(no subject)
Essay on Mia, mostly to get my thoughts in order before things get stirred up a bit. And also this is the most un-organized thoughts ever. Also, there will be T&T spoilers towards the end of the essay.
Mia and human emotions:
I think if there was one word to describe Mia, it would be independent. This makes a lot of sense, both her indirect and direct characterizations agree: Mia is Single Female Lawyer fighting for her client, wearing sexy miniskirt and being self-reliant. She runs her own law office in her 20's, and in a world where being a defense attorney is really frickin' hard, she's made quite a name for herself. This also agrees with what we're told of the Fey women. Fey women are strong-willed and independent. In fact, if they don't remain self-reliant, they lose their powers. At least partially because of this, very, very few marriages in Kurain stay together. Mia's father died when she was fairly young. That means the best role-model marriage she had was her aunt and his husband who... married her for power and then stole her kids when it turns out she wasn't powerful any more. GG Kurain love! So keep this in mind, we'll get back to it later.
So now we've established that being very independent is an intrinsic part of Mia's Mia-ness. That's kind of a duh. What I really want to talk about is the fact that she seems to act like she doesn't have her own feelings a lot of the time. Not that she doesn't react to stuff- she reacts to stuff! But like... react to stuff is kind of ALL she does. Just about every action she takes is an action for the benefit of someone else. In other words, she cares about people, but she'd rather people not care about her.
In the game, she's kind of boxed in to her role as Phoenix's mentor. No matter what's going on, she remains calm and stoic. Even when it's a matter of life and death to Maya (who's pretty much her only family at that point, and as established in the last game, the person she cares about above all others) she still stays either ^_^ of >:, depending on which would help Phoenix more at that point. Think about Reunion, And A Turnabout: Maya's life is on the line, and it's highly implied that Mia knows right from the beginning what's going down. She knows who Pearl is covering for, she knows what really happened to Maya, hell, she even knows which pieces of evidence Phoenix will need to prove it. So Mia could have gotten Maya out of jail right then and there, but she DOESN'T. She nudges Phoenix into doing it himself. Now, a lot of this, is because she's dead and she does accept her deadness, but I think her acceptance of her death ties into how much she allows herself to be Just His Teacher. Mia doesn't act in her own interest, she acts in Phoenix's interest. (Except for when she's being a vindictive bitch. There are three major times I can remember her being an absolute bitch: against Redd White, first time up against Franziska, second case against Dahlia and the finale of T&T. In all these cases, she's dealing with something she cared about from BEFORE she came to be in mentor mode.)
TRIALS AND TRIBULATION SPOILERS ARE GO!
But then game 3 kind of turns that on it's head. Through the flash-back cases and Bridge to the Turnabout, we see a side of Mia that we don't see much before. Ok, so here I'm going to differentiate between mentor!Mia, and everything that happened before that. It's like... her bangs are a metaphore for her heart. When she had bangs she had a warm, open heart, but now that the bangs are gone, there are walls.
So let's talk about young!Mia. Minimia has a lot of feelings. A lot of feelings that she wants YOU to know about. In her first case, she's practically wearing her heart on her sleeve. She picks a nearly impossible case for her first one, because she just can't turn her back on Terry Fawles. She takes everything that happens there very personally and when she can't save him, she completely breaks down right there in the courthouse. She wants to stop being a lawyer right there, right like that. Canon is kind of a bitch and doesn't show us how Diego convinces her to keep going (I like this fic here), but I think it is pretty well implied that it was Diego who got her back on her feet. When he talks about it in 3-5, he speaks of "a deep wound on her heart." I think mourning and moving past the Fawles case was the first step in building that armor of hers.
But wait! What about all that independence we talked about? How is it that someone so independent would need a big strong man to help her out. Well... I think that this is the first time that she actually needed someone else. In school with Lana, Lana was certainly someone she looked up to, and probably someone she loved, but I don't think Lana was ever someone Mia needed. For a while there, she really, really needed Diego. He got under her skin in a way that no one else had ever been allowed to, and no one else would ever be allowed to again. And she lost him. It's not just that he died. No, if he died, she could have mourned him and moved on, or hell, she's a Fey, she could have talked to him whenever she wanted, but he was asleep. So like... there was this piece of her... and she couldn't let go of it, and the wounds on her heart wouldn't heal, and the pain was just too real her skin should crack and peel etcetera BUT NOT REALLY. Clearly, Mia's not a big emo kid. And this essay is not here to say DEEP DOWN MIA IS VERY SAD :(, because no. But deep down there ARE feelings. And people don't get to see them. And it's not like she NEEDS to have people under her defenses. She's pretty well-adjusted.
In the whole year that Mia has been at camp, she has had exactly ONE thread where she was showing what she really felt. (Her thread with Phoenix after the Hoboggart, I'll try to find it.) But other than that, she's very good at making sure the conversation stays about other people's feelings. And that's just fine by her. She would rather be helping people with their feelings that really giving much attention to hers.
Mia and human emotions:
I think if there was one word to describe Mia, it would be independent. This makes a lot of sense, both her indirect and direct characterizations agree: Mia is Single Female Lawyer fighting for her client, wearing sexy miniskirt and being self-reliant. She runs her own law office in her 20's, and in a world where being a defense attorney is really frickin' hard, she's made quite a name for herself. This also agrees with what we're told of the Fey women. Fey women are strong-willed and independent. In fact, if they don't remain self-reliant, they lose their powers. At least partially because of this, very, very few marriages in Kurain stay together. Mia's father died when she was fairly young. That means the best role-model marriage she had was her aunt and his husband who... married her for power and then stole her kids when it turns out she wasn't powerful any more. GG Kurain love! So keep this in mind, we'll get back to it later.
So now we've established that being very independent is an intrinsic part of Mia's Mia-ness. That's kind of a duh. What I really want to talk about is the fact that she seems to act like she doesn't have her own feelings a lot of the time. Not that she doesn't react to stuff- she reacts to stuff! But like... react to stuff is kind of ALL she does. Just about every action she takes is an action for the benefit of someone else. In other words, she cares about people, but she'd rather people not care about her.
In the game, she's kind of boxed in to her role as Phoenix's mentor. No matter what's going on, she remains calm and stoic. Even when it's a matter of life and death to Maya (who's pretty much her only family at that point, and as established in the last game, the person she cares about above all others) she still stays either ^_^ of >:, depending on which would help Phoenix more at that point. Think about Reunion, And A Turnabout: Maya's life is on the line, and it's highly implied that Mia knows right from the beginning what's going down. She knows who Pearl is covering for, she knows what really happened to Maya, hell, she even knows which pieces of evidence Phoenix will need to prove it. So Mia could have gotten Maya out of jail right then and there, but she DOESN'T. She nudges Phoenix into doing it himself. Now, a lot of this, is because she's dead and she does accept her deadness, but I think her acceptance of her death ties into how much she allows herself to be Just His Teacher. Mia doesn't act in her own interest, she acts in Phoenix's interest. (Except for when she's being a vindictive bitch. There are three major times I can remember her being an absolute bitch: against Redd White, first time up against Franziska, second case against Dahlia and the finale of T&T. In all these cases, she's dealing with something she cared about from BEFORE she came to be in mentor mode.)
TRIALS AND TRIBULATION SPOILERS ARE GO!
But then game 3 kind of turns that on it's head. Through the flash-back cases and Bridge to the Turnabout, we see a side of Mia that we don't see much before. Ok, so here I'm going to differentiate between mentor!Mia, and everything that happened before that. It's like... her bangs are a metaphore for her heart. When she had bangs she had a warm, open heart, but now that the bangs are gone, there are walls.
So let's talk about young!Mia. Minimia has a lot of feelings. A lot of feelings that she wants YOU to know about. In her first case, she's practically wearing her heart on her sleeve. She picks a nearly impossible case for her first one, because she just can't turn her back on Terry Fawles. She takes everything that happens there very personally and when she can't save him, she completely breaks down right there in the courthouse. She wants to stop being a lawyer right there, right like that. Canon is kind of a bitch and doesn't show us how Diego convinces her to keep going (I like this fic here), but I think it is pretty well implied that it was Diego who got her back on her feet. When he talks about it in 3-5, he speaks of "a deep wound on her heart." I think mourning and moving past the Fawles case was the first step in building that armor of hers.
But wait! What about all that independence we talked about? How is it that someone so independent would need a big strong man to help her out. Well... I think that this is the first time that she actually needed someone else. In school with Lana, Lana was certainly someone she looked up to, and probably someone she loved, but I don't think Lana was ever someone Mia needed. For a while there, she really, really needed Diego. He got under her skin in a way that no one else had ever been allowed to, and no one else would ever be allowed to again. And she lost him. It's not just that he died. No, if he died, she could have mourned him and moved on, or hell, she's a Fey, she could have talked to him whenever she wanted, but he was asleep. So like... there was this piece of her... and she couldn't let go of it, and the wounds on her heart wouldn't heal, and the pain was just too real her skin should crack and peel etcetera BUT NOT REALLY. Clearly, Mia's not a big emo kid. And this essay is not here to say DEEP DOWN MIA IS VERY SAD :(, because no. But deep down there ARE feelings. And people don't get to see them. And it's not like she NEEDS to have people under her defenses. She's pretty well-adjusted.
In the whole year that Mia has been at camp, she has had exactly ONE thread where she was showing what she really felt. (Her thread with Phoenix after the Hoboggart, I'll try to find it.) But other than that, she's very good at making sure the conversation stays about other people's feelings. And that's just fine by her. She would rather be helping people with their feelings that really giving much attention to hers.