spoiler thread: So the "true culprit" in trial made no sense

[brickey.8]

No way to avoid it, this thread is gonna contain spoilers for all 3 endings of the trial. So, uh, read below at your own risk!

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So I thought the trial storyline was brilliantly put together. The scenario was creative (not murder for once!), the twists and turns were fun, both of the two main endings were cool and felt very appropriate to the setting, and the stuff about keeping the peace that Tyzias says in the aftermath is pretty cool. The fact that the "good" ending doesn't involve revealing the culprit was a cool decision.

And then I saw the third outcome, which actually explains the culprit, and... really? It honestly feels like someone besides the original author looked over the script up to that point, guessed who the cuplrit is, and they added a bit to the boy band discussion to justify it. Because not only does it make no sense, but one of the other options made way more sense!

So first, I'll discuss the evidence in favor of Lanque committing the crime: Means/opportunity and stuff that places him at the scene. There isn't any. Proving the journal was fake throws out everybody's alibi at once, so it doesn't help with accusing any individual. Nothing places him near the scene, and he was still subject to the buddy system. It's telling that the evidence for this portion is literally the same two items that you have to point to to accuse Wanshi, and they had to make a convoluted alternate way of accusing him just so it wouldn't be a freebie.

And as for the motive, yes it was properly set up, but no it doesn't make a lick of sense. His plan was to stir up chaos so he could escape. Why is he executing that plan now when he expects to be on this train for an entire week, to reach a destination where he will then spend an entire week? He's not planning to jump off the train into a lake because his grand plan is to meet up with people at the destination; he CANNOT escape until they arrive. Was he gonna hide in the rafters of the rustblood car for a week? Stirring up chaos was counterproductive anyways, since it just put MORE attention on him. Until the situation was resolved, there was not a single minute where all 5 jades weren't within each other's line of sight and they were the subject of all the teals' attention too, and that was a predictable outcome. Was he hoping to cause so much friction that everyone would just stop following Bronya's orders and stop using the buddy system? For a week?

That motive was the part that actually jumped out at me as stupid even in the moment. But the even bigger slap in the face was that I had already been convinced I knew the answer. Because there WAS a single person who many pieces of evidence, and several other clues, pointed to. I only checked the guide after I'd already tried every logical combo of evidence on that person. And that person wasn't Lanque.

It was Bronya. It should have been Bronya.

First, evidence. Bronya was in charge of writing the group's schedule so she could give herself as much opportunity as she wanted. More importantly, she was the only jade who wasn't subject to the buddy system, meaning there were large spans of time where she was the only jade who could do something sneaky. And the teals couldn't do it because they didn't know the book was on the train.

As for motive, she's the only one who had any reason to want the book destroyed for its own sake. To the others the contents are just fluff (as Joey correctly notes), but Bronya blames that book for leading one of her friends down a bad path that got her killed, and is worried that Darya is headed down that same path. They devoted at least as many words to setting that up as the boy band having a vacancy. I imagine that she was trying to execute some kind of convoluted plan to jolt Daraya back onto the straight and narrow (the details are sketchy but no more so than Lanque's plan). Her plan went awry when it drew too much attention from the teals. That's why she spends the whole scenario complaining that she'd rather handle this matter internally, and deflecting questions by saying she doesn't want to speak against her sisters (since she never wanted them to get hurt).

But the part that really convinced me was the other hints that were dropped that it was her. Tyzias points out that the culprit might be a pillar of the community and ousting her could be disruptive; very true of Bronya, but Lanque doesn't seem particularly important to the group. Tyzias says that the culprit expertly danced around any suspicion; Bronya spent much of the trial center-stage but not a single person suspected her, while Lanque "avoided suspicion" mostly just by not seeming to have any relevance.

So yeah, that's why I think Bronya as culprit would have made sense and Lanque as culprit made NO sense. Was anyone else bugged by the truth ending? (If not whatever, at least I got that essay out of my system)

[moonlite]

Sounds good. Thanks for the thoughts, they're very interesting.

[leeteehee]

omg it literally shoulve been bronya like you literally find ripped up pages of the book amongst her things and im pretty sure she said she didnt know where there were or something???? like excuse me theres no way it wasnt her.

[TheBigNarwhal]

Yeah, I agree. I don't think the pages found among Bronya's stuff was ever really addressed. Getting to see Joey yeeted off the train by Lanque was pretty entertaining though.

[Done25]

Lanque isn't the one who did it. He was just planning to take advantage of the chaos as a way to escape the cloister. Bronya did it as a "scare tactic" to try and make Daraya stop acting out. She was worried that Daraya's rebellious attitude would get her culled. (Like what happened to that one jade blood in Bronya's past.)

[Viberum]

You make a good point! It seemed more plausible for Bronya to commit the crime as she was more involved in the case.

[Cadpig]

When I learned that there was even another option other than the Lynera path, I was sort of baffled to hear about Lanque. None of this Lanque stuff even came up in my trial.

Not in a "well you just didn't dig deep enough" sort of way, but as in it has nothing to do with the evidence or timeline. Ace Attorney often has last minute suspects that change everything, but they tend to make sense in hindsight in a way that's satisfying and amazing. Reading about Lanque doesn't really explain anything I felt was unanswered.

I'll admit, I got lost a few times in the trial (especially early on as I was still getting used to who everyone was), but Bronya became my main suspect near the end and I was quite surprised the trial just suddenly wrapped up without anyone ever acknowledging it, even Joey. It seemed to explain everything if she didn't want a repeat of the past and was willing to break rules herself in order to prevent it from happening again.

I liked the trial part of the game when I first got to it, but I've kind of soured on it in hindsight. A bunch of stuff never seemed to matter, like being able to view the timeline, or the fact that Bronya had pages in her locker and you could never bring this up. There was also a confusing part where I swear they start saying pages were found in the bathroom, but wasn't it the book that was found and the pages were missing? Isn't this why the pages in Bronya's locker stood out so much? For some reason the book itself never appeared in the court record. Also, wasn't one of the bags secured and you never even try to get into it, it's just what makes you find the action figure?

It almost makes me wonder if this part was rewritten partway through and some references to the previous draft slipped through.

I get the idea of things not turning out well because a big theme of the game is how messed up Troll society really is, but I think I'd be more okay with the way it all worked if the game didn't decide to have multiple outcomes for the trial to begin with. If it wasn't for the fact that it doesn't stop you from beating the game, it would feel more unfair than an old Sierra adventure game since, on top of the two items required for the alternate path having no direct connection to the trial, one was from another game entirely.

That's a shame because I otherwise really enjoy these games so far, and appreciate that they're mostly pretty good adventure games without a lot of the traditional nonsense.

In fact, part of the reason I decided to come to the forum was because I realized that I want to keep liking these games, but I'm afraid I will hate the next one if the flaws here cascade into the next one, so the best I can do is give feedback on what didn't work for me.

[Beryl Anisoptera]

gosh, this was my train of thought (no pun intended) too. I suspected Bronya of ripping out the pages that were heretical, hid those in her locker, before hiding the book beneath her seat (which slid over to Tirona, as Tegiri had his legs up, and Marvus wasn't there, so it was a straight shot). All the evidence pointed to her. What Lanque DID feel like, whas a true scapegoat. because what would've happened if we actually accused Bronya? would she have thrown us off the train? I dont think she had the guts, but Lanque did. The other thing is, Tyzias never said that we were right, and neither did Lanque. We found out Lanque's later plans, but he's not the one who stole the book, and Tyzias just said "If you think you're right, why not confront him?" Bronya would have just folded under the pressure. But thats my theory, anyway!