Why does she want to kill Diana even before the Elders's order? That's NOT the Leona we know. Everything else is fine, including the fact that she came to value life after a personal evolution, not just always having been like that - but why would she want to kill as heretic someone who clearly found something actually existing? Why wouldn't she want to know what it's about first, and then dissuade if there's a problem, before even thinking about conflict?
Leona has good intentions and is a nice person, but her definitions of what's "good" are probably a little warped by the Solari, who have shown that they aren't exactly the most welcoming and helpful folks, considering they murdered all of their competition.
To her, "Heretic" is probably like "Mass Murderer", it's about the worst thing you can do.
I agree with you. They made Leona a lot more aggressive in this lore. I mean, even is she was being brainwashed, the Rakkor told her to kill, but she didn't, and that was part of her identity. In this one, she didn't even show selflessness and I just feel like they made her too aggressive. Like, yes, Leona would see DIana as a heretic at first, but when Diana begins to speak, Leona is like "woah wait maybe we should listen" but before Leona can speak up she would be KO'd by Diana, and Diana would only hesitate to kill Leona since Leona had never done anything to hurt her.
If I'm not mistaken Diana topped the mountain before Leona did. So Leona was still all hard core Solari at the time and was probably just as single minded as her elders. After the attack she tops the mountain herself and has a bunch of revalations of her own. Towards the end of the story Leona doesn't seem to want to kill Diana in her search for Diana.
The only thing I didn't like about the story was that Pantheon didn't get to retain his human side after topping the mountain like the other two did. And his story really doesn't do anything to align its self with the other two. Leona and Diana were like two different vantage points of the same story, Pantheon's was just kind of their.
I like to think she was kind of brainwashed.
I also like to believe that with her new knowledge, she may change her opinion about Diana just a bit.
Leona's greatest strengths; her zeal, passion, and conviction...these things are a double-edged sword. Before the truth was revealed to her she still held these traits, they were just misplaced by the lies and incomplete picture Leona was being fed by the Solari. She truly believed that the Solari's teachings were what was best for everyone and so anything that threatened or interfered with them would be evil.
I like this better.
Personally, I never liked how Leona always seemed so much _better _ than the rest of her people. To me, it cheapened her. I started to see her as smug. Zealous. 'Holier than thou.'
But that isn't how brains work. In reality, you are not raised in a culture like the Rakkoran one without being, at the _very _ least, indifferent towards death. On Targon, it would be very, very common. It would be something Leona was very used to seeing, and ending, because on Mount Targon, such is life.
The new version is better because she actually has balls enough to end a life, and yet can still recognize an innocent, undeserving soul when she sees one. Which is more foresight than the common person in that society would have, but not so different that it makes Leona seem ill-fit for the culture.
