My Thoughts On Leon
Been thinking about this, so I decided to make it a little more public.
Personal Thoughts/Representation/Common Stereotypes/General I Suppose
So let’s start off with the main thing people think of when they think of Leon, that being the infamous—
Besbaw - I will say this, and many or some may not really agree with me, but I sort of get sick of the overused generalizations and stereotypes that Leon absolutely hates baseball. He does not. Many of you who roleplay with me, or see my retarded ass around have probably read my feelings on it. Some of the things about it are funny, but mostly it’s faded to an overused meme. When Leon is first introduced, he’s introduced as the rebellious all-star wanting to turn punk rock.
We’ve all had a favorite childhood movie, right? The one you watch so much that your parents want to throw it away or burn it? Then you grow out of it, or it sits on a shelf until you feel nostalgic enough to watch it again years later. Baseball is like that to Leon. It’s something he loved to do all of his life, maybe even something he was conditioned into doing by his parents. Whatever the case, Leon was dedicated to it but as he grew he lost the spark he once felt. We all go through career and goal changes as we grow and I believe that Leon did just that. He grew away from wanting to further himself in baseball due to his new interest in being an up coming rock star. When Leon came into Hope’s Peak Academy, he was a man caught in transition, a man stuck in mid-goal-change. Later in the game, he admitted to Naegi that he missed baseball.
Again, this is Leon feeling that same nostalgia, wanting to return to the past just as you would with your childhood movie. As much as Leon bitched about it, he never hated it. It held a place in his heart and it was merely a career change, a part of him growing up and a deep part that a lot of people mischaracterize and miss entirely.
There is also the fact that Leon is highly insecure in his image and will do whatever others like to gain attention. It’s even stated in his free-time event with Naegi that he would change his punk rock image if Sayaka was not interested in that type of guy. He also dyed his hair upon induction into Hope’s Peak because a hairstylist he liked fancied red-heads. Leon is willing to change himself in order to get people to like him, which threw him into confusion over his choice of super high school levels. Few people delve into his character enough to even see these things.
Leon is a weenie- This sort of goes without saying. A man with arms like that isn’t weak. Leon is a baseball player, do any of you know the amount of upper body strength a baseball player has to have? The average speed for a professional baseball player is 80-95 miles per hour, which is why he shattered Hagakure’s crystal ball and why he broke Sayaka’s wrist. If Leon had truly wanted to, and he was malicious about killing Sayaka, he could have easily killed her with his bare hands.
Also, if you know you’re losing a trial and the price is your life, then you’d break down, too. It sends a sense of panic through people who are being faced with that option when it’s a special case like that. It’s illogical to call a character such a thing when they’re fixing to die. I’ll touch more on that later on, however.
This brings me to my next point in case:
Leon is a snap-dragon type- What do I mean by that?
Let me tell you. People tend to think Leon is a douche bag. Welp, ding dong you are wrong. People just don’t understand his type of character, but amazingly enough we ALL got Mondo. This is relevant and I will tell you why later. What you guys miss is that even though Leon had a short existence, he had characterization. It was there but hardly any of you chose to look for it. For Leon’s characterization, you had to dig. It’s not surface material. He didn’t get the proper characterization due to his limited exposure and what most people got was this brash rebel who was angry at everything.
I’ve got to tell you guys, Leon is pretty much an insecure Mondo. They are built from the same mold, only Mondo was graced by deep characterization. The snap-dragon type applies to both characters, in the fact that they respond to everything with irrational anger. If you hurt them, they bitch at you and act defensive, if you make them sad, same reaction, if you embarrass them, same reaction. Of course this would make Leon seem like a douche canoe, he reacted to everything with anger to hide his feelings. Leon undoubtedly kept an image, it’s written all over his character and into the fact that he hated that his baseball team made him cut his hair, dye it back to it’s original color and shave.
Leon is also observant, noting a joke Hagakure made and asking him if it was supposed to be funny, when no one else knew how to take it. He pays attention to details, which is why he was also one of the few characters to care about the disposal of clues. He made sure there were no hairs left int he room, and he tried to dispose of his bloody clothes.
Leon actually has pretty frail nerves. Look at his trial, he fell apart in literally seconds his tough guy facade melted away instantly and all of his pain, fright and insecurities were out in the open. He was cellophane in those moments before his death, and it was very different from Celes or Mondo’s executions.
Someone who is trying to find themself and who is unsure of who they really want to be, that is what Leon was, a man in transition, just like every other teenager in high school. I’m sorry but he was a normal person, more so than Mondo, who led a rough life in a biker gang, accustomed to bad situations and death or Celes who led a life of fabrication and high rolling.
Sayaka’s Murder:There are many ways to go about this, and the manga and game are slightly different albeit canon all the same, so let me break things down the best I can without being confusing.
In the game, we can all agree that he undoubtedly murdered her. However, the thing I do not get is why people find it so damned horrible that he did. Sayaka premeditated his murder. I’m sorry even you Sayaka roleplayers/fans know this is true. Sayaka was going through emotional hell, wondering about her friends and if they were truly dead. Locked away from the outside world with no contact and being under pressure being forced into a sick genocidal plot by Monobear. She switched the name plates, wrote him the letter and planned to kill him in Naegi’s room, switch the name plates back and frame him for the murder. Sorry guys, whatever Leon does beyond this point is self defense and at least he was not actually set on carrying out Monobear’s orders. You can point your fingers at Leon for being a horrible person but do not DARE defend someone’s innocence who premeditated a murder.
In this situation two wrongs did not make a right, both parties paid for what they did but I want to tell you all a few things that maybe you didn’t notice or you forgot.
In the manga, Sayaka locked Leon in the room with her, driven by anxiety, sorrow and the poor child was half crazy. She wanted out, she was sick and consumed with worry over her friends and family. In truth, she didn’t want to but she wanted out. Her love for her friends and concern over their very lives drove her to take matters into her own hands. I’d like you guys to think about the mental preparation and state of mind you have to be in to plot someone’s death, being a normal person imagine that you have to be put in that situation. It would be incredibly hard to go against your very morale. Even if Sayaka lived and graduated, past this point she would never be the same with multiple murders (you die if you give the false accusation in these trials, kiddies) on her shoulders.However, look at this from Leon’s point of view, he’s locked in a room while someone is repetitively trying to slash his throat and stab him, but does Leon fight back? Does he instantly take the knife away and turn into some crazed killer? No. He tries to calm her down. He tries to stop her and reassure her that he’s not going to kill her. Sayaka refuses to give him the knife and they struggle over it. It’s unsure if she slipped and stabbed herself or if, in the tussle, Leon slips and stabs her. Either way, it’s an accident. Leon is outright horrified that it even happened.
That is not malice, that is regret, pain and sorrow.
That is not killing her on purpose. That is an accident.
Leon is also a victim.
Okay let’s talk about the game. This scenario is different. Leon, according to the trial goes back and unhinges the door to kill her. You could call that cold blood, but it’s sort of not and I’ll tell you why.
Do Any Of You Even KNOW What Kind Of Mindset He Was In? Did any of you think about his circumstances and what was going on in his head?
I have.
Imagine that, you’re locked in a building where you can’t have any contact with anyone you knew, with 15 other people who are supposed to be your classmates, only to find out that you have to kill them in order to get out. Not only that but you have to kill them and get away with it, killing everyone in turn. Last man standing and you live, and you’re not even sure that’s the truth. You have valid reason to fear and be paranoid of everyone, and at any moment someone is waiting for you to crack while you’re waiting for the frayed ends of their sanity to come unraveled.
Then, you go to someone’s room late at night, thinking it’s just a harmless thing and they come at you with a knife and try to kill you. Are you going to let them? Hell no you aren’t. There is a mechanism in the human mind called a fight or flight response. It kicks in when you’re in danger and you either fight or run. Leon, being the snap dragon type I mentioned earlier is going to fight. If Sayaka locked him in the room, he really didn’t have a choice then. Mind you, the rooms are soundproof. Even if Leon screamed, no one would hear him. You cannot convince me that he’s not scared shitless and desperate to live.
The pressure finally crushes that frail psyche he has. There are several things going through his head. He feels betrayed, scared, hurt, panicked. He has to get away somehow, he’s desperate. So he does the only way he knows how. If you have ever been through an intense situation where your life is being threatened you have a huge amount of anxiety going through your body. It takes a powerful amount of emotion to trigger the flight or fight response.
Yes but what about the part where he goes back and gets the screwdriver?
When you’re in that situation, everything is a blur. Leon was probably afraid that if he left her alive that he would have to constantly live in fear of being killed by her, to fear that she’ll come back and kill him. What if Sayaka told everyone even if he escaped and she lived? Her wrist was broken. She could easily turn someone against him. What if she finishes the job? By this point, Monobear’s rules and their situation is wearing on Leon’s mind as well. Who does he trust? Look what happened? Killing someone is better than living with the aftermath of fear. In turn it would only deteriorate his mental state further. He had to get rid of the problem. Kill or be killed. Maybe killing her would get him out of the hellhole he was in, even if he had to die in order to achieve it?All of these thoughts occur within a fraction of seconds. It’s an altered mental state and if any of you can tell me that you can step outside of yourself at this level of rash decision and immediately calm down and ask yourself what you’re doing then you are wrong my friends. The human mind does not think rationally with that type of adrenalin.
You cannot just stop and go, ‘hey this is wrong’ because at that point, there is no right or wrong.
Since I have studied quite a bit of criminology, given the game scenario, given Leon killing Maizono, those actions are classified as a first time killer. In a criminal mindset, most first time killers experience this intense rush of adrenalin from the fight of flight mechanism and they feel an overpowering wave of emotions. They kill in a blur and that’s what Leon did. With such an intense mindset, little reaction time he wasn’t in his right mind. He wasn’t even himself. First time killers, after making their kill are appalled with themselves, most of them throw up from the intense feelings, some get sick, some even have heart attacks.
This is only a surface scratch of Leon’s psychology at the time.
In the manga, Leon was the sacrificial lamb.
Everyone with eyes can see it. Leon did not purposely kill Sayaka. In fact, he went back to get the screwdriver so he could check on her, if you go by the manga-verse render.
Solid evidence would be in Sayaka’s final moments. Sayaka’s last words to Leon was that she was sorry, as she was writing his name on the wall behind her. Sayaka didn’t even want things to end this way, and she felt bad for incriminating him. If he actually killed her with full-blown intent, why would she say that? You don’t apologize for incriminating someone with just actions behind what they did. Explain to me how that signifies Leon being malicious, it’s undeniable evidence that it was an accident and he didn’t intentionally kill her.
Leon was the sacrificial lamb. He was thrown under the bus because the class had to. If they did not kill him, they would all die and one death was better than multiple ones. They had to throw Leon under the bus. There was not an option in the matter. This is true with any storyline, and it was in no was defined as justice was served.
Leon and Mondo are JUST alike.
You bet your ass they are.
Leon and Mondo are both brash snap dragons who hide behind their projected image. Mondo is accustomed to death and violence being in an infamous biker gang, but Leon is a bit more like a punk kid. He lacks the mental stability that Mondo does, because Leon wasn’t raised in an environment where he had to harden up for survival.
The main difference is Mondo became a deeper character and Leon was viewed as shallow. They were both the bad boys of the group, but projected in slightly different ways. Mondo was a ruffian and Leon was more your delinquent who rebelled against conformity. I think if Leon lived longer, he and Mondo would be great friends. They were both passionate about their dreams, and they had that pugnacious, stubborn quality to them.
Let me ask you this: how is what Mondo did better than what Leon did? How is it that they murdered someone in the same blaze of passion and they got two different receptions by the fandom?
Mondo, who is noted for his anger issues (sound familiar? Yeah, Leon has those, too.) got so emotionally sucked into feeling like less of a man because Chihiro, who idolized him, was surpassing him and he couldn’t stand it. Out of anger and pain, Mondo killed him. He didn’t mean to, he lost control. So did Leon. Leon lost his mind and was afraid Sayaka would kill him, so he went back and killed her in the same blazing passion.
Okay, would someone PLEASE tell me how the hell this was fair? It’s not. I love Mondo, he’s my second favorite character in Dangan Ronpa but I sort of just feel like it’s bullshit that this sort of thing happens, to be bluntly honest.
Mondo’s character was deepened and his bond with Ishimaru made it more tragic. What if Mondo had died first? What if he was the one who got the least screen time? Would you think of him like you thought of Leon if their situations were reversed?
Leon’s reactions during his trial were not those of a guilty man.
You can say he was crying and begging out of guilt, but I call bullshit.
First off, Leon had time to go through the stages of grief: shock, anger, sorrow, depression, acceptance. Even with the allotted time, he still cracked. He still fought with the few defenses he knew how, even as his determination slowly deteriorated he took it to his grave that it was self defense. Leon had time, he knew he was guilty and he knew on a distant level it would happen. That’s why he burned his jacket. No one would have believed him and past that point, he knew he just had to hide the evidence.
Now, look at Mondo and Celes’ executions. They knew they did it and they accepted their fates. They willingly went to their deaths. If Leon had truly done it, wouldn’t he have done the same given the allotted time? Leon is not inhuman.
If Leon had done it, I think he would have done what Mondo did and eventually admitted it after being backed into a corner.
But he didn’t. Leon was drug to his execution site. Despite everything, Leon cried and pleaded. This was because he didn’t purposely murder Sayaka. He was scared out of his mind, and he had no way out. Leon fell apart, just utterly fell apart. He knew what would happen and his worst nightmare came true. The rules were explained to him. He’s not stupid.
If you look at the context clues, Leon seems a lot more like a person and a lot less like a douchebag, doesn’t he? I will defend this to the end, Leon is a victim. Hate him as you may, think he’s a douchebag all you want but if this can change your opinion at least a little then I’ve done my job.