In addition to Leona’s “ridiculous magic reserves” Ruggie says that Leona’s “stamina’s nuts, too,” which might be a character trait of Leona’s: while training three other students for the Cloudcalling tournament Vil observes that Leona is “not even breathing hard,” with even Lilia saying, “I can’t lay a finger on you.”
This is in contrast to the drama of Book 7 where Leona insists on staying behind to battle the darkness of Riddle’s mind and sends Deuce on without him: when Deuce balks at the idea of leaving Leona behind Leona responds, “Lions have no stamina,” but this was possibly a lie meant to convince Deuce to let him sacrifice himself and buy Deuce time.
When Jade explains to Leona that Floyd has “a certain admiration” for strong people, calling Leona “a rather formidable Spelldrive player and an equally capable mage,” Leona says, “You’re giving me way too much credit. Even if we did go head-to-head, I doubt l’d live up to his expectations.” Jade responds, “Such modesty.”
When a dream-Ace calls Leona more of a fighter than Trey and Cater, saying, “You’ve got a super powerful signature spell, and you can block our housewarden’s signature spell,” Leona responds, “That was more of a fluke.”
When Leona sends first-year students of Savanaclaw hurrying off to prepare for spelldrive practice after they are caught slacking off Jack and Ruggie start commenting on Leona’s commanding presence.
Ruggie says, “Our king’s the best around!,” but Leona responds, “I snap at a couple of froshes and you call me king? Must be an awfully cheap crown.”
Jack, too, tries to call Leona their king, but Leona cuts him off.
While often providing help behind the scenes and denying when he is found out, Leona will refuse to offer overt assistance, telling a palace guard in his hometown that “Real warriors don’t need to rely on others’ teachings” and he should dedicate himself to making it on his own.
Leona says he will stay out of disputes between younger students in Savanclaw, saying, “How’re they gonna grow up if I stick my nose into every little argument in the dorm?”
Leona even applies this same logic to Malleus, telling Silver and he and Lilia are “way overprotective” and the Malleus “is not some lost child” and people should quite treating him like one.
When Kalim offers to fetch Malleus for a meeting Leona responds, “It defeats the whole purpose if he doesn’t take the initiative.”
Leona also refuses a request for help from Ruggie and Jack during Port Fest, refuses when Epel asks him for tutoring (though he does tutor Ruggie) and leaves his tsum on its own, saying, “Not like it’s domesticated or anythin’. I’m sure it can fend for itself.”
Leona gives advice to Jack prior to Port Fest without giving him explicit instructions, encouraging him to think for himself, which he repeats during Halloween.
Leona says he emphasizes independence with the spelldrive team in order to “install some self-reliance.”
In Book 7 Leona claims that he barely pays attention to other dorms, but in Book 6 Leona provides detailed evaluations of Azul and Riddle’s strengths and weaknesses to Jamil, as well as an evaluation of Jamil himself, which seems to resonate.
Idia in particular seems to take what Leona says at face value: he agrees that Leona does not seem to pay attention to others (“I never took you for a guy with his finger on the pulse of the community, Leona”), and when Leona asks if Ortho has a point to make after complimenting Leona in Book 7 Idia responds, “Talk about a complete lack of modesty,” in a complete opposite evaluation of Leona to characters like Skully, who might be more perceptive.
Leona’s claim that he barely pays attention to other dorms was possibly another example of Leona downplaying himself, intentionally giving others the impression that he is not anything more than he seems to be, a point he might have in common with Trey (more here ▶︎ and here ▶︎)
Twisted Wonderland Reference Note 