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Final Fantasy VIII

Seifer knocks Squall to the ground during the opening sequence.

In Final Fantasy VIII, Squall is known as a "lone wolf" by his peers because he never explains his feelings. Even compared to the originally indifferent Cloud Strife of Final Fantasy VII, he comes off as cold to his allies.His superiors, such as his teacher, Quistis Trepe, consider him difficult to deal with but greatly respect his natural talents.He is also known to be stoic in some situations.His taciturn attitude is also used for comic relief. In the cutscene where he first meets Rinoa, she coerces him into dancing with her at the SeeD graduation ball.He awkwardly bumps into other partygoers while staring constantly at his feet with a look of confusion. Rinoa, however, perseveres in partnering him, and Squall eventually reveals that he's quite capable of dancing, as it is a mandatory aspect of his training.

Squall Leonhart render

Squall is unwillingly dragged into the role of the hero when Cid, headmaster of Balamb Garden, appoints him as leader of the academy midway through the game. He is often thrown into a leadership role, as is evident in the Timber and Galbadia missions. During a late battle against Galbadia Garden, Squall demonstrates some leadership difficulties, which are tied to his lingering isolationism. As time progresses, he grows more comfortable with the leadership role, especially when it comes time to defeat Ultimecia, the antagonist. Likewise, other characters have to make efforts to pull him out of his isolation, and Rinoa has to expend a lot of energy to pursue a romance with him. It takes considerable time for him to accept the others' offered friendship and fall in love with Rinoa and care for her.

Throughout the game, he has a distinct rivalry with Seifer Almasy. The opening sequence depicts the duel in which Squall obtained his characteristic facial scar (and subsequently gave an almost identical one to Seifer; Squall's starts above his right eye and goes to his left cheek, while Seifer's goes from left to right) and scenes in which Squall and Seifer are supposed to be cooperating are characterized by squabbles between the two cadets. Later, Seifer seemingly allies himself with the Sorceress, requiring Squall to battle him several times. Nevertheless, despite their conflict, Squall still feels an underlying camaraderie for Seifer, and mourns him in his own way when he believes Seifer to have been executed after an attempted kidnapping of Galbadian President Vinzer Deling.

According to flashbacks in the game, Squall grew up in an orphanage, along with many of the other main characters such as Zell, Seifer, Selphie, Irvine and Quistis. They were looked after by Edea. Though he remembers little of this past, it causes him to develop into an emotionally detached, highly cynical and introverted boy; his original goal is to go through life without any emotional links or dependencies. However, Squall gradually warms as the game progresses, and it is later revealed that his deliberate detachment from his companions is a defensive mechanism to protect himself from emotional pain, like he experienced when his older sister figure at the orphanage, one of the sole emotional supports in his early life, was forcibly separated from him.

Upon defeating Ultimecia, as his comrades are pulled back from time compression into their own respective places in the timeline, Squall takes a detour back to the orphanage, where he encounters a younger Edea. Since she does not want to involve any of the children, Edea ends up absorbing the dying Ultimecia's powers as part of the cycle of sorceresses (a sorceress must pass on her powers to a successor before she is allowed to die peacefully), and wonders aloud about endings and beginnings (dialogue mirroring words to Squall years later, on Disc 3). Squall plants the ideas for Garden and SeeD in her mind, creating an in-game loop in which he must become the leader of Balamb Garden so that he can make it to this point again.^[24]

There are strong indications in the game that Laguna Loire is Squall's father. During flashbacks induced by Ellone's power, in which the main characters experience past events through the eyes of Laguna, Kiros, and Ward, Squall is required (by the game) to assume the role of Laguna, despite the fact that any of the other characters in Squall's party may take on the role of Kiros or Ward. If Squall travels to Winhill after Garden is activated, he will encounter inexplicable visions of Raine, a woman to whom Laguna was very close, throughout the town. Ellone also mentions that Raine died—apparently in childbirth—and that she had a baby boy. When Squall is captured, all the Moomba keep referring to Squall as Laguna (it is later indicated that the Moomba recognize people by their blood, suggesting a tie between Squall and Laguna). Toward the end of the game, aboard the Ragnarok, Kiros and Ward make commentary as to Squall's resemblance to his mother and his dissimilarity to his father. Laguna also intends to tell something to Squall, but he opts not to due to the circumstances.