#If you had told a person fresh from ch.8 in the past Leonidas would fall off a cliff for Emile 99.9% would not believe you.

[valeriefauxnom]

I think there's an interesting slight shift in Leonidas' attitude between chapters 8 and 12, and one that kinda makes a bit more complete narrative between the more obvious 12-16 jump.

First, in a niche Dragalia trivia, Leonidas (and Chelle) in his technical ch.7 debut says this:

"And so Aurelius's brilliant star falls as a new and dark star rises—as well as another dim light at the periphery. But the flames of battle will not reach Valkaheim. Should any fool approach, it is they who will be reduced to ash."

While there's a lot to say with later context in these lines despite their initial ambiguity of his character, note here of the 'dim light' refers to Euden. He's starting to cause a fuss in the world after ch.6's shakeup in the official rebellion and new kingdom-starting he's engaging in, but to Leo, this is all mostly meaningless compared to the true power players.

Ch.8 Leo, though, comes out swinging with his general attitude regarding the world and his family:

There's something funny that he's aware enough of Euden starting his own kingdom, but still seeing him and going 'nope, I care not a whit about you, grain of dust' is amusing. Maybe after Valyx, Leonidas just got tired of having baby siblings?

Regardless, Leonidas mostly spends this chapter leaving them to presumably die bad deaths, having deemed them too weak and unimportant to even bother attending to personally.

But even within chapter 8, as Euden and co refuse to die and keep up their dogged pursuit, Leonidas starts to acknowledge Euden as a brother. Not enough to stop him from trying to leave him to get torn apart by beasts, of course, but, y'know, baby steps for someone who was denying kinship not a day ago.

He also continues his star metaphor.

For Leonidas, who viewed himself as the absolute pinnacle of the family, it was surprising anyone could survive him, however narrowly. He's being forced to consider that perhaps those beneath him in the family aren't quite as useless as perceived. Heck, Euden's 'reputation' overall in the family before canon seemed to be largely one of weakness, -even Valyx outright claims he thought him feeble, and Emile's earlier fondness of him stemmed from being 'better' than Euden. That's how Euden framed himself, to appear non-threatening to attempt to maintain harmonious relations so his elders didn't see an upstart threatening their power, as I've went over a long long time ago.

Now he's being forced to consider and wonder how high, how powerful Euden's dim star can rise before it will be crushed by someone or something greater in his 'one star' viewpoint.

Enter chapter 12. One of the things that makes Leonidas so dangerous, I've also said, is his adaptability. He learns and changes behavior.

And in this chapter, he takes a much more personally involved attack, sending in his 'big guns' (before he acquired a real one) in much quicker. He now views Euden as a threat enough to warrant the measures, even if he doesn't believe in his capacity to win.

Moreover, he's starting to oddly (at least, to me?) stress a quick death for Euden and his group, whereas before, it was of absolutely no concern to him whether they died slowly and agonizingly from Mars' burns to getting torn apart by fiends. It comes across to me as a sort of recognition of Euden's ability and/or bravery, a sort of respect for him as a warrior enough to not prolong his death or otherwise make it painful.

He's also starting to actually communicate on some level what his true goals are and why, whereas ch.8 Leo largely seems to think even that level of communication would be wasted on such 'insects'. And while he doesn't entertain Euden's counterarguments for long, it might indicate a sort of acknowledgement of Euden as a opponent to lock ideals with instead of a simple obstacle to hurdle mindlessly?

All in all, it reads to me as if he's made the shift of viewing Euden as an insect to an opponent, a weaker opponent, of course, but one nonetheless. Able enough to be acknowledged as being kin, even as he's seems like he's trying to distance himself when preparing to kill him.

This trend continues immediately after the tables are turned. Leonidas acknowledges Euden as brother and king, and is more upset at the notion that Euden doesn't want to kill him since he likely thinks that now Euden sees him as the 'able to be safely ignored weakling' as well as wanting to die of shame.

Continuing into ch.13, Leonidas immediately then protects Euden from Phares, even incorporating a new word into his vocabulary in the process!

Then, of course, is his and Chelle's conversation to further bridge the gap, in which he starts establishing Euden has earned a more complete respect as kin now despite not actually sharing a true lineage, and respect enough to ask another sibling to protect him.

So yeah. Even if ideally I do think some more dialogue would help to bridge the gap between before-16-Leonidas and after-16-Leonidas, I do think that they overall tried to make a cohesive progression even in the 8-12 shift from 'insect' to 'opponent I can somewhat respect' to 14-16's more complete respect. Alas, since the writing team only had so many story sections they could have and a lot of characters and plotlines to juggle, they could only spend a bit of time re. Leonidas, but for what it's worth they did a decent job with what they had.

Extra aside: I find it funny Leonidas was the first to 'exit' the main campaign. He features in 8, 12, and 16, with smaller appearances in 7, 10, etc, but after 16 he's effectively poofed even if he's still influential in the plot. Even Valyx lasted longer for on screen chapters since he was tagging along with Nedrick and Zethia, before he and most all siblings exited at ch.23 to then die in ch.25 (this is why leaving the protagonist's party isn't a good idea Chelle-)