Kristoph Gavin's "Friendship" with Phoenix Wright (and other thoughts)

 

As bad as he is, Kristoph Gavin is an amusing character. How did a guy like this even end up being a defense attorney? What stood out to me the most is how he acted like he cared about Phoenix when he is the one causing Phoenix’s problems. Kristoph “befriended” Phoenix after his loss of his attorney’s badge, going so far as to vote against the strictest punishment for Phoenix.

While people may do something like that out of guilt, Kristoph is not doing it out of guilt. He is doing it out of a desperate need for control. Kristoph and Klavier’s brief exchange about “spinning out of control” confirms this.

We also find out that Kristoph stalked everyone related to the Gramarye case for seven whole years, so his “friendship” with Phoenix might as well be a cover for keeping Phoenix in check. It’s a form of emotional manipulation. Kristoph would be able to say something like, “I’m your friend, so I can’t possibly be bad”. It’s not hard to imagine that deep down, Kristoph may have gained a sense of pleasure every time he looked at this miserable, disbarred defense attorney.

As if your "friendship" toward Phoenix was ever pure, Kristoph.

I may be grasping at straws here but I’d like to suggest that Kristoph’s body language also shows his need for control. Almost all his sprites show him clutching his arms – even his distressed and post-breakdown sprites! Clutching his arms symbolize how Kristoph is trying to hold everything together. It also suggests defensiveness and how he is closed-off from everyone else. Remember how Phoenix said that although they’ve known each other for seven years, Phoenix still doesn’t understand Kristoph.

Kristoph post-breakdown

Psychopathic Tendencies

Disclaimer: I am no professional. If you need help, please find a professional! This is simply an attempt at literary analysis to make sense of Kristoph’s character. This analysis may not even be accurate. 

There is a psychological assessment tool called “The Original Hare Psychopathy Checklist” to evaluate one’s psychopathic tendencies. There are 22 items in the checklist, but we don’t have enough information about Kristoph to assess them all. I will only mention the traits that we can confirm, and they should be pretty self-explanatory. If you are curious about the other traits, check out the checklist here.

• Psychopathic traits that Kristoph seems to exhibit:
• Glibness/superficial charm

 

Kristoph ticks the box for superficial charm, but perhaps not so for glibness if glibness is defined as “the quality of being confident, but too simple and lacking in careful thought” (Cambridge Dictionary). I don’t think Kristoph is lacking in careful thought. He literally planned an elaborate murder plan that doesn’t necessitate his presence at the murder scene. 

• Egocentricity/grandiose sense of self-worth

This is what drove him to frame Phoenix and kill Zak Gramarye. The screenshots are pretty self-explanatory. Kristoph thought that he was above Phoenix, or, in his own words, “that pitiful excuse for a man”. Coincidentally, this further demonstrates that Kristoph’s “friendship” was never pure. What kind of friend would say that?

Talking about Zak Gramarye

 

Kristoph also calls the jurists (who are common citizens): (1) a mindless, emotional mob of irrational mouth-breathers; (2) riff-raff; (3) ignorant swine. Kristoph thinks he is above the common people.

• Pathological lying and deception
• Conning/lack of sincerity
• Lack of remorse or guilt
• Callous/lack of empathy

• Psychopathic traits that Kristoph doesn't seem to exhibit:
• Proneness to boredom/low frustration tolerance

We don’t have enough information to determine if Kristoph is prone to boredom, but I don’t think he has low frustration tolerance. He can keep his cool. Plus, it takes quite a while to break him in court.

• Short-tempered/poor behavioral control
• Lack of realistic, long term plans

Honorable Mention: Manfred von Karma

Manfred shares Kristoph’s psychopathic tendencies. Manfred taking Miles in after he murdered Miles’ father is reminiscent of Kristoph befriending Phoenix. And, just like Kristoph, this is not done out of guilt. For Manfred, it is done out of a need perfectionism (which, one can argue, is similar to needing control). Manfred himself says to Miles that:

“You and your father are my curse! Your father shamed me with a penalty on my record! And you... you left a scar on my shoulder that would never fade! I... I'll bury you! I'll bury you with my bare hands! Death! Death!”

Since Manfred took Miles in when Miles was just a child, the emotional manipulation might have been more effective. Young Miles may have thought that Manfred cannot be bad because Manfred was the one who took him in after his father died.

Conclusion

Kristoph Gavin and Manfred von Karma do exhibit certain psychopathic tendencies, but I’m not going to go so far as to call them psychopaths. We lack sufficient information and I certainly don’t feel “certified” enough to pass such a diagnosis. Let’s just say that they seem to exhibit psychopathic tendencies more so than the mentally healthy and stable person. Their particular behavior of being “good” to the person they have hurt is akin to how murderers often return to the scene of crime!