| “ | Right and wrong are not what separate us and our enemies. It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us. | „ |
| ~ Squall Leonhart |
Squall Leonhart is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy VIII.
In the English version of the game, he is voice provided by Doug Erholtz, while in the Japanese version, he is voice provided by Hideo Ishikawa. In the English version of the first Kingdom Hearts game, he was voiced by David Boreanaz, but Erholtz reprised his role for Kingdom Hearts II.
Appearance[]
Squall is a tall teenager with unruly brown hair. He is also usually seen in a black leather bomber jacket with a white shirt underneath. He wears black pants along with three interconnecting belts and black boots and gloves. He has a silver chain necklace with a Griever pendant and a matching ring. In a duel with his rival, Seifer, they both end up giving each other mirroring scars.
Skills[]
Squall is noted by his instructors to have a remarkable aptitude for combat, starting his combat training at the age of six and mastering the Gunblade, a notoriously tricky weapon to use, by his teen years. Despite the memory loss that resulted from their use, Squall is also proficient in the use of Guardian Forces, Junctioning a variety of powerful creatures from Quetzalcoatl, to Bahamut, to the mighty Eden, amassing a wide range of magical attacks in the process. He was lauded by his instructors as very gifted at magic, and he makes a habit of using the Garden's patented "Meta-Magic" to draw a large variety of spells. Meta-Magic is process of taking a Guardian Force into yourself and sharing their aura, to allow the user to not only summon them, but manipulate the same forces of magic they can - even drawing spells from the auras of common monsters and enemy humans. His prowess eventually grew to the point that he became the Legendary SeeD prophesied to bring an end to Ultimecia once and for all.
Battle Skills[]
Squalls highest stats are his Attack, Magic and Health Points - making him a particularly devastating offense. While he has high affinity with certain "GFs" - (Guardian Forces) - like Shiva and Diablo - his Spirit Stat - which determines how effective GF's are in battle, is actually fairly moderate. His Accuracy and speed are also moderate and his Vitality Stat is his weakest - meaning though he has high health it can be depleted fairly easily; However Squall's high affinity with GFs means he can easily unlock their abilities including the GF-Vit ability which let's him use various magics he collects to boost his Vitality stat. His Limit-Break is Renzouken - which allows him to channel is chi/spirit's energy, into his gun blade firing either spirit boosted ammunition or forgoing ammunition and just using the gun barrel as a channel for his chi. His gun-blade can do extra damage is the shoulder-buttons are triggered in timing with each hit, meaning if the player is good at syncing their hands with Squall's on screen attack a normal hit's damage can be doubled each time he attacks.
Biography[]
Final Fantasy VIII[]
At the beginning of Final Fantasy VIII, Squall is known as a "lone wolf" because he never shows his feelings and seems unresponsive to his associates. His superiors including his teacher Quistis Trepe consider him challenging to deal with but respect his talents. Squall is stoical and his taciturn nature used for comic relief. He is forced into a heroic role midway through the game when Cid, headmaster of Balamb Garden, appoints him the leader of the academy. During a late battle against Galbadia Garden, Squall has difficulty leading because of his lingering isolation. Although other characters try to become less reserved and Rinoa Heartilly expends considerable energy pursuing him, it takes time for him to accept the others' friendship, and fall in love with Rinoa. Later in the game, Squall becomes more comfortable in a leadership role, especially when he must fight Ultimecia.
Throughout the game, Squall has a rivalry with Seifer Almasy. The two characters scar each other at the beginning but later they are supposed to cooperate; they still quarrel, however. Although Seifer later allies with the Sorceress, requiring Squall to fight him several times, Squall still feels a camaraderie with Seifer.
According to flashbacks during the game, Squall grew up in an orphanage with the other playable characters, except Rinoa. The orphans were cared for by Edea; although Squall remembers little about his past, he becomes an emotionally detached, cynical, and introverted boy whose goal is to go through life without emotional ties or dependence. He gradually warms and his detachment from his companions is later revealed to be a defensive mechanism to protect himself from the emotional pain he suffered when he and his older step sister were separated.
After Ultimecia is defeated, the time and space she had absorbed begin to return to normal, pulling Squall's comrades back into their places in the timeline while Squall returns to the orphanage and meets a younger Edea. Squall plants the ideas for Garden and SeeD in her mind, creating an origin paradox; Squall must become the leader of Balamb Garden so he can pass its version of SeeD tradition to Edea, who teaches them to her husband Cid, who co-founds Balamb Garden, which admits Edea's orphans—including Squall.
Other appearances[]
Squall appears as a non-playable character in Kingdom Hearts, in which he wears a short leather jacket with red wings on the back and a Griever necklace. Squall takes the name Leon as an alias because he is ashamed of not protecting those he loved from the Heartless when his home world the Radiant Garden was consumed by darkness. His role in Kingdom Hearts is to help guide the protagonist Sora in his battle against the Heartless. Although Squall's appearance and age differ—he is 25 in Kingdom Hearts— and 17 in Final Fantasy VIII), his personality remains the same. A memory-based version of Squall (as Leon) appears in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories teaching gameplay in a tutorial. In the sequel Kingdom Hearts II game, he works with his friends to restore their world alongside Sora while facing the army of Heartless creatures used by the villains, Organization XIII.
Personality[]
Squall starts as an introverted and taciturn teenager who keeps his distance from those who would otherwise be considered his friends. Though withdrawn, Squall does not back away from his duties of protecting others and is often thrown into the role of leadership. Squall ensures that what is necessary for the mission's success gets done. His pragmatism and sense of responsibility lead others to trust and follow him. Even though everyone agrees that Squall has a hard time opening up, the Garden staff and students alike to admire him, and eventually he is appointed as the Commander of Balamb Garden during a time of disarray. Though at first he dislikes his role as leader, his comrades are looking to him for orders and advice. In truth Squall is as confused and tense as most of is allies, but considers it professional to keep those feelings hidden - as such he resents being assigned as "The Professional"/"The Leader"/"The Ace" when he is actually just a confused young adult trying to adapt. Though Squall's memory has been affected by the use of Guardian Forces, he can still recall the blanked memories when his attention is drawn to them; For example Squall remembers Ellone as his sister, but forgets her exact facial features or that she was his adoptive sister, but when meeting her again as a teenager he is easily able to connect her to the girl she was when he last saw her. Squall never qualifies Ellone as his "adoptive sister" despite knowing it - unlike with Edea being "matron" - a foster-mother, to him and he never addresses Laguna as "father" or anything close even after finding out he is his biological son. As far as he is concerned Ellone is his only full family member despite not being biologically related to her.
During the game, Squall narrates his thoughts and feelings in silent voice-overs, during which he reveals he acts the way he does for fear of getting close to people due to the trauma of his past. Squall cannot remember his parents, and his sister was taken away when he was young, making him afraid of losing the feelings of comfort loved-ones provide. Squall does not believe in relying on others, as friends and family are inevitably lost, and in the end, he will be alone. Squall comes to rethink his choices in life when he falls in love with Rinoa Heartilly and comes to accept the support and friendship of his comrades, becoming more social. This more open version of Squall is more or less how he is characterized in the Kingdom Hearts series. He retains his value of independence but learns that being the person who thinks differently from the crowd, and being completely alone, are not one and the same.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- His voice actor in the Japanese version of the game, Hideo Ishikawa, who also voiced Itachi Uchiha in the Japanese version of Naruto.
- His voice actor in the English version of the game, Doug Erholtz, who also voiced Asuma Sarutobi and Kankuro in the English version again, Naruto.
- Squall is stated to be the last one to leave the orphanage and never adopted - implying Cid and Edea are his legal guardians as owners of Garden.
- It is entirely possible to miss the crucial piece of dialogue that connects Squall to Laguna as his biological son - as to get it, Squall must speak with Laguna before his assault on the Luanatic Pandora and nothing actually draws his attention to meeting with "President Laguna".
- Even if met in-person, Squall does not consider Laguna being his biological father anything more than a curiosity and is far more connected to Ellone as his sister, along with Edea and Cid as his mentors and legal guardians.
- There is no explanation for Squall's last name being "Leonhart". Either it was Raine's maiden-name and assigned to him when he left the orphanage, or it was Edea's maiden-name which was assigned to him after being transferred to Garden but before her marriage to Cid and gaining the sur-name 'Kramer'.
- Squall's biological father nearly married Rinoa's mother, but was kept from returning due to his military service - making their very family lines figurative 'star-crossed loves'; But implying either was a hair away from not being born and only got the chance to fall in love because both of their same-sex parents missed their chance with their first love.
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 Heroes
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