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Leonard Friedman is a character and antagonist in ObsCure and ObsCure II. He is the twin brother of Herbert Friedman, the principal of Leafmore, and co-founder of Leafmore High in 1902.

He injected himself with the unfinished Anti-Aging Serum, and exposed himself to light without knowing the consequences. His Mutation is unique due to his unregulated exposure to light.

Backstory[]

Leonard and his twin brother Herbert were born in the late 1800s and went on to become well know in field of Plant Biology and Virology. The two brothers were close and had a shared loved for science as well as Africa, which is where they spent a lot of time collecting unknown plant specimens, specifically the Mortifilia. They experimented with the plant in the hopes that its longevity and regenerative properties could be transferred to the human body.



They tried unsuccessfully to gain recognition and grants for their work, which was rejected as the experiments were considered morally and spiritually controversial. The brothers needed a way to test what they had created without anyone knowing, and in a desperate attempt to prove his theory, Leonard injected himself with the spores and exposed himself to light. Unfortunately the spores reacted in a way that neither of the twins expected.

Mutation[]

Leonard's mutation became obvious on March 24th 1903 after he injected himself with the Anti-Aging serum. His skin started developing Melanomas that later scabbed over, and began to resemble tree bark, and his skeleton became wider, and His condition started to mimic the genetic disorder Xeroderma Pigmentosum. Around April 18th, Leonard decided to stay inside away from the sun to try and stop his mutation, but the damage had already been done, and he was still mutating.

False death[]

Leonard is said to have been last seen in 1921.

In 1968, a newspaper article was published he lost control of an airplane and died at sea near Long Island, with his brother Herbert being the only survivor. However, there was no body or evidence of an airplane found.

Confinement[]

At some point after his mutation started spiraling out of control, Herbert locked Leonard in Leafmore High school's basement, where he continued to mutate to the point of growing large roots, and becoming very tree-like, and less humanoid in bodily structure.

Before he lost the ability to write, he wrote a small document (found in ObsCure II) detailing how he was stuck at Leafmore Highschool, and that he was mutating as a result of Injecting himself with the Anti-Aging serum. He expected that instead of just continuing to mutate, that eventually he'd die as a result of his mutations.

His roots would grow larger, and larger, and began digging into the floor, and ceiling under the gym, which would cause it to collapse later on at the end of the game.

He lost a majority of his human attributes, only having his face, and brain left, however just like Xeroderma Pigmentosum, Leonard's mental status also began to decline. He became much angrier than before, and his ability to properly speak had become compromised, and he was only able to communicate in loud roaring noises.

Death[]

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Ashley fighting Leonard.

After the murder of his brother by Daniel Walden, he killed the former teacher and was eventually directly confronted by the infected teenagers. Despite his best efforts to kill them, they had already destroyed the roots that suspended him to the ceiling. This caused a large portion of the gym to collapse, seemingly killing him. However, Leonard was not dead. Due to the destruction of the roots binding him and the now collapsed ceiling, he managed to rise from the lab to the gym to confront the remaining cured teenagers. In a blind rage he exposed himself to the rays of morning light to finish them off, but eventually his body began to break down and burn, ending his torment.

ObsCure II[]

Leonard makes an appearance in Obscure II with his son Jedidiah who was most likely conceived after his infection with the spores resulting in Jedidiah's deformities. Even though he appeared to have died in Obscure a part of the tree he became must have lived on and grew from what was left. A theory of this could be that the tree and Leonard were a separate entity and after Leonard's body was destroyed what was left continued to grow and what was left was mistaken by his son as his father.

Leonard is revealed to be the secondary antagonist of the story, as he was the source of the flowers that had been infecting the town. He is eventually killed again by Stan Jones and Corey Wilde, who cut off the three main roots of his body, causing him to bleed to death. Enraged, Jedidiah attacks Corey with an anguished scream, only to be violently killed with his signature weapon: a chainsaw.

His residence is also explored in the game.

Final Exam[]

Leonard appears in the ObsCure semi-remake Final Exam, alongside his brother. Like in the original game, he is mutated to an extreme extent and resides in a huge chamber beneath the gym in Leafmore. He is the final boss of Final Exam.

Personality and family relationships[]

Not much is known about Leonard's personality, but if you pay special attention to his actions, you can say that he is very short-tempered and impulsive when it comes to his work. When government agents confiscated and resold the Friedman brothers' equipment and research, Herbert took it easy and did nothing, while Leonard was furious that he had been taken away from what he loved so much. He was offended that he was never allowed to prove his case, so he took radical measures, infecting himself with mortifilia. He did not know how it would turn out, because he was sure that he had completely finished the serum.

However, his great love for work did not negate the highest feelings for his family too. Leonard only wants the best for himself, his wife, and brother, but he has his own ways of doing so. He probably did not intend to tell Elisabeth what he was going to do, as can be understood from her letter to Herbert: she guessed everything herself. Elizabeth was afraid that Leonard would go too far in his research and that he would actually be able to try the serum on himself, which further confirms the arguments about his boundless love for work, sometimes overshadowing everything else. So much so that Elisabeth even thought that Leonard would leave her if he knew that she wanted to stop him. This is due to the fact that Leonard works, completely withdrawing into himself, and, probably for this reason, he began to pay much less attention to his wife and ceased to announce his future plans. They even quarreled about this, because Leonard did not want to listen to anything and was convinced that all his decisions were completely correct. Because of this, one might think that he would really decide to break up with Elisabeth if he knew that she was medding in his work, but this is not so.

He did not listen to Elisabeth, not because he doesn't love her and doesn't consider her opinion, but because he is confident in his decisions and never want to let anyone to convince . He didn't change his mind even after a letter from a member of the Delta Theta Gamma brotherhood.

Leonard is a busy man who does not need unnecessary distraction from the goal. Despite this, he married Elisabeth in 1885, when his plans clearly had a lot of work, because five years later he and his brother flew to Africa, and this expedition was clearly not cheap and easily organized. This suggests that even despite his busyness, he loved Elisabeth so much that he wanted to see her around all this time. She is very affectionate and supportive, which could inspire the narcissistic Leonard to new achievements for her sake of praise. Leonard is not the kind of person who could lie about his feelings (he will rather remain silent, exposing himself as serious and harsh), and do something that he does not like, so he would never have married if he were wasn't truly in love.

Besides, it is impossible not to mention that Elisabeth has a medical education. Leonard could love her intellect as well. This can be confirmed by one of the films in Obscure 1, where Elisabeth is in the laboratory and helps Friedman brothers in their work. So, Leonard had complete confidence in his wife.

Most likely, Elisabeth is not very confident and is especially prone to anxious thoughts and panic, and also loves to receive attention from her husband and spend time with him, so she could think of the worst at once, looking at Leonard's obsession with his research.

As for his brother: Leonard was close to Herbert all their life. They shared a common interest in science and Africa, perhaps a little different, because Leonard delved into this much more deeply, when Herbert, apparently, was enough of opening their own school, but, nevertheless, they understood each other and could always find mutual language. Leonard, seeing the death of his brother, was very angry and upset. He took revenge on Professor Walden for this, but he did not calm down even then. Of course, his emotions were heightened by the influence of mortifilia, which is known to arouse aggression, but this does not change the matter too much. Herbert was a very dear person to him. Leonard remembered and understood everything, even as a hybrid of human and tree, unable to communicate. Herbert spoke with him like with a human, and Leonard was probably hurt even more by the fact that he himself was unable to answer.

A few words can also be said about Leonard's attitude towards his son. Jedidiah was conceived after Leonard injected himself with a mortifilia serum and, in fact, he is a kind of experiment to find out how this plant affects the reproductive system, but Leonard perceived his son as an heir. Although Leonard did not have time to prove himself as a father, he described Jedidiah as a strong child, but psychologically unstable. Leonard also mentioned that the genes he passed on to his son at conception had already mutated, but he and Elizabeth still wanted the child to live. Leonard most likely resigned himself to the fact that he might die and never see his son again, but was calm in the knowledge that Jedidiah could continue his work in the future.

Trivia[]

  • Stan in the second game refers to him as Herbert instead of Leonard, calling him the "Crazy principal who injected them the Mortifilia". This is obviously wrong, because the one who infected them was Herbert and he wasn't mutated into a monster as stated above. It's unknown whether or not this was an actual mistake by the developers or just a bad interpretation of the incident by Stan himself.

Gallery[]

Characters
Main
Kenny MatthewsShannon MatthewsJosh CarterAshley ThompsonStan Jones
Recurring
Herbert FriedmanDenny WaldenElisabeth WicksonMr. GarrisonDanAlan Gardener
Creatures
BiterInfected StudentEvolved InfectedCrawler FlyCrabArbolTrebolQueenLeonard Friedman
Weapons
Automatic PistolBaseball BatMetal BarOld ShotgunOld PistolRevolverTwo Barrel ShotgunFlashlightLaserMorgenstern BatLaser GunLight Grenade
Locations
Leafmore High (CafeteriaHerbert's OfficeGymnasium)
Archives
ItemsSecrets and Unlockables
Characters
Main
Shannon MatthewsStan JonesKenny MatthewsCorey WildeAmy BrookesSven HansenMei WangJun Wang
Recurring
Richard JamesJedidiah FriedmanΔΘГ Brotherhood
Creatures
AmorphousArbolTrebolBreederEvolved InfectedHarpyRunnerSpider Biter
Weapons
Baseball BatHockey StickGolf ClubChainsawMorgenstern BatPistolStun GunShotgunCrossbowFlashballUber FlashlightMini SMGFlare GunDynamiteFlashlightLight Grenade
Locations
City of FallcreekFallcreek UniversityDelta Theta Gamma Frat HouseFallcreek University HospitalFallcreek's DamTurtle Stone IslandLeonard Friedman's ResidenceLeafmore HighLincoln Stadium
Archives
ItemsSecrets and Unlockables
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