Leona: Old vs New

A lot of people are saying that the lore changes are no big deal because the characters are pretty much the same. As a big fan of Leona I'm here to say that they're not. Ending up in generally the same place doesn't make you the same person. Skip to the analysis if you know her lore well enough already.

#Old Leona Leona was defined by her utter refusal to harm people. She detested the culture she grew up in. As a child she would routinely break up fights between bullies and their victims. In her reflection (remember those?) she doubted that she made the right choices in defending the weak. When the Rite of Kor her doubt caused her to blame herself for all of the kids' deaths.

When it was her turn to fight she refused to inflict any meaningful harm upon her opponent, Molik. Then she proceeded to publicly denounce the culture of killing and accepted her impending execution. Her friend, Pantheon, tried to convince her to finish Molik yet she still refused. Even as she was about to die she was noting her happiness in how her shame would overshadow Molik's.

Instead of being executed she was saved by the sun's light and claimed by the Solari. The Solari gave her the special armor and sword and then trained her.

At the end of her reflection we discover that she's still guilty about failing to protect all of the kids that died during the Rite of Kor.

#New Leona The first few paragraphs of the new lore describe the harsh society Leona lives in and why it's necessary to be a strong warrior. Then it mentions how Leona killed all of the creatures and "pallid, eyeless strangers" (yes, that means people) that came down the mountain without a second thought. That is until one day she had a change of heart and refused to kill the helpless, bat-wing child.

The next thing she knows she has to fight Pantheon, who ratted her out for showing mercy. During the fight they're wounding each other, and both are trying to land death blows.

Before the fight could end naturally it was interrupted by the Solari elder. It was the elder who believed that Leona would be the one to fulfill a prophecy. The section about the trial by combat ends with her being brought to her new way of life.

Following the her trial by combat she trains and studies hard, becoming a warrior-priestess. Eventually she comes to command her warrior-priest order and gains the reputation of being "just, devoted and, some might say, [a] zealous servant of the Sun." (Oxford comma where?!).

Much later she escorts Diana to the elders. Some stuff happens, some elders die, and Diana runs off. Leona claims the only path open to her is to hunt down Diana with a vengeance. Leona followed Diana up Mt. Targon, enduring by "letting fury sustain her."

Instead of finding Diana, she finds the bat-winged boy she spared so long ago. Upon taking his hand, Leona gained the divine power of the sun. She was still in charge of her body, but shared it with some divine presence that granted her knowledge and power.

Finally she set off to share her new knowledge with Diana.

##New Leona: The Lightbringer

In this story Leona defended her people from a band of raiders. For brevity's sake I'll try to heavily summarize it:

Raiders attacked. Leona and her Ra-Horak defended. The spirit inside Leona wanted to instagib the raiders, but Leona restrained it even though she, in part, wanted to let the spirit cleanse the them. Eventually her will to protect her land overcame her restraint and she let loose her power.

#Analysis There's no good spot to put this, so I'm just going to put it up front. Leona and Pantheon are no longer friends. Even worse, they're enemies. That's a big "fuck you" to a lot of people. HAVE YOU SEEN THE COMIC?!

The first things I note when I compare these two lores is that the new one is way more fleshed out and that Leona has more purpose. She has a reason to chase after Diana, and she has an enemy that she actively needs to defend against. The old lore didn't have either of those. It ended with her being some holy figure or, if you go back to the reflection, with her joining the League for some pretty weak reasons.

The part that drives me crazy about the new lore is that it changes who she is. In her new lore she is unyielding in her drive to protect her people. She shows restraint, but aside from the incident with the kid she never showed mercy. Growing up she's presented as just another (albeit talented) defender from her tribe. In her fight with the raiders she showed restraint, not mercy. She never gave them a chance to turn away and she never tried to disarm her opponents. The scene immediately went to fighting.

In her old lore she actively defied her culture of killing. She broke up fights, refused to harm people, and she would rather die than take an innocent life. But Mandaari, the lives she took in her new lore weren't innocent so it's not a fair comparison. Correct. The old Leona was never put in a position where she had to choose to kill someone evil or let someone other than herself die. Sure, she doubted her actions because they may have indirectly led to deaths, but she never directly let another die through inaction. So yes, it's not at all a fair comparison.

The thing is that I have no idea what old Leona would have done in that scenario and now I never will. Instead of testing her character by forcing her hand Riot just made her a different character who has no problem killing someone in order to save another. Honestly I hope Leona would kill someone if put in that position, but I'm also OK if she doesn't. I want to read that paragraph where she desperately looks for a non-violent answer and fails. I want to see how her morals let a loved one die and how she deals with the guilt. If she evolves into the warrior she is in the new lore then so be it, I will be 100% on board with that.

As I started to write this I thought that the old and new Leonas more or less ended in a similar position and that it was really the journey that changed. However, as I delved into their stories I realized how completely different they are. The only similarity in her character that I can find is that she's still a fierce defender and that she has a moral compass. How strictly she adheres to her moral compass is a different discussion. There are all sorts of bits and pieces where her character is different. Old Leona never acted out of fury or vengeance and she would sooner accept her death than take someone's life in trial by combat.

Don't get me wrong, I like where she ended up in the new lore. I like that she has a sense of direction and how she's a fierce protector. I like the depth of the storytelling. I like that she has to restrain this being inside her. I'm on board with changing the events surrounding a person to a degree, but not one shred of that matters to me if you take away the most important part of Leona: She was a pacifist to a fault. That part of her is 100% gone.