Zenos: The Big Bad (The Feedback Thread, Part 1)

I'm hoping they'll at least have a solo fight against him at some point so we can actually feel like we beat him personally.

Whether it happens before or after the obligatory trial doesn't really matter to me.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Can we have the classical boss...without having the classical utterly random and inexplicable nonsense that oft comes with classical bosses? /panic

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I, Zenos, Shall knock you all down.

I thought it was very telling that we've had multiple teasers of Zenos doing very little aside from sitting around on a throne looking very bored...only for his big reveal in the expansion cinematic to consist of - you guessed it - Zenos sitting around looking very bored. As a character he does absolutely nothing for me. He was mildly intriguing for the duration of Stormblood's initial MSQ's but then he just started to overstay his welcome and exist at the expense of characters with much more potential and depth.

I like Zenos.

I'm tired of the mantra that "villains must be DEEP or complicated". I'm tired of the victimization of evil where villains have to have tragic backstories or be sympathetic.

I like Zenos... because he is unapologetically EVIL. He isn't fighting for some warped ideology. He isn't lashing out against the world. Zenos is just a bloodthirsty warrior who loves the thrill of living on the edge of death and that's it. He is refreshing in his simplicity.

I am fine if he turns out to be the final boss.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I thought it was very telling that we've had multiple teasers of Zenos doing very little aside from sitting around on a throne looking very bored...only for his big reveal in the expansion cinematic to consist of - you guessed it - Zenos sitting around looking very bored. As a character he does absolutely nothing for me. He was mildly intriguing for the duration of Stormblood's initial MSQ's but then he just started to overstay his welcome and exist at the expense of characters with much more potential and depth.

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This is one of my problems with how he's been handled.

Zenos is at his most interesting when he is going out there and DOING stuff.

Zenos is at his most boring when he's lounging on a chair... like he did for the last 4 patches.

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Originally Posted by rainichan

I'll tinfoil it up here and say that perhaps he's already Zodiark, and he's just waiting for Hydaelyn's Champion to come for him that way.

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Ooooo interesting idea.

First, I didn't like Zenos in Stormblood. But after, he started to be interesting to me. His obsession for the WoL is something who makes him interesting.

Yet, the problem with him is : he is doing nothing and still have all powers/skills to beat us ? Really ? Yes, he is talented, skilled and clever. Yes, Emet-Selch did something with him probably but still, it's strange if he could do so much damage to the planet/to us just in sitting there (Or Fandaniel is doing everything and Zenos is watching/waiting) In SB, I could accept he could be better than us with all his trainings in Garlemald, but since, what did he do to be better ?
And now, I'm really like "If you want to beat us, stop sitting there and come out to fight us yourself" when I see him talking about us.
I really like him now but when we know he will just wait for us to come, I feel like "Stormblood again"...

Like Moofia said, it's not interesting to see him "waiting" for battle when we are equal to him. He need to come out and chase us himself for make his obsession for battle real. Now, maybe, that will change... I hope at least.

Personally, imo I think Zenos does have a reasoning for his behavior, and I do think he makes a good antagonist. Not *great* but enough to make sense to me.

Like, he was raised on swordplay. It's practically all he knows. Now place that in a big mixing pot of being raised in the Garlean Empire and I mean...yeah he's an entitled handsome antagonist with pretty hair but a bad attitude.

Yeah he's bored, that's his *thing*.

I agree with MoofiaBoss that not every bad guy needs a *oh so deep tragic story as to why they're evil*.

Because there's been plenty of evil in various other stories and even actual *bad guys* (like murderers and stuff) that are evil for the sake of it. Because they *can be*.

I hate that you can't edit posts on mobile.

But also to add. Can't an antagonist just be simply 'mentally unhinged'?

It's too bad that all he's been doing lately is sit and talk about being bored while occasionally killing Garleans. He was much more active in his pursuit of goals back in Stormblood. I hope he'll be more active in Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by myahele

It's too bad that all he's been doing lately is sit and talk about being bored while occasionally killing Garleans. He was much more active in his pursuit of goals back in Stormblood. I hope he'll be more active in Endwalker.

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Hopefully he'll be killing the creatures summoned from the towers himself as a warmup for dealing with us. I mean, that would be a terrifying lead up. Having just fought a really difficult boss, and then the cutscene after you enter a room...filled with multiple ones of them killed by his hand, and him not even out of breath.

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Originally Posted by myahele

It's too bad that all he's been doing lately is sit and talk about being bored while occasionally killing Garleans. He was much more active in his pursuit of goals back in Stormblood. I hope he'll be more active in Endwalker.

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He wasn't active in Stormblood either. The closest he's ever been to being an active antagonist was the five minutes he took to launch an assault on Rhalgr's Reach. Almost every other instance, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

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Originally Posted by myahele

It's too bad that all he's been doing lately is sit and talk about being bored while occasionally killing Garleans. He was much more active in his pursuit of goals back in Stormblood. I hope he'll be more active in Endwalker.

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I mean, we *are* going to the moon. I think shid be getting pretty interesting soon.

I still find it funny that people have this hate boner for Zenos, because, "He's just bored and boring and doing nothing all of the time!" Like... The Ascians before him. Elidibus before him. Every meanwhile scene before him. Like, sure, occasionally they did some stuff like talked to new antagonist NPCs for the patch. Or ominously talked with Urianger in Gubal library. Or laughed maniacally at frozen Great Wyrm eyes. The substance was always the same though, "Haha, evil Ascian master plan. Mwahaha, evil laugh. Something something Hydaelyn's champion's days are numbers something something chaos."

Not saying Zenos is a step up, but I mean, where was all this hate for the Ascians?

Though this also has me thinking, isn't it quite delightful? The old king of meanwhile scenes, Elidibus, literally took the body of Zenos and was used in meanwhile scenes inside of it, and after he left it, and Zenos took it up again... meanwhile scenes!

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

I still find it funny that people have this hate boner for Zenos, because, "He's just bored and boring and doing nothing all of the time!" Like... The Ascians before him. Elidibus before him. Every meanwhile scene before him. Like, sure, occasionally they did some stuff like talked to new antagonist NPCs for the patch. Or ominously talked with Urianger in Gubal library. Or laughed maniacally at frozen Great Wyrm eyes. The substance was always the same though, "Haha, evil Ascian master plan. Mwahaha, evil laugh. Something something Hydaelyn's champion's days are numbers something something chaos."

Not saying Zenos is a step up, but I mean, where was all this hate for the Ascians?

Though this also has me thinking, isn't it quite delightful? The old king of meanwhile scenes, Elidibus, literally took the body of Zenos and was used in meanwhile scenes inside of it, and after he left it, and Zenos took it up again... meanwhile scenes!

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Well there are several "I'm tired of Ascians" topics on the forums too... ;)
I agree though, apart from Emet-Selch's big moment throughout 5.0, Ascians aren't great villains from a character point of view. I am among those who have no real empathy for Emet / Elidibus. the 'rember us' sounds hollow to me. Elidibus IMO was completely victim of Emet's success and his moment in 5.3 was weird when he had close to zero development since his first appearance in 2.X. Ascians are the main plot device.

Zenos is the first iteration of a villain without a real cause, which in a sense is refreshing because adding backstory to the big baddies sometimes feels redundant (especially when it's "I was bullied as a child"). For me he just lacks the charisma to make him enjoyable.
The only comparison I can draw from Final Fantasy is Kefka, who has a bit of backstory but he is just evil by choice and pleasure. And while he isn't a lovable character, his writing is perfectly adequate in the big scope of the story.
Zenos however... is just there. He doesn't really make sense in the power scaling of our character. He doesn't represent anything once he has been defeated in 4.0. We know we will have to fight him (again), but I don't feel we are doing everything we do in order to stop him. That's my main issue, he feels so incidental in our story.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Not saying Zenos is a step up, but I mean, where was all this hate for the Ascians?

Though this also has me thinking, isn't it quite delightful? The old king of meanwhile scenes, Elidibus, literally took the body of Zenos and was used in meanwhile scenes inside of it, and after he left it, and Zenos took it up again... meanwhile scenes!

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The ascians are a weird example since different ones did different things
Everyone was confused about Elidibus. He never appeared much onscreen till 4.3 but his appearances were clearly doing things contrary to the other ascians OR making him out to be someone who gets others to do things for him.

that being the case: lahabread was clearly manipulating gaius. We fought Nabriales who damn well nearly gave the ascians a calamity causing stick. Lahabread and igoreyheom or however you spell it were active in HW MSQ behind Thordan (we caught up to them before him)

An ascian was behind Alexander's failed summon and the WOD turning up. Sb they were completely absent but in retrospect we can deduce that they were prepping for emet's death as the emperor until elidibus started doing things
We've also seen some lesser ascians teaching the sacrificial rites to the beast tribes for the ARR ex's and in the summoner questline.

Its not that the ascians haven't been doing anything, its that they've been manipulating other villains into doing things, and each time bar an incident in HW they confronted us, they got their arses handed to them if not slain. Plus, Gaius has been out there slaying ascians too and on the other shards things haven't always gone to plan either so some ascians will be on soul fragment hints to raise folks to office to replace the fallen.

Zenos meanwhile invaded the reach and thats about it in SB msq. He sat around waiting, then spent a few patches finding his body.

His current role seems to be to voice the playerbase's frustrations at fandango

In SB Zenos disgusted me because he was insane rabid monster and I guess that was writer's intention. Now I'm just bored of his boredom and it's like a nightmare to come true that he survives till 6.0...

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Originally Posted by Coletergeist

I hate that you can't edit posts on mobile.

But also to add. Can't an antagonist just be simply 'mentally unhinged'?

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They can be and depending in which way they are unhinged it can even be fun since such characters are often quite unpredictable. My problem with him though: He already got one expansion where he was like that and we beat him. Having another such expansion where the only difference will probably be his weapon and maybe his power level depending on if he gets Zodiark or not is imo boring. We already know this character. We know that he is obsessed with us. If this was his first introducing to the story and maybe before that we only heard some tibids here and there then I might have found him interesting but he already got his stage...

Also another problem: 6.0 will be the end of a story that is years long. I just dont want someone like him to be the last boss.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

I still find it funny that people have this hate boner for Zenos, because, "He's just bored and boring and doing nothing all of the time!" Like... The Ascians before him. Elidibus before him. Every meanwhile scene before him. Like, sure, occasionally they did some stuff like talked to new antagonist NPCs for the patch. Or ominously talked with Urianger in Gubal library. Or laughed maniacally at frozen Great Wyrm eyes. The substance was always the same though, "Haha, evil Ascian master plan. Mwahaha, evil laugh. Something something Hydaelyn's champion's days are numbers something something chaos."

Not saying Zenos is a step up, but I mean, where was all this hate for the Ascians?

Though this also has me thinking, isn't it quite delightful? The old king of meanwhile scenes, Elidibus, literally took the body of Zenos and was used in meanwhile scenes inside of it, and after he left it, and Zenos took it up again... meanwhile scenes!

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Hate boner is a very strong word. Arent people allowed to not like a character now? He is bored this is his whole arc. He is bascially bored of life and the only good thing now is to fight us. He has no greater goal, nothing at all. The Ascians before they were fleshed out were also critizied for being too one dimensional but at least they still had the air of mystery: Why are they doing it? Elidibus also had a bit going on with his talk about us joining their side if we knew the truth.

I agree that they sadly had not done much with Ascians for quite some time but then you have Emet-Selch. He too was an Ascian and he was so much fun. Every scene with him was a delight. And at the end even though I knew it was for the best and that he needed to be stopped it was still sad because you could understand him in some ways and you also knew that a great character would be gone from the story. That for me is the sign of a great villian.

Elidibus was fleshed out a tiny bit more before we ended him imo way too soon...imagine if they had given us a whole expansion with him. Maybe even temporarly team up with him to take down Fandaniel. No matter how evil the Ascians were, for me even someone like Lahabrea was way more interesting than Zenos.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I thought it was very telling that we've had multiple teasers of Zenos doing very little aside from sitting around on a throne looking very bored...only for his big reveal in the expansion cinematic to consist of - you guessed it - Zenos sitting around looking very bored. As a character he does absolutely nothing for me. He was mildly intriguing for the duration of Stormblood's initial MSQ's but then he just started to overstay his welcome and exist at the expense of characters with much more potential and depth.

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Misija needs to lend him that chair of hers. Then he won't even have to get off it to be a boss fight.

I think it's clear that Zenos is pursuing his goals in the background of the 5.X patches. He's made some sort of deal with Fandaniel to get access to Zodiark. Why isn't he seeking us out? Because he knows he can't beat us yet! We're only getting snippets of what the two of them are doing right now. We don't even know why Fandaniel needs Zenos - what has/will Zenos do for that side of the bargain?

I also object to the idea that Zenos is some kind of hypocrite for wanting to use Zodiark's power (rather than his own) to fight us. He doesn't care about an honourable fight, he cares about participating in the fight. Whether his tools be legendary katanas or the eldest and most powerful of primals, he will use them to increase the intensity of battle.

I don't think he's one-dimensional at ALL and feel like that label is more an indication of people being unable to see a character three dimensionally unless their contadictions and motives are laid bare. I'd go as far as to say "boring" is a core element of his character. It's like irl when people have the misconception that psychopaths are complex and mysterious, when it's actually the complete opposite in that their inner worlds are profoundly boring, infantile even. I see Zenos similarly and I think that in itself makes him interesting! Although I guess that sort of characterization isn't very entertaining on screen and only works in the context of like, an exploration of an interpersonal relationship.

I think Zenos can be very interesting, if you actually try to understand him.

He's not entertaining, sympathetic, tragic, redeemable, or particularly complex, but if you actually try and get into his headspace, try to understand why he says and does the things he does, there's more to him than a psycho killer.

tl;dr: For all his physical power Zenos is a poster boy for mental illness.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Air of mystery.

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Let's talk about the air of mystery, because that's one thing people seem to be taking for granted. We all assume that we have Zenos pegged, down, and ready to be butchered. I don't think so. When he lost to us while he was controlling Shinryu, controlling a god, he smiled. Then he killed himself. He wanted to leave the stage. He even has lines about, "There upon the stage I stood, prepared to take my final bow, only to find out the finale was but an intermission..."

He's got the air of mystery. Why was someone who was satisfied so completely, willing to come back to life in another body, and then seek out their old body? Why not drift off to oblivion? In this cavalcade of science experiments and body augmentations, what did Emet-selch do, that makes Zenos see the Final Days of Amaurot? Why does love and the other pleasures of the flesh seem lowly and hold no interest for him? When did he transcend man and become inhuman?

And it's not that people aren't allowed to dislike people, but it's the commonly held opinion, view, and feeling. People willingly post their dislike of Zenos all of the time, mostly to accolades, as if people need to justify disliking him. It becomes a little Zenos hate party, and that's fine. I just think it's shortsighted.

Also, I'd hate to have had a whole expansion of Elidibus. He was literally a plot device, the way people describe Zenos, but without anything beyond just being a white robed Ascian for a long time. I actually didn't really care for 5.3. To me, that was a patch that was more about giving Catboi Sage Deluxe a means to show off and play center stage. As he ever was, Elidibus's role could have been filled by any Ascian, and it would have been just as compelling.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Let's talk about the air of mystery, because that's one thing people seem to be taking for granted. We all assume that we have Zenos pegged, down, and ready to be butchered. I don't think so. When he lost to us while he was controlling Shinryu, controlling a god, he smiled. Then he killed himself. He wanted to leave the stage. He even has lines about, "There upon the stage I stood, prepared to take my final bow, only to find out the finale was but an intermission..."

He's got the air of mystery. Why was someone who was satisfied so completely, willing to come back to life in another body, and then seek out their old body? Why not drift off to oblivion? In this cavalcade of science experiments and body augmentations, what did Emet-selch do, that makes Zenos see the Final Days of Amaurot? Why does love and the other pleasures of the flesh seem lowly and hold no interest for him? When did he transcend man and become inhuman?

And it's not that people aren't allowed to dislike people, but it's the commonly held opinion, view, and feeling. People willingly post their dislike of Zenos all of the time, mostly to accolades, as if people need to justify disliking him. It becomes a little Zenos hate party, and that's fine. I just think it's shortsighted.

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Well we know that he has a version of the echo so him coming back is imo not suprising or that mysterious. Zenos simply did not know about the part of being brought back and who knows maybe he would have just moved on but then we got Elidibus in Zenos body and maybe he did not like it. I honestly doubt that there is much deeper meaning to that.

About love and other pleasure: I mean there are probably enough people in our own world that are simply not interested in such things. Zenos just takes his pleasure from fights.

I get that there are some mysteries but for me none of them are truly interesting, at least not enough to have someone like him back.

About other peoples opinion: But just because its a common one still does not make it a hate boner. This is also a thread specifically asking what we think about him. And maybe people are posting why they dont like it because they know that they will just be seen as a hater by some? Isnt it great that they at least try to take their time to say why they hate a fictional character? I remember a certain muscular female from a recent game...and how people that just did not like her were called names because surely you cant just dislike/hate someone (thats not even real) without being a terrible human being yourself.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

I think Zenos can be very interesting, if you actually try to understand him.

He's not entertaining, sympathetic, tragic, redeemable, or particularly complex, but if you actually try and get into his headspace, try to understand why he says and does the things he does, there's more to him than a psycho killer.

tl;dr: For all his physical power Zenos is a poster boy for mental illness.

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He still isn't interesting to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There's plenty of characters you can reduce to poster boys for mental illness. Doesn't add much for me. Could just be that it doesn't translate well to this medium as someone else mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Let's talk about the air of mystery, because that's one thing people seem to be taking for granted. We all assume that we have Zenos pegged, down, and ready to be butchered. I don't think so. When he lost to us while he was controlling Shinryu, controlling a god, he smiled. Then he killed himself. He wanted to leave the stage. He even has lines about, "There upon the stage I stood, prepared to take my final bow, only to find out the finale was but an intermission..."

He's got the air of mystery. Why was someone who was satisfied so completely, willing to come back to life in another body, and then seek out their old body? Why not drift off to oblivion? In this cavalcade of science experiments and body augmentations, what did Emet-selch do, that makes Zenos see the Final Days of Amaurot? Why does love and the other pleasures of the flesh seem lowly and hold no interest for him? When did he transcend man and become inhuman?

And it's not that people aren't allowed to dislike people, but it's the commonly held opinion, view, and feeling. People willingly post their dislike of Zenos all of the time, mostly to accolades, as if people need to justify disliking him. It becomes a little Zenos hate party, and that's fine. I just think it's shortsighted.

Also, I'd hate to have had a whole expansion of Elidibus. He was literally a plot device, the way people describe Zenos, but without anything beyond just being a white robed Ascian for a long time. I actually didn't really care for 5.3. To me, that was a patch that was more about giving Catboi Sage Deluxe a means to show off and play center stage. As he ever was, Elidibus's role could have been filled by any Ascian, and it would have been just as compelling.

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Compared to a character whose sole purpose is to take on Zodiark's power as a justification to fight him (one of the two at any rate), I'd say they're not really the same. Elidibus was always different to the other Ascians for the fact that he was preoccupied with the balance between light and dark (itself peculiar given that they represent darkness), and claimed closer proximity to Zodiark's will than the rest, which made it even stranger. The entire plot of the story revolves around the war of the supposed gods of light and dark. That puts him at a very central position in it and potentially privy to knowledge the other Ascians were not. He also took a contrary stance to the other Ascians in his interest in the "gifted", was implied to have objections to harm coming to Minfilia via Nabriales, was the only one who initially approached the MC in a non-confrontational manner, had implied if the truth of the world were known the conflicts would cease and as things progressed, there were hints that he had insight into what Hydaelyn's summoners had intended, by the end of 5.0. If anything, what rendered him harder to write was Emet's introduction. But there were plenty of deeper mysteries there to build upon should they have wished to, ones feeding off the game's central conflict and could get to the bottom of the Ascians' core motivations as well as their god's. We can say with the benefit of hindsight that his plotline could be fitted to any other (unsundered) Ascian, but really, that's besides the point that it was in him that those plot points existed until they made the decision to use Emet for a chunk of them, presumably because of the way they had written Elidibus's role in 4.1 onwards. I've mixed feelings on 5.3 (and yes, I'm no catboi sage fan), although there's aspects of it in how they built Elidibus's background that I liked.

With Zenos, they all mostly resolve to the Resonance. There's some minor questions around how that functions, but even the vision of the Final Days is potentially tied to his Ascian lineage. And yet, everyone has such visions seared into their soul provided the right impetus to unlock them. All the same, we'd likely require some other party to explain all that (like Fandaniel.) They could build a deeper background for Zenos, but why do so if they've got Fandaniel for that and when they said they've no intention to? The way things are going, it is Fandaniel on whom the mystery is focused.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

I think Zenos can be very interesting, if you actually try to understand him.

He's not entertaining, sympathetic, tragic, redeemable, or particularly complex, but if you actually try and get into his headspace, try to understand why he says and does the things he does, there's more to him than a psycho killer.

tl;dr: For all his physical power Zenos is a poster boy for mental illness.

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Seeing how the devs stated that he was created to be pure evil and not sympathetic at all, a character for people to hate, I kinda wonder if they ever intended for him to be seen through the lenses of mental illness. I mean you can I guess but as someone that is more towards "no matter the past that does not take away from your actions" I honestly dont really care if he migth have some mental illness he is still a horrible person that slays his own underlings for petty reasons. That kills his own father and that just destroyed a whole huge city because he does not care.

Also I am not sure that if I had a similiar illness (is it depression?) I would like to have someone like him as a poster boy for that and be one of the possible only "interesting" character traits for him. I mean we had someone like Emet that seemingly suffered from some cases of depression but he was more than that. And he was sympathetic in some way.

It's mostly Varis' fault he ended up the way he did, as he was given a joyless upbringing that focused entirely on teaching him the skills needed to be the next heir to the throne, and he unfortunately ended up finding his sole sense of fulfillment from combat.

His little speech about you being his one and only friend gave me a strong impression of someone who was socially deprived even before they went into his backstory.

He's a bit pitiful, but too far gone to be worthy of much sympathy.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It's mostly Varis' fault he ended up the way he did, as he was given a joyless upbringing that focused entirely on teaching him the skills needed to be the next heir to the throne, and he unfortunately ended up finding his sole sense of fulfillment from combat.

His little speech about you being his one and only friend gave me a strong impression of someone who was socially deprived even before they went into his backstory.

He's a bit pitiful, but too far gone to be worthy of much sympathy.

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That's a common misconception. Varis didn't abuse or neglect Zenos. He provided Zenos with everything he could want or need and even ensured he would be in a position to build up friendships. We know that Varis himself befriended Regula early on in his life and that the pair maintained that friendship over decades. Zenos could have done something similar but he pushed people away deliberately because they 'bored' him due to Zenos' own superiority complex.

Furthermore, Varis going away to war is in itself not something unusual in the setting. Lyse's father did the same. So too did Hien's father.

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Originally Posted by unyieldingblade

I agree with most people saying that if Zenos is the big bad last boss, that that would be pretty boring. We already defeated him in SB, if the same happens again, then what? Zenos kills himself again?

This is precisely why I don't think he's the last boss, and if anything.... I think he's going to help us defeat the last boss(es). He's our friend after all, and we are very much alike in many ways, as people have pointed out in this thread. One thing Zenos has shown time and time again is his desire for us to live and become better. I don't think he'll be defeated and kill himself or let himself be killed knowing that the WoL will be facing the big bad primals alone... No, I think we will stand side by side and go against Zodiark and Hydaelyn (side note: a lot of people here say we need to defeat Zodiark, but wouldn't that cause a big imbalance in light/dark and potentially cause another Flood of Light?? Both need to be dealt with, they're both primals, and I always thought Hydaelyn was annoying and shady AF. I say we get rid of them both). No one else matches our power and potential like Zenos does, so yes... it has to be him in this role.

Also there is A TON of room for character development here, what with Zenos's (implanted or actual) memories of the Final Days. I do have to say that I disagree with people saying he's boring, although it's not totally their fault. Zenos is a super interesting character once you start digging into his backstory. I really wish this stuff had made it into the main story, it would have really changed people's experience I think. Zenos is single-minded, yes, but not boring (at least not for me). Just my disjointed two cents.

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I disagree on a few points. Although there's some vagueness here, Zenos is far from the most powerful antagonist we've faced, as he was already bested in SB. Bear in mind, the WoL isn't doing this purely through their own strength but also with Hydaelyn's Blessing shielding them. So it is the WoL + Hydaelyn's borrowed power, and this has been the case with Zenos, with Emet-Selch (explicitly referenced), with Elidibus, and with many others. There was a brief period in HW where this was gone, but it was fully restored by the end of it. They only gave a vague indication to the contrary with Zenos's encounter with Elidibus. However, we then found out there was no actual fight, and on top of that, that Elidibus is not equal to Emet-Selch in power, because of his unique primal nature, meaning his power is more scalable. Hence the need to bolster the otherworldly champions' faith in him to augment his power before you face him the last time. This primal aspect probably was what made him susceptible to Zenos in the first place. If you're saying few are as powerful as him barring the MC? Then perhaps, but he himself formulated his new plan to feed on one of the two Primals so that he can get his desired rematch as his "directive". I'm not sure whether he understands how the two primals differ in their power but he probably thinks it'll even the odds. It's less about Zenos's own raw power and more how he can take it a step further.

I also don't think he shares much in common with the MC, who has grown further apart with SHB, when they took on the task entrusted to them by Emet. He certainly thinks they do, because he sees in the MC a similar battlelust to his own, but with all due respect, he's not alone in sharing this trait with the MC, and it's but one facet of them. The MC wouldn't destroy a world purely to get their jollies out of it.

Where I believe they may invoke the very one-sided friendship angle is with whether he can actually control Zodiark (or Hydaelyn, if plans change - it'd fit with the Venat/Vayne theme from XII) and whether he can see it through. I also have my doubts that he'll be the true end boss.

I'm familiar with his history, his character hook, his arc. People seem to premise his appeal on two main strains of argument.

1) He's just a pure psychopath/nutjob, and that's refreshing because it's different to the other major antagonists. That's all well and good, but I can't say it changes my view of him. This sort of thing works better when you haven't got a mostly mute protagonist like the MC and the psycho can actually affect them psychologically. Whereas in the game it just affects some of the dialogue at best.

2) Trust in Ishikawa. Well, she can of course write some ancient persona for him. However, it'd essentially be a completely separate person in essence.

I found him briefly interesting towards the end of SB, mostly because of his dialogue, but really it's a one trick pony and from that point, the only way to take it further is to up the ante with bigger and better fights. You'll appreciate there's limits to how many times that can remain interesting. For me it's in the region of one. I'm somewhat intrigued by how Emet's lineage affected him, and the visions of the Final Days, but those are questions specific to those things, and not Zenos.

In all honesty, I think they've brought him in because they need a way to create a Zodiark fight but without going through the full spate of Rejoinings and also without compromising the story of the ancients, since Zodiark isn't malevolent, per se. It's less to do with his tremendous appeal - which isn't as great as it once was in popularity rankings I've seen e.g. from Japan. Hence you have Fandaniel accompanying him, to lighten up the scenes and also to provide that hook for greater depth in the story. As much as I call Fandaniel budget Emet, he's his own character and will serve as the impetus to further progress the story.

So I can understand why people don't want him around longer than 6.0, and I personally wouldn't care for him as a companion. It's bad enough I have to endure the catboy.

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Originally Posted by unyieldingblade

From Zenos's official backstory: "With such an upbringing, he could not choose but be different from other children. Indeed, it could be said that he was never a child at all. Innocence and playfulness were quite alien to him, the former expunged by his earliest schooling and the latter afforded no outlet." There being no outlet for playfulness indicates to me that he wasn't allowed to play with other children, and the backstory only mentions him interacting with tutors and servants. I think he was in a very sterile/cold environment where no one showed him any love or care. The people he encountered acted in total deference/fear, so he couldn't really build any social relationships there... I think that's a solid form of neglect and abuse on the part of Varis.

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I'm assuming you're taking this from the Chronicles of Light. Do you have the section referencing this "upbringing"?

Regardless, it may not matter much, because if Yoshi intends to stick to the following:

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JeuxOnline: In a previous interview, you said it was quite challenging to create realistic villains from one expansion to another. Ran’jit & Solus are great in that way: they look very strong, fearsome & crazy. How do you manage to keep getting inspired and make charismatic bad guys for the story not to be redundant?

Naoki Yoshida: That is a very difficult question to answer. So when making the villain characters, what the dev team tries to keep in mind is that they have to stand out, either by being really hateful and the players really hate them or still kinda loveable in a way. So for example Zenos is some sort of entity of ultimate Evil. [spoiler]But for Emet-Selch, he just wants to restore his world, that he believes is the best world.[spoiler]. So each time we create a new villain, we try to put them on either end of the scale, either complete evil or with having their own belief, their own goal. Having someone in-between is quite half-baked and is something the dev team wants to avoid.

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...then I have my doubts that such an obscure source is going to alter what they present in the game about him.

Not every villain needs to be Emet! Having a character with zero human qualities can be just as compelling as a multifaceted villain. Again with the antisocial analogy, don't think of Zenos as a boring person but rather someone who lacks the necessary qualities to even be a person. Emet was necessary to show us that Ascians aren't just avatars of evil, Zenos does NOTTT need this treatment and doing so would just devalue Emet and the rest of the ancients' character arc

I'm going to put a post behind spoiler boxes because it's quite long and rambling, but the TL;DR is: Zenos is an interesting choice to me because of his thematic resonance to the story so far. To my reading, he's the ultimate expression of both the Ascian and Garlean ideals, and what essentially the whole core story has been discussing and asking questions about so far. It's a chance to confront what I think are some of the central ideas driving FFXIV's story by punching them directly in the face.

So, you have the Ascians: Their plan is to raise up Zodiark, whose power will let them seed the star with new life, and then kill all that life to bring back their fellows. Listen to Emet-Selch talk about the Sundered. They're lesser beings, they're unworthy, their reduced aetheric density and inability to create makes them sickening reflections of what used to be. The Ascians have power, so they can enforce their will. The Sundered don't have power, so they don't deserve to stand toe to toe with the real people who actually matter. Emet-Selch's grandson was a disappointment because he didn't have the same power as an Ancient. The Warrior of Light is a disappointment because they don't have the same power as an Ancient.

And this ideology of power being everything is reflected in what the Ascians create. It's not an accident that the Allagan Empire expands and crushes their enemies with an iron fist, doing massive injustice and inflicting untold suffering on all sorts of people in the pursuit of greater strength and control. Political power, science, magic, capital, creation-- any form of power they can get their hands on, at any cost. They're literally destroyed when a fancy power plant is too strong for them. You see what's happening here, right?

When the tribes are being pushed back by the Eorzeans, the Ascians show up to offer them rituals to summon Primals. By destroying life and causing harm to the world around them, they can become stronger and in that strength -- with their will, conscience, and humanity suppressed in service to something greater -- strike back against their enemies. The problem is, it's not just destructive to their foes, but corrosive to themselves. It's those same themes echoing again. They echo down sidequests, they echo down other forks of the MSQ, in large and small ways. Nanamo, Raubahn, and the Monetarists. The Ivy. Hien's questions about reclaiming the throne. Yotsuyu's whole arc. Eulmore's tower and the rickety town below. The Weapon arc, and Bozja too. FFXIV is regularly examining what power is, who has it, what kind, what they use it for, and what the effects of it are.

The Garlean Empire is set up by Emet-Selch as a successor to the Allagans, in the same mold. It has that same ideology as the Ascians, on a smaller scale: that people who aren't the right people are somehow lesser for it. That strength is what matters. The only way a lesser person can earn real distinction and citizenship in the Empire is to literally give their strength at arms to the cause. That cause is itself to trample all over the supposed lesser beings. It is to seize what they want at the point of the (gun)sword. The Empire conquers and expands, it puts its boot on countless necks, it gets deep into unethical science just like the Allagans, and nobody has the right to say anything about it because nobody can muster enough force to do so.

It's a harmful way to live, both to the people who encounter it and to the people who perpetuate it. The plan is for it to eventually generate a Calamity that's going to be equally destructive to people in the Empire, whether that's through its own hubris or inspiring uprisings against it or some combination thereof. It's very successful at this: not only does it actually work once, it does a second time in an alternate future, and it had at least one more good shot at it foiled by the WoL.

But that ideology isn't just a government-level thing, right? It affects the people who are living under it too. Look at Varis: while Emet-Selch cared for theater, he bans everything that doesn't meet the standard of the Imperial censors because it's not something that generates strength. The ideology is reinforcing itself, becoming more concentrated. And then he finds out that Garleans are actually not the people who matter, like he's been told his whole life! Instant inferority complex. The only solution he can think of for this is to accumulate more power by becoming one of the worthy few-- speedrun killing untold numbers of people to return everyone to Unsundered status and then fight the Ascians themselves!

Look at Zenos, too: Here is the Ascian and Garlean might-makes-right ideology crystallized into one person. Strength is all that matters, so he becomes strong. Getting what you want, without regard for the cost to other people, is what's done, so he gets really good at that. Grasping for more strength, using it to crush others in the hopes that one of them might eventually inspire an uprising against him is literally the whole thing he's doing in Ala Mhigo. Zenos is power as conceived by the Garleans and Ascians, not held in thrall to conscience or pity or kindness, used only to get what you want and forget the consequences. He is everything about the way those powers operate and think distilled into its purest form.

If power is the only thing that matters, running into someone more powerful than you is a calamity. Varis gets in the way of what Zenos wants, so he cuts him down. Garlemald is a smoking ruin, because why would Zenos care about that? They're weak and not worthy of his attention. Elidibus' plans and schemes revolve around the Empire and Zenos' body, but the instant they become inconvenient to Zenos, he throws them into chaos and sends Elidibus running for the hills. They have made the perfect monster in their image, and it turns out that when you take that ball and run with it, it makes a monster that terrifies even them!

The only thing that brings Zenos any joy is the WoL. The one person with enough strength to face off with him, an actual equal, someone he can finally think of as real, in the same way that Emet-Selch was hoping he could feel about the WoL. And the only response he has to it is the thing he's been taught, the ideology he's been surrounded with since he was born. He accumulates power and makes plans to accumulate more power, including planning on cracking Zodiark open like an egg and sucking out all the gooey crystal juice. If the world burning is a necessary piece of that, hey, fine: he can make that happen, and what are you going to do about it? Because if you're not strong enough to keep up, you don't get a seat at the table.

Zenos is everything you've come up against in the story coming back, echoing, repeating itself for emphasis. It's like poetry, it rhymes. He's the thesis statement, the central thing the story has been circling around, discussing, thinking about, but magnified and centralized. Confronting the question of Zenos is a wonderful way to put a bow on the story of the Empire, the Ascians, and the Unsundered all in one go.

It's tied in closely to another question for the reader to consider: hey, the WoL is strong too, right? What's the difference? Is it that they're tempered by conscience? That they have friendship and companionship? Their strength is used for service: to defend, rather than to seize and destroy; is that it? Is it just circumstance, would there be no difference if things shook out differently? Maybe it's just because power-hungry monsters drop better loot than dirt-farming peasantry on average!

In the end, the writers' answers and the readers' answers will probably diverge based on your experiences and your viewpoints. But I can't imagine Zenos, and the contrast between him and the WoL, not being an important part of shading both that question and answer. That is an opportunity that is unique to the character he is, in the position he's in, from the history he has, that I feel like can't be effectively replicated by just bringing in some new guy.

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Originally Posted by unyieldingblade

Just a few notes in response:

I think it's normal for Zenos's popularity to have gone down since SB. Most of what we saw from him since have been one-liners (with the "My friend... my enemy" line getting old real quick), and then him sitting on his throne for half of the cutscenes. The sheer fact that the devs added Zenos as a character in Dissidia 2 years after Stormblood speaks to his continued popularity I think.

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That's part of the issue and why people are getting bored of him. Many of us we're also satisfied with the conclusion he got in SB. With Fandaniel now taking on the plot point of "further mysteries", it seems even less likely to me they'll carry any over to him and again, even if they did, if it entails writing an ancient persona for him to add "depth" it's essentially a new character. My hope is that they know when to stop with him and stick to their guns on their approach for him.

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I think Zenos is our only match. Yes, we bested him in SB, but he bested us twice before that. We keep one-upping each other as we evolve. The Zenos of today is more powerful than the Zenos we defeated in SB. In contrast, we defeated most of the other threats on the first try IIRC (I think the exception is Ranjit? I can't quite remember. The Elidibus as Zenos fight doesn't count because we got Called by catboi).

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He did but that's before the WoL surpassed him. He had the Resonance implanted by that point so the logic behind that isn't exactly the most solid, but bearing in mind it's a knock-off Echo over which he already had a degree of mastery, he nonetheless lost - of course the WoL is partly aided by Hydaelyn's blessing, so there's that. I don't really count Ran'jit as it's not clear to me that he was more potent than the MC at all, beyond the MC being yeeted out. The answer SE gave on him also didn't do much to really address the issue. My issue with this line of reasoning is that it's based on what point the antagonist engages the MC. Had Emet engaged the MC before he had all that stored up light, before the other champions could join them and before the soul rejoining, they could've gone with similar forced losses. There would be little point from a narrative perspective, but the point I'm making is it's largely a matter of choice and has little bearing on how potent the adversary truly is. Zenos simply came after you at earlier points but chose to bide his time. I'll grant that he is potent with his false echo, otherwise he'd play little part in advancing the Zodiark plotline, but to me some of it stems from smokes and mirrors resulting from that confrontation with Elidibus and what we now know is a false equivalence between Elidibus and Emet-Selch. But they can shape this sort of thing as their writing requires it, so we'll see where they take it.

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I'm clinging to the hope that the devs will explore him further and make all of these things (Emet, the memories/visions, etc) a compelling part of his character. After all, the Ascians were extremely boring for most of FFXIV, up until ShB.

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I hear that often but it's not my sentiment and it basically is something I see come up from people who didn't pay particularly close attention to what Elidibus and Lahabrea were saying, or just wrote it off as "lies" etc., but to me they were indications that they had a deeper backstory. With that said, the Ascians were there for a significant part to enable other antagonists whilst they took their own scheme to fruition. But there was always the understanding that there was more to them provided one didn't just dismiss it as lies.

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Yes, it's from there. Here's the section:

"One might think it a blessing to be born into the ruling family of a vast and powerful empire, but for the young Prince Zenos-great grandson of Solus zos Galvus, revered founding father of the Garlean Empire-it was a curse.
From the beginning, Zenos was alone. His lady mother succumbed to illness shortly after bringing him into the world, and his lord father was seldom present, occupied as he was with his military campaigns and political maneuvering. And while the prince was surrounded by countless servants, they were as machina to him, trundling about on invisible rails, bereft of independent thought. Nor did he hold the learned men and women who served as his tutors in much higher regard. His brilliant mind found their lessons-their very existence-monotonous, and he preferred the silent company of books.

With such an upbringing, he could not choose but be different from other children. Indeed, it could be said that he was never a child at all. Innocence and playfulness were quite alien to him, the former expunged by his earliest schooling and the latter afforded no outlet. His days were uniformly joyless, and he went about his scheduled tasks with apathy. Thus did he pass his first four and then summers-in a steel-grey blue of tedium."

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That makes me question whether his father's presence would've even made a difference. If he came to a similar view of his father (and his words to him as he died suggest he would have) and his mother, who's to say he wouldn't just add them to the list of adults who bored him? Or that other children wouldn't simply bore him as time went on? The issue here seems to be rooted in the fact that he simply can't relate to others. In a way, it's similar to the angst Emet-Selch experienced while he was surrounded by the sundered life forms, with whom he couldn't relate (and that is largely because of objective differences with them), strengthening his yearning for the return of his people. Whereas with Zenos, without ever having been capable of forming such a connection, it just results in a sense of emptiness and boredom. I suspect that's why they think they're in a better position to not write him a tragic backstory. Because that potential was never there. He only experiences fleeting moments of joy through his clash with the MC. I get that motivationally, but as someone who's more interested in the world and its lore, it has limited appeal to me.

Zenos' last line before his intended suicide - "Farewell, my first friend. My enemy." - says in six words as much as Emet-Selch's numerous monologues about his backstory and motivation did.

Even if his backstory and motivation don't make him interesting or likeable, I still find him more pitiable than hateful.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

OK, so I can see Zenos is acting as the Wild Card. Square Enix has committed to a path, even if we don't know what it is, but that path is relatively predictable with the status quo we have now (especially given that what would have happened had we not been spirited away from Ghimlyt was explained to us in 5.0).

Since the Warrior of Light was nowhere to be found, Gaius and Estinien eliminated the threat of Black Rose (for now), Zenos went home to kill Varis, and now the whole war has taken a new course.

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For the record, it was zenos himself that utterly destroyed black rose. He doesn't want anything to get in the way of his duel with the wol. Of course with zenos even existing it brings up the point of the eighth umbral calamity occurring. I can see no way it occurs with zenos at the very least with black rose. He would destroy it every timeline. It would of had to happen another way or it would of produced a light void the exactly opposite of the 13th shard.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

He also took a contrary stance to the other Ascians in his interest in the "gifted", was implied to have objections to harm coming to Minfilia via Nabriales, was the only one who initially approached the MC in a non-confrontational manner

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He blasted Minfilia with a ray of darkness, and then lead us on a wild goose chase into the desert, where he threw demons and lesser Ascians at us in droves. Not exactly, "non-confrontational."

I'm sure Fandaniel will have his own mysteries, and he may even get center stage, but they have to give Zenos some more dialogue if he's going to be around, and this will have them expound on him in some form. And I wonder how they will choose to expound on him.

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Originally Posted by unyieldingblade

This is precisely why I don't think he's the last boss, and if anything.... I think he's going to help us defeat the last boss(es). He's our friend after all, and we are very much alike in many ways, as people have pointed out in this thread. One thing Zenos has shown time and time again is his desire for us to live and become better. I don't think he'll be defeated and kill himself or let himself be killed knowing that the WoL will be facing the big bad primals alone...

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All of this talk about being his friend and being similiar comes down to each individual WoL. I never ever saw him as a friend and just because he thinks we are his does not mean that we have to agree with that. Before we managed to at least hurt him a bit he never ever cared about us at all.

I also dont think that my WoL is in a way similiar to him. My WoL only fights because she has to and she fights because she wants to protect the weak people. I am not sure how that makes her in any way like him. And even if its canon that the WoL enjoys a fight its made clear that its not to kill people but for the fight alone. Unlike Zenos who makes every fight a fight to the death.

Also about not killing himself because the WoL would fight alone: He did though...after he lost he killed himself and it was just a side effect of the echo that he is alive. He only cares about fighting us again but I doubt that he does that because he does not want to leave us alone. After all if he is able to defeat us it would mean our death.

I am also still not sure what the huge amount of interesting traits there is in his backstory. He was really strong as a child and he is bored because he is that strong. I am really curious what more there should be? After all until now he was again only introduced as someone to hate. As a pure evil character. Any more backstory would have to be given in future patches if SE suddenly decided to make him more than he was planned to be.

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Originally Posted by unyieldingblade

And while the prince was surrounded by countless servants, they were as machina to him, trundling about on invisible rails, bereft of independent thought. Nor did he hold the learned men and women who served as his tutors in much higher regard. His brilliant mind found their lessons-their very existence-monotonous, and he preferred the silent company of books.

With such an upbringing, he could not choose but be different from other children. Indeed, it could be said that he was never a child at all. Innocence and playfulness were quite alien to him, the former expunged by his earliest schooling and the latter afforded no outlet. His days were uniformly joyless, and he went about his scheduled tasks with apathy. Thus did he pass his first four and then summers-in a steel-grey blue of tedium."

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I marked some of the words because for me at least they show that part of his upbringing was thanks to his own view of the world. (Which is strange for a child...) He saw the servants as machina with no independent thought. He held the tutors in no other regards and he preferred books over people. He might have had an upbringing where his parents were not there for him either through death or other things but he himself also did not let others near him because he saw them as machina...He also was seemingly not playful because that already bored him.

Anyone who's taken basic psychology courses will tell you that "Nature vs. Nurture" isn't even the right question; both shape an individual's mindset, the debate is over how much weight each has.

Yes, even with both Varis and his unnamed dead mother hypothetically being loving parents to him it's possible Zenos could still have ended up the way he is, but it would be much, much less probable. Further what we have about his upbringing suggests (if not outright states) he had no positive attachments to anyone at all - having never been given the chance to be a normal child, attended to and raised by servants who would cater to his every need and whim. Being as academically gifted as he was, blessed with Garlean constitution, afforded every privilege in life but lacking any sort of attachment to anyone, and raised in a culture that glorifies domination through force, that Zenos turned out the way he did is... no surprise at all. (And that's not even getting into whatever experiments Emet-Selch and/or Varis implicitly performed on him.)

Aside from his sword instructor (who he easily bested after a bit of improvisation), the PC is the first person Zenos has ever met with the ability to deny him. That he would have an unhealthy, obsessive attachment to them is... also unsurprising.

Of course Zenos sees the PC as a kindred spirit - they keep showing up in the only place he feels alive, always ready with new tricks and techniques to catch him off-balance. It's interesting, to him. It breaks up the tedium his life has been so far.

One of the things addressed in the presentation is that while the PC may not feel the same (or outright despise him), Zenos sees them as a genuine friend; the issue is that he's so horribly, horribly maladapted the only way he knows how to express himself is by trying to kill them.

And this is all without getting into whatever may be revealed about him in Endwalker.

Not every antagonist needs to do this:

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/p...ragic_past.PNG

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Apropos of nothing... Anima is showing up in some capacity, and while it's possible she's just the Matanga primal, given her personal connection to Seymour in X I can't help but wonder if there might not be more to her than a boss fight for the sake of having a boss fight.

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Originally Posted by unyieldingblade

By the way, you mentioned Emet liking theater and Varis banning it. I've also seen various people say that Zenos grew up reading Emet's plays/books but I haven't found that information myself. Is this in one of the lore books?

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It's been a few years, so I misremembered slightly: Varis didn't fully ban theater, he instituted a censorship system and banned anything that wasn't sufficiently favorable to the Empire. That gets brought up in the first quest for Return to Ivalice, "Dramatis Personae".

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Originally Posted by Lina Mewrilah

It is a little-known fact, outside Garlemald at least, that the late emperor was a devoted patron of the arts who supported various theater troupes to the tune of much coin.

Indeed, Solus was so enamored of the Majestic players that he ordered the construction of this very airship, that the troupe might perform in every corner of the Empire.

When his grandson took the throne, however, everything changed.

Now, all theater troupes domestic and foreign must submit their works for approval by the central imperial board of censors. If a play is deemed vulgar or inflammatory, it is banned and the troupe denied their writs of transit. The worst offenders? Well, they are never heard from again.

This policy has effectively left playwrights with one of two options: compromise their creative integrity to curry favor with His Radiance, or put down their quills altogether.

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As for Zenos reading Solus' work, I haven't heard about that, so I don't have any idea! I know the Zenos short story says he spent his time reading as a kid, though I don't think it says exactly what.

sciencebot's excellent post on why Zenos as the thematic foil for the reprehensible ideology of Emet/Ascians/Garleans and the might makes right/only some people are worthy is the strong, dare I say sole, reason for his existence as a villain, let alone a continuing one into EW.
For all that everyone raved at how sympathetic Emet Selch was in ShB, I spent all of it ranting at Emet because I actively disagreed with his motivations ("14 'lesser copies' means you have 13 times the number of possible friends, you jerk") and looked forward to the final boss fight to defeet him. Emet was engaging even if his character wasn't as entertaining or sympathetic as others thought, and he was a good foil to the Exarch and Thancred and the central theme of ShB.
Zenos on the other hand, I never liked. At no point during SB or after. The kindest thing I could say was that he was so flat as a character that he made Fordola and Yotsuyu by contrast stronger. Both I understood and emphasized with their motivations and backstories while also feeling that drive to defeat them. Zenos never gave me any stronger emotion than meta disappointment and boredom. Part of it is because of the character tropes I despise , "Hunter of the Greatest Game" and Blood Knight who only has interest in fighting are at the bottom tier of shonen villains, only working if they are minor villains in a cast of more interesting and story-useful antagonists. Especially because I started playing XIV out of love of FF's story-telling Zenos as the dark mirror for the WoL doesn't really work if you are a DoH/L main at heart, after all. Also why the DRK 30-50 questline fell flat for me because I played my WoL without the resentment of helping others out via fetch quests which that job questline needs as a lynchpin. Also can't stand the "Katanas are Superior" trope and thought Zenos's visual design was unappealing, so it was almost comical how much he was tailor-made to not work as an antagonist for me personally.
But for EW he's getting rid of the katana and the ugly armor, so he's less of an eyesore ;)
Fandaniel also isn't a villain archetype I find most compelling, but at least his personality contrasts to Zenos's apathy. (A danger of his character - if you have a character whose defining trait is ennui, then it doesn't take long for readers to respond to that boredom with boredom of their own)

But Zenos as the toxic culmination of might makes right and only the 'right' people matter, giving the player a chance to combat that, gives him a purpose. As a symbol, he can be internally and personality-wise flat as he isn't a character but a force.

Even if the only moment I'm really looking forward to is a dialogue option that has so far been denied to me, where the WoL is able to tell Zenos that fighting him is as lackluster and boring a prospect to the WoL as Zenos believes fighting anyone but the WoL is to them. Please let me have that.

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Originally Posted by sciencebot

snip

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I very much enjoyed this and it's a great take on Zenos. It's one of the reasons I am excited for Endwalker, to see the conclusion to the WoL vs. Zenos.

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Originally Posted by unyieldingblade

I agree that whether our WoL feels a kinship with Zenos is very individual. My WoL fights for the people she loves and all that, but she also loves a challenge and... while fighting is a necessity, she also enjoys it. She's also a very lonely person. Everyone that she holds dear admires her and holds her waaaaaay up there, and because of that none among them really see her as an equal. She's an inspiration to them and they aspire to become more like her. The only people who have remotely treated her like an equal (or someone who could be their equal) were Zenos and Emet. So at least in my case, the things that my WoL has in common with Zenos are: loneliness, a strong desire for challenge, a penchant for violence, a desire for a human connection based in equality.
In the meantime, she trained as a dark knight and learned to accept these 'darker' things about herself. While Zenos is worse in every respect, she still understands him, while everyone else (including Ascians) is completely puzzled by him and views him as a beast.

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I also feel kinship towards Zenos. Not 100% on account of my WoL not being a psychopath, but the similarities are there. My WoL first arrived in Gridania seeking glory as an adventurer. I love exploring dungeons and beating up Primals. I love the lore of FFXIV and have explored every area to learn as much about the world of Eorzea as possible. I love Savage raiding with my friends because of the challenge I get when going up against a tough fight. I love collecting Relics and I'm working on my final Zodiac Relic because it feels good to get shiny new weapons. That's pretty similar to Zenos, a man who spent his youth training or reading books, a man who lives for the thrill of the fight, a man who collects weapons he finds interesting and even brings a golf bag into battle so he can switch weapons on the fly. Even though that's where the similarities end, I gotta admit that I get where Zenos is coming from in enjoying a good fight. He goes to extreme lengths to get those fights though, and he's completely amoral which is terrible, but he makes for a good foil to my WoL.

I wanted to leave feedback but there doesn't seem to be any proper mechanism for doing so (or rather maybe this is the mechanism), so I'll just share my thoughts here.

I don't want to be overly negative, but so far my impressions of the EW tie-in story content haven't been good. I just finished 5.4 and while most of the 5.4 content itself was pretty good, I found it very hard to be invested in anything that happened in the last quest, which seems to be the major hook for EW.

It's not so much that we're getting a villain we've already seen before (though that's of course not a great start, but it can work), it's more that we've gone from villains with nuanced and even sympathetic motivations (which I really liked) back to villains with cartoonishly evil motivations. It just feels like a step down to me. I'm sure there's some matter of preference here, but I'm just not excited for any of this, and the story is one of the main reasons I play this game. I dunno, maybe the motivations will be fleshed out more later, but this just doesn't seem like a good start; I'm not hooked, I was more rolling my eyes than anything.

It doesn't help that ShB was just so good. Everything from the setting to the story and characters to the smaller touches like music and worldbuilding (something games often overlook) was all just phenomenal. I want EW to be good, but this story so far ain't doin' it for me. I hope I'm wrong and it turns out great. I see other people are more into it, so maybe it's just a matter of preference.

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Originally Posted by twocows

I wanted to leave feedback but there doesn't seem to be any proper mechanism for doing so (or rather maybe this is the mechanism), so I'll just share my thoughts here.

I don't want to be overly negative, but so far my impressions of the EW tie-in story content haven't been good. I just finished 5.4 and while most of the 5.4 content itself was pretty good, I found it very hard to be invested in anything that happened in the last quest, which seems to be the major hook for EW.

It's not so much that we're getting a villain we've already seen before (though that's of course not a great start, but it can work), it's more that we've gone from villains with nuanced and even sympathetic motivations (which I really liked) back to villains with cartoonishly evil motivations. It just feels like a step down to me. I'm sure there's some matter of preference here, but I'm just not excited for any of this, and the story is one of the main reasons I play this game. I dunno, maybe the motivations will be fleshed out more later, but this just doesn't seem like a good start; I'm not hooked, I was more rolling my eyes than anything.

It doesn't help that ShB was just so good. Everything from the setting to the story and characters to the smaller touches like music and worldbuilding (something games often overlook) was all just phenomenal. I want EW to be good, but this story so far ain't doin' it for me. I hope I'm wrong and it turns out great. I see other people are more into it, so maybe it's just a matter of preference.

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I definitely get that.

Though honestly I wasn't invested in Emet-Selch or the SB post patches either leading into SHB, but I ended up loving SHB, so maybe they'll pull that off again here.