Turnabout Rivals

Break Time!

I'm taking a break, since I'm packing up to see my grandparents. I'm also getting back into Yoga and making plans to reorganize my schedule, now that the COVID19 thing seems to be dwindling down. For now, I will post something for this story. In Turnabout Enemies, I often talked about characters in that story, but doing that for this story will reveal a ton of spoilers, so instead I will talk about the relationships. I may start talking about one or two characters, if revealing won't spoil anything, but for right now, it will create a ton of spoilers.

I will start with the relationship between Gregory Edgeworth and Miles Edgeworth. This is carried over from Turnabout Enemies, but also the one shot following that one, Turnabout Friendship. In Turnabout Friendship, we learn that Gregory has learned that his son will never hate him for his past sins or any sins that may follow. He realizes that Miles is very loyal and dedicated to his studies and those he cares about. Gregory couldn't pick that up from Miles when he was a child, because he didn't know about his father's sins, but now he does. Miles knows his father is no saint, but still loves him just as much as he always has. This is also including visits from Rachael Newslayday's mother and sister, who have grown very close with him and treat him as family. Gregory has a stable family that loves him and loyally sticks with him despite his sins. He feels accepted.

Though, because of that fear that Gregory had once carried throughout a majority of Miles' childhood, it has given Miles a fear that confronting his father may lead to him thinking Miles hates him. Miles loves his father more than anything, thus he may become anxious of what his father thinks. In Turnabout Friendship, he was anxious about his father's reaction to a simple outburst. Because Gregory never punished his son for his outburst and never talked to him for the rest of the day, Miles interpreted that to mean that his father must think that his son hates him. This is something many people never tackled and something similar I have experienced as an older teenager and adult living with my parents. I didn't care what others in school or outside of the home thought of me, but I did care about how my parents thought of me. It wasn't to the degree Miles has, but it was something I experienced in my life.

Because of Miles' fear, it has led to the circumstances brought about in this story, Turnabout Rivals. We find out that Miles is heavily involved with Dahlia Hawthorn and searching for Nick or Nicolas De Killer. He has never told anyone outside of the Temple about this and the reason goes back to that fear of what his family thinks of him. He's afraid of confronting his father, because he fears his father will think his confrontation means he hates his father. Miles is afraid of confronting his mentor, Manfred Von Karma, because of his connections with Gregory Edgeworth. Unlike Miles, Manfred isn't afraid to confront Gregory or in the most ungentle way.

Because of this fear and circumstances stemming from this fear, Miles is repeating the same sins his father is making. Perhaps those sins are not completely parallel or are exactly the same, but they are still the same sin: hiding things from your loved ones, resulting in avoiding them altogether. Now, Gregory is being given a taste of his own medicine from his son. This was what Gregory was trying to avoid, but he had been focusing more on his past sins and not his present ones. Miles isn't repeating the mistakes of his father from the past, but of the present, the one that will be willing to keep secrets from his loved ones in order to protect them. It follows the saying, "what goes around, comes around."

This goes into the theme I am going with for this story that follows the theme of the last story: good vs evil. Now, it is good vs evil, but focusing on how good and evil can be passed down to your children. Miles may not be repeating his father's past sins, but he's repeating his father's present sins. This is proven by the way he's treated Dahlia and the fact that the only sins he's made are the ones his father made in Turnabout Enemies and onward. This is the same with the other children and their parents.