Phoenix Wright

Phoenix Wright is a fictional character of the Ace Attorney video games and the main protagonist of the three games of the series, as well as a playable character in the fourth. He is a lawyer who accepts murder cases and appears to be single-minded.

He also appears in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

He does have a live-action movie, which is actually quite well done for a video game adaptation--however, it isn't in English, it's in Japanese.

Early Life
Phoenix Wright grew up as an only child.

One day during fourth grade, Wright was accused of stealing the lunch money of a classmate, Miles Edgeworth. Due to the lack of an alibi, everyone assumed Wright was the culprit, but Edgeworth and another classmate, Larry Butz, came to his defense. Edgeworth asserted that Wright could not be proven guilty without evidence. The three became inseparable friends after that. It was revealed, 15 years later, that, even though he had not been in school that day, Butz had in fact been the one who stole the money.

At the time, Edgeworth took strongly after his famous father Gregory Edgeworth, a legendary defense attorney. The class trial would be a powerful inspiration for Wright during his legal career. After the DL-6 Incident, which resulted in his father's death, Edgeworth transferred schools and moved out of town.

Years later, Luke Atmey stated that Wright probably received the same message on his school report card every year: "Careless, with tendency to jump to conclusions." Atmey was most likely only taunting Wright, although judging from the lawyer's reaction, this wasn't far from the truth. He has stated that his teachers always said he was "a good thunker" [sic] and has also related that it was pouring with rain on the day of his elementary school graduation.

University Years
Wright studied art and law at Ivy University. During his time there, he saw a story in a newspaper with the headline "Dark Suspicions of a Demon Attorney". The article said that prosecutor Miles Edgeworth was suspected of tampering with witnesses and fabricating evidence. Edgeworth had become a ruthless prosecutor, unrecognizable from the Edgeworth that Wright knew from his childhood. Wright attempted to contact him, but he was ignored. Wright decided that if he became an attorney, Edgeworth would have to meet him sooner or later in court, and then Wright could save him from his problems.

In his third year, Wright met Dahlia Hawthorne in the District Court basement library and was immediately enamored with her. She wrote him a poem and gave him a bottle necklace, telling him that it was a symbol of their love. They subsequently began to date, and for six months, Hawthorne tried to convince Wright to give the necklace back, but Wright refused, thinking that she didn't mean it.

One day, Wright lost his cold medicine. Later that day, Doug Swallow, a former lover of Hawthorne, met Wright and told him that she was dangerous. She had stolen poisonous chemicals from his lab before, and now some chemicals were missing again. Horrified by Swallow's blasphemous statements, Wright pushed him into the ground, and Swallow fell onto his umbrella, breaking it. Wright then left, but a few minutes later, a crowd began to gather around where Swallow had fallen, and Wright returned to the scene to find Swallow dead, with Wright's cold medicine in his hand.

Wright was accused of the murder and put on trial. Wright's lawyer was Mia Fey, a rookie at the time who had not taken a case since her first a year before. Wright didn't cooperate with Fey at first, lying that he hadn't known the victim. One of the prosecution's witnesses was Hawthorne herself, which Wright found hard to believe. Fey eventually accused Hawthorne of the murder, and claimed that the necklace had actually contained a poison used to incapacitate another individual inside the courthouse on the same day in which Hawthorne and Wright had met. Wright could take no more of this and ran out of the courtroom. By the time he was forced back inside, he had eaten the necklace.

Fey then told Wright that he would have to believe in her if he wanted to avoid a conviction. Wright finally cooperated and gave his entire account of the day's events. Fey eventually showed that Hawthorne had originally intended to kill Wright by poisoning his cold medicine, but after seeing Wright's encounter with Swallow, she had changed her plan and killed Swallow instead, intending to frame Wright. Wright got a not guilty verdict, but he still couldn't believe that Hawthorne had betrayed him. Fey told him to move on with his life.

Fey's defense of Wright inspired him to pursue law full-time, and he came to receive his attorney's badge, his most prized possesion. Meanwhile, Hawthorne was convicted and sentenced to death.

Personality
Phoenix Wright is generally quite easy-going in his outlook. His relaxed attitude usually leads to his hyperactive friends leading him around or taking advantage of his good nature, usually by making him foot the bill of large celebratory meals. Wright has repeatedly shown himself to be a loyal friend and lawyer who refuses to back down once his mind is made up. Wright also has somewhat of a sarcastic side that he usually keeps to himself. This tends to manifest itself when dealing with the eccentric characters he comes across, including his friends.

In his university years, Phoenix Wright was somewhat of a crybaby and a little childish. For example, he burst into tears when his lawyer Mia Fey got mad at him for lying in his testimony. His naïvety manifested itself mostly in his relationship with Dahlia Hawthorne. His attitude at this time is somewhat comparable to that of his childhood friend Larry Butz, though the latter never really grew out of this behavior. Nonetheless, he was often considered the most mature out of all of his friends.

As a lawyer, Wright is dedicated to defending and believing in his innocent clients. This loyalty is so great that he often ends up risking his career and even his life for them on several occasions. Even in the trial that got him disbarred, he showed calm concern for the fate of his client even in the midst of allegations of fraud. Drew Misham in particular was very caught by this, claiming that despite Wright being the center of the problem, he was the only one who had not made a commotion. In his earlier years, even after he had built up a respectable reputation for himself, Wright depended on his former boss and mentor, Mia Fey, for advice. At one point, Wright's morals were challenged when he was forced to choose between defending a guilty client to save Maya Fey, or letting her die to see justice done.

Since the trial of Iris, Wright has become more self-confident and resistant to intimidation by his opponents, such as Gaspen Payne and Simon Blackquill. In particular, Wright ended up underestimating Klavier Gavin due to the gap in experience, and he paid for this by falling right into Gavin's trap and being exposed for presenting forged evidence, albeit unknowingly. Wright has also become more eccentric and even more laid-back than before, and has developed a habit of telling (mostly bad) jokes and occasionally giving cryptic advice, which at times irritates Apollo Justice. He also laughs more, though not as nervously as he did before. Often, when he is not in the heat of a trial, his actions and speech give off the vibe of the "omniscient old man" archetype in literature. Despite this, in the midst of a pressure-filled trial, his more excitable side from his earlier years as a lawyer rises back to the surface. His internal monologue also reveals that he has retained his private sardonic nature.

The disbarment was a very dark period of Wright's life: He felt that his life was ruined, and he started to act even more sardonically when mentioning the loss of his badge. This happened for the first two weeks after he was disbarred, and it continued up until he met and adopted Trucy. He noted that she was his light. In the seven years that followed, it seemed he did not hold any kind of grudge against the loss of his badge, although he diligently continued the investigation of the case that had gotten him disbarred.

During this disbarment period, Wright's morals seemed to be far more flexible, almost to the point of him adopting an "end justifies the means" mentality at times, as was demonstrated by his use of forged evidence in the Shadi Smith murder trial. His rationale for this behavior was that he no longer had the responsibilities of a lawyer; moreover, people at the time thought he was a sham anyway, and so he had perhaps given up on caring what they thought of him. However, he still deeply cared about those close to him, and he maintained contact with old friends such as Ema Skye, Maya Fey and Miles Edgeworth.

Wright has endured a large amount of physical trauma. He has chewed and swallowed a necklace made of glass and metal that potentially contained a fatal poison. He has been physically assaulted by a murderer, almost taken out by mobsters, shocked by a 600,000 volt stun gun, hit over the head with a fire extinguisher (with temporary amnesia as the only consequence), and had a tiger (playfully) jump on him. He also once fell from a 40-foot cliff into a fast-flowing river - one notorious for washing its victims away, never to be seen again - in the middle of winter, only to escape with a fever that left him bedridden for two nights. In court, Wright has had a toupee thrown at his face, been frequently whipped, pecked by birds, had seeds thrown at him, had numerous cups of boiling hot coffee thrown at his face, and had tiny pieces of his hair sliced off. Even after being disbarred, he was hit by a speeding vehicle and thrown head first into a telephone pole, but walked away with just a sprained ankle. Considering what has happened to him, he is often considered lucky for surviving some of his experiences, and hardy for taking the physical abuse he experiences in court so well.

Wright seems not to have a very close relationship with technology. He does not have a car or, in fact, even a driver's license. Taxis seem to be his main mode of transport, as he traveled between the prosecutor's office and the police department by taxi. He has a blue "dumb" phone that he has apparently kept throughout his law career. He claims to be no good at math, and when he encounters any form of advanced technology, he can only really regurgitate the information fed to him by others.

Not much is known about what Wright likes to watch, but he has claimed that he watches Kids' Masterpiece Theatre every Sunday. Although he has repeatedly professed indifference towards the Steel Samurai series, Wright's ringtone is the Steel Samurai theme tune and he also seems to be somewhat knowledgeable of the franchise in general. As far as entertaining others goes, Wright is awful on the piano and refused to take requests at the Borscht Bowl Club.

Wright is not as burger-crazy as his assistant Maya, instead claiming to be more of "a grilled chicken sandwich man". However, he seems to be an unabashed meat eater, claiming that the only sea creatures that he likes are the ones he can eat. He has also developed a liking for grape juice and drinks it near constantly.

Wright is afraid of heights. He supposedly took Trucy to an amusement park and rode a roller-coaster, although in the end, he started to object to the ride.

While examining a gold lighter on the table in Marvin Grossberg's office, he stated that he is "not really into smoking".

Meeting Professor Layton
He also appears in the Ace Attorney/Professor Layton crossover game titled "Professor Layton Vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney." He met Professor Layton when he traveled to London with his assistant Maya and defended a client who was from another dimension/ timeline, which was actually just an experiment, and after picking up her book, is transported there himself. He and Layton, along with their assistasnts Maya Fey and Luke Triton, respectively, help each other out, until Layton prosecutes the client from London again.

Project X Zone 2
Phoenix Wright makes an appearance in the Epic Crossover, Project X Zone 2, along with Maya Fey who he is paired with.