I don’t talk about it on main a lot, but one of my favorite aspects of Leo’s character is that he’s never able to be a traditionalist character like he so desperately wants people to believe. We joke so often about him being dorky and so by the book, but typically, as the story delves deeper into exploring his character, it’s generally something he struggles with because of his complexes.
It’s more obvious in 2012, from his character design to the lessons he’s meant to learn and his parallels to Yoshi and Saki’s backstory. When he’s struggling, the first thing he grapples with is his relationship to following the teachings of the Hamato clan in some way.
It’s practically a running gag in 2003, where he constantly pushes these ideas of following the rules but he also has a tendency to break them. It’s the main conflict of 2007 Leonardo’s relationship to his family and why he took so long to come back from his trip. The prequel comics focus more on his struggle with staying out of human affairs and following the code set by Splinter, only for him to finally come back home in the movie and try to re-enforce the rules that caused such a divide among them in the first place.
He’s too strict, he’s too lenient, he strays too far from his team, he relies on them too much. Sure, he’s dorky and by the book, but there’s still a problem when he isn’t.
It’s (imo) why he latches so close to Karai, because she’s such staunch proof of what freedom from the responsibility of traditionalism is. Her role, for the most part, is to make him question his ideals. Sometimes she’s his mirror, sometimes she’s his polar opposite when you analyze them through a different lens. But, she’s always meant for him to reflect on where he stands.
He’s an unintentional hypocrite, but his arc is meant for him to understand that they’re not meant to follow these traditions when they don’t even follow the laws of biology.
And, when discussing hypothetical runtimes, Rise would’ve been such an interesting way to further explore his relationship with traditionalism separated from his role of leadership. Usually, we see him grapple with having the role removed in different ways varying on the narrative, but still having a complex about his relationship to ninjutsu when he isn’t the leader would’ve been something so different and additive to his character. He’s shown, from the beginning, to have a bit more proficiency with his katanas than his brothers and I always wondered why that was the case, even if it was just for a gag.
