what the absence of a team in RE9 tells us about Leon's personal life
part two: how the rejection of "a place to go home to" happened.
in my first part, (not required to read as i'll be giving enough context in this post), i talked about how the concept of team suddenly became a lost art to requiem leon and reasoned that we can understand why he felt the way he did based on the collapse of a very important team in his life.
the team i'm referring to is of course none other than his own marriage.
(pics for illustration bc there won't be a lot in this post. this man has a lot of explaining and resolving to do once he gets home lol)
so, how did that collapse go? well...
leon did not make the decision to walk away from his family home on his own; his wife approved of that decision.
let me walk you through the process, i'll explain why i think that this is the way it went.
first, two things must be said:
1. no matter what leon's wife opinion on him leaving was, he was going to leave ANYWAY. it was never about whether he would stay, because he wouldn't. no one was going to change it.
his wife's reaction only mattered insofar that his actions DURING the investigation were concerned, in this case, his mindset on teamwork.
2. you can make an argument that his wife didn't need to tell him to leave for the team to be broken, because leon himself was gonna leave and break the team anyway. there's nothing that says this is wrong (the game never explicitly told us anything of the sort), but on the facts presented to us, i don't think it would be a satisfying explanation. i think it wouldn't address all the issues if we stopped there. more on this below.
now that we've gotten these out of the way...
the way i think leon's departure happened is quite simple: he announced that he was going to leave and implied that he might not come back, and he was candid and honest and open about his infection (to the best of his ability).
however, his spouse, to his immense shock...agreed that he should go. just like that. no sappy crying or pleading him to say. no heartbreaking screech after hearing he's probably going to die out there alone.
she just let him go. that's it.
and yet, that was ALL it took for leon's belief about teams to fall apart.
what in the game supported that this was specifically how his belief in teams collapsed? WHY must his wife somehow be part of it too?
my answer is this: the scenario in which leon alone made the decision to leave simply was not enough to trigger the kind of reaction that he had with teamwork.
let's hold on to these words "not enough to trigger" and work backward here. i'll show you why i think it isn't enough.
assuming his wife was a non-factor, assuming leon indeed went out against his wife's wishes or did not even tell her he was leaving, the demise of their team would rest on leon and leon's shoulders alone.
leon would be the initiator, the sole ender of their peaceful life. it would still be a painful and agonising decision for him, but what it would also be is a concious, deliberate, and planned decision where he was in control.
by walking out on his family, HE would be the problem. HE cut them out, HE abandoned them for his own search for justice.
at the very least, leon would know that if it hurt him one to leave, it hurt the people he left ten.
so, if leon was aware the team's collapse is because of him, he shouldn't be afraid to form a team with grace and sherry as long as he knew he, the one who had walked out on people before, intended to stay this time.
he was in control of what he said and did to his family, wasn't he? his rejection can justify emotions like sadness, anger, or just a sense of worthlessness when he talked and interacted with others.
but he was afraid, even though again, he shouldn't. his deliberate actions shouldn't make him scared.
but fear? the emotion where i go "boo!" and you go "ahhh!! you scared me!!" that kind of fear? no. i don't think it can.
unless...he was not the only one who voiced the rejection; he was not in control. not at all.
something caught him off guard and gave him this kind of reaction, like the one where i jumpscare you, like something leon did not forsee or think would happen.
if there's still any confusion about what leon actually thinks about teams, like what if he just hated it or what if he was too brooding to care and it's not really fear of being in one, i outlined here that leon still wanted cooperations.
he DID work with grace and sherry; in fact, he reached out to them first when they both showed signs of pulling away from him.
he was comforting to them both, in a way that screamed he still cared about this partnership and he didnt want either of them to give up on him or this investigation so soon.
this isnt the reaction of someone who thinks teams are useless or hates socialising, because someone who thinks that wouldn't care to co-operate or maintain work with anyone in the first place.
leon never just randomly hated teams because he thought it's futile, no. you realise that for some reason...he feared of being in, or making, one. he couldn't find the words to ask anyone to be his teammate, even though he still wanted them to.
this fear of reaching out is exactly why i think he was not the (only) proactive factor in his departure. you don't get scared of your own actions, at least not in the way you get scared by someone else's. you don't get scared of the predictable the same way you get scared of the unpredictable.
and of course, the unpredictable thing that took him completely off-guard is hearing his wife echoed back the same thing he said to her, right before he stepped out of that door.
knowing your time has come and there's nothing you can do to stop it is one thing, but not getting to hear the people you love scream and cry for your demise is another.
leon wasnt the only one who gave up on their team when he left, his wife severed her own end of the team by essentially telling him he's on his own now, that he no longer needed to stay in their "place to call home".
leon's wife also didn't think they should be in a team. not anymore.
and that greatly, deeply, profoundly hurt leon to the point he could not create a single one after that.
finally, there's one more thing from my last post that i think reallyyy furthers this scenario where his wife gave up on him.
i talked about how leon pulled away from his co-op with grace and sherry the moment things start getting harder for them.
this mirrored how it went with leon and his wife.
he and his wife were a team, a beautiful, amazing team, for all those years, seemingly against all odds...until they're not, until it became so hard that were not strong enough to get through this particular odd together.
if a team as strong and admirable like that can fall, how can someone have the courage or the will to start a new one with anyone else, during their dark final days in this world?
the answer is...they don't.
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part 3: how ashley fits into leon's character regression.
(well i can tell you now that she would be able to do the most damage, but why is it be her who did the most damage would obviously be the more interesting part.)
thank you so so much for reading and being interested enough to even finish it 🥹 what kind of person would make a three part series but let the first and second one be so far apart and still expect people to be invested in it am i right?? last part will come sooner i promise
