into the wilderness. Once making his way back to civilization, he called Valerie at the police station, demanding to know why she’d betrayed him and Dahlia (as he honestly didn’t understand the role the young woman he loved had played in deceiving him).

Valerie, having slowly become consumed by guilt over the past five years, saw Terry’s call as the reckoning she’d been waiting for. She was ready to confess her guilt to both Terry and the world at large, revealing the truth of the incident. She told Terry to meet her at the same Dusky Bridge, wanting him to hear the truth first. All of these were good steps on a possible path to redemption for the young woman, until she made one catastrophic, fatal mistake:

She let Dahlia know that she was about to confess the truth.

In the past five years, Dahlia hadn’t felt a single shred of regret or remorse at all. Seemingly wholly incapable of thinking of anyone but herself, Dahlia had practically forgotten all about the man she’d sentenced to death for two million dollars. Valerie’s admittance of wanting to confess terrified Dahlia, as Dahlia was forced to reckon with the possibility of her old crimes coming to light, and her new identity crumbling to pieces.

Dahlia was scared…and she was desperate. Desperate enough to do anything.

Showing up at Dusky Bridge right after Valerie, but before Terry, Dahlia took a knife and stabbed her sister literally and metaphorically through the back. Dahlia then took photos of the area to establish an alibi for herself as a nature photographer, and hid out of sight. When Terry arrived in a stolen car, Dahlia stashed Valerie’s corpse in the trunk of his car, dressed in her clothes to confused Terry, and then confronted him on the bridge…right at the moment Dahlia’s previously set-up camera snapped a damning photograph of the two of them obscured by fog.

Dahlia then ran, but Terry was intercepted by police when he tried to follow (Dahlia having previously called the station to tip them off). Terry was arrested again and hauled off to jail, while Dahlia slipped into her new persona granted to her by Valerie’s forged papers, Melissa Foster, and presented herself as an innocent witness to Terry murdering poor Valerie Hawthorne on the bridge. The prosecution believed her lies, and added her testimony to their leading argument against Terry.

But, of course, all accused parties are owed equal representation in a court of law, and Terry’s case (hopeless though it appeared to be), was given to the Grossberg Law Office firm, where it found its way to first-time defense attorney, Mia Fey, the oldest daughter of Misty Fey, and (though the two of them certainly wouldn’t realize it at the time), the older cousin of Dahlia.

While Dahlia had been growing up in Mister Hawthorne’s mansion, Mia spent her childhood in Kurain village, with her mother, Misty, continuing to preside as village master. However, after a disastrous public humiliation (wherein Misty was called upon by the police to channel a spirit for a case, but failed to produce accurate results), Misty ran away from her home and her family in shame. All eyes turned to Mia, but she wasn’t interested. Instead, she wanted to pursue law, hoping to become a defense attorney and see if she could prove her mother’s honor.

As much as the case of Valerie’s death looked like an open-and-shut argument for the prosecution, Mia believed in the truth of her client’s words. Though he struggled to explain himself, Mia could understand that Terry truly hadn’t taken anyone’s life, and that he was being set up for this crime. With everyone in the courtroom against her, Mia buckled down and held true to her convinctions, and she started to turn the case around.

Mia exposed the tampered crime scene and forged evidence for the fakeries that they were, and helped bring her client’s innocence to light. Even when Dahlia (in her Melissa Foster guise) takes the stand to testify against Terry, Mia doesn’t waver. She even manages to both prove Dahlia’s true identity (shattering the girl’s fake persona), AND uncovers the truth of the diamond ransom kidnapping plot. Her skill behind the bench shatters Dahlia’s confidence, threatening to bring the demon inside her to the surface.

Near the very end of the trial, Dahlia’s guilt in Valerie’s death is all-but-assured, with only a final decisive piece of evidence or testimony needed to take her down. In the absence of hard evidence, Mia turns to Terry to provide that decisive testimony, and he takes the stand…only for the unexpected and tragic to happen instead.

Testifying against Dahlia would be akin to admitting that he no longer loves and trusts her, and that would be breaking his five-year-long oath with her. Still unable to see her truly malicious nature, and still a victim to her emotional abuse and manipulations, Terry downs the poison bottle on the stand, and almost immediately falls to its ill-effects. Before emergency medical services can be called, Terry dies.

Sweetly smiling, Dahlia walks out of the courtroom, untouched. Without any decisive evidence, and with the only witness now dead, there’s not a single thing the police can legally do to keep her around. Dahlia strolls away with a smile on her face, two deaths lying at her feet, completely unfazed by it all, and with seemingly nothing anyone can do about it.

Mia breaks down into tears at the injustice of it all, and she’s comforted by her co-counsel, Diego Armando. Though a normally cool and collected dude, even Diego is fuming at the sheer horrifying nature of Dahlia’s true character, and that she’s still smiling as she leaves the courtroom. Diego vows to not let her get away with it.

The Thorns Grow

Bonding over their shared trauma from the case, Mia and Diego soon start dating. They process their grief in entirely different ways, however. Mia pulls back from legal work, considering not ever stepping foot in court again as she tries to forget the memories of the case. Diego, conversely, throws himself fiercely into trying to scrape together any evidence or testimony that he can to tie Dahlia to those crimes and get her tried again.

This comes to a head six months after the Dusky Bridge incident and the deaths of Valerie and Terry. Diego manages to scrounge up enough evidence and testimony to theoretically force Dahlia back onto the stand, but before doing so, he pressures her into a one-on-one meeting. He also requests that this meeting be held in the middle of the courthouse cafeteria, with plenty of nearby witnesses should Dahlia try to run or cause trouble.

What Godot could not have anticipated, however, is that Dahlia’s insane sociopathy and paranoia compelled her to take drastic steps in order to keep herself safe and ensure no one would try to pull anything on her and shatter her finely, violently-crafted life.

Shortly after getting away with the murder of her sister and boyfriend, Dahlia decided to pursue her whims at the local college, Ivy University. While there, she leverages her silver tongue, manipulative naivety, and natural feminine beauty to woo the heart of one Doug Swallow, a pharmacology student at Ivy University. Doug became her boyfriend, considering himself lucky to have landed a girl like her.

Dahlia, of course, couldn’t have cared less about Doug, and had, in fact, chosen him specifically because of his pharmacology degree and his access to the campus’ drug testing lab. With Doug’s credentials, Dahlia stole several doses of fatal poison from the lab, hiding the poison within the bottle necklace she always wore around her neck. After all, poison had worked so wonderfully for her in the past, why not try it again?

And try it again she does, bringing the necklace to the courtroom cafeteria with her on her appointed meeting day with Diego. While at the meeting (Diego confronting her all the while over the case he’s preparing against her), Dahlia merely smiles and waits patiently for her opening. And, unfortunately, she gets it, slipping the poison into Diego’s coffee during a brief window of distraction.

None the wiser, Diego downs the rest of his coffee, sealing his fate.

Dahlia then excuses herself from the table momentarily, relying on the fact that Diego will allow her a brief break as he assumes he can simply track her down if she runs. Leaving Diego to succumb to the effects of the poison, Dahlia descends into the depths of the courthouse, knowing she has precious little time to dispose of the poison bottle necklace before it can be traced back to her once Diego passes.

In the courthouse basement reading room, Dahlia stumbles upon a fellow Ivy University student by the name of Phoenix Wright, who is studying to become a lawyer. Turning on her charm, Dahlia effortlessly wraps the socially-awkward young man around her finger, and declares him her new boyfriend. Phoenix happily (if somewhat confusedly) accepts her proposal, and he also accepts her “gift of love”…the poison bottle necklace. Dahlia retreats with a placid fake smile on her face, and a victorious malicious glee in her heart.

Phoenix leaves the courthouse with the necklace, carrying away the only evidence that can connect Dahlia to the poisoning of Diego. Diego falls into a coma from the effects of the poison. And, in the chaos of it all, Dahlia wanders away, beyond pleased with herself.

This moment, however, decisively marks the shift in Dahlia’s fortunes.

For starters, Phoenix falls head-over-heels for Dahlia in a way she hadn’t anticipated. When Dahlia asks for the bottle necklace back (as she’d only needed him to leave the courthouse with it, and she always wanted it back to dispose of it properly), Phoenix playfully refuses, assuming Dahlia to just be acting coy. He’s so lovestruck by her that he genuinely can’t understand her desperation for the necklace, even as he’s otherwise obsessed with being at her beck and call.

Dahlia prepares to simply kill Phoenix to get the necklace back…but she is surprisingly stopped by her twin, Iris.

Iris has been wracked by her own guilt over the past few months. Ever since refusing to help her twin with the fake kidnapping plot, Iris has feared that her own inactions are what are spurring Dahlia onto this dark path. Iris blames herself for letting Dahlia go out of control and kill Valerie and Terry, and poison Diego. Despite never receiving any true affection in return, Iris still loves her twin, so when she hears Dahlia plans to murder Phoenix, Iris steps in.

The twins are identical, after all, so Iris proposes that she will play the part of Dahlia, the girlfriend of Phoenix. She argues that she can whittle Phoenix down and get the necklace back, so Dahlia doesn’t have to kill him. Dahlia begrudgingly agrees, knowing that she herself doesn’t have the patience to feign love and affection long enough to do the job, but her patience begins to wear thin as weeks turn into months.

Phoenix still doesn’t relinquish his cherished “gift of love” after eight long months. Plus, of course, there’s an additional complication. Namely, Iris legitmately developing feelings for Phoenix!

On top of this, Diego falling into a coma and being put into the hospital had profound impact on Mia. Seeing her boyfriend in such a horrible state, with an extremely grave prognosis, gave her the kick of motivation she’d been lacking ever since the disaster of Terry’s trial. Throwing herself back into her legal work, Mia re-dedicated herself to her defense attorney profession, vowing to never let an innocent client suffer again.

Meanwhile, Doug finally realizes that some poison had vanished from the pharmacology lab, and that Dahlia was the only one who could’ve taken it. He breaks up with her as a result, though that only solidifies her new position as Phoenix’s boyfriend. However, before long, Doug hears word about the Diego poisoning incident, and he begins to fear that his ex-girlfriend is much more a monster than she presented as.

All of these disparate threads come to a head at once.

Dahlia, recognizing Iris has fallen in love and thus judging her an incompetent failure, decides that killing Phoenix is the only way to get the bottle back. She messages Phoenix, requesting a private meeting behind one of the lecture halls on Ivy University campus. Before arriving, she takes a vial of cold medicine (knowing Phoenix was currently sick), and slips the rest of the stolen poison inside. Her intention is for Phoenix to drop dead on the spot from the medicine, allowing her to take the necklace and walk away scot free.

A twist occurs, then, when Phoenix arrives at the meeting site ahead of Dahlia, and bumps into Doug. Doug, his concerns about Dahlia’s true character mounting, warns Phoenix that Dahlia is not to be trusted, and that she may be responsible for murder. Phoenix, sadly, is too love-blinded to take Doug seriously, and so he simply shoves the poor young man and stomps off in frustration, leaving Doug to pick himself off the ground.

Or, at least, he was about to, before Dahlia appears before him. Dahlia had been just around the corner, out of sight but not out of earshot. Knowing that Doug is onto her, Dahlia impassively stares down at the young man before electrocuting him to death with a nearby power cable. She then slips Phoenix’s cold medicine into Doug’s pocket to frame Phoenix, and begins crying crocodile tears over the corpse of her ex, luring curious students by.

In no time flat, Phoenix is arrested and accused of Doug’s murder, with Dahlia set to testify against him in court. If she can’t get her bottle back, then getting Phoenix locked away for life in prison is good enough insurance for her.

Fate has other plans, however.

With news of the murder hitting the media cycle, it isn’t long before Mia learns of yet another murder that Dahlia is a “witness” to. Jumping at her chance, Mia lands the case as Phoenix’s defense attorney, intended to both protect her new client, and also to use this courthouse platform as the means to bring Dahlia down for good, both for herself and for Diego.

When the trial begins, what unfolds is a battle for the ages. Dahlia pulls out all the stops to try and twist the truth and frame Phoenix as the killer and paint herself as innocent. But Dahlia isn’t up against the rookie Mia from a year ago that failed to save an innocent man. She’s up against a determined and righteously driven Mia that isn’t going to back down no matter what.

In the performance of a lifetime, Mia systematically destroys every single lie that is expulsed from Dahlia’s sickly-sweet face. She manages to prove Dahlia as the murderer of Doug, and also prove her guilt in the poisoning of Diego, which, in turn, casts doubt on her involvement in the Valerie and Terry case too. Dahlia is forced to watch her carefully constructed life, a life she sacrificed so many people for, crumble into nothingness.

When the dust settles, Dahlia is declared guilty, and led away in chains. Mia has done it. She’s secured the victory, avenged her boyfriend and the innocent lives claimed by Dahlia, and put an irredeemable monster in jail. She’s also proven her client, Phoenix, innocent, and inspired the young man to join her law office once he passes the bar exam. She’s also established herself a fearsome defense attorney to be reckoned with, a reputation that will last for years to come.

Even still…something isn’t right.

On her way out of the courtroom, Dahlia locks eyes with Mia, and smiles yet again. Her terrifyingly serene expression unnerves Mia, doubly so as the red-haired demon opens her mouth to speak.

“For the time being, victory is yours. I have a very long memory, you know. You and I will meet again…I’m certain of it.”

With that, Dahlia is led off to prison. Her sentence? The death penalty.

The Roots Wither

After several years of rotting away inside prison, her sentence still not having been carried out, Dahlia reconvenes with an extremely unexpected ally…her biological mother, Morgan.

Morgan’s life since being divorced by Mister Hawthorne had been quite a whirlwind. After Misty ran from her position in humiliation, Morgan became the interim-master of Kurain, though the title was superficial and lacked true authority or respect. Still obsessed over becoming the real master (or at least mothering the future master), Morgan married another man with a strong spiritual blood line, and gave birth to her third daughter, Pearl Fey. She immediately cast the man aside afterwards.

Pearl was, to Morgan’s delight, born with an amazing amount of spiritual power, more than enough to lay claim to the title of Master of Kurain…if only Misty Fey’s direct descendants were not still alive. Or, specifically, one of them.

In the intervening years since Dahlia’s arrest, Mia fell victim to a home-invasion of sorts, and was killed by a corrupt businessman she’d been close to locking away behind bars. Mia’s death propelled her new hire, Phoenix Wright, into the position of lead attorney of the office, and also brought Mia’s younger sister, Maya, down from Kurain village.

Maya, born a few years after Mia, and almost directly before the incident that caused Misty to flee from her family, was born with considerable spiritual power. More than enough to lay claim to the title of village master thanks to being a direct bloodline descendant. Though still too young to claim the title for herself, Morgan instead handled Kurain village matters while Maya became extremely close friends and partners with Phoenix.

Roughly a year later, Morgan hatched a plot to get Maya out of the way and force the young Pearl (only eight-years-old) into the position of Master. She lured Maya back to the village under false pretenses, and worked alongside another young woman with a bitter grudge (distressed and disgraced nurse Mimi) to frame Maya for the murder of a doctor. Phoenix eventually proved Maya’s innocence and Morgan’s role in the deception, leading to Morgan’s arrest. Phoenix also hid the truth from Pearl, so as to protect the young girl from her mother’s dark deeds.

Which is why Morgan finds herself in jail alongside Dahlia. Considering Dahlia’s status as being on death row, and that Morgan is her mother, Morgan is able to easily arrange a meeting. During that meeting, Morgan confides in Dahlia an extremely complicated but effective plan to kill Maya and put Pearl in charge of Kurain, granting Morgan’s most twisted desire for these past decades of bitter spite.

Dahlia couldn’t care less about Morgan or her inane plan, especially as she’s now hearing for the first time that Mia Fey, her sworn enemy, is already dead. Briefly, Dahlia is distraught at the idea that it is now impossible for her to ever get revenge on the woman who locked her behind bars…until the pieces click in her head. What better way to get revenge on someone who is already dead than by sending their own little sister to the afterlife with them?

Dahlia agrees to Morgan’s plan, purely for the chance of ending Maya’s life by her own hands.

Some time later, Dahlia’s death row sentence is carried out, and Dahlia is hanged to death.

But of course…this is all part of the plan.

Meanwhile, under the guise of a simple letter, Morgan writes a note to Pearl detailing a special Spirit Channeling Retreat that she should take Maya too, known as Hazakura Temple. The note also explains that Pearl should channel the spirit of a woman named Dahlia Hawthorne, and a picture of the demonic redhead is included. The details of what is meant to happen next are left intentionally vague, so the poor innocent eight-year-old has no idea of her mother’s horrible intent.

Morgan delivers the note to Pearl, and the pieces begin to fall into place.

Or they do, at least, until an unexpected piece is added to the board.

Diego Armando, five years after his poison-induced coma, miraculously recovers. Though wracked with grief over realizing that Mia died while he was asleep, Diego (through his old connections with the Fey family and Kurain Spirit Channeling) manages to catch wind of Morgan’s plan to kill Maya at Hazakura Temple. Sensing a perfect opportunity to get back at the woman who ruined his life, and also to save the life of his old love’s little sister, Diego vows to stop the plan.

To that end, he contacts both Iris Hawthorne and even manages to track down Misty Fey (who has been living abroad under the “Elise Deauxnim” pseudonym). Iris is more than willing to do whatever it takes to stop her sociopathic sister for good, and Misty’s guilt over her familial abandonment drives her to come back home and take part in the plan as well. The three create their own plan to combat Morgan and Dahlia’s on the same night.

Said night arrives, with Maya, Phoenix, and Pearl visiting Hazakura Temple. Phoenix is there simply as a chaperone of sorts, while Maya is going to spend the night at the isolated Inner Temple, a separate structure from the main complex. Phoenix retires to his room for the night, while Pearl slips away to channel Dahlia per her mother’s instructions. However, for reasons she doesn’t understand, she is unable to.

This is because Misty has already channeled Dahlia in Pearl’s place. Knowing that Pearl wouldn’t understand the truth about her mother if confronted, and that only a single slip of hesitation would result in Dahlia inhabiting Pearl’s body, Misty chose to fall on the figurative sacrificial blade herself by allowing the red-haired devil into her own body, trusting that Diego and Iris would be able to stop her from killing her own daughter.

After all, when channeling a spirit, the spirit completely assumes control over the host spirit medium. The spirit medium’s body even physically morphs into one mirroring the spirit’s own. As soon as Misty committed to her plan and allowed Dahlia’s spirit to enter her, she temporarily ceased to be Misty Fey at all. Diego and Iris knew this would happen, of course, but they did not expect what happened next.

Driven purely by her own hyper-aggressive manic violence, Dahlia immediately chased after Maya to the Inner Temple building. The original plan from Morgan had called for more subtlety and caution. After all, Dahlia was supposed to be in Pearl’s body, and Morgan wouldn’t have wanted any harm to come to Pearl. But Dahlia didn’t care. She’d never been in this to help her mother. All she cared about was fulfilling her own gratification of butchering Maya, no matter what it took.

She was a spirit, after all. She was already dead. What could anybody do to her?

Dahlia cornered Maya right outside the Inner Temple with speed and ferocity, brandishing a knife and swinging viciously. Her unexpected assault threw Diego and Iris’ plan out the window, and necessitated Diego rushing to the Inner Temple as fast as he could. He only barely managed to arrive in time, but even then, Dahlia still had Maya pinned against a wall with her knife inches from ending the young, terrified girl’s life.

Diego, wielding his own sword, knew deep in his soul what he was about to do would constitute murder, but Dahlia had forced his hand. She’d crafted this unwinnable scenario, and left only a single option for saving Maya’s life. He might not have been as directly responsible for the death as Dahlia surely was, but he’d have to deal the blow with his own hand.

Even still, Diego knew it was what Misty would’ve wanted.

Diego drove his sword straight through Dahlia’s…or rather, Misty’s back, the blow sealing the Fey matriarch’s fate.

The death was not instantaneous, however, and Dahlia had just enough time to scream in anger, whirl around, and stab her knife at Diego’s face, scoring a bloody, mortal blow across the man’s head. The damage from the blow was severe, and Diego stumbled in pain. He held strong, however, through sheer force of will and determination to keep Maya safe. To that end, he carried Misty’s corpse away (Dahlia’s spirit having already disapparated), knowing the police could use it as evidence to blame Maya for the murder.

Unfortunately, while he and Iris were maneuvering the body back to a location where they could frame Misty’s death as a tragic accident, Iris was spotted by a witness carrying the body. The witness shrieked, more people flocked by, and Iris could only stand in shock as she was lead away to jail as the prime suspect in Misty’s death.

Meanwhile, Maya was on the verge of a panic attack, and so she wrote out a note explaining what had happened and channeled Mia, her dearly departed sister, for advice. Mia wrote back her own note, explaining that Maya wasn’t safe yet, as young Pearl would surely still try to channel Dahlia, and now that Misty was dead, the redhead would be free to inhabit Pearl’s body and attack again. Mia suggested Maya lock herself inside the Inner Temple with a special trick lock for safety’s sake, and then channel Dahlia herself.

Mia’s thinking was especially clever in this moment. Dahlia believes the original plan was to be channeled by Pearl, and so would be unlikely to realize she was in a body that wasn’t Pearl’s. Thus, if Maya channeled her, Dahlia would run herself ragged hunting a target she’d never find…because she herself would be the target.

Maya followed Mia’s advice to the letter, locking herself away and channeling Dahlia. As had been predicted, Dahlia believed herself to be in Pearl’s body, and wrongly assumed she was now locked up because Morgan’s plan had leaked and Pearl had been trapped for Maya’s safety. Dahlia began feverishly working to undo the trick lock and free herself from the Inner Temple.

Meanwhile, Phoenix took on Iris’ case as her defense attorney (undergoing his own whole personal crisis having to reconcile with the existence of an identical sister of his psychotic ex-girlfriend). After the first day in court passed, the trick lock barring entrance to the Inner Temple was discovered. Only a spirit medium or medium-in-training could open said locks, and so Iris was granted special police permission to leave the detention center and try to unlock the temple.

However, an unexpected freak earthquake momentarily distracted Iris’ police escort, leaving the girl alone when she unsealed the lock. Iris was left horrified to find herself face-to-face with Dahlia, and was easily overpowered by her frighteningly malicious twin. Iris was knocked unconscious and tossed into the Inner Temple, then trapped behind even more trick locks…but not before having her clothes stripped and stolen.

Now donning her identical twin’s outfit, Dahlia strolled out of the Inner Temple with a mock shy demeanor and feigned sad smile. Mimicking Iris perfectly, Dahlia claimed her inability to remove the locks, and she was taken back to prison, with not a single person having realized her ruse.

The next day marked the final day of the trial, and Dahlia took the stand to claim that she witnessed the moment of Misty’s murder at the hands of Maya. With every sickly sweet lie she could scrap together, Dahlia used her innocent sister’s face to almost sway the entire courtroom to her lying whims. She also claimed that Maya was, herself, dead, having probably killed herself after witnessing her own mother’s demise. For all Dahlia knew at this moment, this was true, since she’d been unable to deduce where else Maya could’ve gone.

(Some grand-finale music, if it please you: LINK)

It’s at this point that Dahlia’s critical flaw begins to come into shape. For as horrifyingly successful a mass-murderer she is, and with twisted respect onto her sadistic mastermind capabilities, Dahlia’s plans all falter at the last step. She’s so conceited and selfish that it circles back around to being blinded by her own arrogance and “perfectionism”. She lets her haughty attitude distract her from the holes in her fabricated personas and testimonies, not even realizing that she’s lost until it’s too late.

Because, of course, Maya is very much alive. She’s not dead at all. Dahlia failed in her goal. She failed once again.

This is proven after a lengthy courtroom battle by Phoenix, who eventually deduces that the “Iris” on the stand is Dahlia, judging by her shift in protecting Maya to blaming her. Then, Phoenix realizes that with Misty dead, and with Pearl standing by his own side, the only remaining spirit medium who could’ve possibly channeled Dahlia is Maya herself. Phoenix recognizes the genius of Maya hiding in plain sight from her attacker, and is overcome with relief once he realizes Dahlia did not succeed in her attack.

Dahlia, as one might expect, does not take the news that she failed to kill Maya very well. She’s never taken failure well, and it hits her especially hard here as Pearl channels the spirit of Mia. With stone-cold merciless wit, Mia berates Dahlia for the pathetic creature that she is. Mia acknowledges that Dahlia cannot be hurt in the conventional sense now that she is a spirit, but fiercely argues that Dahlia is instead saddled with the punishment of having to be her own pathetic failure of a human being self for the rest of eternity.

With Mia beside him, Diego standing in as prosecutor, and his dearest partner trapped in front of him, Phoenix points at Dahlia and commands her to leave Maya’s body at that very instnat.

With a ghoulish scream, Dahlia’s spirit is yanked from Maya’s body. She hovers over the courtroom, crying out in agony, before the opposing spiritual power from our heroes finally breaks apart her spirit and sends her back to the afterlife, leaving Maya safe and sound.

Quite succinctly, the presiding Judge cautions that the demented girl’s spirit never be channeled agian.

Sadly, there is yet one more life claimed by Dahlia’s rampage of evil. Shortly after the trial’s end, Diego passes away due to the untreated wounds suffered from Dahlia’s knife during their scuffle. He’d neglected to visit a hospital in favor of keeping an eye on Maya, and paid with his life for it. He might not have been around to protect Mia, but he was more than willing to give his life for her sister.

Dahlia’s reign of terror finally comes to an end.

Dahlia is a character who only gets more and more interesting the longer you think about her. What’s most incredible (and almost brain-busting) is realizing just how much influence a single narcissistic sociopathic college student has over the lives of everyone around her. Even without name dropping her, you can still see the effect she’s had on people like Phoenix in the future installments of Ace Attorney. She’s terrifying, and in a world of government coups, evil secret agents, and terrorist bombers, her normalcy is even more unsettling (ghostly possession notwithstanding).

As stated, she’s my second favorite video game antagonist of all time, and a character that I love quite a good bit!

But hey, that’s just my opinion!