| “ | ...Ohhh. So that's how you want to play it, huh? You always did have the courage of your convictions, I guess. Luckily, grinding people's self-belief into dust is kind of a hobby of mine. | „ |
| ~ Simeon Saint, revealing his true Persona. |
Simeon Saint (Japanese: Sōta Sarushiro) is the main antagonist of the 2011 visual novel Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit.
While he appears to be a harmless and meek individual who serves as the circus clown, he is in reality a misanthropic genius who wishes to get revenge on the people who ruined his life, ultimately being the mastermind behind the entire game's events.
Biography[]
IS-7 Incident[]
Simeon was the son of pastry chef Carmelo Gusto and a friend to Bronco Knight, the son of famous sculptor Paul Halique, also known as "Artie Frost". Gusto and Frost entered a dessert contest held by Samson Tangaroa to win his Angel Book recipe, which contained a cure to a disease Gusto developed that prevented him from experiencing taste. The two helped each other win until the finals, where Frost double-crossed Gusto and ordered Bronco to tie up Simeon in their car, as Simeon was helping his father by tasting his desserts for him. Because Gusto killed Frost out of revenge for his betrayal, no one came to let the children out of the car. Due to the extremely cold weather, the two were trapped and almost froze to death inside the car until they were saved by the assassin Bodhidharma Kanis, who freed them and took them to the Happy Family orphanage. The trauma of this incident left the children with severe amnesia, causing them to forget who they were and the identities of their fathers. The two kids forgot much due to the trauma of the incident, and after Gusto killed Frost, he stopped looking for his son. Though Bronco apologized for what he did, Simeon still resented him for it despite remaining friends.
SS-5 Incident[]
Seven years later, Simeon witnessed Kanis assassinating the president of Zheng Fa, Di-Jun Wang, in front of the orphanage. Simeon overheard Kanis's employers, a body double of the president, the owner of the orphanage, Fifi Laguarde and Chief Prosecutor Excelsius Winner, as they planned to kill Kanis after disposing of the president's body, so he decided to help his savior escape by starting a small fire to distract them.
After the incident, the conspirators made the entire event look like a kidnapping, with the body double taking the place of the actual president and the only witness other than Simeon being killed. Simeon made a drawing of the murder and gave it to the president's bodyguard, Da-Long Lang, who was investigating the incident by himself. Though Da-Long hid the truth, he accused Laguarde of the kidnapping, but she escaped conviction thanks to Excelsius's manipulations.
Laguarde subjected Simeon to prolonged interrogations. Scared and confused as to why his father didn't come to save him, he ran away from the place. Knowing he couldn't call the police for help since Excelsius had total control over them, Simeon lost his trust in everyone, deciding to follow in Bodhidharma Kanis's footsteps to take revenge on them all but knowing of the power they all held, he decided to wait for the perfect opportunity.
Simeon also wanted to take revenge on Knight, for he believed his father was Artie Frost and not Carmelo Gusto due to the trauma having muddled his memories. Simeon eventually joined the Berry Big Circus, where he became an apprentice of Regina Berry, who taught him how to tame animals.
Turnabout Trigger[]
When the fake president comes to the USA for a speech, Simeon finally sees a chance for his revenge, so he hires Shelly de Killer to assassinate him. Bronco Knight, who had become one of the president's bodyguards, attempts to stop the assassin but ends up strangled, being saved by Bastian Rook, another bodyguard that subdues de Killer and injures him.
Knight and Simeon had kept in touch during all this time, which is when Simeon subtly suggests to Knight to stage a fake assassination plan to raise the president's ratings, which Knight takes as a good opportunity to kill Rook and take his place as a chief bodyguard.
The Captive Turnabout[]
After Knight is imprisoned, Simeon takes the chance to get revenge, both on him and Fifi Lagaurde, who had become the prison's warden. At this time, Kanis was imprisoned and blackmailing Laguarde.
Simeon had been playing correspondence chess with both Knight and Kanis, secretly making both play the game with each other by translating the correspondence from English to Braille and vice-versa, as he expected this would make the paranoid Laguarde believe Knight was one of Kanis's minions. When Simeon visited Knight during the detention, he brought Knight his portable chess box, hiding a chisel with one of Kanis's bells inside. When Laguarde found the chisel, she got desperate and killed Knight.
However, Simeon was accused of the murder because he was the only one at the time with access and opportunity to commit the crime since the circus had been performing for the inmates. Thankfully for him, Eddie Fender became his lawyer, as, at this time, Miles Edgeworth was working as his assistant to investigate Knight's murder. Simeon managed to convince Edgeworth to help him by playing the innocent card, which worked, as Edgeworth was able to reveal Laguarde as the true culprit and get her imprisoned and Simon free of all charges.
A Turnabout Forsaken[]
Simeon's next target was Excelsius Winner. He anonymously contacted Rosie Ringer, the girlfriend of the witness from the SS-5 incident, and told her about Excelsius and how he killed her boyfriend. At the same time, he also anonymously contacted Excelsius, warning him that Rosie would try to exact revenge on him. With this, Simeon expected that one would kill the other. He also prepared for the case Excelsius killed Rosie by calling Kay Faraday and drugging her to leave her unconscious. He planted a bug on Kay's badge and took her to the Grand Tower, where the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee was based, by using a hot air balloon, planning on dropping her there so that Excelsius would frame her for the murder and Edgeworth would come to her rescue and expose Excelsius.
When Simeon reached the top of the building, he saw the judge Verity Gavèlle and the fake president talking. The impostor noticed the balloon and told Gavèlle to leave, drawing his gun and shooting at the balloon. Simeon took the opportunity and dropped the balloon over the impostor, killing him. He then took the impostor's corpse and dropped the unconscious Kay on the building, taking the corpse to a refrigerated warehouse to throw off the time of his death.
Everything goes according to his plan, as Excelsius kills Rosie and frames Kay, who is saved by Judge Gavèlle and Edgeworth, who both expose Excelsius and get him indicted for the murder. The next night, Simeon takes the impostor's body and brings it to the temporary film lot next to the Grand Tower. Once there, he witnesses Shaun Fenn, an actor in a movie being filmed there, accidentally starting a fire and making a giant head prop fall, so he takes the opportunity and leaves the body on the lot, expecting Shaun Fenn would be accused of the murder.
Turnabout for the Ages[]
Simeon's true persona.
The following morning the fake president's body was discovered by Shi-Long Lang. At the same time, Fifi Laguarde's trial was about to start. To guarantee a guilty verdict, Simeon kidnapped Shaun Fenn, since he was Judge Gavèlle's adopted son, to blackmail her. However, Excelsius Winner has the same idea and orders his goons to kidnap Shaun to ensure a not guilty verdict, but instead, they kidnap Excelsius's son Eustace Winner, which happened to be the prosecutor presiding over Laguarde's trial. At the same time, Excelsius had disposed of the evidence incriminating Laguarde.
When Edgeworth learns of the kidnapping of Shaun and the disappearance of Eustace, he decides to search for them. At that time, Simeon had come to watch Laguarde's trial and helped Edgeworth by giving him a hint at Shaun's location. Edgeworth finds Eustace trapped in Excelsius's home, but he runs away, so Edgeworth returns to the trial to buy time. Once Shaun is found, the trial resumes, at which point Eustace returns, who had looked for the evidence by himself but only found Kanis's bell inside a piece of paper. Since the paper had an imprint of Excelsius's motorcycle glove, this was sufficient for condemning both Laguarde and Excelsius.
With Excelsius losing his authority, Edgeworth was able to investigate the SS-5 incident with the help of Shi-Long Lang, which is when they learn the real president had died back then and the present victim was a body double. Thanks to this investigation, Edgeworth finally deduces Simeon Saint as the mastermind behind the events. Edgeworth confronts Simeon on the Berry Big Circus when Simeon reveals his true colors and easily refutes all Edgeworth's accusations, while Edgeworth finally proves Simeon killed the fake president due to traces of Lion Lilly pollen found on the bottom of his balloon, as the impostor was carrying this flower at the time of his murder and traces of the pollen were also left on his corpse.
Breakdown[]
All animals which Simeon had tamed turn on him, and while he screams for them to look away from him, they all start beating him up one by one.
Aftermath[]
With Simeon finally exposed, Shelly de Killer arrives at the scene and threatens to kill Simeon since he broke his trust by not telling him the president was a fake. However, at the same time, Bodhidharma Kanis also appears and blocks de Killer's knife, begging the assassin to spare Simeon's life. De Killer agrees and escapes, after which Simeon is arrested, and Kanis turns himself to the police.
Personality[]
When he was a kid, Simeon was an innocent boy who wanted to help his dad win a baking competition due to his fathers taste buds not working at the time, but he would slowly become more cold-hearted over time after his father ditched him to escape the IS-7 trial, with him experiencing a large amount of bad luck that started with him nearly being frozen to death inside a car after Knight was forced to do it by his dad, then being dropped off at an orphanage where the assassination of the president of Zheng Fa would take place.
Due to the experience of being tortured by Laguarde every day for the whereabouts of Kanis, Simeon was completely traumatized by his experience and grew extremely paranoid that Excelsius, Lagaurde and the body double would kill him eventually, with him being scared to the point where he couldn't sleep. These bad encounters with other humans completely warped Simeon's views on trust and relationships, believing that everyone only helps each other when it benefits them and they never truly have good intentions and it also lead to him believing that he could do whatever he wanted to anyone other than Kanis as Kanis was the only one who ever cared about him.
Despite his seemingly timid appearance, Simeon in reality is incredibly confident, fearless and manipulative, successfully manipulating everyone around him by exploiting their emotional weaknesses for his own gain and being uncaring to the consequences of his actions, even if it earns him the resentment of the worlds deadliest assassin, only ever losing his calm when he was well and truly cornered.
Trivia[]
- Simeon's name in the fan translation, "Simon Keyes", is a play on "Shy Monkeys", which references his timid persona and his job as an animal trainer. It can also be a play on the "Simon Says", a children's game in which one person makes others do as they say, much like his own ability to manipulate people.
- Simeon is the first character in the Ace Attorney franchise to commit murder in the same game as his father (Carmelo Gusto). He and his father are also the third example in the series to be family members who are arrested in the same game (Dahlia Hawthorne and Iris Fey, and Lance and Ernest Amano are the two previous examples.)
- Simeon is different from previous main antagonists in the Ace Attorney games as he is portrayed as a tragic (yet depraved) villain who allowed the abuse and betrayal inflicted on him to get the better of him rather than a purely evil sociopath like many of the other masterminds before him.
- Ironically, he and Gusto share quite a lot in common. They are both psychopaths who murdered a highly unsympathetic character (several characters, in Simeon's case) while hiding behind a more affable façade. They also were victims of tragic circumstances despite being thoroughly unlikable people. They were also arrested within weeks of each other.
External links[]
- Simeon Saint on the Ace Attorney Wiki
