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Lana Skye
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Miles Edgeworth
Lana Skye is the Chief Prosecutor... the top prosecutor in the district.

Lana Skye was the defendant in the Bruce Goodman murder case. She was the head prosecutor (see Development section) of Los Angeles at the time, but the case exposed her involvement in forging evidence during the SL-9 Incident.

Early life[]

Lana Skye's parents died in a car accident, which left her caring for her younger sister Ema. Despite all this, she managed to make it to law school, even being at the top of her class by her third year. When Mia Fey audited one of Lana's classes, the two became friends, having so many similarities with each other.[2] The first book that Lana ever bought was called Scientific Investigation.

Detective career[]

The Duo

"The Legendary Duo".

Lana eventually joined the Criminal Affairs Department as a detective and moved up in the ranks. She ended up working alongside, and sharing an office with, Damon Gant. The pair was famous for some time, becoming known as the "Legendary Duo." Lana was admired by her fellow detectives and a number of them looked up to her, including Angel Starr. However, this reputation did not last.

Involvement in the SL-9 Incident[]

Main article: SL-9 Incident
Lana Skye
We did what we had to... in order for him to get the verdict he deserved. Even if it involved forging evidence.
Holding Ema

Holding Ema.

Lana became involved in the investigation of the spree killings of Joe Darke, working alongside Bruce Goodman, Jake Marshall, Angel Starr and Damon Gant. Jake's brother Neil Marshall was to prosecute. It was a clear-cut case; Darke even turned himself in. Lana made dinner plans with her sister Ema, who waited in Lana's office for her. However, Darke escaped during an interrogation and made his way to that same office, with Neil in hot pursuit.

When Lana arrived at the crime scene, she found Ema and Darke unconscious on the floor, and Neil impaled on the sword of a decorative suit of armor. The evidence before her seemed to indicate that Ema had killed Neil, which made her panic for the first time in her life. Gant, who had also arrived at the scene, agreed to help her rearrange the crime scene to shift the blame away from Ema and onto Darke. They moved the body - though not before taking a photo as she had found it - and planted part of Darke's knife in the corpse. Ema woke up in Lana's arms, and the police eventually arrived to conduct the ensuing murder investigation.

With the crime scene altered, as well as with the help of what little Ema could remember from the incident, Darke was convicted of Neil's murder (on top of the existing charges) by a different prosecutor, Miles Edgeworth, and he was subsequently executed. However, Gant began to manipulate Lana by threatening to expose all the evidence that seemed to point towards Ema being the real killer. He arranged to have Lana transferred to the prosecutor's office and promoted to the position of Chief Prosecutor, so that he could have unhindered power over all investigations. Lana withdrew into herself, becoming cold so as to help deal with all the things Gant would have her do over the next two years. Meanwhile, nearly all of the other detectives involved in the incident were fired or demoted, save Bruce Goodman.

Murder of Bruce Goodman[]

Main article: Rise from the Ashes

The events of SL-9 came to a head with the murder of Bruce Goodman. Gant had killed Goodman in a panic, having felt threatened by the detective insisting that the SL-9 case be reopened, and ordered Lana to dispose of the corpse. She transported the body via an oblivious Miles Edgeworth's car trunk to the underground parking lot of the Prosecutor's Building. She immediately recognized the knife in Goodman's body as belonging to Darke. She wrapped it in the scarf she normally wore around her neck and placed it in the muffler of the car.

Lana took a knife she found in Edgeworth's car and stabbed the body with it to have it later established as the murder weapon. Unused to stabbing a man, even a dead one, she was shaking as she plunged the knife in and ended up cutting her right hand. She attempted to phone her sister on a wall-mounted telephone in the parking lot to tell her to dispose of Darke's knife, but it was out of order. She then attempted the call again on her mobile phone, but the signal was poor. Before she could properly talk to her little sister, Angel Starr appeared. Having seen what she thought was the Chief Prosecutor committing murder, Starr rushed down from the security office overlooking the lot and arrested Lana, but not before the supposed killer kicked over an oil drum filled with water to wash away any bloodstains on the ground.

Trial and aftermath[]

HD Lana Normal 1

Chief Prosecutor Lana Skye.

Lana readily accepted the blame for the murder to protect Gant and prevent the truth behind the SL-9 Incident from being found out. Ema, however, did not believe that her sister was responsible and set out to hire Lana's fellow alumnus Mia Fey. Although she was soon told that Fey was no longer available, she happily settled for Phoenix Wright, a former student of Mia Fey's, to defend her. With Edgeworth once again at the helm of the prosecution, Wright began to uncover the connection between Goodman's murder and the SL-9 Incident, despite Lana's repeated confessions to the crime. Lana knew that uncovering the truth would mean uncovering Ema as the killer, but Wright pressed on, with Edgeworth eventually allying with him. Lana was eventually compelled to confess that some of the SL-9 evidence had been tampered with.

Wright and Edgeworth eventually suspected Gant as Goodman's killer. Realizing this, Gant attempted to manipulate both of them, and even coerced Lana into testifying against herself. However, Wright saw through and disproved all of the lies. Lana eventually decided to cooperate with Wright and gave him a book, Evidence Law, which allowed Wright to formulate a plan to trap Gant. It was revealed that Gant was responsible not only for Bruce Goodman's murder, but also for Neil Marshall's murder. Ema had been completely innocent all along, and Gant had simply manipulated the crime scene before Lana's arrival to convince her that Ema had killed Neil.

Skye hug

Hugging her sister.

Although Lana was cleared of the murder charge, by aiding in the forging of evidence, she had set herself up for severe punishment, making it unlikely that she would still hold the position of Chief Prosecutor. Despite this, all Lana really cared about was that Ema was innocent after all, and that Gant no longer had control over her. She smiled for the first time since the SL-9 Incident, and held out hopes that she would be able to return to her field at some point and investigate crimes with Ema. To this end, Lana arranged for Ema to move to Europe to live with a coroner friend of hers.

Personality[]

Lana bodyshot

Finally smiling again.

Lana is very disciplined and hard-working, as evidenced by her success in law school and in the Criminal Affairs Department, all while taking care of Ema. Being left with Ema to care for has, in itself, caused Lana to have a motherly slant in her relationships with her peers as well as Ema. In Mia Fey, she found someone she could easily relate to, since they bore many similarities. Both lost their mothers when they were young, were left to look after their younger sisters, and wore scarves tied round their necks in a similar fashion.

Before the SL-9 incident, Lana was described as a cheerful and happy person. She was widely liked by her peers and she in turn felt responsible for them. After the SL-9 Incident, however, she became withdrawn and cold to the point that all who knew her thought she had become a different person. During the course of the trial her demeanor became increasingly frantic, leading to more holes appearing in her testimony, as she saw Wright and Edgeworth approaching her conclusion of Ema's guilt; this became so bad that she at one point nervously bit her thumb so forcefully that she drew blood. Upon the conclusion of her trial, she returned to her pre-SL-9 self. Despite the changes in her personality over the years, there has been one constant: her love for her sister. This love was so great that she covered up Ema's supposed crime and was willing to face the death penalty rather than reveal what she believed was the truth. Ema wondered why they were growing apart, but the truth was that everything that Lana did was to protect her little sister. The rift between the two was repaired when the truth was revealed.

Name[]

  • Japanese - Tomoe Hōzuki (宝月 巴):
    • "Houzuki" (宝月) means "treasured moon" or "jeweled moon".
  • English - Lana Skye:
    • "Skye" may be a reflection of her sister Ema's Japanese given name "Akane" (茜), which may come from the phrase "akane sasu sora", meaning "a glowing sky".

Unofficial[]

  • Brazilian Portuguese - Luana Ciel: [3]
    • "Luana" is a name with different origins, it can mean "calm", "warrior full of grace", "shining", it is graphically close to Lana, but with a more Brazilian appearance, contains like letters of the word "lua" ("moon"), relating to the meaning of the Japanese name.
    • "Ciel" is an unusual male name "borrowed" as a surname; It comes from the French word for "sky".

Development[]

  • Lana's design had to strike a delicate balance between not looking too strict and not looking too caring like Mia Fey. Her military uniform-like clothing helps to distinguish her from her original trilogy analogue in this regard.[4] The three medals pinned to her chest represent the three prosecutor trophies that she has received.[5] This is despite the fact that she has only been a prosecutor for two years.
  • Although her position is stated as "Chief Prosecutor", this is somewhat of a localization oversight. In the Japanese versions of Rise from the Ashes, the term used for the position that she holds is different from the term given to other "Chief Prosecutors", such as the Chief Prosecutor from Turnabout Sisters,[6] the Chief Prosecutor who watches Di-Jun Huang's speech in Turnabout Target, and Miles Edgeworth in Turnabout for Tomorrow. In fact, she is the only character in the series known to have held this position.
  • In-game, when a character is speaking, the noise used as the text appears on the screen usually differs depending on the gender of the speaker; deeper if male and higher pitched if female. Oddly, when Lana Skye says her name to Wright, the speech tone changes to the "male" tone. Like similar cases with Dee Vasquez and Elise Deauxnim, this was changed to the "female" tone in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy HD before being reverted back in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy.

References[]

  1. Judge: Although the Chief blackmailed you, the fact is you still acted as his accomplice. A trial will be scheduled for these crimes at a later date.
    Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Capcom. Episode: Rise from the Ashes (in English). 2005.
  2. Lana: She was strong. She'd do anything to become a defense attorney. Anything. That... was probably why she was attracted to me.
    Phoenix: E-excuse me!?
    Ema: Intellectually attracted! Lana was top of her class in school.
    Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Capcom. Episode: Rise from the Ashes (in English). 2005.
  3. "Nomes - Jacutem Sabão". Advogados de Primeira. Retrieved on 2022-03-21.
  4. Ash (2016-07-30). "Turnabout Interview 2 – Development Staff Discussion (2005)". Gyakuten Saiban Library. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  5. Hsu, Janet (2014-10-31). Ace Attorney Trilogy - Surprising Tidbits You Never Knew! Capcom News. Retrieved on 2014-11-02.
  6. Interphone: [White? That you? What are you doing calling me at a time like this!?]
    White: Hello. Chief Prosecutor?
    White: I've changed my mind. I want to testify tomorrow.
    Interphone: [What's this about?]
    White: The Mia Fey case. I witnessed the murder, you see.
    White: And, thus, as a very important witness, I would like to testify.
    Interphone: [What? Why now? I thought you said you didn't want to go to court?]
    White: Quietude...! I told you I changed my mind, didn't I?
    White: Oh, and one other thing.
    White: Send the police over here right away.
    White: The man is standing right in front of me. He looks dazed but could be violent!
    Interphone: [What? What man?]
    White: Are you even listening?
    White: The executioner! The hatchet-man! The liquidator... The killer, man!
    Phoenix: What!?
    Interphone: [Mr. White... this isn't another one of those...]
    White: Chief Prosecutor.
    White: I do not believe you are in a position to freely offer your opinions to me, correct?
    White: I'm telling you to send the police, now!
    Interphone: *beep*
    Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Capcom. Episode: Turnabout Sisters (in English). 2005.
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