Ace Attorney/Characters/The Fey Clan
The Fey Clan is a family of spirit mediums and is the closest thing the Ace Attorney series has to a Spotlight-Stealing Squad in the first three games and plays a bigger role in each successive game. The members of the clan are practitioners of the Kurain Channeling technique, which consists of a few characteristics:
- The channeling powers are exclusive to the women of the Fey clan. As a result, not only is there an implied Heir Club For Women, but this also results in a very high divorce rate (as previously mentioned) if a married couple's child is a girl.
- When a medium channels a spirit, the medium's body physically changes to that of the person channeled; only the clothes and hair remain unchanged.
- A spirit can only be channeled by one medium at a time; should multiple mediums attempt the channeling, the medium with the most spiritual power will be the one to have the spirit channeled; other mediums will fail their attempts.
- During a channeling, the medium effectively ceases to exist and they have no knowledge of what happens during a channeling.
- While a medium has no direct control over the spirit they channel, a skilled medium can have some influence so as to prevent the spirit from doing anything extreme. This is the only "rule" that shows any signs of inconsistency; trying to figure out why Misty, the master of the discipline, couldn't prevent Dahlia from attacking Maya is guaranteed to cause a headache.
The Fey clan is headed by the Main Family — that is, the family of the Master, the most skilled and direct descendant medium of Ami Fey, the founder of the Kurain Channeling Technique (usually this is the first born daughter of the former Master) — while all other families become Branch Families. As you can probably imagine, this has resulted in a long history of Evil Princesses and Evil Aunts in the clan's history.
Members of the Fey Clan in the series include:
- Mia Fey (see Ace Attorney)
- Maya Fey (see Ace Attorney
- Pearl Fey[1] (see Ace Attorney)
- Dahlia Hawthorne (see Ace Attorney)
Misty Fey (Maiko Ayasato)
The mother to Mia and Maya, and the Master of Kurain in the first three games, though after the mishap with the DL-6 incident, she had disappeared. Only from the public eye--she still held ties with the government, and earned some considerable fame as the picturebook author Elise Deauxnim. Ultimately, she was murdered while channeling Dahlia Hawthorne by Godot.
- Chekhov MIA->Back for the Dead
- Mama Bear
- Meaningful Name/Punny Name: Misty, because she's mysterious. "Maiko" means "dancing girl", making her pseudonym "Elise" a Shout-Out to the short story "The Dancing Girl". Also, Deauxnim means "two names", which is appropriate since it's a pseudonym.
- Missing Mom: To Mia and Maya.
- Personal Effects Reveal: Inside the Master's Talisman, which she always wears, is a photo of her two daughters when they were young.
Morgan Fey (Kimiko Ayasato)
A pure heart that knows not of the evils in this world is a powerful thing, good sir.
The mother of Pearl (and the twins Dahlia and Iris), and the older sister of Misty Fey. Despite her seniority, however, she had lesser spiritual power than Misty, and was therefore stripped of her place as next in line as the Master, prompting her power-hungry first husband to leave her, taking with him their twin daughters. However, after she remarried (and divorced again), Morgan had Pearl, and believed the very powerful little girl to have power worthy of the place as the Master, with good reason. Determined to regain some shred of dignity to her name (as opposed to Pearl's sake), Morgan plotted a few Xanatos Gambits to have poor Maya convicted and/or killed, leaving the position of Master open for her youngest daughter. If it weren't for the fact that she's actually pretty scary, she'd almost be sympathetic.
- Abusive Parents: Poor, poor Pearl...
- Ancient Tradition: Morgan is fiercely protective of the Fey family traditions, and if you break a sacred object relative to the Fey clan, you better watch out for her. She also has high expectations of the people that visit Kurain Village.
- Anime Hair
- Big Bad
- Broken Pedestal: Mia and Maya both loved her, and are greatly saddened at the thought that she would try to plot against Maya like she did.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Her first husband took her two daughters and left her due to her inferiority. She was slightly inferior to Misty, even though she was older, and lost her position in line to be the next Master. She later tried to get her own niece convicted of murder, which backfired and landed her in solitary confinement, her first daughter gets arrested and later executed, and her other daughter is accused of a murder. When it boils down to it, poor Morgan's life just plain sucks.
- Death Glare: One of her sprites has her doing this, particularly in the sequence in which she monologues while being incarcerated.
- Evil Aunt: To Mia and Maya, of the sort that's jealous of her sibling's children for the position they can inherit.
- Evil Matriarch: Acting matriarch of the Feys, considering the clan's actual head is missing in action. She manipulates people around her in order to get rid of her niece, whom she sees as inadequate compared to her own daughter.
- Expressive Hair
- Feminine Women Can Cook: She makes delicious strawberry desserts.
- Manipulative Bitch: Poor little Pearl never doubts her until the very end.
- Meaningful Name/Punny Name: Morgan le Fey, anyone? "Kimiko" comes from "Himiko", a shaman queen of ancient Japan.
- Resentful Guardian: Presumably, as she took care of Maya after Misty left from the fallout over DL-6, and Mia left to search for Misty.
- Smug Snake: Morgan is, apart from a superficial amount of politeness and formality, quite bitter and condescending to others. This is exemplified in how she blames the failure of her plan in Case 2 on the culprit and the prosecutor.
- Sweet Tooth: Morgan is known to make "lovely bitter green tea" that is "so bitter, you lose your tongue", along with "jaw-droppingly large strawberry desserts".
- They Call Me Mister Tibbs: Doesn't invoke this on herself, but insists that Phoenix address Maya as "Mystic Maya" like she does.
Ami Fey (Kyoko Ayasato)
The long-since deceased founder of the Kurain Channeling Technique.
- Meaningful Name/Punny Name: She's named after the Buddha Amit?bha.
- Oddly-Shaped Sword: The Shichishito her statue holds.
Bikini
No, her name is not meaningful... or is it? It may be based on Bhikkhuni, a female Buddhist monastic. Bikini is a member of an unnamed Branch Family and the head nun of Hazakura Temple, as well as the foster mother of Iris. Bikini is not her real name, and people expecting her to be a woman dressed in one is appears to happen quite a bit.
- Apron Matron: Minus the apron.
- Large Ham: Physically, too.
- Meaningful Name/Punny Name: The "ni" means "nun".
- Naughty Nuns: Parodied, starting with her name. She's middle-aged and overweight, but enjoys acting as if she was unaware of this.
- Only One Name: Is referred to as "Sister Bikini" by those who show her respect.
- Parental Substitute: To Iris.
Iris (Ayame)
A nun of Hazakura Temple with a bizarre likeness to Phoenix's ex-girlfriend Dahlia Hawthorne, though she's never been to college and has always lived at Hazakura Temple. Evidently despite having some knowledge of it, Iris has no spiritual power. She is the daughter to Morgan Fey and the twin sister of Dahlia (despite having different hair colors), as well as the half-sister of Pearl.
- Becoming the Mask: During the six months that Phoenix thought he was dating Dahlia, Iris was standing in for her sister so that Dahlia wouldn't commit any more crimes; Iris eventually falls in love with Phoenix herself.
- Curtains Match the Window
- Horrible Judge of Character
- I Never Told You My Name: Calls Phoenix "Mr. Wright" when he hasn't yet introduced himself to her, causing him to become suspicious.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: She believes she doesn't deserve to be together with Phoenix.
- Last-Name Basis -> First-Name Basis: Once she finally confesses to Phoenix who she really is, she starts calling him "Feenie" like she used to.
- Leitmotif: Shares "Distant Traces of Beauty" with Dahlia (with fairly good reason).
- Love Martyr: She remains supportive of Dahlia for a long time without much thanks.
- Only One Name: Her full name, for court purposes is "Iris of Hazakura Temple".
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: It IS Phoenix she falls for, after all.
- Tender Tears
- Theme Twin Naming: Only in the translations though.
- Twin Switch: See above.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Iris is always kind and polite, and possesses the poise expected of a traditional lady, but she also can go to great lengths to protect people she cares about. Unlike her sister, who pretends to be this trope, Iris is a genuine example.
- ↑ holy crap, one that doesn't start with an "M"