#some oversimplifications are annoying but the few times i saw this it stuck because What. hes described as very intelligent even if hes a

[lesbianraskolnikov]

Interpreting Razumikhin as a total dumbass blows my mind. Its not at all frequent but it sticks out because What

[coldtomyflash]

Couldn't the changes in Len's character in Legends be due to how he fell for Sara? With the one deleted scene they released it looked like it was almost love at first sight. He was kinder and more honest and open with her than anyone else including Lisa and Mick. No one saw through and understood him like she did ever before. His getting rid of Mick was more about him trying to hurt Sara than the team. And she was the one who got him to make up with Mick. It never would have happened without her

Anon, there is so much wrong here that I very strongly considered not answering because the only things I can say are to disagree with you and that’ll probably make you angry.

But, well, I was a little angry too, particularly at the line “His getting rid of Mick was more about him trying to hurt Sara than the team” but I decided not to let anger rule my thoughts. Nonetheless, I’m gonna answer because I feel it’s worth a discussion for why I think differently, and why your post struck a bit of a nerve. Sorry if this isn’t what you want to hear, but I really do feel it warrants a meta/commentary response.

First, no I don’t think all the changes in him are due to Sara and I’d say that’s an oversimplification of how and why a person changes. It strips Len of those changes being about him at all really, taking away some of his autonomy in making the changes. If you change solely for someone else and not for yourself, that’s not sustainable. Len changed for himself and through the influence of a host of different factors, and to reduce it to largely one thing misses so much of the complexity of how and why people change in reality. And I’m not saying that falling in love can’t change a person (through the different viewpoints they take on and through the trust they develop), but I also don’t read Len as having been in love with Sara. People, a single person, can help catalyze change in us even without being in love, of course, but it’s still missing some of the point to make it all about that other person. Change happens internally.  

And there are a lot of the factors that could plausibly, canonically, go into him changing. I mean, I maintain that many of the changes that bothered me (the very subtle characterization ones that tilt him more to a slytherin-hufflepuff than a slytherin-ravenclaw) are ones that came in from the writers wanting to have him work with a team and taking over his character from a different team, losing a bit in translation. But in canon, if we try to explain those changes, I really would not ever want to attribute them to solely one character.

I feel that if we explain the canonical changes in Len, we can point to a couple of major factors, and his budding friendship with Sara is one of those (because it shows him letting people in and believing that change and overcoming one’s past is actually possible, because it’s something she is doing and demonstrating). A few others are Barry’s staunch belief in Len’s goodness and his willingness to help Len, working with Lisa and Mick again and the effect that has on him, being free of his father in a final way, and working with a team of people who’s wellbeing he feels responsible for (especially Jax). I’ve made posts that talk about most of those factors in one way or another though, so I won’t delve into them here.

More specific to the points you raise, I disagree that he demonstrates anything approaching love at first sight in the deleted scene.

Honestly the only thing I read into that is that he a) is trying to get a feel for people on the team and doesn’t quite know what to make of Sara yet, except that she might be the only one aside from Mick he has anything in common with (she shuts that down with the reincarnated point), and b) that he’s a bit intrigued at her willingness to bite back, but maybe a little annoyed at how barbed she is with him. (For the record we literally never see him even glance in the direction of her ass so I don’t get where that line is from.)

I also strongly disagree that he’s “kinder and more honest and open with her than anyone else including Lisa and Mick”. I don’t even know where you get that idea, to be frank. Len loves his sister to death and would do anything for her. He would never raise a weapon to her like he does to Sara in 1x15 and there’s zero reason to suspect he’d be less honest with her than with Sara (or anyone else). If you try to raise the point that he didn’t tell her his dad kidnapped him, I’d counter by saying he didn’t really have a chance and wanted to protect her. He also happened to lie to Sara (alongside the rest of the team) about having killed Mick. 

If you want to talk about Len opening up about his past to people like his heart-to-heart with Sara while they were freezing to death, he’s even similarly expository with Ray (who I maintain he ultimately dislikes) without much prompting.

Len also lies to Sara’s face at least once or twice, particularly about Mick. “Everyone okay between you two?” “Peachy.” Even if it’s unbarbed and obvious, he’s not really being honest (with himself or with her, and they both know it). He’s not opening up to her.

With Mick, Len is admittedly not always honest, or fair. 

But that’s in part because he takes a high degree of responsibility for Mick, maybe more than Mick wants him to. He doesn’t always expect Mick to make decisions in his own best interest, and Len has a very high need for control and believes he’ll make the best decision for his friend. 

Is it okay? Not necessarily. But I don’t think he means that he’s largely dishonest with Mick or that there isn’t a huge amount of trust and understanding between them. 

Mick’s the one who knows Len’s intentions for going in the trip, knows where Len’s head is at, is the one at Len’s side who can literally finish his sentences and move in sync with him. They have one-word codes like ‘Alexa’ and ‘like that time in Chicago’ that tell them everything they need to know about a situation. 30+ years of history will do that with someone. 

Actually, the whole ‘pulling the cold gun out’ thing is neat with respect that. He pulls it on Mick, Mick pulls the heat gun out, they have a stand off for a minute. Len appears to think about it and calm down and come up with the next step for what to do, or else it gives him space to remember to be the reasonable one. Mick gets this too because he doesn’t ever pull his trigger, just waits for Len to decide to end the stand off, every time we’ve seen them have one. But with Sara, she called his bluff. She didn’t understand why he’s doing this and what he gets out of pulling out his gun and having a stand off with someone so she calls him on it (which is fair, I’m not saying she’s in the wrong). And maybe it’s all dysfunctional as hell of him, but I think it demonstrates how Mick understands Len better than Sara does. He moves along to the beats Len is playing in a way that Sara won’t (which is fine because no one needs to, but you can’t tell me that Mick doesn’t understand Len inside and out, up and down).

Which is why I so strongly shirk at the idea that Len ‘got rid of Mick’ (just that in the first place, he didn’t get rid of him), more for Sara than for anyone else. Len marooned Mick for the stated reason of worrying what would happen to his sister if Mick went back to 2016. He knows Mick has impulse control problems and anger issues. He knows that he himself acts like a check/balance on Mick, so dropping him off in 2016 could have some high-damage consequences. So it was about protecting the team, and protecting their loved ones in 2016 (particularly Lisa, the person Mick is most likely to go after because it’s more Len he wants revenge on than any of the other team members). Beyond that canonically-stated reason for marooning Mick, it could also have come down to a lot of personal shit between Len and him. 

To the extent that once he chose not to kill him, Len always planned to return for Mick (till death got in the way), he probably intended for the marooning to be a very short cool-down period for Mick before Len picked up back up and brought him home. A “okay you betrayed us you jackass and it fucking hurt and I’m pissed but I’ve had time to think about it and you’ve been stuck here to think about it for a day, so now let’s go home alright?”.

I mean, you can read a lot more into it than that with respect to their relationship, but I don’t think it’s valuable to bring anyone else into that. It was about Len and Mick, and to a lesser extent about Lisa, and then about the team as a unit. There’s no evidence it was about anyone else, and certainly no evidence that Len was worried Mick would hurt Sara if he stuck around.

As for her being the reason they made up, I agree she had a part in that, but I also think it would have happened eventually in the same way regardless. She was a catalyst though, and showed empathy and deep understanding in that situation. I think that’s highly to her credit, actually, and I’m not sure why you’d make that about Len’s character changes when it really shows her own development and insight. 

But Len and Mick have been at serious odds before, were apart for a few years even, and still manage to find their way back to one another. They always do, with or without anyone’s help, and being confined on a ship together was going to press the issue sooner rather than later. Sara didn’t convince Len to lay down his life for Mick and die if that’s what Mick wanted from him. Len’s love for Mick did that, full stop.

tl;dr - Mick and Lisa understand Len better than Sara does as per canon, and he canonically demonstrates more honesty with his sister and more mutual understanding with Mick than he does with her. There’s nothing to suggest love at first sight (intrigue, at most) and there’s nothing at all to suggest that him marooning Mick had anything to do with Sara herself. The implication Len changed solely/mostly because of her is just a large oversimplification that strips him of personal autonomy in making those changes.