Is it weird that I like Zenos as a villain?

[MetalSnakeXI1]

It's because he's not an Ascian.

Ascian's are oxymorons by their vary nature. They're everywhere and yet they don't have enough presence as villains. They're more cloak-n-dagger than a rogue's guild but once in a while, they popup and you find yourself racing to smash them before they scurry away. In short, they're nuisance akin to bugs in your house.

Zenos is in your face pretty much all time time. He's in your face when you get your butt handed to you the first time. He's in your face when you almost get strong enough to face him the second time and he's in your face when you finally match him. Even in death, he leaves a mark. If you weren't following any of the story before SB, you'd think he was the main villain of all of FF14. He has devoted followers. People talk about him all the time. People have tried and failed to assassinate him. Whether you find him hammy or not, likeable or not, one dimensional or not, Zenos has presence.

Ascians don't.

Exactly and I absolutely love him for that.

I mean sure I love me some sympathetic multi-dimensional villains just as much as anyone

But for me if a villain isn't too multi-layered it can absolutely make up for it by being a worthy adversary and that's what I loved about Zenos the most

[Theodric]

I liked him. Zenos may not have been particularly sympathetic, though he tied into the overall story rather nicely and adds depth, in turn, to characters such as Varis, Yotsuyu and Fordola. All three of which do have sympathetic elements to various degrees.

It's also a Japanese game at the end of the day - so naturally it leans heavily on Japanese tropes. I wouldn't be surprised if Zenos does end up doing something to redeem himself further down the line. It wouldn't be the first time in a Final Fantasy game where a straight up villain did just that, after all.

I actually appreciated his speech about the Warrior of Light not being too different to himself. He isn't exactly wrong - canonically the Warrior of Light is blessed by immense power and yet often acts without knowing the full story. Of those cut down in cold blood - often for coin - how many had loved ones? How many of them could have been reasoned with if only they were restrained rather than put to the sword? It raises some interesting questions about the morality of what is essentially a mercenary blessed by a deity.

Obviously the Warrior of Light isn't exactly like Zenos - or without redeeming qualities - but the shades of similarities are there nonetheless.

[Ramesses]

I liked Zenos, but he seemed like an idiot.

He claimed that all he wanted was a good fight, but then somehow completely ignored all the warrior tribes of dragon people north of Doma. It just seemed stupid that 'the guy who likes to fight' turned a blind eye to the zone full of other guys who like to fight. I never understood it.

Hmmmm... if you have completed the game up to patch 4.2, I invite you to please have a watch of this cutscene (HERE). By the way, Luke Allen-Gale's voice acting here was perfection when Zenos says..."Is that what they say?"

Zenos, already killed Lord Kaien, King of Doma who was apparently the greatest swordsman in that region.

We all know how extremely arrogant our boy is... so why will he have to sully his hands with lesser beings?

[MetalSnakeXI1]

I thought that was dumb. Even Captain Madison from Sastasha can trounce the player if they fought him mono e mono. The game from the very start has conditioned us to fight bosses with a party, so having to fight a tough boss one on one establishes nothing.


And it's a stereotypical anime villain setup. "I'm so powerful, I don't have to care." Or "Your 1000 years too early to face me!" No reason for why he's powerful, no backstory for why he's so sadistic, no reason why he's got the loyalty of so many disloyal ashats. I can't even say he's two dimensional. Just another insane person that's been given power in the world because we needed a bad guy to do bad things.
"He's the most diplomatic man I've ever met! Promote him to Ambassador at once!" - Probably Zenos


Lady Iceheart made a better villain because she was three dimensional. She had motivations, beliefs and could be reasoned with. She wasn't all about power or destroying the world. Some may even debate if she was a villain. That's the mark of better writing.

This reasoning doesn't work because with the Sastacha captain....you just can't enter a dungeon under-leveled no matter what and only are allowed to go solo if you're unsynced above the level cap

In all solo instances however,the game always trained you that all enemies are at the same level as you even ones you're scripted to lose against......not Zenos though and it that helped emphasized the power he had over the Warrior of Light at the time and how,in story,the WoL worked his/her way up freeing both Ala Mhigo and Doma and gaining bit by bit enough strength that would culminate in the Battle with shinryu in the Royal Manigerie

[MetalSnakeXI1]

I liked him. Zenos may not have been particularly sympathetic, though he tied into the overall story rather nicely and adds depth, in turn, to characters such as Varis, Yotsuyu and Fordola. All three of which do have sympathetic elements to various degrees.

It's also a Japanese game at the end of the day - so naturally it leans heavily on Japanese tropes. I wouldn't be surprised if Zenos does end up doing something to redeem himself further down the line. It wouldn't be the first time in a Final Fantasy game where a straight up villain did just that, after all.

I actually appreciated his speech about the Warrior of Light not being too different to himself. He isn't exactly wrong - canonically the Warrior of Light is blessed by immense power and yet often acts without knowing the full story. Of those cut down in cold blood - often for coin - how many had loved ones? How many of them could have been reasoned with if only they were restrained rather than put to the sword? It raises some interesting questions about the morality of what is essentially a mercenary blessed by a deity.

Obviously the Warrior of Light isn't exactly like Zenos - or without redeeming qualities - but the shades of similarities are there nonetheless.

Not every villain needs to be this multi-layered sympathic being,cuz as much as I like this type of villain it is also its own troupe as well.Heck even in real life you'd see both types of people in similar amounts

May I remind people of Kefka,whom btw is considered one of the best villains in the series,is a nihilistic clown who's only goal in life is to relish in the misery he can cause to people.To the point that when he ascended to godhood and destroyed the world,he kept people alive just for the sole purpose of torturing them and crushing every new emerging hope.

Oh and btw,both him and Zenos went through experiments that turned them into what they are.Even if a villain isn't relatable that doesn't mean they're automatically bad,especially if they manage to make the hero questions the point of their actions or if they ever were different from the very enemy they sought to defeat.

Both try to find a meaning in what they saw as a very meaningless existence,tho as much as I like Kefka he doesn't have much I can see eye to eye with.But Zenos does especially when looking deeper into his story and especially his last speech before merging with shinryu

[Ramesses]

I wouldn't be surprised if Zenos does end up doing something to redeem himself further down the line. It wouldn't be the first time in a Final Fantasy game where a straight up villain did just that, after all.

Exactly Theo... recently, the more I think of it, the more I see this as one possible outcome (amoung at least four other different scenarios I'm imagining)

Zenos redeeming himself in a solid way to atone for the numerous lives he destroyed during his quest to find the ultimate challenge and for those lives lost during his resonant experimentations.

I like Zenos... a lot... always have. I even ranted my frustrations on these very forums last year June/July when I thought he was dead because I saw it as a pure waste of a great villain (yes, we were all wrong on that account). Someone in an aerlier post said he's got presence... indeed he does. And I thoroughly liked it that he trashed us twice to embarrassing levels... because we had reached the point in the Hero or Heroine's Journey (a type of stage in narrative) whereby we needed to evolve yet again.

[Edax]

This reasoning doesn't work because with the Sastacha captain....you just can't enter a dungeon under-leveled no matter what and only are allowed to go solo if you're unsynced above the level cap

In all solo instances however,the game always trained you that all enemies are at the same level as you even ones you're scripted to lose against......not Zenos though and it that helped emphasized the power he had over the Warrior of Light at the time and how,in story,the WoL worked his/her way up freeing both Ala Mhigo and Doma and gaining bit by bit enough strength that would culminate in the Battle with shinryu in the Royal Manigerie

And yet when you confront a boss, even a story boss, most of the time you assemble a party out of nowhere to fight them. Yet for some reason, you don't get a party when you fight Zenos. There's no distinction why Zenos gets special treatment.
For example, when we fight that Ascian when Minfilia was kidnapped, when did we canonically have time to find a party?


And I as I said, it's the typical shonen anime junk of "Your 1000 years too early to fight me". So what, next expansion we get wowed by a boss that's level 80? Am I really suppose to be so impressed?

[MetalSnakeXI1]

And yet when you confront a boss, even a story boss, most of the time you assemble a party out of nowhere to fight them. Yet for some reason, you don't get a party when you fight Zenos. There's no distinction why Zenos gets special treatment.
For example, when we fight that Asian when Minfilia was kidnapped, when did we canonically have time to find a party?


And I as I said, it's the typical shonen anime junk of "Your 1000 years too early to fight me". So what, next expansion we get wowed by a boss that's level 80? Am I really suppose to be so impressed?

No one said you're supposed to,I'm just giving my own reasons.

I'm not disrespecting your opinion,I just find myself unable to agree with it.

Besides,it would be boring,at least from a story-telling perspective,to have villains that you can beat immediately on your first encounter with them.Cuz that's also a "shonen anime junk" troupe thing to do....

[Edax]

No one said you're supposed to,I'm just giving my own reasons.

I'm not disrespecting your opinion,I just find myself unable to agree with it.

Besides,it would be boring,at least from a story-telling perspective,to have villains that you can beat immediately on your first encounter with them.

In most stories, you don't fight the final villain at the start of a story. In every circumstance, it's going to be a waste of time because the story just started.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

In most stories, you don't fight the final villain at the start of a story. In every circumstance, it's going to be a waste of time because the story just started.

Does every single story need to have the villain to set on their arse in their Dr.Claw esque chair cackling maniacally until the hero comes knocking at their door?

By that point the villain may as well be Bowser and once you reach that point the story's villain would either end up one of two things:He'd need some intruiging plot behind them or be a comic relief no different than the likes of Bowser and Dr.Wily

Again all of this is just my personal opinion not objective stuff.