Talk: Incidents

Categorization[]

I wanted to better explain my reasoning, so I'm opening a talk page here; I hope I'm not overstating my welcome, but it is not something that can be explained with just a few words.

I belive that what counts as an "incident" or "background case" whatever one might call it, is a critical event, a turning point in the narrative that not only moves the plot forward, but forever changes the lives of both the protagonists and antagonists; so it is less about them being playable, or not, its more about creating pages that explain how the narrative of a particular game, or even multiple ones, has been affected by said event. As such, these pages should probably divided in roughly these sections:

the events: this explains why the event happened, how the case became a mystery, and how the investigation progressed,
the trial: explains how the courtroom handled the case; one might notice that a common point between all of these events, save for the Class Trial, had at some point a "false conclusion", that lead to everyone involved having a worse life.
Aftermath: This is perhaps the most important part; as a direct result of an unfullilling trial, it lead to the people involved towards the actions they will take during the course of the game/games.
Resolution: this is also a crucial point, as it should explain how the mystery has finally been solved and how the people involved moved forward from it.

For the most part, the pages that, in my opinion fall into this category are already structured in this way, with perhaps just a few exceptions. Now, what are these events that, again in my opinion, deserve to be grouped together in this way? It might seem obvious, but bear with me, I will try to explain my reasoning game by game:

Ace Attorney: this first title has technically 3, those being the Class trial, the DL-6 incident, and the SL-9 incident from Rise from Ashes. The Class trial may be overall minor compared to the scope of the other incidents, but it did shape Phoenix and Edgeworth in who they are now; the SL-9 incident is only relevant for Rise from Ashes, but it is still a critical plot point for that case and Ema's backstory, and I don't think DL-6 needs an explanation as to why it's so important.
Justice for All: this one is unlike other games, as it is more of a collection of separate cases with a similar theming, but the most important case is of course Reunion, and Turnabout, and Morgan's motives directly stems from the DL-6 incident again, and they will also play a part in Trials and Tribulations
Trials and Tribulations: now, to be completely technical, the origin incident behind most of the events in the game is the Fake Kidnapping plot orchestrated by Dahlia and Valerie, as it was the origin point of all of Dahlia's subsequent crimes, and as such it should probably need a page, but it is undeniable, and even aknowledged in-universe, that the incident would not have happened the same way or at all if it wasn't for the DL-6 again, even more so because by the time of Bridge to the Turnabout it combined with Morgan's own motive creating yet another murder. As such, I do belive that, while indirectly, DL-6 should be likewise aknowledged within the page of having played a part in shaping Dahlia's life, just like the SS-5 incident would not have been the same if not for the previous IS-7, what with Keyes involvement in both.
Apollo Justice: there is no question in my mind the incident of this game, albeit not called that, is the death of Magnifi Gramarye. Not only it was a high profile case, the main villain's actions all stemmed, albeit indirectly, from that case, and it forever changed the life of Phoenix, it introduced Trucy in his life, it was stated to having been one of the causes for the Dark age of the law, even Klavier had a personal stake in it, and Apollo's life would probably have been different if not for tutorship under Kristoph, and it took two out of four cases of the game to fully explain it. One might argue it also plays a part in The Magical Turnabout since it involves the troupe Gramarye of old.
Investigations: this one is pretty straightforward, as the Kg-8 incident and its subsequent "second one", is at the core of of the story of Investigations since case 1. Without it, there would not have been a Yatagarasu, Edgeworth involvement, and so on.
Investigations 2: This game has technically two: while the SS-5 incident is the one truly important for the narrative within Investigations 2, the IS-7 incident is instead important for the whole series in general, as well as for the SS-5, as the DL-6 would not have happened, and Simon Keyes would not have been involved in the SS-5, thusly springing "The Mastermind"'s plot.
Dual Destinies: The Ur-1 Incident is without a doubt the Incident which mystery move forward the narrative of this game. It was a massively high profile case, with two bombings tied with it, it scarred both Athena and Blackquill, Apollo's best friend died due to a direct correlation with the Ur-1, an it even was co-responsible, alongside the death of Magnifi Gramarye for the Dark age of the Law.
Spirit of Justice: while only formally introduced late in the story, the Khura'in royal residence fire is the central mystery of Spirit of Justice. If not for this fire, Ga'ran would not have rised to power, Apollo would not have been an orphan, Khura'in would not be in the state of disrepair it is since case 1, Inga would not have murdered Dhurke and so on.
The Great Ace Attorney duology: the Professor Killings is the leading narrative that connects together most of the cases of both games, so it is pretty obvious that this is the Incident of these two games.
Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright: the Legendary fire is the event from which the mystery of Labirinthia stems from, so this is pretty straightforward.

So, more or less this is what I think the structure and prerequisite for the pages of the category should be. I hope I did a good job in explaining what I meant, because that is admittedly not my strong suit. I'm open to hear what others might think about this, or if there is flaw in my reasoning.

-Tanawy 23/01/2024

I still think there are a couple of big issues with trying to assign importance to "key background cases", and over the years I have had a growing belief that these issues are basically irreconcilable. I'll try to outline them briefly here...

The first thing is that there are really two different types of "case articles" on this wiki. One is the "episode article", which can consist of one or more articles detailing the events that play out in the episode as they occur in-game. The other is the "past case article", which consists of a summary of a single case structured in a specific way (as you put it, events > trial > aftermath > resolution). If a case is playable, then it seemingly makes sense to use an "episode article" format. If a case functions primarily as backstory material, then it seemingly makes sense to use a "past case article" format. The problem is, a bunch of cases are both playable episodes / episode parts and backstory material. An article about such a case could try to incorporate both structures, but I don't know if this can really work.

The second thing is that you're trying to decide what makes an incident "notable", and past attempts at deciding such things have not turned out well. What inevitably ends up happening is that different people have different opinions on this kind of thing, and then it turns out that whatever methods were being used are inadequate, arbitrary, and self-contradictory.

I don't know if that makes a lot of sense. There was a lot more I wanted to say initially, but it's been harder than I thought to really communicate all the history that's been involved in trying to reorganize all of these pages.

Capefeather (talk) 21:43, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I had no idea that the topic had such a tumultuous history, and I apologize for my rash actions. But then, what should be done? If nothing is done, the pages will remain in an unorganized, confusing state, but if something is done then someone else may come and change everything. Isn't this a lose-lose situation? Perhaps a pubblic vote can be arranged: multiple possible options of categorization and structuring are proposed at once, and the one that receives the most votes in the allotted time is the one who is chosen from here on out. It is kind of a pain, but if this situation has happened multiple times, then I see very few solutions

-Tanawy 24/01/2024 8:06 (CET)

Eh it's mostly the fault of "new" policies taking so long to implement. A lot of that is because it all takes a lot of work to finish, and understandably there basically isn't any motivation for most people to see it through, and I only have so much time, on top of probably being too perfectionist about it all. This is also why polling wouldn't really accomplish anything. There have hardly been any dedicated contributors, both historically and especially now, and the ones we've had have already shared their ideas. The history isn't even that dramatic, really. It's just that a lot has been discussed in the past, and a lot of it was long enough ago that it's a little hard to remember a lot of details.

I get that you're interested in contributing discussions on how cases connect to one another. It's just that putting a bunch of factoids into series references / continuity sections just feels like adding trivia without regard to if it's actually notable or just true but meaningless sentences spun out of thin air just to add more "content". Obviously there are a lot of instances where a game makes inconsequential nods to past episodes and there's not much more to that, which I think is what series references / continuity sections should ultimately be for, but if a connection is more important than that, then I think it makes more sense to mention it elsewhere, like in the lead section summarizing what an episode is about.

Capefeather (talk) 04:31, 25 January 2024 (UTC)