Squall Leonhart

Squall Leonhart
'Final Fantasy series character
File:Final Fantasy VIII-Squall Leonhart-Render 5.jpg
First game	Final Fantasy VIII

Squall Leonhart (スコール・レオンハート, Sukōru Reonhāto) is the protagonist from Squaresoft's (now Square Enix) role-playing game Final Fantasy VIII. He was designed by Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshitaka Amano, with heavy influences coming from game director Yoshinori Kitase. As the lead character of Final Fantasy VIII, most of the game centers around Squall's perspective.

In the game, Squall is a 17 year old student at Balamb Garden, a prestigious military academy for elite mercenaries. As the game's story progresses and as Squall sparks friendships with Quistis Trepe, Zell Dincht, Selphie Tilmitt and Irvine Kinneas, and a growing romance with Rinoa Heartilly, he gradually turns from a loner to a more open and caring person.

Squall has appeared in several other games, such as Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts II, and Chocobo Racing. His weapon, the Gunblade, also appears in other works.

Appearance and development

As part of a theme desired by Kitase to give the game a foreign atmosphere ("foreign" being in relation to Japan), the objective with the character designs was to give them largely European appearances. The first character Nomura designed specifically for use in Final Fantasy VIII was Squall, initially giving him longer hair and a more feminine appearance. However, Yoshinori Kitase felt that this design did not work, and asked Nomura to shorten his hair and make him look more masculine, which lead to the final design of Squall seen in-game. When designing Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VII's lead protagonist, Nomura gave him distinctly spiky, bright blonde hair, so as to emphasize his role as that game's main character. With Squall, Nomura wanted to try another unique angle to establish Squall's role, giving him the now trademark gunblade scar across his brow and the bridge of his nose. There was not yet a complete history conceived for the character, so Nomura left the explanation for Squall's scar to Nojima. Squall's design was completed by a fur ruff along the collar of his jacket, included by Nomura for the purpose of challenging the game's FMV designers, being but one example of the demands he has consistently extended to the programmers of the Final Fantasy titles as technology has advanced.

File:GunbladeopeningFFVIII.jpg

Squall's gunblade, as seen in the game's opening credits

Also as part of Squall's design, Nomura wanted to include silver accessories, which took the form of his ring, necklace and weapon. Squall calls the lion "Griever" and it seems to be symbolic of his angst and takes on significance as the plot of the game progresses. Squall's weapon, the gunblade (a revolver-sword hybrid that functions primarily as a sword, given a damaging vibration feature by use of the gun mechanism), was also intended to offer a new way for players to control weapons in battle, though, by Nomura's own admission, he feels that the weapon bears an odd appearance. Squall's model is simply called the 'Revolver', though he can upgrade the weapon at junk stores throughout the game. Squall and Seifer are the only gunblade specialists who appear in the game, although Laguna Loire also uses one very briefly.

Squall's physical appearance consists of medium-length brown hair and cold blue eyes. Character designer Tetsuya Nomura has stated that actor River Phoenix was the influence for Squall; both share the same birthday and physical appearance. A small scar runs diagonally across the bridge of Squall's nose; he received it at the beginning of the game in a training duel against his rival Seifer Almasy, and left Seifer with a similar (mirror-image) scar in return.

Overview

In the game, Squall is known as a "lone wolf" by his peers, especially when they wish to understand how he is feeling. Even compared to the originally indifferent Cloud Strife of Final Fantasy VII, he comes off as cold to his allies. His superiors, such as his teacher, Quistis Trepe, regard him as difficult to deal with but greatly respect his natural talents. He is known to be stoic in some situations. His attitude is also used for comic relief. In the cutscene where he first meets Rinoa, she coerces him into dancing with her at the SeeD graduation ball. He awkwardly bumps into other partygoers while staring constantly at his feet with a look of confusion. Rinoa, however, perseveres in partnering him, and Squall eventually reveals that he's quite capable of dancing, as it is a mandatory aspect of his training.

Squall is unwillingly dragged into the role of the hero when headmaster of Balamb Garden appoints him as leader of the academy early in the game. He is often thrown into a leadership role, as is evident in the Timber and Galbadia missions. During a late battle against Galbadia Garden, Squall demonstrates some leadership difficulties, which are tied to his isolationism that has yet to be vanquished. Likewise, other characters have to make efforts to pull him out of his isolation, and Rinoa has to expend a lot of energy to pursue a romance with him. It takes considerable time for him to accept the others' offered friendship and become romantically involved with Rinoa to the point where he develops an attachment with her. As time progresses, he grows more comfortable with the leadership role, especially when it comes time to defeat Ultimecia, the main antagonist.

Throughout the game, he has a distinct rivalry with Seifer Almasy. The opening sequence depicts the duel in which Squall obtained his characteristic facial scar (and subsequently gave an almost identical one to Seifer) and scenes in which Squall and Seifer are supposed to be cooperating are characterized by squabbles between the two cadets. Later, Seifer allies himself with the Sorceress, requiring Squall to battle him several times. Nevertheless, despite their conflict, Squall still feels an underlying comraderie for Seifer, and mourns him in his own way when he believes Seifer to have been executed after an attempted kidnapping of Galbadian President Vinzer Deling.

According to flashbacks in the game, Squall grew up in an orphanage, along with practically all of the other main characters—Zell, Seifer, Selphie, Irvine and Quistis. Though he remembers practically nothing of this past, it causes him to develop into an emotionally detached, highly cynical and introverted boy (his original goal is to go through life without any emotional links or dependencies). However, Squall gradually warms as the game progresses, and it is later revealed that his deliberate detachment from his companions is a defensive mechanism in order to protect himself from emotional pain, like he experienced when his older sister figure at the orphanage, one of the sole emotional supports in his early life, was forcibly separated from him.

Upon defeating Ultimecia, as his comrades are pulled back from time compression into their own respective places in the timeline, Squall takes a detour back to the orphanage, where he encounters a younger Edea. Since she does not want to involve any of the children, Edea ends up absorbing the dying Ultimecia's powers as part of the cycle of sorceresses (a sorceress must pass on her powers to a successor before she is allowed to die peacefully), and wonders aloud about endings and beginnings (dialogue mirroring words to Squall years later, on Disc 3). Squall plants the ideas for Garden and SeeD in her mind, creating a loop in which he must become the leader of Balamb Garden so that he can make it to this point again.

There are strong indications that Laguna Loire is Squall's father. During flashbacks involving Ellone, Squall constantly is placed within the body of Laguna, despite the fact that any of the other SeeDs in Squall's party can be placed in Kiros or Ward's bodies. If Squall travels to Winhill after Garden is activated, he will encounter inexplicable visions of Raine throughout the town. Ellone also mentions that Raine died—apparently in childbirth—and that she had a baby boy. When Squall is captured, all the Moomba keep reffering to Squall as Laguna. Toward the end of the game, aboard the Ragnarok, Kiros and Ward make commentary as to Squall's resemblance to his mother and his dissimilarity to his father. Laguna also intends to speak on something to Squall, but he opts not to due to the circumstances. As of his current surname, its still a mystery of how he got the name "Leonhart".

Appearances

Kingdom Hearts

Squall "Leon" Leonhart as he appears in the Kingdom Hearts series

Squall "Leon" Leonhart as he appears in the Kingdom Hearts series

Squall was included as a non-playable character in Kingdom Hearts, although he looks older and similar to Laguna Loire. He no longer wears his fur coat and wears a short leather jacket and has the greiver necklace. He goes by the name Leon because he is too ashamed of his past in not being able to prevent his world from being taken over by the Heartless. (though Yuffie occasionally refers to him as Squall, much to his annoyance). "Leon" is voiced by David Boreanaz in the English language version of the game and Hideo Ishikawa in the Japanese version. He assumes the name Leon because he was unable to protect those he cares about from the Heartless when his world was consumed in darkness. He would go by his real name once the Heartless are defeated for good and his world is restored. There is also a Keyblade in the game called "Lionheart", with a keychain resembling Griever, a reference to Squall (received after defeating Leon and Cloud in the Hades Cup Tornament at the Colisuem). Leon also held the Earthshine Gem which contained Simba, he gave it to Sora, and with the help of the Fairy Godmother, Simba became a Summon. His role in Kingdom Hearts is to help to guide Sora, the game's protagonist, on his battle with the Heartless, alongside various other Final Fantasy heroes. While his appearance and age change (in Kingdom Hearts Leon is 25 , whereas in Final Fantasy VIII, Squall is 17), his personality remains the same. A memory-based version of himself appears in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

He returns in Kingdom Hearts II and was voiced by Doug Erholtz for the English version . Here, Leon is seen to be slightly more cheerful than he is seen in the original Kingdom Hearts — which could depict his personality after Final Fantasy VIII. He actually fights along side Sora in one of the fights in the beginning of the game. He also has a change of clothes more like the one in Final Fantasy VIII. He is a partner of Cloud Strife who joined forces with him in the Hades Cup in the original Kingdom Hearts. Sleeping Lion, a Keyblade in Kingdom Hearts II, is another reference to Squall. Leon seems to be the leader of the "Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee", which is composed of the returning Final Fantasy cameos from the first Kingdom Hearts and includes Merlin. Leon also plays the largest role for any Final Fantasy character in Kingdom Hearts II story wise and is the only Final Fantasy character that has relations to King Mickey and works very close to Sora and company. Leon is also the only Final Fantasy character in the game to come face to face with the Organization and fight the Nobodies. At the ending credits of Kingdom Hearts 2, Leon is seen opening a letter that many fans believe to be from Rinoa.

Other

Squall is an unlockable character in Chocobo Racing and Itadaki Street Special. In addition, a 2D sprite of Squall occasionally makes an appearance on the loading screen of the PlayStation version of Final Fantasy VI.

Squall's gunblade, the Lionheart, appears as a Paladin weapon Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It also appears as a high-level sword for Tidus in Final Fantasy X and a Keyblade weapon for Sora in Kingdom Hearts. The gunblade also makes an appearance in Parasite Eve II as a weapon that the gorilla like Number 9 uses. It also becomes available for use after completing the game meeting certain requirements. In Final Fantasy XII, Gilgamesh carries Squall's Gunblade as one of his weapons.