Little doubt about Turnabout Goodbyes - Episode 4 [SPOILERS]

[Sephilar]

So, I understood of course that the killer of Edgeworth's father was Von Karma and why he did it, but what I don't understand is, why he decided to raise Edgeworth after he killed his father? Was it because he actually felt a bit sorry about killing his father? Because he wanted to make sure that the kid would never suspect that he was the killer? Because he wanted to make him a prosecutor so that he would never become a defense attorney and one day reveal that he was the killer of that case?

If this is by some chance confirmed in the following games don't spoil me, just tell me so.

[Batbro]

I've always read it as a kind of spiteful additional revenge on Gregory Edgeworth, molding a defense attorney's son into a prosecutor. Also it's not clear exactly HOW LONG he's been planning to set Miles up for an ironic downfall by framing him for murder, but it's possibly from the very beginning, because that's just the kind of vindictive evil bastard Manfred von Karma is.

[Battler Ushiromiya]

Originally posted by Batbro:

I've always read it as a kind of spiteful additional revenge on Gregory Edgeworth, molding a defense attorney's son into a prosecutor. Also it's not clear exactly HOW LONG he's been planning to set Miles up for an ironic downfall by framing him for murder, but it's possibly from the very beginning, because that's just the kind of vindictive evil bastard Manfred von Karma is.

This. The whole point was to take Gregory's son, mold him into everything Gregory hated, and then force him to take the fall for his own father's murder at the last possible opportunity, solely because he despises Gregory that much

[Sephilar]

Hmm, I guess that could be it. but Manfred von Karma didn't felt to me as someone that was actually that much obsessed with revenge like your typical villain would. Obviously there's no excuse for his actions, but if it wasn't for the fact that he found a gun to kill Gregory, he probably would have never done that. I think the point to his character, was just to show how being too much obsessed with being perfect can certainly lead to people becoming corrupted, and on the spur of the moment, with him being both angry at Gregory and himself he killed him when he found the gun.

[Batbro]

I don't think you can write off the murder of Gregory Edgeworth as a one-time lapse in his moral character, given the elaborate premeditated murder plan he also puts into action years later, not to mention a 40 year long career full of (let's be real) probably forging evidence to get convictions.

[Sephilar]

Well, first of all, I'm not sure it was even confirmed that Gregory really hated prosecutors, just that Edgeworth really wanted to be a defense attorney because he admired his father, but the reasons as to why his father became a defense attorney are never confirmed, you can just speculate he was also a defense attorney because he wanted to help people that were accused of doing something they didn't like Phoenix because he hated corruption, but that's about it.

Again, there's no excuse to Manfred von Karma actions, but someone that is really blinded by revenge would probably just kill that person in the spot, like he just did with Gregory. It doesn't make much sense to me, that with that case being about to be forgotten and no one would ever suspect that he was the one responsible of killing Gregory, would suddenly feel the need to have revenge against him when you educated him like your daughter without any kind of discrimination, to the point that even Franziska admits he was like a little brother to her. Franziska by then was even younger, so if he really hated him that much, you could have just convinced your daughter to despise him too, but that wasn't the case.

I think it's possible he was just starting to be scared of him since he was starting to become an excellent prosecutor like him, and deep inside with that fear that's why he wanted to get rid of him. If you think about it it's also funny that despite Phoenix being the reason he was found to be the killer, he blamed only to Edgeworth when he said that was the same voice he heard by then when he was a kid. It's clear that he was obsessed with both Gregory and Edgeworth after that happened, but if he just wanted revenge and wasn't satisfied with that he could have just killed him too or do something about it immediately and not wait all those years. At the very least I don't think that a lot of people, especially if it's someone that is blinded by revenge, would want to adopt the son of the person you despise so much.

[Watereaters]

A Von Karma strives for perfection, Manfred wanted to raise Edgeworth to be everything his father despised, then wanted to destroy him by framing him for murder, this was to get revenge on Gregory for destroying his reputation.