#leon+kenndey

[grilde1chesse]

no actually why does krauser have this ☠? & why is it so well worn???? it looks like hes been caring it around for a while bro... where was he keeping it? ,':-/

[deep-sea-blob]

These are the more serious interview excerpts from the Darkside Chronicles guidebook which kind of stuck out to me:

Since these are from before the remakes and there seem to have been some reworking of the whole Operation Javier event, these are probably not even directly in reference to canon anymore. [Plus RE has so many different directors and developers it's more like A Take rather than The Take, but I thought it was an interesting perspective.]

The Krauser part is pretty straightforward. Minority complex, betrayed by his employer, sees Manuela's survival as a way for him to achieve the power he craves. In the later parts the director talked about how if Manuela would have died, Krauser never would have put his hope in the virus or gone to search out Wesker, and would have remained one of "Leon's buddies". That later part definitely speaks to both a rework of Leon and Krauser's relationship in the remake (I think Krauser's insecurities are far more heavily projected onto Leon in the new version), but also removes any direct evidence that Leon is particularly aware of Wesker's machinations. Krauser works for Saddler not Wesker in Re4R, and Leon never asks Ada about Wesker either. The most interesting part in Leon's description is how the developers characterize Leon's forced cooperation with the government both as being motivated to protect Sherry, but also as a "timely godsend." Here Leon's strong desire to eradicate the viruses actually lets him see the government's proposition as far more aligned with his own desires than straightforward extortion. I think it also makes for an interesting parallel with Krauser. Both enter this Faustian Bargain for the power to follow their convictions, the main difference of course being that Leon did it to help people, and Krauser for revenge. I'm not sure if that characterization of Leon still applies to the remakes, where I'd say he is a more virtuous person than his OG counterpart ever was. Leon not just remaining with the US government, but becoming a key figure in its BOW defense agency in the older media however does make a lot more sense to me personally if understood as part of that bargain for power to protect people he struck years earlier.

[moonlight-hwa]

Leon should be glad he’s doesn’t exist…because if he did I would jump him

[deep-sea-blob]

Leon's gilded cage

I was kind of thinking about how we tend characterize the coercive elements of Leon's relationship with the government. For the sake of lovely, lovely whump it's tempting to color it in terms of total, disposable neglect but realistically the US government would treat him more like one of their prized nuclear warheads, ie they will do everything to maintain operations capability and keep him content. By Re6 he has a trusted relationship with the President, is involved in DSO R&D and has a pretty high security clearance. None of these things would happen if US intelligence would deem it still necessary to "beat" him into submission, at this point they consider him a trusted asset. (If threatening his loved ones or a sympathetic antagonist of US interests were still enough to get him to abandon his objectives, that would make him a massive liability on the calibre of missions he gets sent on.)

The US government would make sure he has save and comfortable housing, health care, and time off to recuperate when possible. He provides them with something no one else can, they're not going to shirk a couple of 100k or even million out of their gazillion dollar military budget to save on Leon Kennedy up keep costs. In Vendetta he is at his lowest but very notably he got time off because the failure of his previous mission clearly took its toll on him. Despite Arias running amok, the DSO didn't call him back in to work, it was Chris who tracked him down. (It's the BSAA who we've seen canonically push their medically unfit soldiers back in to the field.) I think it's tempting to think of the US government as all stick but realistically it's the ability of abusers to be caring that makes them so effective. Leon being comfortable is paramount to keeping him in the fold, to the point were he becomes so complicit in the system that even the thought of leaving is no longer viable. None of this is to undermine how terrible Leon's situation is, but that slow assimilation is far more insidious than the initial blackmail.

[doodlesofthesexytype]

My RE4 otp. ow o ♥