Leon: Empathy, humanity, and survivor's guilt
I think by far my favorite aspect of Leon's character is his humanity. He's been through hell, and despite how he sees himself, his empathy and humanity shines through in just about every situation.
We see it first in 2R, with his immediat+e guilt for not being able to save a complete stranger, panicking and struggling to catch his breath so he can explain himself to Marvin, who Leon's also never met. (Elaboration on this scene here.)
And this survivor's guilt and feeling of inadequacy comes back in full force in 4. In the supplemental book for the original 4, we even get explicit mentions of Leon's guilt and how he feels that he's lost a bit of his humanity. He understands that a lot of these infected BOWs were once innocent people who likely had nothing to do with the situation at hand. They don't deserve to die, but he has to put them done to save himself, because that's his mission. And this becomes even more complicated when you think about the added context that Leon didn't want to do this job, he was forced into it.
We see this desperation, this need to "repent" for not being able to save a city full of strangers from a incident he had nothing to do with emerge in 4R too. "This time, it has to be different," and Krauser uses various insults about Leon being too soft, too weak, and not being able to protect anyone to try to provoke him during their fight.
And then in ID, despite the fact that it's been 8 years since RC, Leon still hasn't forgiven himself, he still hasn't moved on. He's angry when he recounts his story to Jason, specifically pointing out the failings of the government and how they truly didn't care.
And if the previous examples weren't big enough emotional punches all ready, Damnation puts everything into a spotlight. He's been fighting this war for so long that all the violence and death is normal to him. He thinks he's going to hell for what he's been forced to do, that he's a monster who's lost his humanity. But he still has to keep fighting, he can't take his own life because it'd be a disservice to those that were killed, that he "failed to save." He has to keep living, to keep suffering through these missions and near-death experiences to "repent" for everyone he couldn't save.
(click to enlarge the novelization screenshots, tumblr cropping fucked them up lol)
Then there's RE6 in which Leon repeatedly mentions how it's just like RC, something he swore to himself he'd never let happen again. He's on a time crunch, he's got shit to do, he has to keep himself alive and yet he's desperate to save as many people as he can. Even though Lizzie is clearly infected, and so is her father, yet Leon doesn't even draw his gun. He tries to talk to Benford at first even though he knows logically that he's not coming back from this. And he even argues with Helena, snapping back at her and saying that they'll make time to save the people they meet along the way. Then, when he sees the people holding up help signs, he immediately gets ready for action, but Helena has to gently remind him that there's nothing they can do because it's already too late. He turns his face away from the monitors, unable to look at the people being killed.
While it was cut from the movie, we got to see yet another example of Leon's extreme empathy in the Death Island manga. Even after everything Maria had done, what she'd done to Leon specifically too, he holds her while she takes her last breaths, comforting her to ease her into death.
This doesn't even go into the subtleties of it either. Of Leon trusting Luis, holding his hand and getting teary-eyed when he dies even after learning Luis had been a part of Umbrella. He does the same with Krauser, closing his eyes when he stabs him and crying afterward, saddened by what he had to do. There's also the entirety of his partnership with Buddy/Sasha and JD in Damnation, how he joins forces with both of them and does everything he can to save Sasha-- and he does, successfully-- even after they'd kidnapped him and threatened him.
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