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Ron DeLite
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Ron DeLite
Pleeeeease! Don't just ignore meeeeee!

Ron DeLite was a defendant in the Mask☆DeMasque trials.

Origin of Mask☆DeMasque[]

Mask DeMasque poster

A poster of Mask☆DeMasque.

Ron met his wife Desirée while he was a security guard at KB Security. After saving her from two knife-wielding robbers, the pair married. Ron's pay, however, was not nearly enough to cover his wife's excessive spending. Worried that she would leave him, he attempted to steal confidential information from his employer in order to support her, but was quickly caught and fired by the company's CEO, Kane Bullard.

Newspaper about heist

Newspaper article about the theft of the Tear of Emanon.

Desperate, Ron decided to become a thief, as he could think of no other job in the world that would allow his wife to continue her spending his money, although he was all too aware of her strong dislike of criminals. He created a disguise and took on the pseudonym of "Mask☆DeMasque". For his first heist, he stole the Tear of Emanon. Immediately after successfully stealing the gem, Ron removed his costume and dumped it in a nearby trash can, then changed into his security guard uniform and pretended to investigate the scene, so as to allay suspicion. However, a passing Luke Atmey spotted the costume and soon figured out Mask☆DeMasque's identity. He then began to blackmail Ron into stealing three other precious items for him: the Crown of Bongora, the Left Hand of Hades, and the Portrait of Mejeena.

Final heist[]

Main article: The Stolen Turnabout
Mask DeMasque OA

Mask☆DeMasque.

Atmey's final blackmail letter instructed Ron to go to Bullard's office at KB Security. Ron dressed himself in his Mask☆DeMasque costume and did as he was told, but then Atmey, who was already in the office, knocked him unconscious. After regaining consciousness, Ron found himself alone in the room with Bullard's corpse. He decided to hide Kane Bullard's body in a safe, fearing that he would be accused of murdering the CEO. He then turned himself in as Mask☆DeMasque for the theft of the Kurain Sacred Urn, which Atmey had stolen disguised as Mask☆DeMasque.

Phoenix Wright took Ron's case, despite the latter's insistence that he was Mask☆DeMasque. Wright soon got his client a not guilty verdict by implicating Luke Atmey as the real Mask☆DeMasque. However, Ron was then accused of Bullard's murder. Only people who worked at KB Security knew how to unlock the safe containing Bullard's body, which cast suspicion on Ron. Eventually, Wright would prove Ron's innocence by correcting his own implication of Atmey as Mask☆DeMasque and re-implicating him as Bullard's killer. Ron, in turn, could not be charged for the Mask☆DeMasque heists by the double jeopardy law, which meant that he was allowed to walk free.

After their ordeal, the DeLites started an organization aiming to help thieves start honest lives, with their slogan being: "Cut it out, PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE!" Ironically, they also help thieves by giving them detailed plans for their heists.

Ron Desirée DeLite GK2 cameo

Ron and Desirée DeLite visiting the Zodiac Art Gallery.

Months later, the couple visited the Zodiac Art Gallery to admire the works of the late French sculptor Pierre Hoquet, although judging from their conversation, they may have been contemplating some thievery as well. Meanwhile, the Mask☆DeMasque persona lived on through costumes and at least one copycat.


Personality[]

Ron mugshot

Mugshot.

Ron is usually a quiet and nervous young man, but can become easily agitated, and in those instances will often beg or whine loudly and dramatically, usually in the form "PLEEEEEEAASSSE!" When making a statement, he will sometimes second-guess himself or disagree with what he has just said. He also has a tendency to trail off in the middle of a sentence. When he was a child, he was always interested in mysterious masked men. However, there are some times where Ron shows a very good intellect, such as managing to steal his first treasure all by himself (despite the hiding of the costume), wanting to create an alibi for Bullard's murder by being found guilty of being Mask☆DeMasque or also realizing that the prices of the items he stole are quite low, despite being very important treasures.

Name[]

  • Japanese - Yūsaku Amasugi (天杉優作):
    • "Yūsaku" (優作) contains the character for "gentleness" (優), which can be seen as a reference to his personality.
    • "Amasugi" (天杉) is a homophone for the word "amasugiru"(甘すぎる), which means "too sweet" or "too naive".
  • English - Ron DeLite:
    • "Ron" originates from a Hebrew name meaning "joy". It may also come from "rondelli", a spiral-shaped pasta similar to Ron's hairstyle.
    • "DeLite", his English surname, is a play on the word "delight". It may also be related to the Spanish word "delito," or "crime."
  • French - Henri Duplaisir:
    • "Duplaisir", his surname in the French localization, means "of pleasure" (du plaisir).

Unofficial[]

  • Brazilian Portuguese - Ronaldo de Leite: [1]
    • "Ronaldo", similar to Reginaldo, comes from the Norse Ragnvaldr, from the union of the words regin ("council") and valdr ("government"), that is, "the one who governs according to advice". Direct adaptation of the English Ron, which is one of Ronald's variations and references "rondelli", a type of mass as spiral as his hair.
    • "de Leite" is a common surname and was derived from the nickname of a Portuguese man, founder of the surname, who was very fond of milk. Following the North American name, it is a pun on "deleite" (delight).

Development[]

  • Ron DeLite is notably the only Ace Attorney character for whom font colors other than orange, blue, or green are used (excluding one instance in which Wright accidentally starts copying Ron's habit). In addition to this, the usage of a star (☆) in his alter ego's name is nearly unique in that only foreign, fictional languages are depicted by meaningless symbols (such as Borginian). The manner in which his trailing off at the end of a sentence is depicted, with the words getting smaller and fading to a more grayish color, is also unique in the Ace Attorney series to date.
  • Ron's design is based a bit on designs in the boys' love genre. Tatsuro Iwamoto had learned that many fans of boys' love were also fans of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, prompting him to read the genre and take inspiration from them.[2]
  • Mask☆DeMasque's use of calling cards and using a flamboyant persona for his heists makes him an example of a phantom thief, an archetype made popular in Japan thanks to the influence of French author Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin series. Luke Atmey is likewise a reference to the detective characters commonly found in phantom thief genre works, who would usually form a rivalry with the thief and become obsessed with catching them. The Lupin novels would later go on to be the inspiration for the English localization of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles using the name "Herlock Sholmes".
  • He is one of very few defendants to be found innocent of crimes they actually committed, as the presiding judge did not believe that he was Mask☆DeMasque until after Atmey was convicted of murder and the double jeopardy prevented him being tried again for the same crime.
    • In reality, Ron was accused of stealing the Fey clan's Urn, not of being Mask☆DeMasque, but since it was established that the defendant has to be Mask☆DeMasque, he was acquitted for that anyway.
  • The green bag that he carries as Mask☆DeMasque has a pattern that may be a variation of a damask pattern, which may be a reference to the name of his alter ego.

References[]

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