| Verity Gavèlle |
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Verity Gavèlle is a judge and member of the Committee for Prosecutorial Excellence. She is tasked with observing the movements of prosecutors in order to determine who is unfit for the task, an activity the Committee calls the "Prosecutor Purge". Miles Edgeworth was one such prosecutor under evaluation; Gavèlle attempted several times to replace him with the incompetent Eustace Winner, son of former Chief Prosecutor and head of the Committee Excelsius Winner. Following the death of her cousin Amelie Fenn, she adopted Amelie's son Shaun as her own child.
A cousin lost, a son adopted[]
Gavèlle had a cousin, Amelie Fenn, with whom she was very close. As a Zheng Fa diplomat, Amelie started a secretive relationship with Zheng Fa's president Di-Jun Wang, resulting in the birth of Shaun Fenn. Amelie eventually gave up her job as a diplomat and began working at the Happy Family Home orphanage. One night, Amelie requested that Wang meet his then 1-year old son at the orphanage. However, the meeting never came to pass. Instead, the president was kidnapped, and a witness, Alf Aldown, was murdered. It was later revealed that the president was actually assassinated and that the president that returned was a body double who had been co-conspiring with the orphanage's owner and a corrupt chief prosecutor, though Amelie, Gavèlle, and the rest of the world were left completely in the dark of this fact.
Aldown's girlfriend, defense attorney Rosie Ringer, sought revenge and suspected Chief Prosecutor Excelsius Winner, who was in charge of the murder investigation, of being involved in the incident. Aldown had been following Winner's illegal activities (including fabricating evidence and selling evidence from past cases in black market auctions), and it was possible that he had been silenced. Gavèlle, who was a friend of Ringer's, agreed to help her, and eventually both of them made it into the Committee for Prosecutorial Excellence, which Winner chaired after leaving his post as Chief Prosecutor.
In 2014, Amelie died, and Gavèlle adopted Shaun as her own son. Shaun became the source of her strength during her time at the Committee, trying to find anything she could use to expose Winner's corruption.
Meeting Edgeworth[]
Gavèlle's unique gavel announces her judgment.
In March 2019, the Committee sent Gavèlle to a prison where inmate Bronco Knight had been murdered. Days earlier, prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, during an investigation, had entered the private plane of the president of Zheng Fa and ordered a search of president's staff. This had resulted in Knight's arrest for murdering the bodyguard Bastian Rook. Gavèlle told Edgeworth that the Committee considered his actions an unacceptable overstepping of his authority, and intended to transfer his investigative authority over Knight's murder case to Eustace Winner, son of Excelsius Winner. However, the Committee's true goal was to cover up the events surrounding Rook's death and blame Knight for an assassination attempt on the president.
Gavèlle's ideals of upholding the law clashed with Edgeworth's ideals of finding the truth regardless of what any law or authority said. Gavèlle repeatedly threatened to relieve Edgeworth of his prosecutor's badge, but Edgeworth continued to investigate under Knight's intended defense attorney, Eddie Fender. Gavèlle argued that Simeon Saint, a friend of Knight's, was the only person with the opportunity to murder him. However, Edgeworth eventually exposed Fifi Laguarde, the prison warden, as the real killer instead.
Conclusion of a cold case[]
Days later, Gavèlle and Eustace were sent to investigate the attempted murder of Carmelo Gusto, where they once again encountered Edgeworth and Fender. Gavèlle again tried to get rid of the two, but Edgeworth was a witness to the crime and continued to prove useful to the investigation. This matter was settled when the body of Artie Frost / Paul Halique, the victim of the IS-7 Incident (which had occurred 18 years prior), reappeared. This revealed a connection between the case at hand and the murder that had been the subject of the last trial of Gregory Edgeworth, Miles's father and Fender's mentor. It also revealed a conspiracy to cover up the fact that the body had never been found until then.
The Committee began to meddle again and had Gavèlle try to indict Judy Bound for both the IS-7 Incident and the attempted poisoning. In the end, she was only indicted for the latter, as she had done so to expose the true criminal of the IS-7 Incident. Gusto was indicted for the crime that he had committed 18 years ago. Gavèlle warned Miles Edgeworth that the Committee was planning on holding a hearing to try to get rid of him.
Secret meetings[]
On the night of April 4, Gavèlle entered the Committee chamber to retrieve documents on the IS-7 Incident. She found that Excelsius had manipulated the case, but she still needed a good opportunity to make this known. Later, she met with President Wang at the top of the Bigg Building. She brought him a bouquet of lion lilies, the flowers that he had given to Amelie when they had first met, as proof that she knew about Shaun. Suddenly, the president heard something and told Gavèlle to leave ahead of him, which she did.
Rosie Ringer's murder[]
The next day, Ringer was found dead, and Excelsius tried to arrest Kay Faraday for her murder. This was the last straw for Edgeworth, and he relinquished his badge, saying that his title meant nothing to him if it would get in the way of finding the truth. Gavèlle played along with Excelsius's indictment, but she began to realize that Edgeworth was dead serious about his convictions. Edgeworth was eventually arrested for aiding Faraday and continuing to investigate. Meanwhile, Gavèlle checked up on Shaun, who was playing a lead role for the movie Taurusaurus Vs. Gourdy. Shaun told her that he was at his hotel room.
Gavèlle visited Edgeworth at the detention center the next day and realized that he was essentially doing the same thing that she was doing: fighting the authority that sought to obfuscate the truth and deny justice. Edgeworth used his hearing later that day to launch an accusation on Excelsius as the real killer and the conductor of a black market auction of police evidence. Gavèlle subtly helped Edgeworth by letting witnesses speak when Excelsius tried to shut them down. She claimed that she was merely trying to destroy every possibility so that Edgeworth would never oppose the Committee again. Eventually, however, she turned on Excelsius and revealed her findings on the IS-7 Incident. This helped Edgeworth prove Excelsius's guilt.
Shaun's kidnapping[]
Excelsius was not done yet, however. He had his lackeys kidnap Shaun to blackmail Gavèlle into acquitting Laguarde. Edgeworth learned of this and located Shaun while Gavèlle stalled the trial. Eustace prosecuted the trial and confronted his father after a connection was found between him and Laguarde. This led to the trial ending with Laguarde on the way to a conviction.
Immediately after the trial, Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang took Gavèlle and Shaun to the film lot for Shaun's movie, where Di-Jun Wang's deceased body had been found earlier that day. The president had never returned down the elevator, making Gavèlle a suspect. Despite this, Gavèlle refused to explain her reasons for meeting with the president. Nonetheless, a connection was made between the president's death and the SS-5 Incident.
In the course of re-investigating the SS-5 Incident, the relationship between Wang and Shaun was revealed. It was also found that the president had really been killed by the assassin Bodhidharma Kanis during the SS-5 Incident, and replaced by a body double. This information led to the finding that Simeon Saint had killed the body double and orchestrated the murders of Knight and Ringer. Afterward, Kanis arrived to protect Saint from another assassin, then offered Shaun an opportunity to exact his revenge. Shaun refused, saying that doing so would only satisfy him while hurting his mother. Gavèlle later gave Edgeworth his badge back after he decided on his own path of saving people by confronting the contradictions in the law. Shaun later bought three lion lilies; two in memory of his birth parents, with the final one representing Gavèlle, his adoptive parent.
Personality[]
Mugshot.
Gavèlle is remarkably well-spoken, polite, and calm, but also formidable and with a strong sense of justice. When challenged, she is a fierce and extremely calculating rival, able to adapt her theories easily to new evidence. She has an almost religious devotion to the law, often referring to the "Goddess of Justice" and using many religious phrases. She is very protective of her son, and carries an assortment of photos from his acting career on her person.
Gavèlle believed that emotions were a weakness and not befitting a judge, who had to be impartial. She used her stoic persona as a shield to protect her. However, this persona fell away when it came to protecting Shaun, which caused her to change her personality dramatically. She came to learn that emotions and personal bonds are not weaknesses, but sources of strength.
Gavèlle always looked forward to seeing Shaun's performance in movies he was in. She made a conscious effort to avoid learning anything about Shaun's movies before seeing them herself.
When Gavèlle investigates crime scenes, she sometimes swings her gavel, hitting the floor and leaving marks.[1]
Name[]
- Japanese - Hakari Mikagami (水鏡秤):
- "Hakari" (秤) means "scale", which reflects her career as a judge.
- "Mikagami" (水鏡) means "water mirror" and is a reference to the Yata no Kagami, one of the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan. The mirror is a symbol of god-like wisdom in Japanese mythology and is the basis for the badges that judges wear in Japan.[2]
- English - Verity Gavèlle:
- "Verity" is a word referring to the quality or state of being true/real or truthful/honest, or a statement that is true.
- "Gavèlle" is a play on the word "gavel" in reference to her role as a judge.
- French - Justine Delcour:
- "Delcour" is a play on "del", which in a name means "of the", and "cour", a reference to the court of justice. The combined name could therefore be read as "justice of the court". Her given name also happens to be identical to the one given to her in the unofficial English translation.
Unofficial[]
- English - Justine Courtney:
- Her English name in the fan translation is "Justine Courtney", likely intended as a play on "justice" and "court", as well as "court of justice", all reflecting her position as a judge.
- French - Justine Égal:
- "Justine", as with the English fan translation, is likely intended as a play on "justice". "Égal" means "equal", which reflects her position as a judge.
- Her full name is also a play on "juste inégal", meaning "just unfair", likely as a reference to her and Sébastien (Eustace) forcing Hunter (Edgeworth) off his cases.
- Brazilian Portuguese - Luíza Cortês:
- "Luíza" means "illustrious warrior" or "glorious combatant", it also bears a resemblance to the Brazilian Portuguese feminine word for "judge" (juíza).
- "Cortês" means "courteous". Furthermore, it is similar to the Brazilian Portuguese word for "court" (corte).
- Overall, her name means "glorious/illustrious combatant of the court."
Development[]
Gavèlle styles her hair in a braid around her head and a long rectangular bang over her left eye. She wears a long black dress with a dark red trim on her sleeves, collar around her neck, and sash tied around her waist. She wears a light pink cape with a gold trim, and a blue gem pin, dark red socks, and black heels. She carries a gold gavel with a telescopic handle, resembling a war hammer.
- An early idea that did not make it into the final product of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit was for Eustace to bring out a stand for her to bang her gavel on.[1]
- Instead of "Objection!", Gavèlle uses "Overruled!" (却下!, "Kyakka!"). This contrasts her as a judge from the attorney characters.
- Gavèlle is a remarkably polite person, using "watakushi", the most polite Japanese first-person pronoun, and mainly using the "-sama" particle to address others.
- Gavèlle is the only female judge to appear in the Ace Attorney series. She's also the only judge with a known name who is not a culprit.
- Gavèlle is one of only two judges in the series to hand down a "Guilty" verdict that isn't later overturned, other than the original judge.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ash (2021-07-12). "Is Shin at Home a Softie for his Son? The Developers of Gyakuten Kenji 2 Answer Questions from our Readers (2011)". Gyakuten Saiban Library. Retrieved 2022-09-21.
- ↑ Ash (2016-08-01). "Portraying Mitsurugi Reiji's Conflict and Various Parents & Children (2011)". Gyakuten Saiban Library. Retrieved 2022-11-17.