Tired of Zenos (spoilers)

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Originally Posted by linayar

Nope, they didn't feel like just wanting to be in a different government for no reason. They felt like the ruling government was unjust. We were talking about the opposite kind of emperor.

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So they started the revolution because they felt like it?

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Back in SB I had a joke in my FC that Zenos was basically a weeaboo. Just taking up katanas because he thought they were neat and not really caring about Doman culture or anything beyond the surface level. Just 'cool sword gonna take this.'

Honestly him using katanas in the first place always felt a little forced to me. Like there wasn't much reason for him to really be drawn to that style of weapon other than 'this is the expansion we're introducing samurai let's give katanas to the bad guy' and I suspect they're going for the same angle with the new dps job and that's the type of weapon he'll replace the katanas with.

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Well he was trained as a Mage Knight in Corvos before he picked up his golf caddy of katana.

So he really did just pick up the weapon “just because”. So you’re not exactly wrong lol.

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Originally Posted by Edax

So they started the revolution because they felt like it?

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Nope, and you know that.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Nope, and you know that.

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But you said they felt the ruling government was unjust.

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Originally Posted by Edax

But you said they felt the ruling government was unjust.

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And you said the emperor was not unjust.

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Originally Posted by linayar

That would depend on the story. I am only responding to you saying they are rebelling just because they don't like a form of government that you say is not ruled by an evil person. That means the rebellion is unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by linayar

And you said the emperor was not unjust.

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So you consider the British King to be definitively evil then?

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Originally Posted by Edax

So you consider the British King to be definitively evil then?

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Doesn't matter what I think about a historical king, but what the colonists think.

But in fictional story, if you're going to say that the emperor is not evil, then the rebels are either mislead/wrong or outright evil for trying to start a rebellion.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Doesn't matter what I think about a historical king, but what the colonists think.

But in fictional story, if you're going to say that the emperor is not evil, then the rebels are either mislead/wrong or outright evil for trying to start a rebellion.

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Why must there be evil? Why must fiction follow your rules? Why cannot the morality of the real world exist in fiction?

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Originally Posted by Edax

Why must there be evil? Why must fiction follow your rules?

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It depends on the story. If you're going to have a conflict with actual killing and you're expecting me to take side, then there must be good and evil, otherwise the conflict is meaningless and just a simple competition between two sides with no killing would have been a better way to frame the story.

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Originally Posted by linayar

It depends on the story. If you're going to have a conflict with actual killing and you're expecting me to take side, then there must be good and evil, otherwise the conflict is meaningless and just a simple competition between two sides with no killing would have been a better way to frame the story.

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You don't have to take sides. Princess Mononoke is fiction and you don't have to take a side in that conflict.

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Originally Posted by Edax

You don't have to take sides. Princess Mononoke is fiction and you don't have to take a side in that conflict.

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And FFXIV?

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Originally Posted by linayar

And FFXIV?

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Not every future story of FFXIV has to be about evil sides.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Not every future story of FFXIV has to be about evil sides.

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We'll see, but the Star Wars Emperor and Zenos definitely are.

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Originally Posted by linayar

We'll see, but the Star Wars Emperor and Zenos definitely are.

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The point is they don't have to be. Fighting cardboard cutouts of evil people does not make an interesting story.

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Originally Posted by Edax

The point is they don't have to be. Fighting cardboard cutouts of evil people does not make an interesting story.

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Fighting not evil people would just be frustrating, especially if the story tries to repeatedly tell me that they're not evil while at the same time asking me to fight or even kill them, especially if it then ends with the power of friendship instead.

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Originally Posted by linayar

That would depend on the story. I am only responding to you saying they are rebelling just because they don't like a form of government that you say is not ruled by an evil person. That means the rebellion is unnecessary.

It's not a matter of disagreeing. It's a matter of the conflict they are causing.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Yes, it is, when you default to think it's ok to just overthrow an existing government because you felt like it. That's anarchy.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Do you consider the United States definitively "evil" for overthrowing British rule? Is it really all so simple?

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Originally Posted by linayar

Surely you are aware of the Declaration of Independence, so your example is not even what we are discussing about unless we've been discussing different topics all along.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Nope, they didn't feel like just wanting to be in a different government for no reason. They felt like the ruling government was unjust. We were talking about the opposite kind of emperor.

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Originally Posted by linayar

The Declaration of Independence is the US stating their reasoning for their war of independence. It was not simply about rebelling because they felt like it.

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Originally Posted by Edax

But you said they felt the ruling government was unjust.

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Originally Posted by linayar

When you create a conflict unnecessarily, then you are evil regardless of your reasoning. If you do not wish to be under a certain form of government, you work within the system to secede from the empire (assuming you are part of a political entity with the same view of government) or you (individually) leave the empire.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Doesn't matter what I think about a historical king, but what the colonists think.

But in fictional story, if you're going to say that the emperor is not evil, then the rebels are either mislead/wrong or outright evil for trying to start a rebellion.

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Originally Posted by linayar

It depends on the story. If you're going to have a conflict with actual killing and you're expecting me to take side, then there must be good and evil, otherwise the conflict is meaningless and just a simple competition between two sides with no killing would have been a better way to frame the story.

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Originally Posted by Edax

You don't have to take sides. Princess Mononoke is fiction and you don't have to take a side in that conflict.

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Originally Posted by linayar

And FFXIV?

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I cannot keep up with these moving goal posts.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I cannot keep up with these moving goal posts.

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There is no moving goal post. You're just wandering off from FFXIV to Star Wars to US independence to Mononoke, and I'm responding to each.

My point remains that Zenos being the way he is does not make the conflict unnatural or whatever as it serves the plot, just like the Emperor being evil. The US war is irrelevant and stories not having evil also depends on the story and has nothing to do with stories that do have an evil side.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

and considering he BREAKS Ame-no-Habakiri with just his FOOT - SNAP - in 5.4

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Just because I'm bored, realistically, swords aren't as durable as our fantasy media tends to depict. Generally speaking, they're strongest when contact is made along the blade edge or the spine. Significant and sudden pressure to the flat is one of the best ways to break a weapon, and even gave rise to the specific sort of swordbreaker weaponry that emphasized catching a weapon and taking advantage of that weakness through leverage. Otherwise, routine use of a weapon would result in chips, glinting, and rolls within the blade. Aggressive grinding and re-profiling may offer a temporary fix, but a light weapon also has finite material to work with and eventually a complete replacement of the blade proper would be mandated. Tempering and quenching a blade that's already gone through this process further introduces stress fractures within the metal grains that would make a blade repaired in this manner even easier to break.

Well-used or not, basically don't step on your weapons if you own them. Especially if some sort of leverage is granted by the shape of the guard or where it happens to be laying. Otherwise, knowing a tool's specific purpose is paramount to extending its lifespan. You don't use a sword to cut down a tree because the edge of an axe is tailored differently for that purpose. Similarly, swords will last longer if you don't try to chop through bones (or armor/shields) and focus primarily on the vitals. Chopping at ice is also a great way to kill a blade's sharpness, if it doesn't break outright. Things like rapiers may boast more flexibility, but at the same time, their thrusting nature comes at the cost of being poor at broad slashes.

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As for Zenos, not a fan. There are better ways to depict his one-note nature, but for whatever reason, SE didn't go down that path. I don't hope they try to redeem him, even though the writing is on the wall that he'll probably sacrifice himself to stop a bigger threat to both him and the WoL.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I'll be glad if I end up being wrong but I suspect the final boss will be Zenos-Zodiark versus us juiced up by Hydaelyn.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I don't know if they could pull this off well, but something like the end of the World of Light mode in Smash Bros Ultimate could be neat, where we're fighting Hydaelyn and Zodiark at the same time, while they also fight each other, with the goal of destroying them both for the sake of the realm. I kind of wish that this had happened with Omega and Shinryu too instead of Shinryu just being used to add an iconi FF boss to the end of 4.0.

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I see no reason to believe a Zenos-Zodiark where "Zodiark bad, Hydaelyn good" is where the story is going. If you pay attention to Shadowbringers, it seems to be going way more towards the scenario you describe in your second comment.

I mean, all of Shadowbringers was about pointing out how you need balance, that it's bad if you eliminate dark and let light dominate. It shows that Zodiark and Hydaelyn are both destructive primal entities summoned in desperation by Ascians, first to save their world, and then as a response to balance out the dark with light. Removing the dark will just flip the scale to the other end like on the First, we don't want Zodiark dead and Hydaelyn alone. That's why the Ascians had an Emissary whose role was to keep the balance between light and dark.

Then there's the part where we figured out that our "blessing" is actually just us being tempered by Hydaelyn. And there's a long-running plot-line that's finally gotten a pay-off in the newest patch quest, which is that of discovering a cure for tempering. It's been a key part of the story for a long time, and now we've found a cure right before the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark story. Zodiark and Hydaelyn are both primals. We need balance. We're tempered by Hydaelyn. We just discovered a cure for tempering.

I don't know, I just don't see this ending up being a super cliche "light good, dark bad", righteous Hydaelyn vs. evil Zodiark kind of thing. It seems an exceptionally weird and trite way to end the story after injecting so much nuance to it during Shadowbringers. I see a lot of people say they suspect it's going that way anyway, but I've seen nobody give any actual reasons for it beyond gut feeling.

As I've said in a different comment, I also have reasons to believe Zenos will not be the big bad. They've never featured big bads in cinematics or live letters/promotional material before, I don't see why they would start now. Seems a weird time to suddenly decide to be more open with how much of the story they give away in advance.

Zenos wasn't in the SB cinematic but he WAS known to us and was the obvious big bad of the expansion going into it. And pre HW we had cutscenes of the Archbishoip meeting with ascians, so neither of those were exactly huge surprises.

I don't expect Zenos, at least not without hijacking something, to be the final boss, but I do think that he and Fandaniel will be the primary antagonists that have actual goals. They might unleash some terrible monster from the original end days for the final boss or Zodkiark might be unleashed as the final boss etc, but I'll be surprised if they're not the actual proactive agents driving things toward that.

As for us being tempered, when was that said? SHB revealed that Hydaelyn is a primal, yes. And both she and Zodiark are going to need to go, sure. And her 'blessing' can be triggered just by seeing a starshower etc, there's definitely something sketchy going on. But us being tempered, that hasn't been confirmed so far as I can tell.

And while I suspect Hydaelyn is going away with Zodiark of course, that doesn't neccesarily mean she's not 'good' either. Alexander for example realized that for the greater good he had to go, it's entirely possible that Hydaelyn would see that without Zodiark around, she no longer serves a purpose and needs to go with him. So I couldn't rule that out either.

But we'll see what happens.

I don't think the tempering part is explicitly said out loud, come to think of it. It's more of a theory based on how Emet-Selch admitted to being tempered by Zodiark, and the player character being immune to being tempered because of Hydaelyns blessing.

But yes, we will see what happens happens. Zenos and Fandaniel will clearly have big roles to play, but I think it's too early to assume we know where the story is going and what the central conflict and ending will be. They showed some serious writing chops in Shadowbringers with how they filled out gaps and added nuance, so given that the same writers will write Endwalker I have faith they'll write something good and not terribly trite and obvious.

It's worth noting that there is really no reason that the WoL can't be tempered at this point. It just comes down to whether the Primal is powerful enough to do so. Most are not, but they also attribute this fact due to being claimed by another (Lakshmi refers to our souls as "stained"; in the JP version, staining is how tempering is referenced to my knowledge - Ifrit is a more direct example.) Ardbert speculates at some point in SHB about being tempered but just moves on from it. With that said, the Word of the Mother is quite emphatic to him, when she stops him in his tracks, that just as the Ascians serve Zodiark, so too must others execute her will. Minfilia's words from the French version are also not too dissimilar from what I'd expect of a tempered person:

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Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Au milieu des cris de nos camarades happés par le sort interdit, je me suis laissé absorber à mon tour par le flux éthéré. Lorsque j'ai repris conscience, je nageais dans la mer des étoiles.
= “In the midst of the cries of our comrades caught by the forbidden spell, I let myself be absorbed in turn by the aetherial flow. Once I regained consciousness, I was swimming in the sea of stars (aetherial sea).”

Messagère d'Hydaelyn : Tout à coup, j'ai réalisé que la douce voix d'Hydaelyn était de plus en plus lointaine. J'avais tellement peur de la perdre que mon seul désir devint de me fondre en elle pour que nous soyons unies à jamais.
= “All of a sudden, I realized that the soft voice of Hydaelyn was becoming more and more distant. I was so scared to lose it that my sole desire was to melt into her so that we would be united forever.”

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Moving on, tempering involves a dual process of rendering the soul more umbral (therefore, passive) and imbuing the tempered with the element/energy of the Primal. In the French version, Emet describes this in terms of integration into the Primal's belt of energy transmission, as it seeks to increase the part of its energy in the world. Guess what happened when there was an over-abundance of Blessings of Light on the First? If I had to venture a guess, I'd say Minfilia is probably a sundered shard of one of her summoners, hence the stronger connection, whereas the Blessing may create a weaker, more conditional form of a link, explaining why Midgardsormr was able to suppress it.

There is also the question about how a Primal of Darkness or Light would interact with the stage of rendering the soul more umbral - if Hydaelyn/Zodiark even do that - since dark and light directly touch on that. A live possibility is that they simply don't render the soul more umbral and that this is in contrast to those primals spawned from current summoning rites. Thus limiting the tempering to the energy/elemental synergy aspect. They were summoned by much more knowledgeable creators than any Primal we see now. The Ascians seem pretty autonomous and certainly not particularly passive. Zodiark is dormant, and Fandaniel - whose memory crystal was the faintest - seems to follow his own agenda. Elidibus tries to argue against his perspective but does not force him to change it. Emet-Selch could at least conceive of alternative plans to reach their goal. Maybe it's down to how powerful their souls are, but the devs seem to have set up a stronger link with ancient memories for the Ascians and their motivations, than tempering (e.g. emphasised in the Eden quest line with Gaia/Mitron.) Gaia's soul is nonetheless aetherically similar to an Ascian's, which given what we know of tempering, would suggest the tempering survived the Sundering and her rebirth (and Emet does say this when he addresses why the original Convocation's souls are preferred.) To me this indicates it's less about the Primal's commanding them to do it, and more to do with how strongly they were able to become their ancient self via their memory crystal. Mitron was forced to resort to a different technique using the Ascian Prime soul merger.

So while the WoL may or may not be tempered (and I don't doubt that Hydaelyn can do it), it may not mean that much in practice. There's too many unknowns to tempering to apply the mechanistic interpretation of it some people do to Hydaelyn and Zodiark. I just see tempering as a plot device, that can vary in intensity as the plot requires. Maybe it'll resurface in connection to the WoL (and Fandaniel), but for now the focal point appears to be remembrance and the promise the MC swore to Emet-Selch. I think with the attention they drew to the Amano artwork (this negative filter of it is also interesting as it aligns it with the dawn colour scheme), the wildcard of Fandaniel and the moonshot of the MC resembling Elidibus for a flash, plus the remembrance theme baked into it all, there is a possibility it won't be as trite or as simple as just Zenodiark. I certainly hope so.

Excellent write-up, Lauront! Hard to argue with anything you said there, and I really hope they do end up giving a proper payoff to these possibilities they've set up with Eden and ShB patches. I'd be both surprised and massively disappointed if they don't, and just go for a generic good light vs. bad dark rehash of 4.0 with a Zenodiark ending. Crossing my fingers, gonna go into this with carefully managed hype.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Was it very interesting to you when you were finally were able to kill a level 23 poacher NPC in the Shroud? It was just you and your skills.

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The same woman who wrote ShB which made the Ascians interesting to insane degrees is also writing EW. She turned some of SE's most generic villains into one of their most tragic. Imagine what she could do for Zenos and Fandaniel.

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Originally Posted by EgilTheStressedMage

The same woman who wrote ShB which made the Ascians interesting to insane degrees is also writing EW. She turned one of SE's most generic villains into one of their most tragic. Imagine what she could do for Zenos and Fandaniel.

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And if/when that happens it'll be great.

Doesn't change any of the criticisms about 4.0 though.

Who was a generic villain? Emet? Also Ishikawa’s whole shtick seems to just be sob stories and no consequences for the protagonists which...gets boring fast. I really hope she changes her storytelling a bit for 6.0.

Given what Yoshi has said about Zenos before, I suspect her focus will be on Fandaniel keeping things entertaining, with Zenos functioning more as a plot lever.

I didn't mind Zenos back in SB or even in general, but I'll admit that the thought of having to fight him... again... kinda has me a little disappointed. I'm hoping that he'll be a side bad guy and not the main bad guy.

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Originally Posted by Stirlingite22

I didn't mind Zenos back in SB or even in general, but I'll admit that the thought of having to fight him... again... kinda has me a little disappointed. I'm hoping that he'll be a side bad guy and not the main bad guy.

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I'm kind of hoping that he's being duped by Fandaniel in some way, or if he tries to hijack Zodiark or something he gets smacked down and denied. I'm kind of done watching him effortlessly beat everyone he comes across aside from our fight in Ala Mhigo.

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Originally Posted by EgilTheStressedMage

The same woman who wrote ShB which made the Ascians interesting to insane degrees is also writing EW. She turned one of SE's most generic villains into one of their most tragic. Imagine what she could do for Zenos and Fandaniel.

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While possible, you have to remember Emet was basically a blank slate when she got to writing his character. Zenos unfortunately has been well established and would constraint her ability to give him depth that doesn't contradict. 4.0 would be a heavy burden to write around.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Who was a generic villain? Emet? Also Ishikawa’s whole shtick seems to just be sob stories and no consequences for the protagonists which...gets boring fast. I really hope she changes her storytelling a bit for 6.0.

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Never heard of her until now, so ShB is new to me. Also I worded that poorly, I meant to say some, not one. She gave the other Ascians some depth as well.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I'm kind of hoping that he's being duped by Fandaniel in some way, or if he tries to hijack Zodiark or something he gets smacked down and denied. I'm kind of done watching him effortlessly beat everyone he comes across aside from our fight in Ala Mhigo.

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Same here. Heck, we didn't even get to see him defeat Elidibus to take his body back. It was just kind of one of those "Yeah, by the way, this happened" kind of moments. I know there's a lot of those kinds of moments in the game, but they were already showing Gaius and Estinien in the palace so the fact that they had that "Oh, by the way..." moment just kinda felt... convenient, I guess would be the word? lol

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Originally Posted by Stirlingite22

Same here. Heck, we didn't even get to see him defeat Elidibus to take his body back. It was just kind of one of those "Yeah, by the way, this happened" kind of moments. I know there's a lot of those kinds of moments in the game, but they were already showing Gaius and Estinien in the palace so the fact that they had that "Oh, by the way..." moment just kinda felt... convenient, I guess would be the word? lol

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It was so disappointing for me because while I didn't care much for Zenos in 4.0, it felt like the end of the SB patches left him in an interesting spot. Forced to use lesser, rando bodies to go undetected and work his way towards reclaiming his own body.

Potentially having to actually use strategy and cunning and not just overpower everything.

But in the end, that's all he does. Even in a weaker body he not only bests Elidibus, but MAKES HIM YEET OUT OF HIS BODY AND FLEE INTO THE RIFT. Where as when we beat Elidibus he just gets back up because he's immortal and could beat us through sheer attrition.

And while we don't see the fight the impression the scene leaves is that this too was another easy win for him.

They took what could have been an actual chance to develop Zenos and put him in an interesting situation, and they quickly fast forwarded through it as quickly as they could.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

It was so disappointing for me because while I didn't care much for Zenos in 4.0, it felt like the end of the SB patches left him in an interesting spot. Forced to use lesser, rando bodies to go undetected and work his way towards reclaiming his own body.

Potentially having to actually use strategy and cunning and not just overpower everything.

But in the end, that's all he does. Even in a weaker body he not only bests Elidibus, but MAKES HIM YEET OUT OF HIS BODY AND FLEE INTO THE RIFT. Where as when we beat Elidibus he just gets back up because he's immortal and could beat us through sheer attrition.

And while we don't see the fight the impression the scene leaves is that this too was another easy win for him.

They took what could have been an actual chance to develop Zenos and put him in an interesting situation, and they quickly fast forwarded through it as quickly as they could.

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On a more positive note (lol), it's possible that Zenos' reliance on simply overpowering everything will end up proving his undoing when he tries to defeat Zodiark to take his power. Hopefully Zodiark will essentially grind him into dust with a big fat "NOPE", when Zenos confronts him... if he even gets that far. lol

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Originally Posted by Stirlingite22

Same here. Heck, we didn't even get to see him defeat Elidibus to take his body back. It was just kind of one of those "Yeah, by the way, this happened" kind of moments. I know there's a lot of those kinds of moments in the game, but they were already showing Gaius and Estinien in the palace so the fact that they had that "Oh, by the way..." moment just kinda felt... convenient, I guess would be the word? lol

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I suspect that is something to do with Elidibus being a primal, since Zenos denies a fight happened and laments that. Elidibus, while not on par with Emet-Selch, is no weakling. So my supposition is that it's an aetheric tug of some sort. When Elidibus pays the body compliments, I believe it's more to do with its ability to conduct aether. Ascians don't care much about physical strength, as they can enhance their hosts (e.g. Nabriales) and take on any form they please, however Emet hinted at the fact that at least for a full powered unsundered like him, the host does limit them somewhat, thus he shed it. This probably has something to do with the Resonance in Zenos's case enhancing the body's ability to conduct aether, hence letting Elidibus in it express more of his power. Either way, it was poorly explained and ad hoc, but hey ho.

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Originally Posted by Stirlingite22

On a more positive note (lol), it's possible that Zenos' reliance on simply overpowering everything will end up proving his undoing when he tries to defeat Zodiark to take his power. Hopefully Zodiark will essentially grind him into dust with a big fat "NOPE", when Zenos confronts him... if he even gets that far. lol

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Or he gets the "bright" idea that since Hydaelyn "won" the first time round, why not go for her. She's also in the planet and thus hooked into the Aetherial Sea.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I suspect that is something to do with Elidibus being a primal, since Zenos denies a fight happened and laments that. Elidibus, while not on par with Emet-Selch, is no weakling. So my supposition is that it's an aetheric tug of some sort.

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It also could come down to Zeno's artificial echo as it seems each person's echo allows some sort of different power and Zeno's was able to control a Primal, so with Elidibus being a part of a primal, he may had been able to do something to him to completely nullify him.

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Originally Posted by EgilTheStressedMage

Never heard of her until now, so ShB is new to me. Also I worded that poorly, I meant to say some, not one. She gave the other Ascians some depth as well.

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Idk, they had depth before. If anything she kind of ruined Elidibus in 5.3. Emet was fine but she tried to repeat the same sob story gimmick with elidibus and it just fell flat and felt incredibly rushed (probably because it was). None of the protag’s really got any depth besides thancred but it’s probably due to again, her not writing the protagonists to have any consequences and having them constantly win due to plot armor and conveniences.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

It also could come down to Zeno's artificial echo as it seems each person's echo allows some sort fo different power and Zeno's was able to control a Primal, so with Elidibus being a part of a primal, he may had been able to do something to him to completely nullify him.

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Yup, that's what I am getting at. Although his "echo" is more souped up than most, but at its core, the Echo is just a fraction of an ancient's powers. He had the benefit of Aulus taking a scientific approach to it and bestowing upon him one that is more "unlocked" than the naturally occurring one in sundered life forms. It stands to reason that since Elidibus's power as a primal scales based on prayer/worship, which he did not have much of at that point, he would be vulnerable to such methods. IMO it's a sleight of hand to make Zenos seem more potent than he really is, and IMO either Hydaelyn or Zenos are going to be a much bigger challenge for him to try control.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I suspect that is something to do with Elidibus being a primal, since Zenos denies a fight happened and laments that. Elidibus, while not on par with Emet-Selch, is no weakling. So my supposition is that it's an aetheric tug of some sort. When Elidibus pays the body compliments, I believe it's more to do with its ability to conduct aether. Ascians don't care much about physical strength, as they can enhance their hosts (e.g. Nabriales) and take on any form they please, however Emet hinted at the fact that at least for a full powered unsundered like him, the host does limit them somewhat, thus he shed it. This probably has something to do with the Resonance in Zenos's case enhancing the body's ability to conduct aether, hence letting Elidibus in it express more of his power. Either way, it was poorly explained and ad hoc, but hey ho.

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Maybe. All I know is that I remember in a cutscene after the palace scene with Gaius and Zenos, etc., they have a scene of Elidibus on the moon not only saying villain things, but also mentioning something along the lines of being surprised that Zenos bested him so easily, possessed of Zenos' body as he was, or something like that. Suggesting that maybe Zenos did just overpower him like just about everything else in his path. lol

True, but he never specifies how really, and it's contradicted by Zenos's own recollection, as he states it's a shame Elidibus just fled and he'd have enjoyed a fight against himself, or some such twaddle. Elidibus is powerful enough by that point to at least be able to go against the WoL who had already bested Zenos and his Shinryu form by that point, and who benefits from Hydaelyn's protection via the Blessing.

To suggest he wouldn't even register on Zenos's radar, while Gaius and Estinien would, requires suspension of disbelief, IMO. What does stand out is the fact that he's a primal, and Zenos has managed to take control of one before, and may well have given an indication that he could do so again if he so pleased. So I believe he overpowered him in that sense - with Zenos being a potential asset and with nothing to gain by then in fighting him, he took his leave.