Trucy's Characterization Never Changed: An Essay
Originally I was going to do an essay on all the characters that had flanderization accusations thrown at them but then I decided to focus on Trucy because Trucy.
First of all, here's the link to the TVTropes page for flanderization. It doesn't apply to Trucy in my opinion. You can't flanderize a magician when that's been a central part of her characterization from the beginning. With that out of the way, onto me basically proving TVTropes is wrong about Trucy being flanderized.
Part 1: Trucy's Characterization in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Trucy's a bit of an eccentric magician from the beginning. She experiences negative emotions but she hides it incredibly well, especially for a 15 year old. She's so good at hiding her emotions that it's a plot point in The Magical Turnabout but I'll get to that later.
Trucy shows concern over Apollo breaking down after Trucy fakes her own kidnapping, she shows concern for Lamiroir throughout Turnabout Serenade, and she shows concern for Klavier while Kristoph is testifying. She just usually hides it almost immediately after showing it. Let's look at the two scenarios where Trucy does show concern for someone else, but hides it immediately after; those being when Apollo finds her after she stages her kidnapping, and when Kristoph is testifying:
- She tells Apollo not to cry and almost immediately threatens him playfully. Instead of outwardly showing concern, she tries to cheer him up then he threatens to press charges and she explains everything to him. The fact that she staged her own kidnapping to get a recess in the first place is evidence enough that she was worried about Apollo, specifically him not being able to identify when a witness is nervous.
- She tells Apollo "Prosecutor Gavin's on the warpath, isn't he?" and justifies it with Klavier being nervous because Kristoph's watching. When you press the next statement, Trucy says Klavier and Kristoph are like a "two-man wrecking team" and doesn't take it quite as seriously. Press Kristoph's final statement and Trucy will voice concern for Klavier again ("Does Prosecutor Gavin seem strange to you, too? It's like he's all grown-up…") and she continues to flip between visible concern and nonchalance. Also worth noting is she also gets visibly concerned when Klavier freaks out on Vera. She also voices concern for Vera at this point.
None of this is to say people are saying Trucy doesn't express concern at all. I'm trying to give a picture of how Trucy tends to express concern; that being, something comes up that concerns her, she expresses that concern, and then she keeps going like nothing's wrong (this applies to more than just concern, it's just easiest to exhibit with how she shows concern). It's not because she doesn't care, it's because she just tends to hide her emotions behind a smile, something that's referenced by Phoenix himself at the end of the game.
Also worth noting is that if she wants to, she will bring things back to her magic show. I would think the fact that she brings up her magic panties whether it's relevant or not just to mess with Apollo is proof enough of this.
Part 2: Trucy's Characterization in Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice
Getting this out of the way now, she's not an airhead after AJ:AA. She is consistently intelligent. I have never once thought she's not. Like just as examples:
- First and foremost, because this really makes me wonder where this claim came from, both Athena and Apollo are shocked to find that Trucy was conned into signing a different contract than the one she thought she signed in The Magical Turnabout. Athena specifically says "It couldn't have been easy fooling Trucy. That girl's no slouch!" and Apollo says "It's not everybody who can fool our Trucy." Actually I could make The Magical Turnabout an entire bullet point on its own considering the entire plot is "how the fuck did this guy con Trucy"
- Let's also mention Turnabout Revolution. I'm like 99.99% sure her goal was just to get on the plane without being seen, otherwise she wouldn't have popped up at the end of the case. As long as she got on the plane without anyone finding out, she'd be fine because there is no way they were going to turn back JUST because Trucy snuck onto the flight. If anything I actually think Edgeworth is the idiot in this situation for falling for something Trucy's apparently pulled on him multiple times. The important thing here though is that she snuck on the plane in Edgeworth's suitcase. She could've snuck on in anyone's suitcase and she chose Edgeworth's, and I think there's a very specific reason for this. Trucy was present when Klavier said prosecutors don't have to go through the same security checks as everyone else, and if we assume Trucy knew this, yeah, of course she snuck on the plane in Edgeworth's suitcase. Was it pointless? Possibly, depending on whether Phoenix, Apollo, Dhurke, and Athena had to go through security checks. But Trucy still chose the person whose luggage was least likely to be checked and she apparently does it enough that Edgeworth isn't surprised to find out about it.
- Trucy can throw knives with such perfect precision that she prevents Cosmos from scootering away while she's investigating the space center with Phoenix, something she reacts to with "And the streak continues!" implying she's been throwing knives at moving targets for a while at that point (behind Phoenix's back, I might add). Throwing knives at a target is one thing, throwing knives at the tires of a moving vehicle is another and it makes me wonder how much she practiced. Either way she'd have to know exactly how to throw a knife to puncture the tire of a moving vehicle because she very specifically used a knife to puncture the tire of Cosmos's segway. Precision isn't the only factor into this, she needs to know exactly how much force to put behind her throw. She might've just guessed at that for all we know, because it's almost impossible for her to know exactly how much force to throw a knife with to puncture that tire without having thrown a knife at the exact same type of tire. Like. GIRL
When I saw the claim that she turns every conversation around to her magic show, I was like "surely that's an exaggeration and she does that because Phoenix wants her to focus on school instead of going out and investigating with Apollo" and checked the transcript for The Monstrous Turnabout. Guess what, I was right, for The Monstrous Turnabout at least. It's either relevant to something, the conversation didn't have a solid topic in the first place, or she's passive-aggressively complaining about not being able to join investigations (because the reason discussions with her were usually on topic in AJ:AA is because she was Apollo's investigative partner).
Like did we forget that presenting something and an irrelevant tangent happening isn't new in the Ace Attorney universe? Kay and Lang get into a powerscaling debate about wolves and ravens because Lang was presented with Kay's Yatagarasu pin. Trucy's been pulling the magic card on Apollo when he presents something since she was introduced. Athena and Apollo get into a powerscaling debate about Tenma Taro and the Nine-Tailed Fox (which is tangentially related to the case at best). I'm pretty sure Maya has moments like this.
Trucy's tangents just get more plentiful because she's not investigating the crimes and she herself implies she's annoyed about it. I've never met someone who likes doing schoolwork, why wouldn't she focus on her magic if she can't investigate crimes and it's between schoolwork and magic (which, mind you, is her job that she gets paid to do)? It feels less like "Trucy's whole personality is being a magician" and more like "mutual 'what are you working on' exchanges between coworkers" because as I said, magic is Trucy's job.
To put it another way, magic is to Trucy what law and psychology are to Apollo and Athena respectively. "But Athena doesn't talk about psychology near as much as Trucy talks about magic!" She's Apollo's investigative partner. She knows what's going on in the investigation which makes it easier for her to stick to the topic of the investigation. If she wasn't involved in an investigation, I can almost guarantee she'd start psychoanalyzing Apollo and Phoenix. This is opposed to Trucy, who has no idea what's going on aside from what Apollo and Athena tell her because she's not involved. Like there's very much a reason most conversations with her go to magic after AJ:AA. What else is she going to talk to Apollo, Phoenix, and Athena about? She's not involved in the investigations. That fact is implied to annoy her.
Like I said, Trucy bringing up magic when you talk to her during investigations just feels like some kind of "how's work going" exchange, which, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that normal in workplaces like the Wright Anything Agency? The only difference is that Trucy's job is vastly different from everyone else in the agency. Apollo and/or Athena tell Trucy how the investigation's going, so she shows them how her magic is going in the most inconvenient way possible. It's funny and I love her for it.
And she still hides how she's feeling behind a smile. Presumably because she's so used to a smile convincing people she's fine, she's surprised when Apollo's bracelet reacts to her saying she's fine. She actually explains why she does this in The Magical Turnabout; the Gramarye creed is "A true entertainer always keeps a smile on their face" and Trucy's been living under that since her debut (she also explains this; she sees it as a way of keeping Zak alive). She does this twice in Dual Destinies; once with Athena and once with Apollo. We can also assume she did this when Aura was holding her hostage, since she says she performed magic tricks for the rest of Aura's hostages to keep everyone's spirits up. Let's break down the times she does this in Dual Destinies though.
- The first time is in The Cosmic Turnabout, after Apollo gets attacked by Tonate. Phoenix teases Trucy about not being able to tease Apollo anymore and even that doesn't get a reaction from her, which prompts Phoenix to say it's been a while since he last saw her so down. When she does finally talk, it's to say they should take Starbuck's defense to "avenge our fallen comrade" (Apollo). Not really sure if it's relevant but I do think it's worth mentioning that Athena is the one who cheers her up here.
- The second time is in Turnabout for Tomorrow, after Athena's arrested under suspicion of Clay's murder. Here she's masking her feelings about both Apollo's estrangement from the Wright Anything Agency and Athena's arrest, but it's actually implied that she's more upset about Apollo leaving (which I'm going to guess is because she's closer to Apollo and she knows Athena's in good hands with Phoenix defending her). Trucy is so upset about Apollo leaving the agency that she blames herself for him leaving in the first place (specifically wondering out loud to Phoenix if her roping him into her magic tricks is why he left). She's so worried about Apollo that she stays back when Phoenix leaves the space center to keep an eye on Apollo, which is what results in her being held hostage. To reiterate, she was so worried about Apollo that she basically ditched Phoenix to keep an eye on him and ended up one of Aura's hostages as a result.
I also want to mention that Trucy explicitly says during the credits of AJ:AA that she feels like she found her "long-lost, big, little brother" and she is all but stated to have abandonment issues from the age of eight (something I say because she's worried that Phoenix is going to leave her like Zak did when Phoenix basically adopts Trucy on the spot). Look at her reactions to Apollo leaving the agency and Apollo staying in Khura'in with that in mind and it just makes it even more heartbreaking. Trucy even asks if they're really going to see Apollo again when Apollo says he's staying in Khura'in. She feels like she just found her long-lost brother again (and she did, she just doesn't know it), I think him just leaving without much warning (TWICE within six months of each other) probably triggered her abandonment issues.
Part 3: Conclusion Because There's Definitely More I Could Say But I Don't Know What. I'll add to this later. maybe
This is more of a ramble about how I don't think Trucy's characterization changed at all after AJ:AA but I will do a proper analysis of Trucy at some point, especially because I really want to analyze her dynamic with Apollo. I don't even really know how much sense this makes (which seems to be really common with these but it's fine. I'm okay with that) but I will be analyzing Trucy again, I promise. She needs a hug so bad
