I just fail to understand people who say things like "Oh Zenos! He's my husbando! I love him so much!"
It sounds like the makings of an abusive relationship.
I mean I like Freddy Kreuger movies, but that doesn't mean I want to bang him.
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I don't think they literally want to have a relationship with him lol. I think it's a combination of finding fictional, animated characters attractive becoming normalized and memes. Like the 'step on me' memes. Most people that say that aren't literally wanting an S&M relationship. Same thing with Zenos, people that say he's hot aren't saying they want to have a relationship with a literal psychopath that murders people out of boredom.
I only like Zenos viewing him as a self-insert parallel to players who skip all cutscenes and side content just to do end game raiding savage/ultimate.
He literally skipped all dialogue in Garlemald and fucked over the entire country just to get a good fight
I liked the idea of Zenos in the Stormblood patches/end of Shadowbringers as a third party with his own agenda who throws a wrench into the Eorzean Alliance vs Empire vs Ascian conflict. His unpredictability could have also been used to justify fun scenarios like him being a party member for a couple dungeons. Unfortunately he just lounged around on a chair for two years doing nothing, and then spent almost all of the Endwalker expansion doing nothing.
This. All of this. And I think that most recent scene in the MSQ was the WoL finally acknowledging that he saw us as a friend.
I didn't like him much until Endwalker but I get the reason why now. I did always appreciate how he treated us like a person. So many people around us don't. Even Estinien has kind of jumped on the starry eyed WoL worship. So I enjoy interactions with characters like him and Fordola who bring us back down to earth a bit. I wouldn't mind seeing him back, if only so we could fight *with* him this time. Would be like having a Nero to my Cid and I could enjoy that.
https://youtu.be/4AbNkd-va9k
He thicc af unnf
I always refered to him as the "Power Ranger bad guy". He is bad because he likes being bad. He come out of nowhere, and is presented as an insurmountable wall, when you just fucking beat one of first brood that even death could not defeat, and even the ascian said you were becoming too strong for them. They just destroyed the meaning of everything done up until then. It's really funny to me how they went "Yeah, let endwalker be about what the WoL/Player did up until now, show it was worth something", while they did just the opposite when they introduced Zenos, telling the player "all you did didn't matter, it was of no importance, a guy coming out of nowhere can do better". Sure after that, they tried to explain, but that kind of character has to be hinted to be believable.
And don't come telling me "Yoshi-P said it's because he had 10 lvl more". Using a game mechanic as a plot device is bad storytelling. Even Pokemon didn't dare to touch the lvl thing in their anime because how lame it was.
That said, his send off was good. Too good for the character he was for SB and ShB. But I really hope he will stay dead and they won't try to make him come back by the window, or imply we ended to have some bond with him, because I'm gonna get really pissed.
I do want more unredeemable threats. Like the Godking in Night Angel. His motivations for everything was he got a thrill out of seeing people experience fear or despair. That's all he ever wanted to do and he would complete that objective.
He had a failed assassination on him but the fact it took place at all he had the squads draw straws and whoever got the short one in each squad was beaten to death by the rest. One twin had to murder the other. When he got to a husband/wife group he just looked at the wife and said "The short one is on the left". He loved watching her pick the right one and the wails of the husband knowing his wife sentenced him to die.
This is only one of many things he did and frankly one of the tamer ones.
Because he's just a guy looking for a fight. That's it. There's no bullshit birdgirl and dynamis, no 3D chess, no ulterior motives. It's just him looking to fight me and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get that fight. Sometimes simpler is better.