Character Information
NAME: Leon Scott Kennedy
SERIES: Resident Evil/Biohazard [Game Continuity]
CANON POINT: post-Degeneration movie
AGE: 28
GENDER: Male
PERSONALITY:
There is a lot to be said about a man who works to prevent death on one hand and yet will go to the extent of shooting the zombie of a former acquaintance. Leon Kennedy has seen far more than most others his age and the results of his experience show in his demeanor. After his first day as a policeman at Raccoon City devolving into nothing short of a nightmare, the previously congenial and overall positive rookie has transformed into a serious government agent. He still retains an innate desire to help others and protect those in need, but his view point on survival and consequences have developed dramatically due to the dangers he faced and the lives lost in the t-virus outbreak. Unlike his attitude during his first day as a rookie, Leon's current attitude is more honed and, some might say, jaded by his experiences. He shows far less emotion in the face of danger, and even when expressing more positive feelings. He also concentrates very hard on preventing more tragedies by taking out terrorists before others can be sacrificed. While he is noted for sarcastic remarks and occasional jokes, he mostly reserves his real emotions for those he trusts deeply, and those people are few in number. After killing many fellow officers turned into zombies by the t-virus and repeated betrayal by comrades, Leon is reluctant to confide in others and keeps his feelings guarded to protect his main priority of preserving life. He does make exceptions, particularly for the Redfields and those who were his comrades in putting down the Umbrella Corporation.
When it comes to confidantes, Leon is quick to defend-and even befriend-but slow to trust. He believes in the virtue of working with others and helping those around him, but rarely goes into depth about his own feelings or personal life. He easily befriends Luis Sera in Resident Evil 4, and works with Angela and Greg without too much complaint in Degeneration. However, he never shows any excessive warmth to any of them, and in the case of Greg, gets frustrated when the man won't listen to him-enough to strike him in order to get things done. However, he'll defend any of them without hesitation, and is extremely distraught when he loses Luis, despite having only met him hours earlier.
It should be noted that Leon keeps some distance from others as far as personal relationships go, and has been intentionally single since the Raccoon City incident. Despite showing interest in Ada Wong and flirting with Ingrid Hunnigan, he does not pursue any close relationships seriously, and focuses most of his time running from one mission to the next. Raccoon City left a deep impact on him, and he repeatedly references it during various mission, unable to completely let go of the trauma of his past. Despite being a competent agent, Leon does suffer from some survivor's guilt. He describes the date he arrived in Raccoon City as a day he'll never forget, and seven years later is still throwing himself head-first into the job, determined to rid the world of Umbrella's influences, even after the company itself is taken down. Instead of pushing it away, Leon seems to routinely return to that night, and references it off and on in conversations. It's a battle he is still fighting, at least internally, and one he can't consider finished until he has seen that everyone is really safe.
But, with all this in mind, Leon is a steadfast and dependable government operative willing to work with his team. He acts reserved, but he actually cares very deeply for people. He trusts his comrades to hold their own and depends on them-particularly those who have experienced the same trials he has. He also still has some of the boyish idealism he had as a rookie cop on his first day. He wants to believe in the best of other people, and his actions are based on that belief. This tends to turn out to be a weakness, as he finds himself surprised by betrayal (such as in the case of Jack Krauser) or caught by the pivotal decision of how to react with a rival (as repeatedly occurs when dealing with Ada Wong). However, he ultimately has solid judgment, and the safety of innocents always comes before his own heart. A brave and dependable guy with a strong desire to help others, Leon Kennedy is a troubled, but ultimately determined and just person.
BACKGROUND:
September 29, 1998: Raccoon City Outbreak. Leon was a rookie cop, fresh out of the academy and given his first assignment at a small, Midwestern town called Raccoon City. However, having recently broken up with his girlfriend, Leon gets drunk at a party and sleeps off the effects at a motel, arriving to the city a day later than he was scheduled to, and not actually reaching the town until dark. When he finally gets to town, he finds a blockade that appears to be abandoned. Crossing the boundary soon reveals why: as he gets into town, he runs across several reanimated corpses, zombies, which attack him. Leon realizes that the town is literally overrun by the walking dead, and as he fights his way out of danger he runs across a fellow survivor, Claire Redfield, who tells him she is looking for her brother, Chris. The two make their way through the town to the Raccoon City Police Department, hoping for safety and perhaps answers regarding the chaos.
Inside the police station was no better, unfortunately. Leon discovered that the Chief of Police, Brian Irons, had been working to cover up dangerous testing done at the nearby facility owned by the company Umbrella Pharmaceutical, Inc. The tests done by the Umbrella Corporation led to an outbreak of a dangerous mutagenic virus known as the Tyrant virus, or t-virus, which has been the cause of the zombies in the city. Irons, bribed by Umbrella, was covering up their research. When the outbreak occurred, the paranoid man turned on his own police force, scattering their resources and hunting down officers like prey. As a result, nearly everyone in the city has been killed or infected by the t-virus. The situation only got worse as Leon learned that the t-virus was not only infecting victims, but was originally used to create the Tyrant it shared a name with. This creature was created by Umbrella as an experimental Bio-Organic Weapon, or B.O.W., intended for use as an ultimate weapon.
Now searching for a way out of the doomed city, Leon came across another survivor, Ada Wong. Ada also claimed to be looking for someone, and Leon teamed up with her in order to get them both to safety. While the survivors all attempted to escape the zombies and B.O.W.s in the city, Leon and Ada ran across Annette Birkin, an Umbrella researcher. She fired at Ada, and Leon took the bullet intended for her. During the exchange, Annette revealed the truth: Ada was actually a spy sent to retrieve a sample of Umbrella's latest research, the G-virus, or Gene-virus, an even more advanced mutagenic virus intended to create B.O.W.s. Leon was reluctant to believe this at first, but as they continued to look for a way out, Ada was injured while saving Leon's life when they were attacked by a Tyrant. She confessed that what Annette Birkin said was true and passes out. Leon, believing Ada to be dead, left her and continued to look for a way out of Raccoon City with Claire and Sherry Birkin, the daughter of Annette Birkin, who they managed to find hiding from the zombies. As the remaining survivors finally found a way out-a secret railway running under the city-a self-destruct sequence was activated. They managed to use the train and escape just in the nick of time, with the help of Ada Wong who had not actually died from her injuries. She provided them with a rocket launcher to defeat the mutated Tyrant and they left the city with only seconds to spare.
Outside of the city, Claire left to continue her search for Chris, leaving Leon with the young Sherry Birkin. The two were found by the U.S. government, who took custody of Sherry and recruited Leon into becoming a government agent who could help take down the bio-terror threat.
December 1998. While working for the government, Leon received a distress email from Claire Redfield, saying that she was at the prison island of Rockfort and needed help facing another biohazard incident. Leon managed to track down Chris Redfield using his connections and give Claire's coordinates to him.
2002: Operation Javier. Trained as a special agent, Leon was sent on a mission to South America with another seasoned operative, Jack Krauser, to investigate a the drug lord, Javier Hidalgo, reported to have been in contact with Umbrella. Suspecting another case of bio-research, the government sent in the operatives to look into it. What they found was another t-virus outbreak, and learned that Javier was doing experiments using Umbrella's research. While infiltrating the research facility, they met Javier's daughter, Manuela, whom they learned was infected with an advanced strain of a virus known as the Veronica virus, another mutagenic virus which also allows the host to retain their intellectual capacity. With Manuela's help, Leon and Krauser defeated Javier and put an end to his research. Afterward, Manuela was taken into custody by the U.S. government. Krauser was discharged from service after this mission due to an injury he received from it, and later that year Leon received word that his former partner had died in a helicopter accident.
2004: Los Illuminados Mission. The government assigned Leon to Secret Service detail, but the President's daughter, Ashley Graham, was kidnapped during this time, making his first assignment in this position a rescue mission. Leon was sent to the remote reaches of Spain to save her from a cult calling themselves Los Illuminados, or “The Enlightened”. True to his track record, it turned out that the cult was using yet another bio-organic weapon to achieve their goals. This time, Leon had to face townsfolk and mercenaries infected by a parasitic and mind-controlling orgasm called Las Plagas. Similar to a hive-mind, those infected by Plagas parasites were compelled to obey the will of the Control Plaga, or human host infected with a more advanced parasite that let them retain their intelligence and, as the name suggests, control other infected hosts.
Leon fights his way toward the cult's headquarters and Osmund Saddler, the leader of the cult and Control Plaga host in command. On the way there, he met Luis Sera, who was eventually revealed to be a researcher that turned against Saddler once he realized what his work was being used for. Unfortunately, Saddler killed Luis and Leon then lost contact with his government assistance, forcing him to fight alone to rescue Ashley. He was confronted by an embittered but quite living Jack Krauser, who had faked his death and turned traitor after being forcibly relieved of his duties. Leon defeated Krauser and then, finally, Saddler, rescuing Ashley in the end, even though she probably found every booby trap in the entire place. During this mission, Leon was able to obtain a Plaga sample from Luis, but another familiar “dead” face, Ada Wong, reappeared. Although she assisted Leon, she also stole the sample from him at gunpoint, retreating once again on her own agenda. Leon managed to complete his mission, but with a lukewarm victory.
2005: Harvardville Incident. A year after dealing with the Los Illuminados cult, Leon was given charge of the Special Response Team (S.R.T.) in Harvardville. When another t-virus outbreak was released in Harvardville Airport, Leon was sent for his experience. Working with S.R.T. members Angela Miller and Greg Glenn, Leon went in to rescue survivors. He met up with Claire Redfield, who was coincidentally one of those trapped in the airport at the time of the outbreak. They managed to escape, losing Greg in the process, and found that Angela's brother,Curtis, had been infected by the G-virus. Leon managed to stop Curtis and contain the outbreak, in the process discovering that the local pharmaceutical company, WilPharma Corporation, was conducting B.O.W. research just like Umbrella had been, and the former-Umbrella researcher, Frederic Downing, was the cause of the airport outbreak. He intended to use stolen samples previously taken from the Raccoon City labs for black market sale, covering everything up by disguising it as an act of bio-terrorism, but Leon and the others were able to stop him.
OTHER NOTES: He stays pretty healthy and doesn't smoke. But has gum. :D