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“ | Is... this your idea of revenge, Phoenix Wright? | „ |
~ Kristoph, foreshadowing the events of Turnabout Succession. |
“ | I killed a man named "Smith" with a bottle because I am an evil human being... Isn't that enough? | „ |
~ Kristoph Gavin confessing his crime. |
“ | Nonsense. There is only room for two in this court: me... and the law! Keep the riff-raff out! | „ |
~ Gavin in Turnabout Succession. |
Kristoph Gavin (Japanese: Kirihito Garyu), is the main antagonist in the Apollo Justice Trilogy of the Ace Attorney franchise.
He is the main antagonist of the 2007 visual novel Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and the overarching antagonist of its 2013 sequel Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies.
He is a famous defense attorney who served as a mentor of Apollo Justice, and is the brother of Klavier Gavin. However underneath his friendly and charming demeanor, he is a corrupt official who hates Phoenix Wright due to a petty reason, and is willing to ruin his, as well as Apollo's and many others' lives just to get his revenge by any means necessary.
Biography[]
Kristoph Gavin was a famous defense 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 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 as 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 present 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 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, Gavin was chatting with Phoenix Wright at Borscht Bowl Club. When he was about to leave, he saw a very familiar face. A guy calling himself Shadi Smith wanted to challenge Phoenix to a poker game. But Kristoph immediately recognized him as Zak Gramarye. While Zak hit Olga Orly—the waitress—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 Apollo Justice serve as the defense attorney, because he recognized Justice 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 decided to falsely confess that he saw Phoenix hitting Shadi. When Kristoph started testifying against Phoenix, the latter took over the co-counsel role and instructed Apollo to demonstrate that Kristoph was the murderer. A tainted card was brought as evidence, which Kristoph discards as forged, but Justice's rebuttal and the logic reveal Kristoph as the real murderer. After that, he was incarcerated in Solitary Cell 13.
Six months later, Drew Misham sent a letter to Kristoph, demanding that he remove the "magic" that he had placed on Vera. This, however, caused his death, since he was forced to use the stamp Kristoph gave him years ago. Vera was arrested for his murder because she served him coffee like every night and the mug got the poison in it when Drew took a sip. During the trial, Justice and Klavier pressed her, causing her to bite her nails and finally consume the poison. Vera was taken to the hospital and the proceedings were postponed until the next day.
Meanwhile, Wright visited Kristoph in his cell, who refused to say why he killed Shadi Smith, or Zak Gramarye. Even Wright's magatama would be of no use, showing Wright five black Psyche-Locks he couldn't break. In another game, it was revealed that his motive was buried so deep within his subconscious that Gavin himself wasn't even aware of it. Wright came back later and tried to steal Drew's letter, but Kristoph caught him in the act. However, unbeknownst to Kristoph, Wright had a hidden camera and had already recorded all of their conversations, as well as the contents of the letter and the poisoned stamp.
The next day, the trial resumed without its defendant. To reveal the truth once and for all, Apollo called Kristoph Gavin to the stand as a special witness. Kristoph convinced the judge to reject all of Wright's investigative evidence and claims, including the letter copy and the recorded video, citing Wright's lack of authority. While Kristoph came clean about Zak Gramarye rejecting him for Wright, he denied Justice's accusations that Kristoph ordered the forged evidence from the Mishams and claimed there was no evidence to say otherwise. However, just as he began to gloat, Klavier and Justice revealed something that even he could not have ever foreseen. Vera's trial was actually the test trial for a new judicial system, where Vera's fate would be decided by jurors instead of evidence. This very trial would change the entire legal system. Kristoph was furious, as that would ruin his plan. When he found out that Wright was responsible for the test trial of the jurist system, he completely lost it and flew into a rage, calling the jurors "ignorant swine", "emotional mob of irrational mouth breathers", and dubbing it all "riff-raff". However, the judge and Klavier dismissed his outbursts, saying that the law was not absolute like he said and he himself even spent his entire life looking for loopholes. When the trial concluded, the jury unanimously declared a not guilty verdict for Vera Misham and Kristoph could do nothing but laugh. To rub salt in his wound, Vera miraculously survived—making her the first person to survive atroquinine poisoning.
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). 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 usually well-cared hair completely disheveled and his mouth twitching, declaring the law to be absolute in his objection to the implementation of the jurist system. Klavier and the Judge retort by declaring that the law is in fact full of contradictions and continuously changing and growing, while Kristoph himself has stopped and thus isn't needed anymore. Finally, after the jury declares Vera Misham not guilty, Kristoph goes completely insane in the wake of his ultimate 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, sophisticated, 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 poisoned 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 law 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, as he was desperate to be the attorney for Zak Gramarye during his murder trial, to the point where he was willing hire a forger to create "definitive" evidence while also orchestrating the deaths of all those involved in commission. However, due to losing a poker game against Zak, Kristoph was instead replaced by Phoenix Wright, causing Gavin's rage to manifest and deciding to pin his forgery on Phoenix in order to get him disbarred. 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 his guilt in their eyes, causing him to be unanimously condemned by the public.
Gavin was also extremely delusional, genuinely believing he was justified in ruining Phoenix's reputation due to losing a client to him. His possession of black psyche-locks showed that he was not even consciously aware that he was lying when confronted about his involvement in the Gramarye murder case, and his sheer paranoia in attempting to cover up his schemes caused him to outright ignore Phoenix's attempts to question him. Ironically, for a lawyer, Gavin's logic made no sense to anybody but him, as he believed that anyone disadvantaging him in any way was grounds enough for him to either kill them or destroy their life. It's revealed that breaking the black psyche-locks of a person could cause irreversible damage. As that's what happened to Gavin, it's left unanswered how long he stayed a psychotic wreck after the case ended.
Victims[]
List Of Victims |
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Murder/attempted murder victims
Other victims of his actions
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Gallery[]
Quotes[]
“ | Well, this case certainly has taken a turn... for the interesting! | „ |
~ Gavin in Turnabout Trump. |
“ | Phoenix: For seven years we've been friends... and yet, I still don't understand you. Gavin: But Wright, your "friendship" toward me was never pure. You suspected me then as you still do now, don't you? Phoenix: Honestly, right now, I'm not sure what I think. |
„ |
~ Gavin's conversation with Wright. |
“ | Common citizens? Wisdom? Is this some kind of joke? What could we possibly gain by doing this? Entrusting our judicial system to a mindless, emotional mob of irrational mouth-breathers? | „ |
~ Gavin showing his disregard towards the Jurists. |
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.
- Kristoph Gavin is the second villain to be defeated by a playable character other than Phoenix.
- He—along with Acro, Joe Darke, and the Phantom—is one 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 year-long revenge scheme to ruin the lives of those who 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 a sociopath who feigns a friendship with the protagonists to frame them for his crimes, just like Dahlia Hawthorne. Like Dahlia, he also manipulates his sibling into helping him with his crimes (though Klavier Gavin was unaware he was being manipulated, unlike Iris.)
- Kristoph Gavin is one of the two individuals (along with Phantom) responsible for starting "The Dark Age of the Law", a period where the courts were extremely corrupt and both prosecutors and defense attorneys weren't trusted any longer. Kristoph tricking Phoenix into forging false evidence, causing Phoenix's disbarment for 7 years, is what caused "The Dark Age of the Law" to start for defense attorneys.
External Links[]
- Kristoph Gavin on the Pure Evil Wiki
- Kristoph Gavin on the Ace Attorney Wiki