leon's potential death in re9
i am finally on holiday (because mind you i'm working full time + qualifying for the bar + applying for phds so i rarely have a second to myself) and i promised i'd write a first contribution to the leon in re9 discourse, albeit probably not all that interesting but it gets my ideas flowing
someone asked me if i think leon is going to die in re9
and my immediate gut reaction was no, absolutely not, and not so much because i don't want him to die (lol), but because i am failing to see the point in the current context.
now i've been thinking about it while finalising my current project at work, and i don't know if my no is as firm as it was a few hours ago, but i am still not on the 'leon is 100% dying in re9' team.
first, let's have a look at the reasons that would be compelling enough for capcom to kill him off.
tragic end for a (somewhat) tragic character
i don't know if leon is THAT tragic of a character (though i certainly need to brush up on my greek tragedy definitions), but there is a certain appeal in giving him a tragic end. this guy was just a random rookie cop who got tricked into joining the fight against BOWs by the government, thereby giving up his life for a greater cause that he sometimes might fail to believe in (see: leon's disillusionment with the US gov, as exemplified by, inter alia, death island). it's sad enough that he never gets to go on vacation, but this guy went though so much shit and struggles to form meaningful relationships so much that he ends up alone most of the time. he's burnt out, he's depressed, he's had enough.
requiem basically means rest for the dead, right? but imo, requiem in the context of re9 will also entail finding peace for grace and leon in their personal lives. now, finding that peace does not have to happen through death, but the idea of leon dying while fighting what he has fought since the beginning can be poetic in itself (nb: can be, because that's entirely up to the player/viewer/etc.). it's a quick and easy way to give leon an end that's satisfying enough and can be emotional enough (read: easy tear-jerker) for the fans.
if capcom decides that we've reached the end of leon's arc in the current timeline, the best option for them would be to retire him indefinitely. in that case, they have two options:
one, they retire him like anyone would retire at the end of their career, and leon just goes on a long vacation and never approaches BOWs again. there is a way to make that payoff meaningful and emotional enough for the viewer without it happening through death (and i am a strong believer that the best ends for characters do not rely on death just to provoke emotion. if you kill off characters because you can't figure out any other way to incite an emotional reaction within the public, then idk man maybe you lowkey suck as a writer). can capcom pull it off? do they want to? that remains to be seen.
two, that retirement is by killing leon off. this can be combined by option one (tragic end) as described above. his death can serve both purposes; but the probability of his death happening then depends on whether that combination of factors is enticing to capcom, in which case it's a very likely road.
3. passing on the torch to grace
i touched upon this point briefly back in august when i was asked about the leon is grace's father theory (which i have not kept up with - can someone please tell me what the general opinion on that is atm?). leon's retirement/death is a good way to establish the creation of a new main cast that people pretty much have to deal with. i don't think it's a good enough reason, but if you kill off leon with a good enough emotional payoff (esp if he's her father) and you establish grace as his successor, you have a convincing enough way to make people even more interested in grace and willing to have her as the new face of the RE franchise.
now the jurist in me cannot resist a good balancing test, so these reasons have to be balanced with the reasons to NOT kill him off, so to keep him alive and relevant as a character.
it's leon, goddammit. one of the faces of the RE franchise. one of the most beloved characters in the fandom and in gaming in general. killing him off removes any possibility of featuring him in entries that take place AFTER re9. sure, they can always make games centred around leon before re9, to fill some gaps in the timeline/time jump, but eventually these possibilities will get old and limited. and capcom needs to make that profit, and games with leon in them are a surefire way to make money. have you seen the way people reacted to him being in re9??? that tells you everything you need to know.
2. death does not fit his character arc according to capcom's plans
by that, i mean that capcom studied their narrative choices and ultimately decided that his death does not fit within the story that they have chosen to tell. this is a weaker argument compared to the first one, because i am not sure that storytelling would outweigh financial reasons.
there are for sure other reasons that i have not thought of, but this is just a first thought exercise. i can and will probably change my mind later when given more info.
so basically, the problem statement ends up being the following: is the financial and narrative investment that follows leon's presence in future games significant enough for capcom that it would outweigh the possibility of his death? in other terms, is killing off leon worth the financial risk and perspectives for the franchise?
i can't tell you yes or no for sure, because i neither work at capcom nor am knowledgeable enough about their creative choices or the world of gaming in general to support my answer with precedents. in my humble opinion, i don't think the end of leon's arc has to happen through death, and i'd wager that capcom might actually settle on some form of retirement that leaves things open-ended enough that they can establish grace as a new mc, while keeping the possibility of leon appearing here and there in the future. but that's just me. so if you have any thoughts, please share, or if anyone has theorised about his death before, send me the posts, i'd love to read
(btw this post is not concerning itself with the trailer for now and the fact that leon is potentially infected. him being infected doesn't equal death. but it could also mean that. remains to be seen, i'll check out the trailer to analyse it in more detail and i will post more about various aspects of it, but i need to catch up with the discourse first lol)
(also this is super half-assed lol i wrote this in 30 mins after my shift and i'm essentially on some stream of consciousness type shit. please don't come at me but do bring constructive replies)
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