#king's meta

[kingscollar]

not enough press, not enough media, is given to the fact that leona's expression of personality changes fairly drastically based on who he's with. what i mean by that is: epel's description of leona is so completely opposite of the way most of the cast describe him one might think he's talking about a totally different person. and i cant stop thinking about this rn

cut for rambling length 💆🏾‍♀️

this is an example of what im talking about. if you wanted to chalk some of this up to the way epel so clearly idolizes leona, that'd be fair, but i dont think that accounts for all of it. some of that i think comes down to a simple fact: in all of epels interactions with leona hes very comfortable with leona as he is

remember: (one of) leonas core desire(s) is to be accepted for who he is in the present, not who he Might or Could become. he's spent his entire life having people around him demand for him to be someone else: someone "kinder" "nicer" "happier" (someone like his older brother, a fact of his childhood that becomes one of his key breaking points during book 2). then when he fails to meet this standard he didnt agree to or impose upon himself, they berate him. this trend continues through his time at nrc too, and colours all his interactions with the cast to some extent (he gets snappish and dismissive when people complain abt his behaviour/choices, reacts immediately to insults aimed at his preferences for his appearance/spending his time, etc)

the precious few exceptions to this we get is in his interactions with characters who are less openly judgemental. epel is one of them

in a bunch of different events and vignettes (leona and epel's culinary crucible for example) we see that leona very clearly likes epel and is comfortable spending time and talking with him casually. and in all of the conversations we see leona comes off as pretty laid-back and easy-going (despite still being a bit brief - but i think thats just who he is as a person)

during their culinary crucible, epel even teases him playfully and leona reacts the way an exasperated older brother would: by waving it off instead of getting angry/annoyed. contrast that with the times other characters (who arent ruggie) do this and you see a stark difference

essentially, epel gets to see & interact with a fundamentally different leona than most others do because epel accepts leona exactly as he is. so then, the people who can manage to do that likely get a version of him that feels closest to who he Really is underneath the abrasiveness and sarcasm

[kingscollar]

my main and primary issue w book 2 in the game isn't that leona is at his worst, its that it does a poor job of explaining Why hes acting like that. all the OB crew are at their worst in their respective books - its the entire point - but id argue that everyone else's book does a significantly better job of clarifying the Whys behind their behaviour (and does so without justifying the behaviour itself); leona's book fails at getting into his head in any meaningful way, thus rendering his behaviour in a worse light than the rest despite them all managing to do some truly awful things

(in general, im not the kind of person who's bothered by my favorite characters behaving badly. its part of the story, and how can you have good character growth and effective arcs if the character doesn't start somewhere low?)

this also leads to over-correction by fans to compensate for the poor writing, but (and i genuinely say this nicely) sometimes the over-correction also misses the point. at the core of leona's overblot is the combined forces of the pressure to live up to the expectations he himself has created with his rhetoric (all of savanaclaw is relying on him to lead them to victory, to 'turn the world upside down'), his own preexisting insecurities brought about by the constant comparisons to his much older brother (sidenote: not someone who typically complains abt localizations but i really do hate that the eng loc changed leonas line wrt the way jack talks to him in book 2 from "sounding like my brother" to "talking like hes better than me," it does genuinely remove some of the nuance behind leonas frustrations), and the two consecutive years of failures as captain of the spelldrive team and housewarden of savanaclaw. correcting for book 2's mid writing while still glossing over these factors also does leona's character a disservice: it removes the fact that he does genuinely care. the reason this plan, however poorly conceived or doomed from the start it was, falling apart hits him so hard isn't because he hates malleus in particular or diasomnia in general, its because he cares about the interdorm tournament. he cares about his dorm members and their futures, he cares about the spelldrive team, he cares about spelldrive. these are things he holds dear, things that he's put blood sweat and tears into despite the general perception that he does nothing and is "lazy", and it's the fact that he still comes up against failure despite the genuine effort he's put in at something he cares about yet again that lays the groundwork for his overblot. (the final nail in the proverbial coffin is lilia insulting the tenderest part of his psyche - the heart at the center of the 800 walls hes built up - with an accuracy only seen in pro CS-GO players but this post isn't about that. also i don't even think lilia realized the target he'd hit or what the end result of that would be)

to me, the novel does a much better job of getting into leona's head - the benefits of a different medium, honestly. it spends more time explaining his emotional state (through his "own" words), the anger and exhaustion and, dare i say, hatred he feels towards himself, his desperation to have just this one thing, to be able to achieve this one thing not for himself but for his dorm members, and the hopelessness he feels when it falls apart. there's also more time spent on illustrating leona's affection for his dorm members, how their hope ends up being his hope (this includes ruggie and jack). in all it paints a fuller picture of him as a character and the driving factors behind his overblot

but book 2 doesn't really give you any of that. you get a little, about his childhood, though that's also unspecific and vague. and because of the barebones writing, his behaviour feels much worse (like i said before). it's the lack of balance, the "what" without the "why", that makes it empty

[kingscollar]

some (mildly disjointed) thoughts i had about the translation of most recent leona overblot scene from the second twst novel. unsaid disclaimer is obvi these are just my thoughts and youre free to disagree. i cant stop you

read more because i might ramble a bit 💆🏾‍♀️

i'll start by saying that i'm very grateful for the novel & yuureis translations, bc its given me so much to chew on wrt leonas psyche and mental state, much more than book 2 in the game did. i havent bothered to go looking for reactions tho, bc i can already kind of predict the takes i'll find (knowing how parts of the fandom talks abt leona generally) - and i do "get" it, in the sense that i do also feel the way he tortures ruggie before he overblots is upsetting - but theres so much to dig into here, i feel like its such a waste to get hung up on obsessively moralizing

(i'll mention here that to formulate these thoughts i'm also pulling from the translation of leona's post-overblot scene, plus some moments from the game that i'll mention specifically as i go)

for example, the things leona says pre-overblot, his meltdown about dreams being stupid and useless, how the savanaclaw students (ruggie included) aren't meant to question him; they're meant to obey quietly, sound less like actual things he's trying to tell them and more like him lashing out at himself. as in, he's more talking at them, not to them. skipping forward to book 6: there we see leona give jamil advice, but the implication underneath is that everything he's telling jamil are things leona wishes he had internalized himself - again here, he's talking to someone, but really it's also directed inwards. almost like it's easier for him to look at (and speak about) himself critically when he can externalize it as critique of other people

the other thing im curious about is the distant, detached persona he adopts when he's truly angry. this'll be quick because i don't feel i have enough information to unpack it properly, but if i allow myself to spin thoughts out from limited information: it could almost be a habit he picked up as a child - something he might've forced himself to learn as part of an effort to be seen as more of a 'model' prince. if people were afraid of his moodiness because they feared what his UM (he) could do, then if he swallows those emotions maybe he can mitigate that. this, ofc, being shot through with the expectation that, as royalty, any order he gives people will obey

the final thing, for this post at least, is unpacking the way leona lashes out at ruggie when ruggie defies him. i'm willing to make the very safe bet that most of the reading of this moment is focused on leona being angry over being defied at all, or general disgust at how small and weak ruggie is (appears) to be. and while i think both of those points have some element of truth to them, i think the larger aspect of leonas reaction is jealousy. ruggie somehow, despite everything, despite all of the disadvantages life has thrown at him, still has the courage to have determination. and i want to be very clear here: this is not me saying being poor or struggling is admirable because it makes you strong - i'm not naive and i'm not here to romanticize poverty. what i am trying to say here ruggie's tenacity - a tenacity his life circumstances developed in him - is something that leona lacks, and that's what he's jealous of. he's jealous of his inability to keep having that hope, to maintain that courage in the face of his own repeated failures

(an aside: isn't it ironic that part of the reason ruggie has that tenacity is leona? leonas tutoring, leonas effective leadership of the spelldrive club, and as housewarden?)

(an aside 2x: in many ways, 'giving up' can be seen as a luxury. ruggie does not have the luxury to give up, because it could very well mean that he doesn't eat that day. for leona, regardless of what he does he's going to have a roof over his head and three square meals a day anyway, so what does it matter if he gives up? sure, he won't be happy, but he'll be comfortable in a material sense, and isn't that enough? except, of course, it isn't - not for him. as much as he tries to deny it, he's as fiercely ambitious as the rest of his dorm)