#effiesketch

First, let’s look at her motivations. Why is she so determined to bring psychology to the courtroom? It all started 7 years ago.

Athena, at 11 years old, walked in to the robotics lab one day to find her mother murdered. Doing what she thought was right at that time, Athena had her mother’s body moved to the robot operating table in an attempt to “fix” her. At that moment, Simon Blackquill entered the room. Believing Athena was the killer, Blackquill carried her away from the scene and confessed to the murder of Metis Cykes as a way of protecting her daughter.

Blackquill’s trial ended after a single day as he did not put up any resistance to the charges. Athena tried the best she could to help him, so she took the stand. She claimed that Blackquill was not the killer, because she heard his heart screaming that he didn’t kill Metis. The court ignored Athena’s ridiculous claims, and pronounced Blackquill guilty. In a couple of days, Athena lost two people close to her and was taken away to Europe to live with her relatives.

Determined to make her voice heard, she took it upon herself to become a lawyer to personally overturn Blackquill’s conviction. Despite her ability to hear emotions being ignored during the UR-1 trial, Athena never stopped believing that emotions and psychology could be used to help people in court; so she incorporated her hearing ability into her arsenal as a lawyer.

Actually, let’s examine Athena’s power, hearing the “voices of people’s hearts.” It is the result of two things: sensitive hearing and empathy. Highly sensitive hearing is a sensory issue which can occur in children and adults alike, in addition to other highly sensitive or weak senses. Empathy is the ability to feel the emotions that other people experience, and Athena has this in abundance. She displays strong reactions to other people’s emotions, such as crying when she hears sadness and being startled by anger. Athena is still as empathetic now as she was back then.

When Athena decided to become a lawyer, she also studied psychology as a way of augmenting her hearing ability as well as to make her claims more believable. When Athena uses the Mood Matrix in court, she pinpoints the contradictory emotion and deduces the reason the witness is feeling that emotion based on her knowledge of psychology.

As a child, Athena was very quiet and kind. Her hearing was even more sensitive back then, so she often missed school because she couldn’t handle being around many people. Being able to hear emotions from so many people at once overloaded her senses. Hearing emotions from speech was normal for her (she grew up around robots who could do the same), which was why she took the stand to try to help Blackquill, but it wasn’t normal for everyone else. Being dismissed for such abstract concepts hurt her deeply. Perhaps the reason she covers her ears when recalling the UR-1 incident is because she is trying to block out the negative emotions she heard.

Athena’s courtroom trauma is triggered when her arguments are ignored. She thinks back to the UR-1 trial, and believes she is doomed to relive the same experience. She became a lawyer so this wouldn’t happen again.

Compared to today, Athena is an enthusiastic, outgoing, and brash person. She appears to have changed completely, but she really hasn’t. She is still very sensitive and highly empathetic. She has a positive attitude because she wants to help in any way she can, and because she doesn’t want people to worry about her problems (remember she apologizes to Phoenix for not telling him she was connected to the SpaceCenter). She realized that one day she needed to fight back, and this is why she is eager to show what analytical psychology can really do.

Look at how confident she is when using analytical psychology.

Depending on whether you consider this canon or not, recall the trailer in which Athena says “Forget about me and you’re gonna pay dearly! Got it?” This says a lot about Athena’s character compared to her 7 years ago. She is determined to show the world what she can do after she was ignored.

effiesketch makes a brilliant point about Athena’s character.

“…while Athena is shown to be physically strong, all her real strengths come from traits that are typically seen as feminine and “weak” (empathy, emotionalism, compassion) and I think strength through femininity is very important” 

The reason her power works is because of those traits

But it’s not like she’s a good little girl all of the time. She is overbearing and overemotional. She has no problem with tricking people into getting what she wants, and jumps between emotions frequently. I don’t have the picture, but she says something along the lines of “If he won’t talk, just say ‘Oh whatever shall we do?’ That always works!” Phoenix and Apollo, in particular, don’t exactly condone these methods. She also acts like a jerk to Myriam in the Themis trial, which makes Myriam depressed and question the direction of her life.

Don’t be a jerk, Athena.

Remember how Apollo’s actions (leaving the Agency because he doubts her innocence) affect Athena. Before the final part of Turnabout for Tomorrow, Apollo apologizes for what he did. Athena, however, considers him a friend for thoroughly thinking about what kind of a person Athena is. Athena feels valued as a person.

 Actually, I wonder if Athena made any friends when she was in Europe. It seems unlikely, though; considering she never mentions any, and her reaction to Apollo’s actions, as well as the fact that she had a lack of social skills due to her limited contact with the world outside the Space Center. 

The final thing I want to address is another fault Athena has: she places an incredible amount of pressure on herself to save her friends. Of course, she can’t do it on her own, because she also has to deal with her trauma. In Turnabout Countdown Phoenix takes over from her, and in Turnabout Academy Apollo and Juniper and her friends assure her she’s doing the right thing. It’s thanks to Phoenix defending her in Turnabout for Tomorrow that she finally gets the courage to face her past. She needed somebody on her side, and Phoenix is the kind of guy who will be on your side when nobody else is. That’s why he’s a lawyer.

Near the end of Turnabout for Tomorrow, we can see that Athena succeeds in bringing psychology to the courtroom.

So after the UR-1 retrial, Blackquill’s name is finally cleared, and Athena realizes her mother loved her all along. With her goal of 7 years achieved, she can cry at last, because the nightmare is finally over.