So first, it’s good to note why Leona’s backstory lacks the oomph the others’ do: it follows Scar’s too closely.
The Queen of Hearts, Ursula, Jafar, and Grimhilde all have minimal to no backstory, leading Riddle, Azul, Jamil, and Vil to have backstories unique to their characters and in line with their respective flaws.
Leona doesn’t get that, he gets Scar’s backstory with little to no nuance to it, minus a single scene of royal court guards/servants complaining about Leona’s shitty attitude and the implications of that alongside Unique Magic as dangerous as his. The flashback frames this complaint as part of Leona’s resentment, but for Leona - the conclusions he makes in that scene are self-imposed. “If I was the first-born, they’d consider my magic incredible and my personality dignified” - an assumption Leona makes himself.
While this doesn’t excuse the way the servants talk about him, we all understand this is only a conclusion we reach ourselves based off context clues, and even then no one can argue about Leona’s shitty attitude. It falls under a weird category of ‘draw your own conclusions’, but even if we understand the conclusion we’re supposed to come from, the impact isn’t the same as how we how Riddle’s bitch of a mother controls his life, the bullying Azul went through, Jamil going through an entire lifetime of watching his family kowtow to Kalim’s and force him to live in Kalim’s shadow and forgo his own future, or the gross way stagehands talk about Vil being “too ethereal/prettyl to be relatable” when he’s only twelve fucking years old and him being typecasted from then on, etc.
For Leona, it’s all indirect and context clues, and considering the severity of Leona’s actions in Ep2… it makes his backstory fall flat. That’s why it doesn’t have that oomph to it. I know people are going to argue about needing to 'draw our own conclusions’, but that conclusion is that we only see the servants talking about Leona after he’s already acting like a brat.
Should they fear and loathe them, as Leona claims? No. That only makes it worse and makes Leona lash out more and fall deeper into this belief that being second-born and Cheka’s birth left him with no place in his own home, and arguably country.
Not to mention, the way Leona talks about Farena, when the one exchange we see between them is Leona once again pushing himself into a corner more, when Farena’s just trying to reason with him, but Leona’s resentment goes too deep by this point.
I feel like fleshing out these relationships, instead of just Scar’s backstory copy/pasted onto pretty catboy would’ve helped in the long-run.
Bearing in mind Farena’s ten years Leona’s senior, and we can gather he’s someone who values Leona despite all of Leona’s attitude. we know Farena’s a fairly open and bright person. 'Too laid-back’ in Leona’s opinion, everything starts with us only seeing Leona’s resentment against him from the get-go. So if we want to flesh out Leona’s story for some oomph, we start with them. And that’s the bare minimum without even overthinking the situation with their parents, namely their father, who currently fell ill, hence why Farena assists in leading the Sunset Savanna.
Leona initially looking up to, or at least getting along with Farena when they’re younger. If we go for the former, that’s already a strong divergence from Scar’s story. The dynamic of an older brother with an already bright personality, and the more reserved younger Leona already brings up an interesting relationship of them balancing each other. Just like how in Lion King, Mufasa 'got the muscle’, and Scar got the 'lion’s share’ of wit.
Combine that with the ups and downs of Farena’s increasing education and personal responsibilities as the first-born prince, and how, gradually, as they get older, he and Leona may drift apart. Something Leona’s not happy about, but comes to understand as 'inevitable’ and takes in stride - and you can probably add Farena assuring him they’d remain close regardless whenever he can.
As time goes on, Leona develops his own interests and hobbies, naturally. Learning to play chess, how quickly he picks it up - a personal badge of pride for him and the way he describes playing chess with the adults in his youth in his B-day SSR. It’s the hints to royal court servants just how clever and quick-thinking Leona can be.
And Leona can still remain his reserved, aloof self. And with the chess thing, that adds his confidence into the mix. He’s young, a prince, he’s not particularly close to anyone apart from the brother he’s drifting apart from, and disinterested in the formalities of royalty. But the politics of it, the nature and innate pride of being king to it still fascinates him - he’s a child, an incredibly intelligent and shrewd one by his very nature, but not infallible - at this point in his life the ’ideal’ concept of leading a country exists in his head. The one who has a better idea of how things actually are is Farena.
Knowing how intelligent he is, Leona’s bound to be overconfident and cocky at a young age, that’s just how it is. But as he gets older, that can’t overshadow how it seems like Farena gets more attention. It’s ‘to be expected’, he’s the first prince, successor to the throne, all that jazz. But compared to that, the options for Leona seem ‘less impressive’ and urgent, especially by the standards of possibly seeing any amount of people fussing over Farena. Meanwhile Farena still remains his same old self, just maturing – but Leona can feel it in himself that the distance between them is growing – and so is the gap between their accomplishments. Compared to that, his ‘laid-back’, bright elder brother remains the ‘focal point’ due to his own responsibilities. Leona wants his share of that feeling of importance, he’s chasing that concept he grew up with.
Leona’s never mentioned how many relatives in his family has magic, for all we know it could be a good many of them, just him and Farena, or just him. But either way, we know the Kingscholar family enlists royal magical instructors – hence why Leona knows so much as he does. He’s an extremely well-read prince. Developing one’s Unique Magic at an early age requires impressive skill and ‘imagination’, so if Leona worked towards developing his UM at an early age as a means of getting attention for himself… then the resulting aftermath of its fierce nature makes the rejection of it hit harder for Leona. And depending on his family’s magician count – it could be all the more devastating, especially if he’s one of very few magicians within the current family. He’s developed his UM early on, and yet it’s something that people fear.
That rejection acts a catalyst for Leona. How he feels even more alienated and distanced from his family, how the one thing he’s got to himself ended up raising eyebrows in concern and unease instead of awe and amazement. Even as a teen, that hits hard and leaves a strong impression on Leona on his place in the family, which just makes his attitude worse and further alienates him from others. Including Farena – the person Leona used to be closest to.
And when Farena takes notice, things get rockier. Leona doubting if Farena actually understands what’s going on in Leona’s head, what it’s like having others fear you for something you worked your ass off for. To Leona, Farena gets it easy due to being next in line – there’s no place for Leona. His attitude gets worse, and the hurt gets worse, and in an attempt to shield himself, Leona recontextualises that onto Farena – thus we get to Leona’s resentment as the second-born.
Now that he’s put so much of the blame onto his birth order and Farena, he comes to reject that former bond he had with Farena. And as he gets older, that feeling only grows, and eventually we get the Leona we know in TWST’s story.
TL;DR: a bit more nuance on Leona and Farena’s relationship, Leona’s emotional state growing up, the effect of seeing perceived ‘special treatment’, and the actual rejection from others Leona’s shouldered. It’d certainly add more weight to the scene we see of Leona overhearing palace servants speaking about him.
