Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in

Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in was the former Queen of the Kingdom of Khura'in, the current wife of Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, and the aunt of Rayfa Padma Khura'in. Unlike most of her family, she doesn't have spiritual powers; a fact which she hides to keep her rule legitimate.

The fire

 * Main article: Assassination attempt of Amara Sigatar Khura'in

Prior to Amara Sigatar Khura'in's assassination attempt, Ga'ran served as a prosecutor and the Khura'in Minister of Justice while her sister, Amara, ruled as Queen of Khura'in. This caused her to develop a deep jealousy towards her sister, culminating into a plan to replace her and discredit all defense attorneys, effectively giving her and her loyal Ministry of Justice absolute power over Khura'in's legal system.

She set her plan into motion, starting a fire at the Amara's residence during Jove Justice's performance. To the public, this seemingly killed Amara, allowing Ga'ran to take her place as queen. However, the truth of the matter is that Amara survived, and Ga'ran blackmailed Amara into staying hidden and help her when needed, using Amara's daughter Rayfa's safety. In the process, defense attorney and Amara's husband Dhurke Sahdmadhi was accused of causing the fire. Ga'ran prosecuted the case, causing an unjust guilty verdict, leading Dhurke, his son Nahyuta Sahdmadhi and foster son Apollo Justice to go into hiding, and eventually causing a widespread discrediting of defense attorneys, leading to the occupation to become dangerous and borderline illegal via the Defense Culpability Act. . When Nahyuta was forced to become a prosecutor rather than a lawyer as he had initially desired, she recognized him to be a threat and decided to force him into compliance by threatening to expose Rayfa's true parentage, forcing her into the same status as a pariah he had suffered for being Dhurke's child, making him become the embodiment of the draconian legal system she forged. Unlike Inga, she never truly developed a soft spot for Rayfa, only seeing her despised sister's image in her niece, and her neglectful and abusive behavior ended up giving Rayfa a high-strung and overly perfectionist attitude that would torment her throughout her life.

The foreign attorney

 * Main article: The Rite of Turnabout

For the next twenty-three years, Ga'ran ruled over the country, with Amara taking her place when spiritual powers are needed. Despite her having found an excellent way to fake having powers of her own, Ga'ran knew her exposure as a fraud would result in her quickly being deposed, and more than that still remained incredibly jealous of Amara. Having heard that the Founder's Orb could give spiritual power to its bearer, she became obsessed with using it to make herself a medium in truth. Inga learned of this, and having grown to despise the relative lack of power the queen's spouse had in Khura'in and having never even liked Ga'ran, began to seek it himself as part of his own coup attempt.

Downfall

 * Main article: Turnabout Revolution

Personality
When first encountered, Ga'ran seems to be a wise, kindly queen, if a bit rigid and cold towards defense attorneys, which she pretends to be because of her sister's death at the hands of one. In reality, she only dislikes lawyers because of the obstacle they present between her and greater power. She is a vain, conniving, and utterly amoral bully who cannot resist flaunting her power and mocking her opponents, especially when serving as a prosecutor. In her view, being queen made her the embodiment of the law and thus privileged to alter it to her favor, regularly issuing royal decrees during the trial of her nephew for the express purpose of weighing the odds in her favor. Ga'ran is also a profoundly spiteful and egotistical woman, regularly bribing defense attorneys with promises of lighter sentences if they beg her for mercy, getting a detachment of the Royal Guards to slavishly reaffirm their devotion to her at all times, and once ordering the Plumed Punisher series off the air to punish Rayfa for going against her (and as a final insult, she publicly claims part of the reason for cancellation was to "avoid disappointment" when people saw the real Rayfa instead of the actress playing her on the series-heavily implied to be a slight against her surrogate daughter's beauty, height, and bust size).

She has no sense of ethics when winning a case or shoring up her political influence, even resorting to manipulating her sister into hiding or entering a loveless marriage (and later murdering Inga) to tighten her stranglehold on her country. She is also somewhat cowardly, immediately losing her nerve when she realized she was not able to fake being able to summon the Holy Mother and actively begging Rayfa (to whom she had spitefully revealed that she was not her real mother and only raised her as a way to avoid Amara's suspicions) to "help her mother" (to which Rayfa angrily replied she was a fraud in more than one way). She was also somewhat unstable, given over to mood swings and histrionics, in particular a narcissism that could be baited by challenging her strength and reminding her of her sister's abilities over her own-an insanity that pushed her over the edge following her defeat, deposement, and arrest, as apparently she began to believe she was the Holy Mother. She also had a great affinity for spiders, keeping images of them as her personal sigil (in fact, Nahyuta's spider-emblazoned glove is something she forced him to wear over his Defiant Dragons tattoo as a symbol of ownership) and even styling her hair to resemble one.

Appearance
In her duties as Queen, she seemed to dress with the intention of seeming regal and harmless. Ga'ran wore a heavy white robe with red and gold trim, along with a golden ministerial hat and her hair styled in extremely tight buns. As with her kindly persona, this was a mask-underneath her robes, she wore a customized prosecutor's uniform-a far more revealing, skintight purple dress and a necklace of Magatamas, with a bindi head jewel, large hair clips and mascara to give herself a seemingly perpetual sneer. When removing her royal robes to reveal her dress, she would also undo her buns, allowing her hair to fan out to into stiff coils and bangs that resembled a spider's legs and mandibles. She grew her nails long and painted red, and carried a large red and purple fan (which she uses to blow at the defense when making her claims), as well as carried around a book about Khura'inese law that she would slam the desk with as a prosecutor (and make edits to when issuing her decrees).

Name

 * "Ga'ran" most likely comes from 伽藍 (Japanese: Garan, from Chinese: Jiā Lán), which is short for 僧伽藍摩 (Japanese: Sōgyaranma, from Chinese: Sēng Jiā Lán Mó), which comes from Sanskrit सँघाराम (saṁghārāma) meaning "temple".

Trivia

 * Ga'ran's unique speech bubble "Such insolence!" is "Hirefuse!" (ひれ伏せ！) in the Japanese version, which roughly translates to "Bow down!" This fits her status as the Khura'inese queen and arrogant personality.
 * Her outfit, design, and using a fan as weapon may have been inspired by the Princess Iron Fan from Journey to the West.
 * Ga'ran's design seems to bear resemblance to Darklaw from the crossover title Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Both appear to be witch-like design and bother serve as the prosecutor of the last case of their game.
 * Ga'ran can be compared to both Manfred von Karma and Morgan Fey. Like Manfred, she is a corrupt prosecutor who tries to convict someone else for her own murder and is responsible for much of the other party's darker actions (more directly, in her case, as Nahyuta only became such a merciless prosector because he was being threatened by her), and during the final trial regularly directs its general flow (although Ga'ran has actual authority over the judge, as opposed to Manfred, who is just too indimidating to gainsay). Like Morgan, she is a powerless woman from a family of mediums driven by jealousy of her nobler sister, and manipulates her daughter (adopted, in Rayfa's case) to be her political pawn against her enemies (though, unlike Morgan's genuine care for Pearl, Ga'ran has nothing resembling affection for Rayfa, emotionally and verbally abusing her as a way of getting back at her sister by proxy).