Maggey Byrde

"Maggey Byrde"

- Next time we meet, I'll only be an "Unlucky Person", instead of a goddess!

Maggey Byrde was one of Phoenix Wright's clients who is especially notable for her very bad luck. She was the defendant in two of Wright's cases, as well as a suspect in another.

Early life
When Byrde was six months old, she fell off the ninth floor of an apartment building. Since then, she has experienced a myriad of disasters such as getting hit by various vehicles, getting sick from all sorts of foods, failing almost every test she has ever taken, and even losing every game of tic-tac-toe. She became known as the "Goddess of Misfortune" as she grew up, and at college, people called her "Lady Luckless". She feels that this misfortune always latches on to the people around her.

In the police force

 * Main article: The Lost Turnabout

During Byrde's employment in the local police force, she started to date Dustin Prince, a fellow officer. About three months later, Prince was killed during a date, and she was accused and brought to court for the crime. At first she was laughed off by the lawyers she tried to hire to help her. Luckily for her, Phoenix Wright agreed to represent her.

Unfortunately for her, just before the trial was about to begin, Richard Wellington rendered Wright unconscious and Wright lost his memory. Nonetheless, she acted as Wright's co-counsel, guiding him through the trial process, until Wright exposed Wellington as the true culprit, leading to Byrde's acquittal.

Byrde was grateful for Wright's help. She hoped to meet him again, and she vowed that she would merely be an "unlucky person" rather than a "goddess of misfortune".

Byrde was soon taken off the force for reasons never made totally clear, but presumably due to the blemish on her record.

As a waitress

 * Main article: Recipe for Turnabout

Soon after her trial, Jean Armstrong employed Byrde as a waitress at his restaurant, Trés Bien.

On Dec. 3, 2018, during her shift, Byrde served coffee to two men, Furio Tigre and Glen Elg, at a table. She saw Tigre slip potassium cyanide into Elg's cup of coffee; when Elg drank his coffee, he collapsed and died, causing Byrde to faint. When Byrde woke up, she found that she had been accused of the crime; Tigre had had Armstrong hide Byrde and Elg in the kitchen and reenact the crime to fool a witness into thinking Byrde had killed the victim. Byrde again hired Phoenix Wright to defend her, but Tigre appeared instead, disguised as Wright, and Tigre intentionally put up a poor defense against the case of prosecutor Winston Payne.

A month later, however, the real Phoenix Wright appealed the case and exposed Tigre as the killer, clearing Byrde's name once more.

As a security guard

 * Main article: Turnabout Visitor

After her stint as a waitress, Byrde was hired as a security guard in the Prosecutor's Building. One day, Jacques Portsman asked her to open his door, but Byrde had lost her master key, so she merely pretended to lock the door. Byrde later became a suspect in the murder of detective Buddy Faith in Miles Edgeworth's office, to Gumshoe's dismay. Portsman deduced that Byrde had walked in on the detective robbing the office and killed him, but Edgeworth refuted Portsman's claims. Edgeworth soon figured out that the basketball hoop outside Portsman's door had been moved to outside his own door, and that the room number plates of Edgeworth's and Portsman's doors had been switched, so that Byrde would open Edgeworth's door unknowingly. This knowledge soon led to the real murderer being convicted. Byrde was soon fired after her employers found out that she lost her key. Gumshoe consoled her and convinced her to be more enthusiastic about her next job.

Personality
Byrde's bad luck has caused her to lead a peculiar and inconsistent life. Despite her misfortunes, Byrde is usually quite cheerful and excitable. Byrde is prone to exaggerated salutes and referring to people (even Wright) as "sir". She has a hard time trying not to meddle with other people's problems. This often causes new problems, such as helping an old lady across the road leading to them both having dinner at Byrde's house.

Byrde's enthusiasm carries over to her various jobs. As a police officer, she often watched court proceedings and, upon watching Phoenix Wright's trials, would always root for him to win. She is used to changing jobs frequently and almost finds the pursuit of a new job exciting.

Out of uniform, Byrde often wears Blue Badger-themed shirts. She wore a Blue Badger hoodie during her date with Dustin Prince, and she wore a Blue Badger T-shirt after her security shift around the time of Buddy Faith's murder. She also wears glasses with near-sighted lenses.

Relationship with Dick Gumshoe
While Byrde was a trainee, Dick Gumshoe developed a crush on her (unbeknownst to her) and would watch out for her. During the course of her second trial, Dick Gumshoe was compelled by his position to testify against Byrde, which upset her. Gumshoe tried to deliver a box of sausage weenies to her via Wright, but she said that she did not like sausage weenies. Later, at the end of the trial, Wright gave Byrde a bigger box of weenies that Gumshoe had made, and Byrde forgave Gumshoe, admitting that she loved weenies. She later bought a new trench coat for him.

During the investigation of the murder of Buddy Faith, Byrde and Gumshoe's relationship was brought up again as Gumshoe fiercely attempted to prove Byrde's innocence. It should also be noted that Byrde occasionally ended her sentences with "pal" in a similar way to Gumshoe's speech habits, hinting how much their relationship has developed. Miles Edgeworth also remarked on the undeniable similarities between Byrde and Gumshoe.

Name

 * The Japanese name comes from the phrase "make tsudzuki", which means "continues to lose" - referring to her bad luck.


 * The English name comes from the magpie (hence "Maggey"), a bird (hence "Byrde") that is said to bring bad luck. "Maggey" was likely also chosen for its unusual spelling, so that it could confuse Richard Wellington. The more common spelling of "Maggie" is a diminutive of the name "Margaret", which means "pearl" or "daughter of light".


 * The French name "Loiseau" could be derived from "l'oiseau" (which means "the bird") - referring to the feathers on her outfit.

Development

 * The numerous red feathers on both her police uniform and her security guard outfit are meant to express Byrde's altruistic personality, in that they are indicative of her regular contributions to charity, since the Community Chest of Japan is known as 赤い羽根共同募金 (lit. "Red Feather Community Chest"). The feathers may also have partially inspired her English and French names.


 * Her exaggerated gestures were designed to express her lively nature.


 * Although her standard sprites in Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth are like those of other characters, in that left- and right-facing sprites are just flipped versions of each other, her full body sprites are different. Regardless of whether she is facing left or right, her hat remains in her left hand.


 * In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Wright has a number of alternative costumes he can wear, the color schemes of which are all references to other characters. Maya Fey appears as some of Wright's attacks and her costume also changes depending on the one Wright is wearing. One of the choices for Wright is based on the color scheme of Larry Butz's original outfit, while Maya's corresponding color scheme is based on the waitress outfit that she and Maggey Byrde wore while working at Trés Bien.