"...the thing about Leo in Rise is that he's still developing the leader capability. Consider this: he's living how he wanted to live but never got the chance to in previous iterations. You can see in the 1987 iteration when Donnie used the "personality changer" (don't remember the exact name but it's been awhile) he was more relaxed and fun, but perhaps it wasn't a change in personality but rather a gear switch. Leo has always had the leader/being responsible opted in as like, his main thing. However clearly the personality swap had to have something to pull out, so theoretically he was always like this. I think it was a good change in pace for him.
Instead of Rise completely erasing the type of person Leo is from the show entirely, they gave it to Raphael. Yes, Raphael is aloof and a bit dumb sometimes but when shit gets serious, he toughens up and he gets stuff done. He wants the best for his brothers and tries to be responsible for them all. He's very insecure and nervous for his brother's sake, and he tries to protect them. As for honor and spirituality, the show isn't very big on it (blame Nick) BUT at the end of the day, the first turtle to show that was Raphael to get his brothers to learn the Hamato ways. Raphael was the one to help his brothers to train and tried his best to keep them grounded.
Eventually, we do get to see Leo be a leader, and sure he's not shown to be as serious or insecure as the other Leos but that's because he's RISING up to become sort of like that. Even in the movie, we saw Leo mature and kinda become like the Leo you enjoy watching. Sure, this Leo has a totally different coping mechanism compared to the others, but it's what you'd have to expect from a modern teenager (I mean, I can't be the only one seeing the memes teenagers make to cope with their lives.)
Rise didn't ruin him, but rather showed a different perspective of him that we don't get to see often. The whole show kinda makes you remember that they're teenagers. The teenagers I see becoming leaders around my school remind me of Leo alot, they're flamboyant and loud on the outside but when you start to know them is that on the inside you can tell they're insecure and feel like they have to find a way for people to like them so people listen to them.
Honestly, it works for rise, because you can see Raphael failing to get the interest of his brothers sometimes, whereas Leo can easily get people to actually listen to him. He's bold, but that convinces his brothers to listen to him. Unlike the other Leos we don't see him struggle to lead, because we slowly see that it's natural to him. To bring that aspect back, we had Raphael struggle, which leads to the eventual switch.
So that hero/for honor personality is still there, but it's in Raphael, not Leo. You have to realize that the roles switched for a reason. The purpose of rise was to give TMNT a different perspective but not everyone caught onto the perspective because it takes the subtle details to figure that out."
