Dahlia Hawthorne

Dahlia Hawthorne V · T · F
Occupation	University student
Biological information
Reckoned birth year(s) (this is for age comparison purposes, and so may look odd; click on the question mark for details)?	Unknown.
Documented age range (as recorded in court record profiles & case files)	19 (At the beginning of 3-4)/ Deceased (A month prior to case 5)* (age at debut)
Eye color	Brown
Hair color	Unknown
Height (the metric (cm) values are sourced from official guidebooks and may not reflect the relative sizes of characters as depicted in-game or in other official media)	Unknown
Associates
Family	Morgan Fey (mother), Iris (twin sister), Pearl Fey (half-sister), and Valerie Hawthorne (stepsister).
Friends	Phoenix Wright (boyfriend), Terry Fawles (boyfriend) and Doug Swallow (boyfriend).
Affiliates	None.
Aliases/nicknames
Dollie (Chii-chan)
Names in other languages
Japanese (romanization written with the given name first)	美柳 ちなみ Miyanagi Chinami (無久井里子 Mukui Satoko)

Dahlia Hawthorne was a student at Ivy University and a girlfriend of Phoenix Wright. She appeared as a witness in cases 1, 4 and 5 of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. She is the main villain of the main story arc of the game.

Biography

A wealthy jeweler married Morgan Fey, who was to become the head of the Fey clan, and had two twin daughters with her: Dahlia and Iris. When Misty Fey became the head instead, making Morgan's bloodline a powerless branch family, the jeweler left his wife, taking their daughters with him. He later remarried to a woman who already had a daughter, Valerie Hawthorne. Not wanting three daughters, he gave Iris away. As Dahlia stayed with the Hawthornes, she began to hate her father and plotted against him for his money.

When Dahlia was 14 years old, she met Terry Fawles, her tutor, and pretended to fall in love with him to use him for her own evil ends. She staged a fake kidnapping by Terry Fawles with Valerie to get her hands on one of her father's rare jewels. At Dusky Bridge near Hazakura Temple, however, Valerie betrayed Fawles and shot him in the arm, the signal for the "hostage" to jump into Eagle River intentionally with the diamond in her backpack. Fawles was convicted for Dahlia's "murder" and sentenced to death row.

Dahlia appeared five years later in case 4 as "Melissa Foster" prepared by Miles Edgeworth as a witness in the murder of Valerie. Mia Fey, the attorney for the defendant, Terry Fawles, was almost able to prove that Dahlia was the kill, but Fawles refuses to cooperate with Mia, poisoning himself and dying on the stand instead. Dahlia left the courtroom with a demonic smile on her face.

The result of this trial drove defense attorney Diego Armando to meeting with Dahlia in the courthouse cafeteria, but Dahlia quietly slipped poison, which was stolen from her boyfriend at the time, Doug Swallow, into his coffee from her bottle necklace. Soon after, in the reading room, Dahlia stumbled across a young Phoenix Wright and gives him the necklace as a "love gift" to evade the authorities. Doug later found out about the stolen poison and broke up with her.

Dahlia's first appearance in Trials and Tribulations was during the murder trial of Doug Swallow, one year after case 4. Having failed to take the bottle necklace from Phoenix for six months, Dahlia tried to kill him by stealing Doug's poison again and poisoning Phoenix's cold medicine. However, when she found Doug trying to warn Phoenix about the poison, she killed Doug instead and tried to frame Phoenix for his death. Unfortunately for her, Phoenix's attorney, Mia, exposed her as the killer. Dahlia was then convicted and sentenced to death.

Five years later, Dahlia met with her mother in prison. Morgan told her about her plan to lure Pearl Fey and Maya Fey to Hazakura Temple, where Pearl would channel Dahlia, who would kill Maya. After learning of this plot, she was executed by hanging.

Godot and Misty Fey learned of Dahlia and Morgan's plot and tried to stop it by having Misty channel Dahlia instead; Godot would then restrain Misty/Dahlia and stop her from killing Maya. However, the plan failed; Dahlia attacked Maya and Godot was forced to kill her.

Maya then channeled Dahlia to stop Pearl from doing so; Dahlia used this opportunity to impersonate Iris in Misty's trial, claiming that Maya killed Misty and then killed herself in her guilt. This plan failed, Dahlia was exorcised, and Maya returned to her own body.

Trivia

Dahlia is the name of a flower, but it is especially well known from the murder mystery The Black Dahlia. Her last name is a reference to her "having thorns".

It may also be a reference to famous author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote Rappaccini's Daughter, a short story in which a man falls in love with a woman. This woman has a strong poison coursing through her veins and can kill anything with a simple touch. Hawthorne also wrote The Scarlet Letter', which dealt with the guilt of a woman in 17th-century Boston who has an illegitimate child. The child's name is Pearl.

Her fake surname "Foster" mimics her Japanese name.

Miyanagi (美柳) is a name that evokes a feeling of tranquility. Chinami (ちなみ) may come from the phrase "chi mo namida mo nai" ("without blood or tears"), basically meaning "heartless". It also follows Naruhodou's naming convention, as "chinami ni" means "by the way."

Mukui satoko literally means "a vengeful foster child".