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| “ | Is...this your idea of revenge, Phoenix Wright? | „ |
| ~ Kristoph Gavin |
| “ | I killed a man named "Smith" with a bottle because I am an evil human being. ... Isn't that enough? | „ |
| ~ Kristoph Gavin |
Kristoph Gavin, or Kirihito Garyu in the original Japanese localization, is the main antagonist of the video game Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, but specifically of the cases Turnabout Trump and Turnabout Succession.
Biography
Gavin was a famous attorney. He despised Phoenix Wright, because he believed Phoenix used cheap tricks like bluffing to win his cases.
Gavin was hired by a famous magician known as Zak Gramarye, who was being accused of murdering his mentor, Magnifi Gramarye. He wanted to win the case, so much so that he forged a diary page in order to win. However, Zak tested Gavin in a Poker game, which Gavin lost. Zak then fired him, and hired Phoenix Wright in his place. Zak played Poker with Wright as well, but Wright won. Gavin started despising Phoenix even more, as well as Zak, because he couldn't believe he was discarded by such a trivial thing like a Poker game.
Gavin then decided to ruin Wright's career: He told his brother, Klavier Gavin, who would be the prosecutor for that case, that Phoenix would be presenting a piece of forged evidence. He then told Zak's daughter, Trucy Enigmar, to give the evidence to Wright. His plot was successful: Phoenix lost his attorney's badge for presenting a letter he did not know was forged, while Zak Gramarye fled using his magic skills, never to be seen again. Gavin also gave a nailbrusher to the forger's daughter, which contained deadly atroquinine poison, in order to clean up all loose ends. To earn Phoenix's trust, he voted not to disbar Phoenix.
At around this time, he set up the two "time bombs" in Drew Studio: the poisonous stamp that would kill Drew Misham when he sent the yellow envelope, and Vera Misham's nail polish, which would kill her when she became nervous, only to cause her to faint from lack of enough poison. Eventually, he hired Apollo Justice on his law firm.
Years later, he was chatting with Phoenix. When he was about to leave, he saw a very familiar face. A guy calling himself Shadi Smith wanted to take Phoenix in a poker game. But Kristoph immediately recognized him as Zak Gramarye. While Zak hit Olga unconscious, Phoenix called the police, while Kristoph went to kill Zak. After Zak's death, Phoenix covered his head to hide Zak's baldness and called Kristoph to get a defense attorney if he was arrested. In the call, Kristoph was aware that Zak was bald and this made Phoenix suspicious. For his trial, he requested that the defense attorney be Apollo, because he recognized him as the long-lost son of Thalassa Gramarye.
During the trial, Kristoph was Apollo's co-counsel. In his ruse to defend Phoenix, he tried to pin the guilt on Olga, but then decides to falsely confess that he saw Phoenix hitting Shadi. When Kristoph starts testifying against Phoenix, the latter takes over the co-counsel role and instructs Apollo to demonstrate that Kristoph was the murderer. A tainted card was brought as evidence, which Kristoph discards as forged, but his rebuttal and the logic reveal Kristoph as the real murderer. After that he was incarcerated in Solitary Cell 13.
Breakdowns
Kristoph has two breakdowns, each of them in a different trial. In Turnabout Trump, when Apollo and Phoenix accuse (and prove) that he killed Shadi Smith/Zak Gramarye, he raises his fist while the lobster and plates that Olga Orly (a witness) dropped levitate behind the witness stand. He then slams his fist on the witness stand, causing the plates and lobster to fall back down.
In Turnabout Succession, his second breakdown starts like the first one: raising and slamming his fist (without the floating objects). However, when he finally discovers that jurists are rendering the verdict, and that Wright had had that idea, he first does his previous breakdown without the plates and lobster. Then, he crosses his arms, his glasses fly off his face, and his hair billows above him while cursing Wright's name. After it has stopped, a broken Kristoph is seen, now with his hair (usually well-cared) completely disheveled, his mouth twitching, and him saying that there are only two things in the courtroom: himself and the law, which he claimed were absolute. Apollo, Klavier, and the Judge declared that "Law is never absolute. It will continuously evolve," and that Kristoph himself had stopped and thus wasn't needed anymore. Finally, after the jury declares Vera Misham not guilty, Gavin goes completely insane in the wake of his defeat and laughs hysterically as he is taken away.
Personality
Kristoph's reputation for being the "coolest defense in the West" was well-founded: Both in and out of the courtroom he was incredibly pleasant, obsequious, laid-back, and polite. However, he also had an evil streak a mile wide, and regarded himself to be superior to everyone else. He was willing to manipulate others to reach his own ends, and even poison an innocent girl in doing so.
Underneath his pleasant façade, Gavin was a petty, vindictive, prideful, vain, abusive, elitist and traitorous scumbag who played fast and loose with the laws in order to reach his end goal. He saw others as tools to be manipulated and was incapable of showing any genuine emotion for anyone other than himself, with his relationship with Wright, Justice and even his own brother being purely self serving.
Kristoph was heavily driven by greed and pride, desperate to be the attorney for Zak Gramarye during his murder trial. Due to losing a poker game against him, Kristoph was instead replaced by Phoenix Wright, causing Gavin's rage to manifest to the point where he was willing hire a forger to defame Wright and eventually murder or ruin anyone who knew of his involvement in commissioning the forgery. His only reason for these crimes was because his ego was bruised, showing how narcissistic Gavin really was.
Gavin's pride turned out to be his undoing, as he realized he was being trialed by a jury rather than a judge. Already backed into a corner, he flew off in a rage, verbally lashing out at the judge, Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, Klavier Gavin, and even the jury. This naturally soured their opinion on him and cemented in their eyes his guilt, causing him to be unanimously condemned by the public, putting the final nail in his coffin.
Victims
Murder/attempted murder victims
- Zak Gramayre/Shadi Smith (killed in revenge for choosing Phoenix Wright over him as a lawyer)
- Drew Misham (killed for his knowledge of the diary's forger.)
- Vera Misham (attempted) (poisoned to hide the fact she created the forgery that led to Phoenix being disbarred. Later made a scapegoat for her father's murder.)
Other victims of his actions
- Phoenix Wright (disbarred due to being presented forged evidence)
- Trucy Wright (Lost her father due to Kristoph murdering him)
- Klavier Gavin (Implied to have been psychologically abused as well as being manipulated into causing Phoenix Wright's disbarrment.)
Gallery
Trivia
- Gavin is the first villain in the Ace Attorney series to be defeated by Apollo, and the first and only villain Apollo has defeated twice.
- Gavin is also the first main antagonist of an Ace Attorney game to be defeated by Apollo, thus marking the first time the main antagonist has been defeated by a playable attorney other than Phoenix.
- He along with Acro and Joe Darke are some of the only culprits to try and murder a minor.
- Gavin shares many similarities with the previous antagonists. He is a ruthless perfectionist who starts a years long revenge scheme to ruin the lives of those who had slighted him just as Manfred Von Karma did. He is also a celebrity who uses his persona and fame to afford him luxuries like Matt Engarde. Finally, he is also a sociopath who feigns a friendship with the protagonists to frame them for his crimes just like Dahlia Hawthorne.
