Squall Leonhart

Character
Name:	Squall Leonhart
Occupation:	SeeD, Gunblade Specialist
Relationships:	Cloud (rival), Sora (acquaintance), Donald (acquaintance), Goofy (acquaintance), Aerith (colleague), Yuffie (colleague), Cid (colleague), Seifer (enemy/rival), Rinoa (friend/love interest), Quistis (friend), Selphie (friend), Zell (friend), Irvine (friend), Laguna (father), Raine (mother), Kiros (friend of father), Ward (friend of father), Ultimecia (enemy)
Fandom:	Final Fantasy
Other:
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Squall is a main character in the Square Enix video game Final Fantasy VIII, and a supporting character in the Square Enix/Disney video game Kingdom Hearts, albeit under the alias of 'Leon' in the latter.

Canon

Squall Leonhart is a 17-year-old cadet at Balamb Garden, a school to train young people to join the mercenary organization SeeD. He is a highly skilled gunblade specialist, one of only two cadets at the Garden to master this weapon (the other being Seifer Almasy).

Squall speaks little and comes across to the people around him as a loner who can be standoffish and rude, but his inner monologue reveals him to be far more sensitive and insecure than he appears, as well as somewhat socially awkward. As the story progresses, it's revealed that he spent his childhood in an orphanage, where he was separated from his older foster sister Ellone. Although he has no memory of the event, he's still affected by the trauma. As a result, he chooses to isolate himself and avoid forming attachments due to his fear of abandonment.

In the course of canon, Squall grows into a leader, and he learns to accept his friends into his life and allow himself to be vulnerable with them. He forms a strong bond with Rinoa Heartilly, as well as his friends Zell Dincht, Quistis Trepe, Irvine Kinneas, and Selphie Tilmitt. He also becomes acquainted with Laguna Loire, though he is unaware that Laguna is in fact his father.

Fandom

Common ships:

• Squall/Rinoa -- this is a canon relationship.
• Squall/Seifer -- Squall and Seifer are typically interpreted as rivals, though a common trope in fanfiction is that they were close friends in the orphanage before they began losing their memories and became rivals/enemies. Hatesex is also a popular trope. Many post-canon works engage in character bashing of Rinoa.
• Squall/Zell
• Squall/Quistis
• Squall/Irvine
• Squall/Laguna is surprisingly popular; although this is an incest ship, Squall and Laguna are unaware that they're biologically related in canon.

Squall's Kingdom Hearts alias Leon is frequently shipped with Cloud. The ship's popularity has earned it the nickname StrifeHart

Example Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

• come aboard (let's go dreaming) by dustofwarfare, a Seifer/Squall/Rinoa post-canon polyfic

Links & Resources

• Squall Leonhart tag at Archive of Our Own