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Godot (pronounced GOD-oh, gə-DOH, or go-do) was the mysterious coffee-loving prosecutor for Phoenix Wright's cases from October 2018 until February 2019. He held an open grudge against Wright (although it would be some time until Wright would find out why), intentionally mispronouncing his name as "Trite" to show his contempt.

Defense career

Main article: Turnabout Beginnings
Diego Armando



Diego bleeding

Armando's hand bleeding after breaking his coffee mug.


Five years later, Armando miraculously woke up to the smell of coffee. Upon awakening, however, he learned that Mia Fey had been murdered two years prior by Redd White, CEO of the blackmailing Bluecorp company. Furthermore, Dahlia Hawthorne had already been brought to justice. Armando blamed Fey's understudy, Phoenix Wright, for her death, and resolved to protect Mia's sister Maya. He became a prosecutor to test Wright's worthiness to succeed her, as well as to gain privileges to spy on Morgan Fey, whom he knew had tried to frame Maya for murder before and perhaps would attempt to kill or otherwise harm her again. He began wearing a special visor over his eyes that enabled him to see, although it was limited in that he could not see red on a white background. Considering his old self to have "died", he took on the new name "Godot".

Prosecuting career

Main articles: The Stolen Turnabout & Recipe for Turnabout
Godot Trilogy Art

Reborn as Godot.

Godot made his debut as a prosecutor in the Mask☆DeMasque trials. Sly, sarcastic, and intolerant, he began to put pressure on Wright. When the defendant, Ron DeLite, was declared not guilty of theft, Godot prosecuted the subsequent murder case to challenge Wright again. Nonetheless, Wright managed to prove a private detective named Luke Atmey had created an alibi of larceny to prevent murder charges against himself. Near the end of the murder trial, Godot saw Maya channel Mia so that she could help Wright.


Final trial

Main article: Bridge to the Turnabout

One day, he overheard Morgan telling her daughter Pearl about a letter she had hidden, which would give her instructions for killing Maya Fey. Oblivious to the letter's purpose and unable to understand some of the words, Pearl attempted to carry through with the plan, telling Phoenix Wright and Maya about Hazakura Temple. Godot contacted Iris, a nun at the temple, and Misty Fey, Maya's mother, telling them about the plan and asking for their assistance. Misty had by then taken on the new identity of children's book author Elise Deauxnim, as she had left her hometown after being humiliated during the DL-6 Incident eight years prior.


Godot With Elise&#039;s Cane Sword

Preparing to stab the Misty Fey-channeled Dahlia Hawthorne.




Godot&#039;s mask exploding

Godot's mask exploding.


At this moment, his eye wound from the knife stab began to bleed through the visor. When told about it, he said simply that red does not exist in his world, and that they were in fact his tears. In truth, he had problems with forgiving himself. He gave Maya the same advice he had given Mia on her first day in court: "The only time a lawyer can cry is when it's all over."



You're saying that if something isn't normal, it simply isn't possible? Where does that leave the porcu-headed lawyer and the topknot chick over there... and the ungodly cool guy with the mask over here? Well, Trite?
Godot Mugshot

Mugshot as Godot.

Armando's talent as an attorney was matched only by his hot-shot confidence that bordered on smugness. He was generally very calm and collected, rarely being rattled even when at a serious disadvantage. This sheer ability to keep his cool was on display while helping Mia Fey through her first trial. He retained this trait in his new persona as Godot, as he was the only one unfazed by Furio Tigre's intimidating demeanour.

Godot had a particular habit of using countless metaphors and quotes constituting his "rules", though their meanings were often lost on others. He would also often let out a short, derisive laugh before proceeding with his remarks. However, his most distinguishing feature was his deep love of coffee. He was known to drink seventeen cups of coffee per trial day and had at least 107 different personal coffee blends, with his personal favorite being #102. His coffee was known for being exceptionally bitter and hot, which he considered a point of pride. Many of his metaphors were related to coffee, leading Wright to refer to them at one point as "Coffeenese".


Protecting others

Godot's actions since Mia's first trial can be understood in terms of his attitudes toward women. Some of his "rules" resembled a chivalric code toward women, and he was fond of referring to women by pet names, such as calling Mia "kitten". While his interactions with most men were relatively ordinary, with most women it seemed that he had to make it personal, whether in a positive or negative way. An example of this is in his dismissive attitude toward Franziska von Karma, saying, "Hey, Filly. Know your role, and shut your mouth. I can't stand women like you." Additionally, his murderous hatred toward Dahlia Hawthorne led him to "kill" her, even though she was already dead.

The most notable manifestation of this aspect of Godot was in his obsession with protecting Mia. Upon learning of her death during his coma, he felt immense guilt for not being able to save her, despite the fact that he had been very much powerless to do anything about it. Godot ended up projecting many aspects of this guilt onto Phoenix Wright, blaming him for Mia's death even though he similarly could not have had the foresight to do anything about it. In addition to this, he used Maya as a proxy for Mia in his fixation on protecting her. These two goals motivated him to become a prosecutor and eventually concoct an elaborate plan to have himself "save" Maya from danger instead of talking to Wright to prevent the whole thing from occurring to begin with. Such was the recklessness of the plan that it ended in Misty Fey forfeiting her life and Iris temporarily taking the fall for the crime, whilst Godot simply hid and waited for his opportunity.

Although Godot proved a formidable opponent to Wright, who called him "the most dangerous enemy I've ever faced" up to that point, his main concern was not in prosecuting but in carrying out what he would later admit was his "stupid fantasy". His actual arguments past his opening statement and witness testimonies would frequently boil down to repeatedly insisting that Wright had no proof to back his claims up. In fact, at times he would downright not bother to protect his case, such as when he let Wright prove Ron DeLite's alibi against his theft charge in order to stick a murder charge on him, or when he let Wright trick Furio Tigre into indicting himself for the poisoning of Glen Elg. This is a sharp contrast to Wright's previous opponents, who would go to great lengths to keep their cases alive.

Godot was more concerned with demeaning and taunting Wright, even occasionally throwing his coffee cup (filled with boiling hot coffee) at the defense attorney's head in court. He tried to make Wright feel the guilt that he felt, using Ron DeLite's murder accusation and Pearl's inadvertent role in Morgan's murderous plan to make his point. In the end, however, Godot realized that everything he was doing was based on his own guilt rather than any actual malice toward Wright, and accepted his fate as Wright proved that he was Misty's killer. Godot's actions ultimately forced Wright to confront his own conception of what it meant to protect and save others.


  • The name "Godot" originates from the Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot. This is furthered by Luke Atmey's comment that "some people spend their entire lives idly waiting for his appearance", a reference to the aforementioned play, in which two men wait for an acquaintance named Godot to arrive, contemplating suicide if he does not show up, effectively "waiting a lifetime". Godot himself also references the play when he states that "There wasn't anyone waiting for me when I woke up".
    • Samuel Beckett stated that "GOD-oh" was the correct pronunciation for the character in his play.[1] Despite this, the name is often pronounced "gə-DOH" in the United States, as is the case in the English dub of the anime adaptation. In Japanese, the name is pronounced "Godō" (ゴドー), which is also the case for the Ace Attorney character. This particular pronunciation is implied in The Stolen Turnabout, when the judge mispronounces his name as "Prosecutor Gobo".
  • His real full name was likely chosen as a reference to his alias; "Godot" is a portmanteau of the last syllables of "Diego Armando". It also shares the same initials as an acronym for both defense attorney, which Armando was, and district attorney (i.e., a prosecutor), which Godot became. Another possibility is that it is a reference to the famous Argentine soccer player and manager Diego Armando Maradona, who is famous for his "Hand of God" goal during the 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter final against England and suspension from the sport due to drug use.


  • Ace Attorney art director Tatsuro Iwamoto based Godot's appearance on the character Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer in the sci-fi thriller film Blade Runner.[2]
  • Godot was originally going to smoke and drink bourbon whiskey, but this was changed to an obsession with coffee to be less of a negative influence on children.[3]
  • Godot was originally intended to have an animation in which he would slam his bench with his foot. This idea would be eventually implemented with Barok van Zieks in Dai Gyakuten Saiban: Naruhodō Ryūnosuke no Bōken.[4]
  • Some of the English name ideas that were scrapped for Diego Armando included Joseph Cuppa, Xavier Barstucks and William Havamug.[3]
  • Godot's color scheme is, on many levels, a completely inverted version of what he wore as Diego Armando. Red and green are chromatic opposites, as are black and white, which are evident in his shirt, hair, and tie. The absence of red (with the exception of his visor) and presence of white in his color scheme as "Godot" may be a reference to his inability to see red on a white background.
  • Godot's visor glows in the dark. This is shown in Recipe for Turnabout as well as in Bridge to the Turnabout. The light from the visor is brighter in the latter than the former.
  • Diego Armando and Raymond Shields are, to date, the only defense attorneys met in-game who do not openly wear their attorney badges.

Cultural references

  • During Turnabout Beginnings and Bridge to the Turnabout, Armando/Godot says "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth." This a paraphrase of something often said by the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes in several of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, including The Sign of the Four.
  • Godot's mask bears a superficial resemblance to the battle visor worn by the character Cyclops from Marvel Comics' X-Men team. However, in terms of functionality, Godot's visor more closely resembles the vision-enhancing VISOR device worn by the blind character Geordi La Forge from the science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Other media

  • In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Wright has a number of alternative costumes he can wear, the color schemes of which are all references to other characters. One of the choices is based on the color scheme of Godot's outfit. Godot also appears, along with Franziska von Karma and Miles Edgeworth, as cards in the game's Heroes and Heralds Mode. One of Wright's post-victory lines mentions Godot's Sherlock Holmes-inspired quote, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth", before stating that a "coffee-loving prosecutor" once said that. Wright also mentions that "I'm not a big fan of things being thrown at me... but at least it wasn't hot coffee!", referencing Godot's habit of throwing such beverages at the defense attorney.
  • In the Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney special episode Reunion, Hershel Layton tells Luke Triton that the group has had enough tea for the moment. Wright, Maya, and Espella Cantabella all then begin trying to work out how many cups they've had, which turns out to be 17 in total. Maya then wonders why the professor stopped there, and says, "Maybe the professor has a rule when it comes to drinking tea [...] You know, something like... 'I never drink more than 17 cups of tea during any given puzzle'." This is a reference to Godot, who would often state things to be "one of my rules", with one such rule being that he never drinks more than 17 cups of coffee during a trial. The fact that this is a reference is even pointed out in a fourth wall-breaking comment by Wright, who tells Maya that she "might want to think twice about using that kind of Ace Attorney reference here".


  1. Piepenburg, Erik (2009-04-30). "Anthony Page of Waiting for Godot Teaches Us How to Pronounce Its Title". New York Times. Retrieved on 2015-02-14.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Hsu, Janet (2014-10-31). Ace Attorney Trilogy - Surprising Tidbits You Never Knew! Capcom Unity. Retrieved on 2014-11-01.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations characters