| abstract
| - Squall Leonhart is a supporting character in the Kingdom Hearts series and leader of both the Heartless Resistance and the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee. After the destruction of his world by the Heartless, he changed his name to "Leon" in an attempt to amend for his mistakes. Leon is twenty-five years old at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and twenty-six during the events of Kingdom Hearts II. He is several years older than in Final Fantasy VIII to match the ages of the other Final Fantasy characters he appears alongside with. Along with Yuffie, Aerith and Cid, Leon came from Hollow Bastion and fled to Traverse Town when Maleficent took over the castle. Leon helps Sora with advice and information in the first game, and in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories teaches the player many basic concepts for the card-based battle system. In the original game, a special gummi ship blueprint called Leon can be obtained by defeating 4000 Heartless and talking to Geppetto. In Kingdom Hearts II, Leon leads the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee and works towards restoring the ruins of Hollow Bastion to the home he and the others once knew. Despite his rival, Seifer, also appearing in the game, the two never interact or even exist in the same world, although both have their trademark scars. In the ending FMV Leon receives a letter, its contents unknown, and a pair of pink wings floats from it indicating it may be from Rinoa. In both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, Leon is a boss in several Coliseum cups and shoots fireballs at Sora when not close enough to strike him with the gunblade. After beating the Leon/Cloud tag-team in the Hades cup in Kingdom Hearts, the player receives the Lionheart Keyblade. In Kingdom Hearts II, Leon gives the player the Sleeping Lion outside of Ansem's computer room before they fight the MCP. Both Keyblades are modeled after the Revolver version of the gunblade. Squall was the main character of Final Fantasy VIII. He is studying to become a full-fledged member of the mercenary force known as SeeD, and specializes in the Gunblade, one of only two current cadets to do so. Ordinarily introverted to the point of seeming rude to others, he is forced to take a role of leadership as the world moves toward conflict, similar to his taking on leadership of the Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts after the fall of Radiant Garden. "Leon" shares his pseudonym with the English name of the Final Fantasy II character Leon, whose original Japanese name is shared with Squall's surname, Leonhart. Leon, along with Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie, and Cid were originally set to appear in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. They were ultimately removed from the game because, according to Nomura, there were already too many plot lines, and it would have become confusing. Also, Tetsuya Nomura has stated in an interview that the main reason he had Squall change his name to "Leon" was in order to avoid spoiling the revelation of Squall's big role in Mickey's first letter to Donald. Also, Leon is shown to have the wings of Rinoa Heartilly, his lover from Final Fantasy VIII, on the back of his jacket, implying that something which specifically happened to her was a major factor in Leon changing his name. Leon makes an appearance in Kingdom Hearts χ [chi] as one of the obtainable character cards.
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