Ace Attorney!

[NormalHero]

It's more comparing in the state that they both felt pretty helpless and needed a lot of help from others to get through it. Other than Aura, Apollo never really had anyone in his side in his sceptism against Athena. Ultimately Apollo's was wrong, and Athena and Phoenix were right. This is where the link between the two come in. Despite everything that could go wrong, nothing does in the cannon endings. Everything works out fir the better. Both have potential bad endings such as the "Miricle Never Happened", or in the case if DD two bad endings where either the case is lost and Simon is put to death, or Athena goes to jail instead.
The difference between what Phoenix went through and what Apollo went through was the test of what mattered most to Phoenix (the truth or Maya's safety), and Apollo's was a battle of distrust. Based on everything that Apollo has gone through, it's safe to say he probably has trust issues. He wanted to find the truth in Clay's death but his distrust in Athena lead him the wrong way. Rather than fighting between two things he cared deeply about, it was more of the turmoil of trust in one's client. Because Apollo did not believe in Athena, he went astray and almost convicted a inocent person. I'll admit that it is a bit hard to compare them in this particular case, Phoenix had his morals of advocating for the truth above all else challenged, Apollo faced his ability to believe in his client above all else, and Athena had to face her past and belive in herself.
What I am really saying is every character faced something bad, but in the end it worked out in the best possible way. Athena is no different than the other two for facing her demons have it work out for the better.

I wouldn't say Klavier was spoon feeding the answers, he was just nicer. If you take away the emotion behind Klavier and past prosecutors, they are asking the same questions, just in a different way. Just because Klavier is nicer does not mean he is an easier opponent than Edgeworth, Franziska, or Godot, it's just an illusion because he does not talk down to you like the other three.

[autumnal.]

I agree with all of your points, although it still doesn't mean that she isn't a Mary-Sue, or in Mary-Sue territory at least. I am not saying that she's a bad character, I'm just saying that she does have quite a few Mary-Sue qualities and that I think that CAPCOM needs to flesh her out some, hopefully in AA6.

And no, I don't remember AJ too well, but Klavier was definitely more helpful to Apollo than previous prosecutors. The other ones did help out some, but not as much as Klavier did. I am not against the idea of a "nice" prosecutor -- I like Klavier -- but it there wasn't a lot of tension in the courtroom that was always there in the previous games. Older players missed that tensity and didn't like how stupid Apollo felt sometimes.

[NormalHero]

What traits do you think makes Athena a Mary-Sue?

But couldn't you say Phoenix had plenty of stupid moments too? How many times did Phoenix need Mia to come back from the dead to help him? Maybe Apollo does get some reassurance from Klavier but he doesn't have a Mia, in a sense Klavier is his Mia, while also playing the role as his rival.

[autumnal.]

Phoenix did have Mia cover for him sometimes, but in several cases, he had little to no help and had to figure things out for himself -- case 1-4, specifically. In AJ, Klavier didn't let Apollo figure things out for himself at all and he wasn't able to think for himself until DD.

Athena isn't a flat-out Mary-Sue, but she definitely is in that territory. I'm not going to fault her because she was eighteen when she became a lawyer -- other people do, but I don't -- but she is a lawyer and a psychologist. To quote Bolt Storm about Athena on Court Records:

"I won't deny she's got some of the typical traits. Most everyone in the game except the villains like her, she appears out of nowhere (relatively speaking) and has most of the plot focused on her, she's got a special skill and is young for her profession... she does tick off a lot of the boxes."

To be fair, she technically isn't a psychologist, but she is very knowledgable about it. She doesn't really show it too often, but it was said very often throughout the game.

One of the definitions of Mary-Sue given on TVTropes is this:

"Similar to the above, this posits that a Mary Sue is someone who gets too much attention from the other characters, especially if their personality and actions don't seem to fully justify such strong reactions. It's important to note that this isn't confined to positive attention; if every single villain the Sue encounters develops an intense, personal, obsessive hatred of them, that qualifies too. In fact, most Sues by this definition combine both types of attention: they're loved by every sympathetic character they meet and hated by every unsympathetic character. It's true that most fictional characters are designed to be charismatic, striking individuals who inspire strong reactions in the audience, but it's also true that in the real world, no matter how charismatic you are, most people you know just don't spend all their time thinking about you. It's been said that the best writers remember that every character, no matter how minor, is the hero of his or her own story — think of the anecdote about the actor who played the gravedigger in Hamlet and described the play as "a story about a gravedigger who meets a prince." Conversely, if every supporting character in a story seems to spend more time obsessing over the main character than they do worrying about their own lives, that main character is probably a Mary Sue by this theory."

When Athena is thrown in jail, Phoenix only thinks about how to save her; not his daughter Trucy -- heck, you even forget that oh yeah, the reason that we were brought into this was because our daughter has been kidnapped! Phoenix doesn't let Trucy come to mind once. In one of the bad endings, Phoenix's monologue puts more emphasis on what happened to Athena than anyone else. Yes, Athena was basically the main character for the game, but it keeps shoving everything special about her down the player's throat and everyone keeps complimenting her. Even the occasional snide remarks from Phoenix and Apollo are toned down when compared to their inner monologue about Trucy/Maya/Ema.

Again, I don't think that she's a flat-out Mary-Sue, but she is in the territory. I enjoyed her for the majority of the game, but near the end, she started taking up way too much of the spotlight. But again, in her defense, she kind of needed to take up that spotlight so she wouldn't be another Apollo who got no character development whatsoever. But since she wasn't Phoenix and didn't have three games to show every side of her personality, she had to hog a lot of that spotlight. However, at the same time, it got annoying.

There's a more thorough debate on CR here if you want to see the debate, and also where I got Bolt Storm's quote.

[NormalHero]

The sticky situation of case 1-4 was that at this point Klavier needed Apollo. While he really didn't do much to rebuttal, he also didn't hint at much as he was immobilized in his emotions. It's clear that he still wanted to trust Kristoph, he was his older brother after all and he probably used to look up to him, but he needed to free himself of that dependency.

I guess the issue is mostly that what defines as a Mary-Sue is pretty subjective. But as far as Athena being loved by all who are companionate, and hated by those who aren't doesn't apply to her. I know Phoenix has a compassion for her, but Phoenix is pretty all around compassionate. She gets attention, sure, but I wouldn't say she's the center of attention, in fact we dint really know that much about her thoughts and personality. As for those who dislike her, Aura may be sour but she's not completely without compassion, in fact she was one of the only people Apollo would talk to at that time, and she obviously has a close connection to Metis, and Simon. I don't think she obsesses over a hatred of her. Although, we dint get to really see Aura after the fact, she doesn't hold an obsessive grudge after Simon is free. I won't say Apollo dislikes Athena, but it defiantly took time fir him to learn to trust her.

As for his concerns for Trucy. I feel like Phoenix has a lot of confidence in Trucy, and possibly a little too much. It's not quite like the DeKiller situation in that Aura is a ruthless assassin who was assigned simply to kill. Phoenix already learned from that situation in the past. Obviously he cared about Maya back then, but he also didn't want to throw Adrian in jail for a crime she didn't commit. In the bad ending he gave up his job, and never wished to see Maya again. Plus, this time around it is not as if Athena being in jail would have saved Trucy, only getting Simon out of jail as he was still on death row. In order to free Simon, he needed Athena's help.
Sure Phoenix could have just handed Athena over and got Trucy back but he's not that kind of person

[autumnal.]

Athena wasn't disliked by anyone, and the occasional person who didn't like her were villains. Aura did really dislike Athena and she almost always went out of her way to insult her. As you said, the term of Mary-Sue can be very subjective, and that was only one of the many definitions TVTropes gave for a Mary-Sue.

Yes, it was in Phoenix's best interest to save everyone, but would it have hurt to send a thought Trucy's way? Even the writers were so intent on making sure the player knew about the Athena/Blackquill issue they forgot Trucy's problem was a thing too. I concede that Aura definitely wasn't the assassin DeKiller was, but Aura showed that she didn't have many qualms about the saying that "the ends justify the means", especially since that she was willing to destroy (and indirectly kill) another person's life.

I'm getting tired of debating this -- I'm not saying this in a rude way, but the topic's kind of boring me. If you want to debate something else, I won't have any objections.

[NormalHero]

What would you like to discuss?

[autumnal.]

What do you think the anime will be like? Animated versions of the trilogy's cases or original ones?

[NormalHero]

I thin they will probably be animated versions if the trilogy cases, with possibly some original cases as well

[autumnal.]

That's what I think too -- I really want to see "Rise From the Ashes" animated. How about you?