Character info

[glassinine]

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Miles Edgeworth
CHARACTER AGE: 34
SERIES: Ace Attorney
CHRONOLOGY: Edgeworth is coming from the game Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, where he’s the Chief Prosecutor.
CLASS: Such a hero it hurts. Edgeworth wouldn’t filch a quarter from a payphone when no one was looking.
HOUSING: I’d love to have him randomly assigned!

BACKGROUND:
Edgeworth’s world is rather like our own, aside from the fact that some deranged madman at some point tinkered with the justice system to make it completely bananas. And except for the fact that, at birth, parents assess their children and give them the most apropos pun for a name that they can think of. And all evildoers are given to hammy, over-the-top shouting and declarations of their evil and et cetera. And there are spirit mediums? And magical eyes? And stuff? Man, I don’t know, let me start over -

So Edgeworth’s world is a lot like our own, except that at some point, the government, concerned with the growing crime rate, tweaked the court system to ensure that trials were speedier and also more dramatic. Edgeworth’s father worked as a respected and compassionate and courageous defense attorney within this system, until he was murdered for standing up for his principles. Edgeworth himself as a young child was witness to this murder, then watched the man he thought did it get away with it - only to thereafter be adopted by his father’s actual murderer. This actual-murderer, Manfred von Karma, was a vicious prosecutor who so hated Gregory Edgeworth, Miles’ dad, that he adopted the boy in order to shape him into someone who would disgrace his father, making him a shameful wreck before finally crushing the kid, framing him for murder, and sending him to be executed as one of the criminals whom Miles himself so detested. All the while also acting to make Edgeworth believe that he himself murdered his dad by accident. And also shaping him to do pretty much nothing except hate criminals. And also making sure he thought that he was worthless unless he was perfect.

Edgeworth, needless to say, grew up kinda crazy as a result.

He went on from this brilliant childhood to become a prosecutor, going after criminals with the ferocity of a rabid dog, trying to personally punish every one of them for the loss of his father. He was quite the prosecutor, too - he maintained a hundred percent conviction rate for years until a new challenger stepped into the ring: a defense attorney by the name of Phoenix Wright, who happened to be Edgeworth’s childhood friend, and who, in response to Edgeworth never answering his concerned letters, had gone to law school and passed the bar so that Edgeworth would have to speak to him when they met in court. Thank God; crazy countered crazy: faced with Phoenix’s ridiculously over the top shounen righteousness, Edgeworth began doubting his path and remembering his compassion…just in time to get framed for murder by his adoptive father, Manfred von Karma. Don’t worry, though; this all ended well. Phoenix successfully defended his old friend, Manfred admitted his guilt not only in this case but also in the murder of Edgeworth’s father, and everything ended happily.

Until Edgeworth faked his death and fled the country. But that was ultimately a minor thing! In time, Edgeworth returned, Edgeworth learned and grew, Edgeworth inspired Phoenix in turn, they became best lawyer friends and supported each other through all the hardships that faced them. Edgeworth recovered from his brush with nearly being falsely accused of murder quite well, becoming a decent man and a good prosecutor who grew in prominence.

After some years of prosecuting and solving crimes and…getting falsely accused of crimes, and nearly being removed from his job for political reasons, and passing out during earthquakes, and being shot at sometimes, and getting whipped a lot, and being mocked a lot, he was promoted to Chief Prosecutor. Finally. In that position, he worked - and currently works - as a staunch ally to the protagonists of the Ace Attorney series, quietly influencing events to foster justice, bring truth to light, all that righteous stuff.

PERSONALITY:
Once upon a time, ten years ago, Edgeworth was a damaged and angry young man, someone with a big chip on his shoulder, someone scarred and traumatized and frightened, someone who had faced a great many difficulties and was too proud and fierce and furious to ever ask for any sort of help for them. He was someone whom circumstances had made into a cruel person who’d been given a whole lot of power and was at risk of abusing it. He was fiercely, almost frighteningly intelligent, and he was a prosecutor and had the ability to ruin lives if he wanted to. And because his life had caused him to bear incredible hatred towards criminals, to the point where he would do anything to destroy them, he wanted to. Edgeworth was, at his core, a phenomenally kind and good-hearted person, but a nasty set of circumstances had caused him to forget his goodness in the name of revenge.

But Edgeworth was also lucky, because sometimes help arrives and forces itself into your life without you wanting it there: sometimes a friend will come along and stick by you and help you through the hard parts of your life and help you heal and get stronger and better. This is what happened for him: his friend, Phoenix Wright, came along, helped him shed a lot of the worse parts of himself, and helped him grow up into someone better. So over the course of ten years, he relearned kindness, came to let go of his hatred, and came to use his power as a prosecutor not to cause suffering for people, but instead to protect those who would be hurt. He learned over time how to be a good man.

So that’s who Edgeworth is now at this point in his life. At 34, he’s lost the anger that marked him when he was younger; he’s learned patience and balance. He’s now a rather quiet man, very thoughtful, rather wise. He’s cuttingly smart, and still rather sharp-tongued - but there’s no malice in his sardonic comments now, only a wry sort of humor. He’s fiercely loyal to his friends, intensely devoted to justice - unfortunately to the exclusion of nearly all else - and dedicated to his job. He’s kinder than he once was, much fairer. Curious and intelligent.

Which isn’t to say he’s suddenly perfect. Oh my god, you cannot get further from perfection. He’s also still someone who doesn’t really get people, who’s phenomenally socially awkward; he’s still someone who prizes justice above humanity and who will throw someone to the wolves if it means that the truth will prevail; and he’s still a smug asshole when he has an opportunity to be a smug asshole. He’s still someone who’ll seek out the truth no matter whom it hurts. He’s still someone cruelly unforgiving of evil; he’ll admit more nuanced circumstances, and is more swayed by the appearance of guilt than he used to be, but when he’s confronted by real evil he will retaliate nastily against it. He’s still phenomenally proud and prickly and has trouble unbending. He’s still got a quick temper that can be raised without much effort, and he still blows his top pretty easily. And he’s still someone who can and will set aside emotion and compassion to make a cruelly logical judgment, who will not allow kindness to sway him but only the chilly, cruel power of the facts. Edgeworth is an adult, and many of his old wounds have healed, but there are still traces of the unpleasant, broken person he used to be, ready to surface.

Still. On the whole, Edgeworth is and will be a force for calm, rational discussion - someone who will take charge of a situation, consider it carefully, and make it better.

POWER:
Edgeworth in canon has no powers. So, in keeping with his focus on crimes and the like, I’d like to give him the power of guilt manipulation. Using this power, he can induce guilt in anyone, even those who normally do not have the ability to feel guilt, and force them to relive their worst crimes. A strong exertion of the power could even force them to confess their crimes.

Now, please note that I am going to put strong limitations on this power, since it could easily step into godmodding territory. The first and most absolute limitation is that it will never be used without the express permission of the other player. ICly, there will be limitations as well: this power can only be used when Edgeworth is in physical contact with the other person, and he’ll have poor control over it - it’ll frequently be on the fritz. (However, this also means that it might well activate on some poor unsuspecting individual, if anyone ever wants to plot out suffering for their poor characters - delightful!)

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

[Edgeworth’s voice when he speaks is quiet, thoughtful, and unhurried.]

Well. It seems to be customary to introduce oneself; I should not wish to defy this custom.

[And that little preamble over, there’s the sound of shifting; he takes a breath and says, more purposefully:]

My name is Miles Edgeworth. At home, I served as Chief Prosecutor for the city of Los Angeles. As you might surmise given my position, I am deeply concerned with matters of the law and justice, and should quite like to speak with any like-minded individuals.

I will confess that social niceties are not my sole aim: I’ve something of a query for all of you as well. I find the idea that these people would bring us here - indeed, kidnap us here - and then request that we pledge some allegiance to them quite outrageous.

[Though his voice, for what it’s worth, is more pensive than outraged.]

Yet it seems that a not insignificant number of you have so pledged. If you would be willing to share your reasons why, I would be quite in your debt.

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

His course has always been justice: that is unchanging. Yet when he was younger, justice seemed like such a simple concept. He thought of justice similarly to how he thought of himself: the two of them, in his conception, were blunt instruments, heavy things built to do damage to the unrighteous, to smash down their ranks before they could advance and do damage to the innocent. He thought of them both - himself and justice - as tools, as weapons, insensate, unthinking, pure, incorruptible - working tirelessly for whichever righteous cause lifted them and used them to break the backs of the evil.

God, he was an idiot when he was younger.

He wonders how easily he’d have given his loyalty to these people when he was a callow young man. Would he have been swayed by their talk of heroism? Or would he have been too furious, marched away with his quick temper nettled, bristling at their effrontery at bringing him here without leave? Given that even now he’s trending more towards the latter rather than the former, he suspects that he’d have been more furious than accepting. Whichever way, he’s certain his reaction would have been less measured than it is now.

Because he’s fighting to keep himself rational. Even though his temper is threatening to boil over from the outrage of being taken here against his will, he’s suppressing his anger to consider the advantages and disadvantages of working with them. Indeed, he sits now with a piece of paper, taking notes in small, neat letters, listing -

Advantages: authority to effect changes; authority to help others in same situation; good working conditions; food to eat; place to live; freedom to travel; access to information; cooperation of authorities; ability to continue to fight crime, which seems to be no less a problem here than at home; greater ease in going home when the time comes

On the other side of the paper, there are not bullet points, but instead three sentences.

Disadvantages: Any group which would bring people here like this is not a truly just group. Even if you swear allegiance to them, your heart will not be in it, and a time will almost certainly come when you feel compelled to break from them to serve what is right above what you have promised. Are you truly willing to break your word?

He’s gained a more nuanced view of right and wrong in the years since he began prosecuting. He’s gained a more nuanced view of justice. He’s begun to see things in shades of gray. And yet in all his years, he’s not quite been able to shake his belief that there is a sort of simplicity at the heart of justice. There are things that are unjust, and one cannot suppress one’s moral outrage to simply go along with them. There is a simplicity, after all, to justice.

So here’s the question. How badly do these people violate it?

FINAL NOTES:
Non, je ne regrette rien