Phoenix Wright

— "Turnabout Imposter"

## Social description

### Relatives

Brother to Mary Wright, Uncle to John Phoenix, Adoptive father to Trucy Gramarye, Guardian to Maya Fey

### Likes

Miles Edgeworth, Athena Cykes, Larry Buttz, Professor Layton, Luke Triton, Apollo Justice

## Appearances

### Debut

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Phoenix Wright is a defense attorney who works in Japanifornia. He is known as a 'legal legend' due to his near-perfect win/lose ratio and his infamous ability to bluff his way through even the most ridiculous theory. However, because of his tendency to always take on incredibly serious cases, he has made (and sentenced to death) many powerful enemies of 'the law'.

## Personality

Wright believes in a forefront priority whenever he takes on cases; always believe in your client. In spite of this, he has a strong hankering for justice and is willing to suspend his belief for the sake of murderers getting what's coming to them.

He was known to be generally pretty optimistic on the outside, and did come off as a little insensitive to those who have a lot going on. However, this quality has since diminished after he was disbarred, where he self-diagnosed with long-term depression. Though he puts on a happy face for the people around him, usually he holds his more tender feelings close to his chest because he never has a proper opportunity to face them in a totally safe environment.

Phoenix keeps most of his ideology and his grief to himself because he doesn't want to burden other people, but this ends up burdening people more because of his newfound development of passive-aggressively lashing out at people.

All-in-all, though, he is a rather pleasant and eager person who is happy to help anyone who might need it. He always puts others before himself, even to his own detriment.

## History

### Childhood

Wright had a rather lonely childhood due to his rambunctious nature. He was able to make friends but not keep them, as they'd soon begun to grow annoyed or displeased by little things that would pile up with him. However, he was able to find friends among fellow class outcast Miles Edgeworth (who defended him in class court) and Larry Butz, who was just friendly to everyone.

After Edgeworth's father was murdered and he was adopted by the Von Karmas, Wright and Edgeworth began to drift away, of no fault of their own. During this period, Wright became friends with Adoranz Moriarty, who he unwittingly used as a substitute for Edgeworth's presence in his life. However, he grew distant with him as well after the two parted ways in high school. Moriarty left for law school, Wright went to art school, and Butz couldn't find the time or money for further education.

Moriarity never tried to contact Wright and Wright was too busy being manipulated to go out of his way to contact him.

### Original Trilogy

In the original trilogy, Wright gets traumatized by seeing the death of his mentor, Mia Fey, and the subsequent arrest of his to-be little sister figure Maya Fey. Shortly after this, he was reunited with Edgeworth, who promptly got into some shit, and brought in his family issues, among other things. This spiraled for three games and had Wright face the corruption lurking within the legal system. However, in spite of this, Wright never considered the law he worked under to be actually worth changing, as we see from the court's proceedings stagnant consistency across almost all games in the series— except for Apollo Justice, where the change is promptly rescinded after.

It's some time during the original trilogy where his nephew, John Phoenix, is brought into Wright's life. Wright doesn't have any specific memories of how he came to be or where he came from.

### Post Trilogy

A while after putting Godot in jail, Phoenix is summoned by the Legal League of Attorneys to Britain. He is sucked into the mystery of Labyrinthia and becomes aware of Labrelum Inc. He also becomes friends with Professor Layton and his not-apprentice, Luke Triton. It's a very nice calm before the storm, because right afterwards he is is disbarred in a trial because he got given forged evidence by some kid.

He spirals into a depressive state and plays poker and piano at the Borscht Bowl Club. Then he becomes embroiled more drama with the accusation that he murdered Shadi Smith. Thanks to Apollo Justice, he is given the not-guilty verdict while Kristoph Gavin goes to jail in his place on evidence Wright forged for Justice to use.

He returned to defending people eight years after his original disbarment when Edgeworth used his executive power as chief prosecutor to get him his badge back. Edgeworth called in a favor to have Wright help him with something he and a colleague of his was chasing— a spy. The spy was meant to have caused the Dark Age of Law, having put Simon Blackquill in jail a year after Wright's disbarment.

After catching said spy with the help of Athena Cykes, the Dark Age of Law was meant to have dissipated suspicion of corruption in the courts for the public eye, as they were built up to be an incredibly huge threat to all the legal system and responsible for all corruption that ever has had happened and ever will.

Wright was summoned to the country of Khura'in, where he does various things, but the most important being that he assists a freedom-fighting group of 'terrorists' known as the Defiant Dragons. He essentially played 'superhero' with another country, and then returned to the States after all the dust had settled.

### Back in Business

During the events of Back in Business, Wright is subjected to the same dilemma that Cykes was put in during UR-1, as Edgeworth is accused of a murder he did not commit, but he is completely submissive to the sentencing of due to the evidence surrounding it being basically bulletproof. Because of his recent ego trip in Khura'in a year prior and his takedown of the Phantom, he believes that he is very capable at finding and taking down another spy.

This obsession to save Edgeworth and to find this newly appeared spy consumes him through the case and causes him to slowly start pushing away others and being brash, rough around the edges, and insensitive as time goes on.