Squall Leonhart

Squall Leonhart (Japanese: スコール・レオンハート, Hepburn: Sukōru Reonhāto) is a character and the main protagonist of Final Fantasy VIII, a role-playing video game that was produced by Square, now Square Enix. Within the game's plot, Squall is a 17-year-old student at Balamb Garden, a prestigious military academy for elite mercenaries known as "SeeDs". Forced into becoming the Commander (委員長, Iinchō; lit. "Chairman") due to his outstanding skills, Squall befriends his peers, who he eventually leads in battle against Ultimecia, and falls in love with Rinoa Heartilly. These relationships, combined with the game's plot, gradually change him from being a loner to an open, caring person. Squall has appeared in several other games, including Chocobo Racing, Itadaki Street Special, and the Kingdom Hearts series as the older mentor-like figure Leon (レオン, Reon).

Squall was designed by Tetsuya Nomura with input from game director Yoshinori Kitase. He was modeled after the actor River Phoenix. Squall's weapon, the gunblade, was made so it would be difficult to master. To ensure players understand Squall's silent attitude, Kazushige Nojima made the character's thoughts open to them. Squall's first voiced appearance is in the first Kingdom Hearts game, in which he is voiced by Hideo Ishikawa in Japanese and by David Boreanaz in English; Doug Erholtz has since assumed the role for later English-speaking appearances.

Squall has received mixed reaction from critics, with some judging him poorly in comparison with other Final Fantasy heroes due to his coldness and angst, and others praising his character development. The character has been popular, and his relationship with Rinoa has been notably praised.

While previous games in the Final Fantasy franchise involved an ensemble cast, for Final Fantasy VIII the Square staff decided to create a story centered around a hero and the heroine according to director Yoshinori Kitase. The rest of the characters were created to support the relationship between the duo. When asked about what is one thing Kitase would change about the game, he mentioned the FH concert where Rinoa Heartily mocks Squall by mimicking his mannerisms and she dodges after he raises his hand at her. Writer Kasushige Nojima was against this action, claiming a man should not hit a girl. Square's Hiroki Chiba said the scene in which Squall and Rinoa embrace in space is his favorite in the Final Fantasy franchise due to the use of Faye Wong's song "Eyes On Me" in the background and because he had to adjust every frame to make the scene work.

The first illustration of Squall was used to create the world around him. The game's logo that depicted Squall embracing Rinoa was left open for interpretation by players. After Nojima created the scenario, Nomura created the game's introduction movie mostly on his own, which left a major positive reaction on the Square staff. In Final Fantasy VIII, Nojima wanted to give players insight into Squall's thoughts in contrast to VII, which encouraged players to speculate on them. According to Nojima, the development staff made Squall "cool". In the game, it is implied the character Laguna Loire is Squall's father, but Square Enix has never confirmed this idea. Nomura designed Squall to contrast with Laguna; while Laguna is seen as a friendly man, Squall is distant and silent. The staff found this problematic, and thus Squall was given a character arc of him opening up to others to make the story easier to make fitting for a lone wolf. While at first the characters' stories run parallel, they would ultimately clash as conceptualized by Nomura.

In the original Japanese game, Squall has a tendency to respond negatively to other characters' comments by using sarcastic remarks like "well, excuse me". In the English localization, this was turned into the catchphrase "whatever".

Squall Leonhart was the first character Nomura designed for Final Fantasy VIII; he was inspired by actor River Phoenix, although Nomura said "nobody understood it". Squall is 177 cm (5 ft 10 in) tall, and initially had long hair and a feminine appearance. The scar on Squall's forehead was also left ambiguous, although Nomura said it was important for him. After objections from Kitase, Nomura made the character more masculine and added a scar across Squall's brow and the bridge of his nose to make him more recognizable similar to Cloud Strife's striking spiky hair from Final Fantasy VII, leaving its cause up to scenario writer Kazushige Nojima.

Nomura's design of Squall included a fur lining along his jacket collar as a challenge for the game's full motion video designers. Nomura created Squall's gunblade (ガンブレード, Ganburēdo) and its silver accessories. The weapon is a sword with components of a revolver that send vibrations through the blade when they are triggered; this inflicts additional damage as Squall strikes an enemy if the player presses the R1 trigger on the controller. Although the weapon was intended as a novel way for players to control weapons in battle, Nomura said he feels it looks odd in retrospect and that it was very difficult to master. According to other staff members, Nomura's idea with the Gunblade was to combine the two weapons and expand the sense of strength.