💙 This song is so Chreon-coded / Dermot Kennedy - Homeward 💙
"It's okay to be a little scared of it all
I hope that you know that it's okay to fall (...)
So breathe in and breathe out
Take all the time you need
I'm here now, take every piece of me (...)
Tell me all that you lost
Don't know if I can fix it, but I promise you I'll listen
I'm all yours, find your peace in my arms".
If you’re like me and have an unhealthy obsession with the Vendetta movie and, more specifically, Chris and Leon’s interactions in the movie, I’m compiled a rambling, sorta-analysis on some of the scenes that really stood out to me and that I personally thought were interesting.
To start out, with Matt’s recent interview about Leon’s trauma and recovery between Vendetta and Death Island, it looks like Chris’s arrival to Colorado is what started Leon in the right direction. As described by Matt, Leon’s trauma mostly stems from his inability to save everyone– in other words, his trauma manifests as survivors’ guilt, a symptom of PTSD. Even though there is no realistic way for Leon to be able to save everyone, he holds himself responsible for every life lost. He’s worn out in Vendetta because he feels that nothing he does matters and that he doesn’t make a difference. It’s like he says in the movie, “I keep fighting and fighting and instead of seeing an end to this shit it just keeps getting worse”. Matt specifically stated that Leon knowing it’s ok to reach out and having a sense of community, friends he can rely on and people that care about him is what helped him recover and why he is doing much better in Death Island. While Chris wasn’t specifically named, it was Chris who reached out to Leon and helped convince him to join the mission.
I feel like this is capitalized on in the scene where Patricio’s phone rings. As soon as the phone rings, Leon immediately looks to Chris, seemingly for support. He shows him the phone screen and Chris gives him the tight-lipped “well shit” expression and Leon answers. Leon looks over at Chris frequently throughout the phone call, looking devastated while Chris just continues to watch him. After Leon hangs up, Chris emphasizes the fact that he needs Leon, and Leon looks around them at the destruction, seemingly hesitating at first before we see him on the Osprey with Chris.
Chris and Leon meeting at the restaurant bar is interesting for a lot of reasons. First, there’s the fact that Leon very clearly did not want to be found. It’s obvious from both the book and the movie that Leon went on vacation to escape his life for a little while due to the trauma and his mental health. He specifically chose a remote location, far from tourist attractions, and stayed in a kinda shitty lodge**, according to it’s description in the novel. Leon’s reaction to Chris and Rebecca’s arrival seems to signal he didn’t know they were coming, so it’s unlikely that Chris/Rebecca just called him to ask where he was. It really makes me wonder how Chris was able to find him, and maybe he knew where Leon was from the start.
**
Second, almost immediately after Chris and Rebecca’s arrival, Leon starts to quote the bar scene from Casablanca. Both “that was so long ago I don’t remember” and “I never make plans that far ahead” are lines of Rick’s dialogue from the scene where Yvonne comes and confronts him (drunkenly) at the bar. Yvonne and Rick slept together, and while Rick continuously tried to push Yvonne away, she was seemingly still in love with him. Leon assigned Chris the “role” of Yvonne, as we know from the novel, when Leon says “hey that’s my line!”
The whole set up is very interesting– especially given the context of the scene and the fact that Chris seemingly doesn’t get the reference (or perhaps doesn’t care to entertain Leon) but Rebecca does– and the fact that Chris later quotes the line back to Leon at the end of the movie while they smile at each other.
There’s clearly an unspoken bond between them as well. The way Chris looks at Leon, I think it’s undeniable that something is going on there. Whether it’s love or care or whatever word you want to assign it, he definitely cares for Leon. Even at times when Leon isn’t looking at him, or is focused on something else, Chris is just watching him. We know they’re clearly quite close– Leon was the one who snapped Chris out of his amnesia-fueled lust for revenge in re6 after all– but that is expanded upon in Vendetta.
In the novelization, it’s specifically mentioned that it’s upsetting for Chris to see Leon like that (drunk, depressed, alone) because it reminds him of himself in Edonia. They work together flawlessly, which is especially noticeable in the hallway scene. With just Leon’s quick nod as if to say “let’s take care of this,” they work together and cover each other’s backs as they take out the horde of zombies.
Speaking of the hallway scene, I want to know what the hell they were going to say to each other while standing there staring into each other’s eyes. The way it’s presented in the novel, it seems like they wanted to say something but there was “no time for words” because the zombies showed up.
This one is a bit of an offshoot from previously mentioned things but when Leon approaches Chris when he’s got the mask on Rebecca, there’s just 5 seconds of Leon standing there staring at Chris while Chris stares back and smiles before Chris says “One more thing left to do,” and then they continue to stand there and stare at each other. Even as the camera angle changes to show the Osprey landing, Leon is still standing there staring at Chris and starts to walk closer as it fades to black.
And that concludes my caffeine and watching vendetta twice within 16 hours fueled rambling/analysis. Even though it’s not really canon per-se in a romantic sense (side eyes Capcom), I really enjoy Chris and Leon’s interactions, and I think everyone can agree that it’s obvious they care for each other immensely in some capacity.
As several of you have requested, here is my official Chreon rambling:
I just find Chris and Leon’s dynamic to be so interesting, and if you apply a romantic lense to it, I think it becomes even more interesting.
The first time they actually meet on screen in RE6, but we know they’ve met at least once before (TerraSave reunion party) but potentially twice (when Leon told Chris Claire was on Rockfort Island). At that point, Chris was still struggling with getting all his memories back after the amnesia, but for someone who supposedly didn’t have much of a connection to Leon and had only seen him once three years prior, he seemed to recognize Leon right away once they stopped fighting and were face to face. I also really love this part where, even though they just had their guns pointed at each other, Leon just puts hand on Chris’s arm to get him to stop. The way Leon immediately follows it with “I know you’ll make the right decision” and tells Helena that he trusts Chris- it’s everything to me.
And we know Chris cares about Leon too. The sheer desperation in his voice as he tries to warn Leon about the missle and then asks if Leon’s ok after the explosion. And let’s not forget Leon is having Chris to go save Sherry too– the same Sherry he views as a daughter and quite literally signed his life away to save.
Then we get to Vendetta which is where their relationship is displayed the best thus far (I say thus far ‘cause Death Island hasn’t come out yet). The bar scene in the film is iconic, but the scene from the bar is so much more emotional. I got a translation of the dialogue during the bar scene and it’s just so sweet. Rebecca leaves to go to the bathroom, giving Chris and Leon a chance to talk privately and it’s explicitly mentioned that it hurts Chris to see Leon this way because he cares about Leon and it reminds him of himself back in Edonia. Translation courtesy of convenientmirror.
Throughout the entirety of Vendetta, Chris and Leon just seem so close. In my 100000th rewatch of the movie, I finally screenshotted something I’d noticed a while back. Chris just doesn’t take his arm off Leon’s back. Like Leon straight up punches Patrico and Chris is having a conversation with the waitress but he leaves his hand on Leon’s back the whole time. I’m not sure whether that was a “take it easy” gesture or a comforting gesture– probably both– but it was cute. It reminds me of the way Leon put his hand on Chris’s shoulder/chest in RE6 to stop him so they can talk. For two guys who allegedly aren’t that close they sure are comfortable putting their hands on one another…
And don’t even get me started on the way they look at each other in the movie… I don’t care what anyone has to say the way Chris especially looks at Leon, you don’t look at someone like that unless you’re admiring them. The hallway scene in particular really stands out to me. As I’ve mentioned in another post, they’re on a time crunch here to both save Rebecca, stop the infection of the city, and nab Arias yet they take the time to stand unnecessarily close to each other and stare into each other’s eyes. They’re also so in sync during the hallway fight scene. Despite never having fought together before like this, Leon communicates the “let’s finish these bastards” with nothing more than a head tilt and Chris understands that perfectly. They fight together seamlessly as if they’d trained together for years. I wonder what would’ve happened if the zombies hadn’t shown up and no one had interrupted their moment.
And now with Death Island, we get to see these two together again. I hope they have as many moments here as they did in Vendetta. Especially with the setup of the files being stolen for Leon, Chris, and Jill, I think a lot of interesting things could happen.
