Dahlia Hawthorne

Dahlia Hawthorne is the hidden but true central antagonist of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. Cruel, heartless, and manipulative, Dahlia lives only for herself and will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Dahlia is introduced as the ever-sweet, ever-innocent Friend to All Living Things girlfriend of Phoenix Wright, but Mia already knew that something was wrong with her. Turns out she tried to frame Phoenix for a murder she committed AND Phoenix himself was originally supposed to be the victim. Mia eventually unmasks her and put her behind bars and eventually, on death row. However, her criminal career started several years before, when she seduced Terry Fawles and used him to fake her kidnapping in an elaborate plan to get back at her family. When the plan didn't go as planned, she faked her own death and got Terry convicted to death for it, then killed her own stepsister and co-conspirator, again framing Terry, to stop her from confessing. In the following trial, she narrowly escaped conviction by manipulating Terry into committing suicide and, a few months later, poisoning then-defense attorney Diego Armando.

She was eventually used by her mother, Morgan Fey in her plan against Maya Fey, by calling her back from the dead via channeling after she is executed a month before the final case of Trials and Tribulations, but even then Dahlia still carried on her own ambitions and revenge, although it is later found out that she willingly did so for her own benefit. It takes the powers of all the main attorneys and prosecutors (even Edgeworth, Franziska and Godot) to stop her from getting Maya in jail for matricide. She eventually forced to be back to the afterworld by Mia Fey.