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I always looked at it as Squall trying to shoo away Rinoa not as trying to strike/hurt her.

Squall is an amazing character. On the topic of heroism, Squall is resistant to the idea of the being the leader until his comrades convince him that he can be the leader he's destined to be. Squall is different from most other heroes because he initially just wants to exist in the world, rather than be the one who makes things happen in the world. His path to heroism is complex because he's reluctant to the role, whereas most other protagonists are more willing to fill the role. Squall's growth from being reactive to proactive really makes him a wonderful protagonist compared to others.

I took Squall's 'strike' as more of a playful 'get-out-of-here' kind of gesture. More for comedy of the PS1 Era that was difficult to get across the screen when there wasn't facial expressions or voice acting.

Final Fantasy Union: "Squall, can we interview you?" Squall:"...........whatever"

To me Rinoa's sick back flip/roll followed by playful laughter will always cement the scene as harmless and comedic.

My favorite Final Fantasy character in my favorite Final Fantasy game

Literally now just realized the plumage on his jacket around his neck emulates a lion's mane, which makes sense considering his connection to lions in the game.

There's a kind of quirk in Japanese culture ; it's often seen in anime too (or maybe it's an anime trope), where when someone is teasing you, you sort of land a playful *bonk* on their head. It's more an endearing gesture rather than something abusive or violent. And that's exactly how I interpreted the scene during the concert. I think Mr Kitase is expressing regret solely for the sake of his international playerbase.

I still remember the day I bought FFVIII. I was at Toys R Us participating in a Pokemon card game tournament. I got my ass kicked pretty quickly and had a lot of time to kill. I had some birthday money on me, and considering how much I loved VII, I ended up buying VIII on a whim. Although I lost the card tournament, buying FFVIII was a great consolation prize.

I always thought the 'whatever' line was spoken as a kind of 'i'm tired, I want to get out here because I'm awkward as hell in social situations' rather than as an aggressive line. A key way of interpreting Squall is to look at how other characters react to him. They laugh at his awkwardness and act like that's just the way Squall is; he's super serious, emotionally detached and awkward. I think a lot of the humour in FF8 is brilliant but would work better with voice acting. FF7R actually turns Cloud into Squall sometimes with his super awkwardness (and it being played for humour) which wasn't really there in the original FF7.

I always assumed Squall was just playfully swatting at her.

Final fantasy 8 is so underrated most people say Squall rip off cloud but I like his character and weapon and I like that he’s one of few protagonist in the franchise that ends up with the girl

One of my favorite things about Squalls character design is how European his looks are in the original FF8, it's such a diversion from typical jrpg protagonists. It just stood out to me as a way of saying "He's different, he's not your typical hero, don't expect him to be one."

FF8 had the best OST! "Salt Flats"......"Silence In Motion" Classic

FF8 was my first and most played in the series. So many great memories of this game, thanks for the extra info!

Squall was the first Final Fantasy protag to have a dope ass fight scene

Squall is an introvert, introverts rejoice!! He is my favorite FF main character, he’s one of the only main protagonist who is human too. Most main characters are either enhanced, aliens or supers, Squall is just a normal human who got really powerful.

he's such a deep character i can't understand how some people brush him off as "emo" like wtf do y'all understand how complicated the human psyche is ?!?

I never took that as Squall trying to hit Rinoa. I always thought it was him just trying to shoo her away.

I always loved Squall, the introverted anti-social reluctant hero. He and Final Fantasy 8 hold a special place in my heart. It always bothered me, that enix could never just let Squall be Squall as he was and always had to change him. Looking at you Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia.

FF8 was the game that I was absolutely horrible at but was by far my favourite in the series.

FF8 doesn’t get nearly the love it deserves. Such a beautiful game.

Honestly I like the long hair version of Squall as well as the short haired version but I'm glad short hair is his original design. After experiencing the story of FFVIII then seeing him in KH with long hair it feels kind of like a nod to Laguna. Also I noticed that DFFOO Burst banner for Squall, its an awesome game.

8 is my personal favourite, it was the first one I finished on my own when I was about 10, 7 was also great but I had to ask my friends older brother for a lot of help since I didn’t really understand it much, also my first play through of 8 I didn’t realise what drawing higher stacks of magic did to your stats until ultimecias castle, currently replaying for the multiple’ith time if that even makes sense on my switch

As others have said, I always took that part of the scene as a 'shoo'. In my opinion this, as with a lot of other things in entertainment, get blown out of proportion by modern eyes without any regard to the original tone or intent of the past. But then again, if he regretted it even back then...then maybe the intent was misguided from the start? At any rate, great video! Anything FF8-related is an A+ in my book.

Squall is my fav. He was the first character to break the hero mold; he wasn’t the chivalrous knight type like Cecil or the optimistic happy go lucky flirtatious type like cloud or lock; he was a loner and he has the best weapon in all of final fantasy

Gone are the days when Square Enix isnt afraid to be more original with their ideas.

My favorite character to this day, when I was 17 I was sort of an awkward teenager, dealing with some stuff, and at the time ended up paralyzed (long story) and I was isolated a lot trying to recover. Playing Final Fantasy VIII during that time helped me out a lot and to this day is very close to my heart.

I always thought Squall raised his to hand as he was going to push Rinoa off, just like she does to him shortly after.

It would be nice to see the story gap between the founding of Balamb Garden and the start of the game, I feel there's an interesting tale there which probably expands Squall's story further.

Now I want a FF VIII remake

Despite FFVIII being my first and favorite FF, I'll admit that I knew very little of what was mentioned in this video. Well done again guys! Also, that rendition of The Landing is still giving me goosebumps!

Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite game in the series, so it should come to no surprise that Squall is my favorite protagonist. And yes, I called him "Squall." As much as I'm a huge Kingdom Hearts fan, I never did like that they changed his name to Leon. Yes, I know Leon is part of his last name, Leonheart. Yes, I know he changed his name to start his life a new. But STILL. He'll ALWAYS be Squall! Great video you guys!

1998 my goodness I had this game for ps1 I was just a teen and I still love it to this day.

Squall is my second favorite final fantasy after Cloud! I’m in love

River Phoenix will live on forever in the FF8 universe as Squall...

They need to remake this game I’ll grab it in a heartbeat

My brain in it's younger years was always trying to contemplate why Squall and Leon (Resident Evil) looked alike. It went into overdrive when Kingdom Hearts did the rename.

Man...thats some lazy localization.... Localization: ...Whatever...

This is easily one of the best videos I've seen about Squall, a lot of cool facts I actually didn't know! :)

Love these popping up, keep em coming

I swear, instead of River Phoenix as Squall, I always thought he looked like Tom Cruise. This was back in the late '90s when we had to use our imaginations a bit more.

Th fact I'm a huge fan of Angel and David Borneaz voicing Squall blows my mind!

Thanks for another great Video. Oh and I loved the background music

Fantastic! Thank you very much. I was a loner angsty teen when this came out, and in a world that didn’t cover much of the whole social anxiety / trauma stuff like they do now, Squall was a super important character for me to relate to and grow from. I have no idea where I would be if not for being able to grab onto things I could relate to at that time.

the fact that his limit break can make a cinematic finish if it got remake

you guys really do an excellent job at research and quality of video absolutely love it keep it up

To me the arm swing seemed more like being annoyed with a sibling. In that way it made him feel more human as it showed him finally opening up some.

This channel and your content is so well done and well researched. The motion graphics, the information sourcing, the pacing, and the video essay format; very informative yet really entertaining!! Kudos! 💎🧙🏼‍♀️🐉🗡⚔️🗡⚔️🗡🐉🧙🏽‍♂️💎

As always great work and thanks

Funny. Nomura's original design for Squall looks a lot like Lightning.

I love the insight on "whatever". I'd heard before that Squall's responses weren't so harsh in the Japanese version, but hadn't seen that dissection of specific instances. Yeah, he comes off way different with this lines. Funny you mention their concern over the names of two characters being the same with how they renamed Edward. I agree though, that's probably it. That or they did it as an in-joke, like they renamed Leonhart to just Leon and now do the reverse. Interesting on the bit about Squall trying to hit Rinoa. I never interpreted it that way, I took it more as him waving his hand like "set outta here!" and Rinoa fell back laughing. Great video, thank you for it. Squall may not be the most outwardly likeable protagonist, but he's a lot more complex and interesting than some realize, and probably one of the better developed characters through the run of his game.

After reading the all 15 Japanese version I can say I’m glad we have his catchphrase as “whatever” and not “well, excuse me” 😂

Good video. Only one I think I really knew about already was the different animations for Squall's Renzokuken attack against certain bosses.

Thank you for another awesome video

It's strange how I never noticed the whole thing with that scenario realistically I just thought it was squall kind of doing his leave me alone thing.

oh man I loved Chocobo Racing as a kid, and having Squall in it was so cool!

I had no idea Squall was drawn to look like River Phoenix. Fascinating!

Shoulda had Squall get up and shout "two for flinching!". POP,POP!

I feel like Squall's early design draft got reused...to become Aya Brea

Great video final fantasy union Absolutely fantastic editing and scripting

I went from 7 to 8 and loved them both. I never really saw Squall as emo. Closed off, but not emo. I heard about the "whatever" bits before, and to me that was laziness because Squall's responses and thoughts in Japanese show more of his cutting personality. Less emo and more sharp imo. Frankly, I liked Squall as a protagonist.

True story, when I named Squall the first time I played Final Fantasy 8 I named him Leon. I named him that because I was a fan of Leon from Resident Evil at the time.

I took it as a “get out of here, or enough of you” from him.

Ff8 was the first game I played on ps1, it's my first RPG, and it was my first ff game. I got it and ff7 at the same time. I looked at both covers but ff8 called out to me more. Squall is so relatable to me 🤗

Zell is and always will be my fave ff character but Squall is a close second. I just fell for the both of them in so many ways. I've heard people hark on about Squall comes across as cold and emo but actually play ff8 and be ready to fall in love with this guy.

Oh no way!! I love u for making this video 💖

Final Fantasy 8 Best Intro, never get bored watch the intro. Best Ost. Best GF, can summon GF every time i want when fight with enemy. Best with challenge secret boss. I just hope someday they will remake this.

Squall is my favorite FF character, especially given how much character development he had from start to finish. Also, in KH I always took his long hair as an age thing. As if he and Rinoa had lived on a while after the story before his world disappeared. They even portray him as a more mature role model to Sora. Cloud just stayed Cloud chasing Sephiroth around the world

I never thought Squall actually intended to hit Rinoa.

Squall: "It's Lee-on"

The first badass character from Final Fantasy i was introduced to because of Kingdom Hearts was Squall. Or As I still like to call him Leon.

Thanks for this video! Makes me want to play FFVIII again.

An 8th fact is that there is a music video dedicated to Squalls " whatever" call Squalls United States of Whatever". Thanks for the awesome video. Keep up the hard work and know that yall are appreciated for it.

I still have my copy of Chocobo Racing, and the memory card that has the save with all characters unlocked. I LOVE that game.

Thank You! Sqaull is my favorite being a moody gothic middle schooler it was easy for me to project myself in his shoes lol Your likes was at 147 I broke my OCD and put it to 148 thats how much I love ye guys lol

FF8 was the first game of the series I owned. I'm currently working on a playthrough for my channel, but I have to replace all the music to avoid copyright strikes. That's definitely a chore! Squall's gunblade has a cameo in Parasite Eve. As for FF13 Lightning? I can easily see her being Squall's daughter. They look so similar in the face and have the same type of attitude.

fyi, the phrase in the fire cavern isn't "getting choked up" it's just "choke" meaning to underperform at a critical moment. getting choked up is like, being on the verge of tears so that its difficult to speak

I'm surprised you didn't mention that Yuffie calls Leon by his original name "Squall" in Kingdom Hearts to which he replies "It's Leon" and she just laughs it off. It's during the part where they're in the little house with Aerith in one of the Traverse Town districts.

The last part.. I never thought of it that way and I believe many people didn't either. He just raised his arm a little and the action spoke "stop being goofy" or "don't mess with me"... something like that.

Love this game, so much so that I have Squall's Griever pendant (the Lion head part) on my forearm.

Squall Leonhart is indeed one of the most popular characters in the Final Fantasy Series. Him & Cloud have appeared in more games than any Final Fantasy characters. When you said that Squall’s popularity that led him into more Final Fantasy games, non-Final Fantasy games, & wider entertainment properties. This got me thinking, we have Cloud Strife in Super Smash Bros, which was a mind-blowing reveal since Cloud & FFVII are associated more with PlayStation than Nintendo. But it became reality, & I still can’t believe it to this day. Cloud Strife is in the same game as Mario, Link, Samus, Snake, Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu, & even Joker, & the list goes on. What if, & I’m not saying it’s gonna happen, but what if Squall Leonhart made it to Super Smash Bros Ultimate as the 2nd Final Fantasy Rep. In my opinion of all the Final Fantasy Protagonists, I think he would make the most sense to make it in, because while he isn’t as iconic as Cloud or FFVIII as iconic as FFVII, Squall is one of the most popular characters in the Final Fantasy Series, as you said in the video, & I agree. He’s up there with Cloud (obviously), Lightning, Noctis, & Tidus in terms of popularity. But in terms of the faces, Cloud & Squall are the most recognizable characters in the series, & they’re both in the Kingdom Hearts games. Heck, in KH2, Cloud & Squall team up & have an awesome moment together in taking out the heartless, I loved it. That’s why I would love to see Squall Leonhart in Smash, just so he can be with Cloud as a friendly rival in Ultimate. Squall would be a very unique fighter if he had the Junction System as his fighting mechanic. To be honest, I don’t think we’ll get another Final Fantasy character because Cloud was treated poorly in Smash 4 & Ultimate by only having a few trophies & spirits, as well as only having 2 tracks, which disappoints me because Final Fantasy is super well known for its music, & it’s a crime that we don’t have that many in Smash, but it’s probably due to Square’s stinginess with their properties, who knows. Even though it’s very unlikely, I still would love to Squall in Smash, & I think he would be awesome!

very interesting facts! thanks! 😊🙏

Man, I love Squall. He's just like me... or I'm like him 🤔

not only did i already know about the translations of 'whatever', i bookmarked that legends of localization page back in may...

Squall most underrated videogame character ever

Thanks for the vids. I never know this facts before.

6:52 I may be wrong but I think that's Dorgann (Bartz's father) from V and not Leon from II. Still, great video :) Keep up the good work!

I didnt know the stuff about his limit break I'm gonna have to replay it again

The reason why Squall is my favorite character is because we are both lone wolves

The last part is sort of a surprise to me. When I first played this game in the eighth grade I never got the impression that Squall was trying to physically hit Rinoa. I always thought he was sort of swiping at her, like when you gesture at someone to go away.

*video starts with easily one of the best ff tracks of all time* seriously people. ffviii music

Squall: "To the moon, Rinoa!"

FF8 my favorite FF game. Hopefully it will get some love on PS5

I always loved the custom Renzokukens. Also, I kind of like the whatevers. Maybe I am wierd, but the Squall in my head was anti social adn trying to avoid people but never aggressive. Heck, that "Strike" always seems like a shoo when was young. Too half assed to be a strike. And at a time where they were getting along better, so it would be odd

Even though I literally always kept Squall at a low % for limit break, I don't think I specifically noticed the different versions of Renzokuken... Aside from Bahumut, perhaps. It was great, anytime I had to heal the party, I'd use Rinoa with 100% death to KO Squall so I could revive him at low health again. Who needs to actually run from the T-rex in the training ground at Balamb Garden? Only 3 things could survive Lionheart: Omega and Ultima Weapons and Ultimecia 3. Great video! Seeing Chocobo's games makes me want to see a history of the Chocobo spinoff games.

Super nice video as usual thanks a lot!!! May I ask you which song and version from the FFVIII soundtrack you used as background music? It literally gave me chills!!!

Music at the start 🔥🔥🔥

I grew up playing the Spanish version of the game, and when I played the English version for the first time some years ago, I was surprised when I read "Whatever" time and again. I didn't remember Squall having a catchphrase like that in the Spanish version!