Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in

Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in

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This article is under construction. While it is not short, it still needs expansion as outlined in the manual of style. The article most likely needs expansion near the end of the tagged section or sections. Note: The editor who added this tag has specified the following areas of improvement: Biography is missing information about her encounters with Phoenix and Apollo during the investigation chapters.

Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in V · T · F
Occupation	Prosecutor ( - May 19, 2028) Khura'inese Minister of Justice ( - c. 2005) Queen & Grand Priestess of Khura'in (2005 - May 19, 2028)
Biological information
Reckoned birth year(s) (this is for age comparison purposes, and so may look odd; click on the question mark for details)?	1985
Documented age range (as recorded in court record profiles & case files)	43* (The Rite of Turnabout)
Last known status	Arrested (May 19, 2028)
Eye color	Green
Hair color	Dark indigo
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)	5'8"; 172 cm
Associates
Family	Inga Karkhuul Khura'in (husband & homicide victim; deceased) Amara Sigatar Khura'in (older sister, object of resentment, attempted arson victim, & manipulatee) Dhurke Sahdmadhi (brother-in-law, rival defense attorney, & scapegoat; deceased) Nahyuta Sahdmadhi (nephew & co-counsel) Rayfa Padma Khura'in (niece & "daughter") Fey clan (distant relatives)
Friends	None mentioned
Affiliates	Ga'ran Royal Guard Lah'kee (Royal Guard member & "royal shoulder rubber") Apollo Justice (rival defense attorney) Jove Justice (homicide victim; deceased)
Aliases/nicknames
Your Eminence* (formal address)
One-off nicknames
Your Malevolence* (by Dhurke Sahdmadhi) Your Maleficence* (by Dhurke Sahdmadhi)
Names in other languages
Japanese (romanization written with the given name first)	ガラン・シガタール・クライン (Garan Shigatāru Kurain)
Actors
Japanese (romanization written with the given name first)	Gara Takashima
Miscellaneous
Debut episode	The Rite of Turnabout
Musical theme	"Audience Chamber" "The Court of Resignation"

Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in

Ho ho... May the Holy Mother's blessing be upon you.

— The Rite of Turnabout

Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in was the de facto Queen of the Kingdom of Khura'in from 2005 to 2028. Her most well-known and far-reaching act as queen was the passage of the Defense Culpability Act, a decree ordering that anyone defending a criminal found to be guilty would receive the same punishment as their client.

The fire

Main article: Khura'in royal residence fire

Prior to her ascension to the throne, Ga'ran served as a prosecutor and the Khura'inese Minister of Justice, while her sister, Amara, ruled as queen. Since Ga'ran possessed no spiritual powers herself (something compulsory for a ruler of Khura'in, according to the country's laws), she developed a deep envy towards her sister, which culminated in a plan to replace her.

She set her plan into motion by starting a fire at the royal residence, which resulted in the apparent death of Queen Amara, thereby allowing for Ga'ran to take her place as queen. In reality, Ga'ran had rescued Amara from the blazing building in order to manipulate her into performing the royal duties involving spirit channeling that she would herself be unable to do. However, during the rescue she ran into Jove Justice, a foreign visiting musician who had been invited to stay in the royal quarters and was also trying to rescue Amara, as well as his infant son, Apollo, but Ga'ran killed him with a blow to the back of the head. After her "rescue", Ga'ran tricked Amara into staying hidden and helping her when needed by convincing her that the assassination attempt was perpetrated by Amara's husband, Dhurke Sahdmadhi. Sahdmadhi was then formally accused of having caused the fire in an attempt to kill his wife, with Ga'ran herself prosecuting the case. Thanks to her legal maneuverings and the introduction of the Defense Culpability Act, Ga'ran was able to obtain an unjust guilty verdict, only for Sahdmadhi to flee into hiding with his son, Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, as well as Jove's son Apollo.

Eight years later, Dhurke rescued Amara from Ga'ran's clutches. However, Amara was soon recaptured, along with her newly-born daughter, Rayfa. As Dhurke had informed Amara about the assassination attempt, and she was now aware that Ga'ran was the true culprit, Ga'ran used Rayfa's safety to blackmail Amara into doing her bidding. 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, thereby making her suffer the same status as a pariah he had for being Dhurke's son, and so made him become the embodiment of the draconian legal system she forged.

In order to keep her close to blackmail Nahyuta, Ga'ran raised Rayfa to believe she was her own daughter. However, unlike her husband, Minister of Justice Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, she never truly developed a soft spot for Rayfa, seeing only her despised sister's image in her niece. Ga'ran's neglectful and abusive behavior ended up giving Rayfa a highly-strung and overly perfectionist attitude that would torment her throughout her life.

On the throne

With Inga in the royal audience chamber.

For the next twenty-three years, Ga'ran ruled over the country, with Amara taking her place when her spiritual powers were needed. Despite having a method to fake having powers of her own, Ga'ran knew that she would be quickly deposed if ever exposed as the fraud she was. Having heard that a relic known as 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 himself grown to despise the relative lack of power he had in Khura'in and disliking Ga'ran, began to seek it himself as part of his own coup attempt.

The foreign attorney

Main article: The Foreign Turnabout

One day, a lawyer named Phoenix Wright successfully defended someone framed by Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin who was in on Inga's plan. This was the first not guilty verdict since Ga'ran enacted the Defense Culpability Act. Soon after that, the high priest was supposedly murdered by Wright's friend, Maya Fey. Ga'ran summoned Rayfa to the palace in order for a rite to be conducted in honor of the high priest. Once she was there, the queen took her aside with the high priest's wife to conduct the Prayer of Lament leaving Wright alone with her husband. Wright soon proved that the high priest commited suicide after his wife accidently killed a member of the secret police of Ga'ran's husband.

Downfall

Main article: Turnabout Revolution

Having somehow gotten wind of Inga's plan, Ga'ran planned for his removal. As a part of his plans to secure the Founder's Orb, Inga kidnapped Maya Fey and held her captive in the tomb constructed for the "deceased" Amara. Although Dhurke was killed by Inga while attempting to rescue Fey, she still managed to escape by channeling Dhurke to break free of her bindings, and his body was hidden in the tomb's empty sarcophagus. Despite Fey's escape, Inga pretended she hadn't in order to exchange Fey for the Founder's Orb.

The faceless figure Inga saw in his final moments.

While Inga waited for the prisoner exchange, Ga'ran hid herself in the tomb. Putting on Dhurke's clothes, Ga'ran stabbed Inga in the back; as Inga suffered from prosopagnosia and was unable to recognize faces, the last thing he saw was a faceless silhouette of Dhurke. Ga'ran subsequently coerced Amara into channeling Inga and entering the tomb, during which time she was witnessed by Rayfa. This threw off Inga's time of death, making it appear as if he were still alive for the prisoner exchange. As Amara, disguised as her sister, was performing a channeling at Inga's actual time of death for a neighboring king, this effectively gave Ga'ran a solid alibi. During the subsequent investigation into Inga's death, Rayfa learned of her true parentage and confronted Ga'ran about it, which she did not deny, instead simply using the information as a means of punishing her.

Assuming her old role as Minister of Justice, Ga'ran prosecuted Dhurke for Inga's murder, with Nahyuta acting as her unwilling assistant. In her role as queen, Ga'ran was able to change the laws at a whim by literally rewriting them. Apollo, who was defending Dhurke alongside his mentor, Phoenix Wright, slowly began to figure out the truth: both Dhurke and Inga were dead at the alleged time of murder, and Amara had been disguising herself as Rayfa's personal attendant, "Nayna". Still, under Ga'ran's blackmail, Amara tried to claim full responsibility for the incident. However, Apollo detected that she was covering for Ga'ran by pointing out a burn scar she had that her sister lacked; in response, Ga'ran had one of her royal guards shoot Amara before she should admit the truth, and coerced Nahyuta into claiming responsibility instead. However, Justice soon figured out her leverage over Nahyuta, and he turned against her. Ga'ran responded by changing the law to treat any challenge to her authority as treason, and threatened to have Nahyuta, Apollo, and Wright executed.

Lying unconscious in the Pool of Souls after her failed channeling of the Holy Mother.

Backed into a corner, Apollo figured out the truth behind Ga'ran's lack of spiritual powers, which nullified her royal and legal authority making the DC Act and all other laws she enacted null and void. Calling her bluff, Apollo challenged Ga'ran to summon the Holy Mother. Unable to back down, Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in attempted to channel the Holy Mother's spirit twice, only to have the attempt fail miserably, causing even her loyal royal guards to turn on her and sending her into a catatonic state. She was subsequently arrested, now left in a delusional state as a result of the failed channeling and her obsession over the Founder's Orb, believing herself to be the Holy Mother. Nahyuta feared that it would be quite a challenge to question her afterwards.

Personality

Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in

Now hear me, you useless lawyer. Cease this charade and bow before me. For I, Queen Ga'ran, shall finally have your head!

— Turnabout Revolution

Mugshot.

In her role as queen, Ga'ran gave the public impression of being a wise, benevolent ruler and a caring, if strict, mother. She did act in a slightly rigid and cold manner toward defense attorneys, but claimed that this was due to her sister's death at the hands of one. As is typical of some monarchs, she referred to herself using the plural pronoun "we".

Once she began to act in her capacity as a prosecutor, however, she revealed her true colors: as a vain, conniving, selfish woman who could not resist flaunting her power. She had no real affection for Rayfa, callously informing her of the fact that she was not her real mother simply as a means of punishing her, and later showing no qualms about insulting and humiliating her in front of an entire courtroom, despite the princess's already fragile emotional state.

In Ga'ran's view, being queen made her the embodiment of the law and thus gave her the right to alter it for her own benefit, causing her to regularly issue royal decrees during Dhurke's trial for the sole purpose of weighing the odds in her favor. Her dislike of defense attorneys was solely because of the obstacle they presented to ensuring her grasp over her country, and she would take great pleasure in watching them beg for mercy under the Defense Culpability Act. Her inebriation with her own power was such that she would draw out trials long past a point where she could have easily won purely for the pleasure of watching her opponents flounder. Despite this, Ga'ran's confidence was entirely dependent on her belief that her position made it impossible for others to stand up to her, and she ultimately revealed herself to be a cowardly individual who completely lost her nerve the moment the legitimacy of her rule was called into question.

Ga'ran had a fondness for spiders, using images of them for her personal sigil and even styling her hair to resemble one. Nahyuta alluded to Ga'ran's similarity with spiders, referring to her grasp over Khura'in being like a web.

Name

• "Ga'ran" most likely comes from the Japanese word "Garan" (伽藍), which is short for "Sōgyaranma" (僧伽藍摩), which comes from the Sanskrit word "saṁghārāma" (सँघाराम) meaning "temple".

Development

• Her outfit, design, and fan may have been inspired by that used for the character of Princess Iron Fan in the 1996 television adaptation of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.
• Her spider-themed design could also have been inspired by the jorōgumo, a spider-like yōkai can shapeshift into a beautiful woman.
• Ga'ran bears a number of similarities to her distant relative, Morgan Fey; both are powerless women from a family of mediums (Khura'inese royal family and Fey clan, respectively) driven primarily by envy of a skilled spirit medium sister (Amara Sigatar Khura'in and Misty Fey, respectively), both married a man who only did so in order to achieve power, and both manipulated their daughters (Rayfa and Pearl Fey, respectively, albeit adopted in the case of Rayfa) to be her political pawn against her enemies.
• As she was the queen, and thus the ultimate law enforcer, she acted as the judge in Dhurke's trial, thereby making it the first time a judge has been found guilty of murder in the Ace Attorney.
• Of all the characters to possess a close-up animation, Ga'ran uses hers the least, on only one occasion.