Is it weird that I like Zenos as a villain?

[Bright-Flower]

Nothing wrong with liking Zenos, though I personally don't. I didn't find him or Yotsuyu engaging. Fordola was the only one of the three main antagonists I had any interest in. Zenos was made intentionally unsympathetic, and while Yotsuyu's story could have been a compelling tragedy, the way it was handled just made 4.2 and 4.3 msq crimge worthy for me.

With Zenos maybe if there was more time exploring what made him the way he is, or if he had more nuance or even just a more entertaining personality maybe I'd have liked him. But I just had nothing to latch onto as a character. He had a fun boss fight and good voice actor but those couldn't save him from the writing for me.


4.4 spoilers

SE has a second chance with Zenos now but it's too late for them to make Yotsuyu engaging.

[Edax]

Nothing wrong with liking Zenos, though I personally don't. I didn't find him or Yotsuyu engaging. Fordola was the only one of the three main antagonists I had any interest in. Zenos was made intentionally unsympathetic, and while Yotsuyu's story could have been a compelling tragedy, the way it was handled just made 4.2 and 4.3 msq crimge worthy for me.

With Zenos maybe if there was more time exploring what made him the way he is, or if he had more nuance or even just a more entertaining personality maybe I'd have liked him. But I just had nothing to latch onto as a character. He had a fun boss fight and good voice actor but those couldn't save him from the writing for me.


4.4 spoilers

SE has a second chance with Zenos now but it's too late for them to make Yotsuyu engaging.

I good nuanced villain would have been compelling from the start. When I saw the previews of 4.2 and 4.3, I cringed and avoided the MSQ for many months. I could see they were trying to make Yotsuyu sympathetic, and I just wasn't having any of it. I do not want to sympathize with someone who attempts to purge villages for no reason. In my eyes, you don't come back from genocide. I suppose Yotsuyu's story could have been a critique of Japanese culture, where her parents were the monsters living next door and everyone knew it and did nothing about it and for that were now paying the price for minding their own business. But I see little to no evidence that the story was trying to make that point. They regretted that her parents were awful and shrugged it off in Doma. The story was an attempt to sympathize with a monster like Stalin, whose father did savagely beat him as a child, and perhaps turned him into the monster of history. But this is not a compelling story, and I do not feel sorry for Stalin because of all the pointless suffering and murders he caused. It's the same reasons I did not feel sorry for Yotsuyu. In fact, using Identity Amnesia was really lame, practically an ancient soap opera trope to goes back to the beginning of television. But I know I form the minority opinion on this since I've seen many people praising Yotsuyu's story.

I know people say Zeno's story isn't over yet, and that we're not supposed to judge, but first impressions are important, and he's done nothing compelling for all of Stormblood so far. Waiting until the last second to become well-written is not actually good writing. The moment we saw the Pope in Heavensward, we knew there was more to the story already then first impressions. The moment after we confronted Lady Iceheart, we knew there was more to the story then the first impressions we were given. They were examples of better writing. Apparently I was wrong and Zenos is an Elezen now, but what element of Zeno's story is being built upon here? Did he even have a story to continue? Or is it just the character continuing to exist for longer?

[Bright-Flower]

Snip

Hindsight is 20/20 but I think that Yotsuyu's story could have been much better with a few tweaks.

1. No murdering villagers for her own amusement or coercing them into murdering eachother. Have her be a brutal occupier, sure, but get rid of the over the top sadism and cruelty.

2. Make her older. Have abuse have been before the imperial occupation. Having suffered from the worst pits of doman society pre occupation, build the foundation that she doesn't think domans are fit to rule themselves and require order imposed by the empire. Have this play into Hien's arc where he recognizes that not all was well in Doma before the occupation and vowing to build a better nation where people like Yotsuyu don't fall through the cracks. Have the imperial rule be oppressive enough that the player still sides with the rebellion and winning freedom, but without the sadism so Yotsuyu's perspective makes more sense and isn't driven just by revenge. Have her truly believe that Doma is better off under the yoke of the empire.

3. With the above, get rid of the cheap childish amnesia Tsuyu thing. You don't need it anymore, because now you have a villain where you can use to explore some moral ambiguity. With a less bloodthirsty Yotsuyu, you wouldn't have to play with convenient amnesia when asking if she could be redeemed. You can still have her betray Doma for the empire, still have her driven to becoming a primal, but no need for plot device amnesia. You could simply have her consider the possibility of helping to build a better doma with Hien and then rejecting the idea, going along with Asahi's plan because she ultimately cannot bring herself to trust her countrymen.

Zenos' story could have been better if we say, got an echo vision or two seeing a younger Zenos and seeing what shaped him into a monster. Lyse says at the end of 4.0 that even Zenos wasn't born a monster but we don't know as of yet what made him one, despite having seen more of Yotsuyu and Fordola's backstories for how they ended up as they did.

[Enla]

Zenos' story could have been better if we say, got an echo vision or two seeing a younger Zenos and seeing what shaped him into a monster. Lyse says at the end of 4.0 that even Zenos wasn't born a monster but we don't know as of yet what made him one, despite having seen more of Yotsuyu and Fordola's backstories for how they ended up as they did.

It's pretty heavily implied that he was experimented upon, which led to him losing any sense of empathy. Though it's more from context clues and never outright confirmed that the experimentation was what did it. Given that they're bringing him back it's likely we'll eventually get our answer one way or another.

[Edax]

Hindsight is 20/20 but I think that Yotsuyu's story could have been much better with a few tweaks.

1. No murdering villagers for her own amusement or coercing them into murdering eachother. Have her be a brutal occupier, sure, but get rid of the over the top sadism and cruelty.

2. Make her older. Have abuse have been before the imperial occupation. Having suffered from the worst pits of doman society pre occupation, build the foundation that she doesn't think domans are fit to rule themselves and require order imposed by the empire. Have this play into Hien's arc where he recognizes that not all was well in Doma before the occupation and vowing to build a better nation where people like Yotsuyu don't fall through the cracks. Have the imperial rule be oppressive enough that the player still sides with the rebellion and winning freedom, but without the sadism so Yotsuyu's perspective makes more sense and isn't driven just by revenge. Have her truly believe that Doma is better off under the yoke of the empire.

3. With the above, get rid of the cheap childish amnesia Tsuyu thing. You don't need it anymore, because now you have a villain where you can use to explore some moral ambiguity. With a less bloodthirsty Yotsuyu, you wouldn't have to play with convenient amnesia when asking if she could be redeemed. You can still have her betray Doma for the empire, still have her driven to becoming a primal, but no need for plot device amnesia. You could simply have her consider the possibility of helping to build a better doma with Hien and then rejecting the idea, going along with Asahi's plan because she ultimately cannot bring herself to trust her countrymen.

Zenos' story could have been better if we say, got an echo vision or two seeing a younger Zenos and seeing what shaped him into a monster. Lyse says at the end of 4.0 that even Zenos wasn't born a monster but we don't know as of yet what made him one, despite having seen more of Yotsuyu and Fordola's backstories for how they ended up as they did.

I completely agree.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Hindsight is 20/20 but I think that Yotsuyu's story could have been much better with a few tweaks.

1. No murdering villagers for her own amusement or coercing them into murdering eachother. Have her be a brutal occupier, sure, but get rid of the over the top sadism and cruelty.

2. Make her older. Have abuse have been before the imperial occupation. Having suffered from the worst pits of doman society pre occupation, build the foundation that she doesn't think domans are fit to rule themselves and require order imposed by the empire. Have this play into Hien's arc where he recognizes that not all was well in Doma before the occupation and vowing to build a better nation where people like Yotsuyu don't fall through the cracks. Have the imperial rule be oppressive enough that the player still sides with the rebellion and winning freedom, but without the sadism so Yotsuyu's perspective makes more sense and isn't driven just by revenge. Have her truly believe that Doma is better off under the yoke of the empire.

3. With the above, get rid of the cheap childish amnesia Tsuyu thing. You don't need it anymore, because now you have a villain where you can use to explore some moral ambiguity. With a less bloodthirsty Yotsuyu, you wouldn't have to play with convenient amnesia when asking if she could be redeemed. You can still have her betray Doma for the empire, still have her driven to becoming a primal, but no need for plot device amnesia. You could simply have her consider the possibility of helping to build a better doma with Hien and then rejecting the idea, going along with Asahi's plan because she ultimately cannot bring herself to trust her countrymen.

Zenos' story could have been better if we say, got an echo vision or two seeing a younger Zenos and seeing what shaped him into a monster. Lyse says at the end of 4.0 that even Zenos wasn't born a monster but we don't know as of yet what made him one, despite having seen more of Yotsuyu and Fordola's backstories for how they ended up as they did.

There is still a potential for that to happen...I mean a glimpse at Zenos's past cuz since his storyline isn't over yet

Tho I absolutely agree with you on Yotsuyu,the over the top sadism on display made her irredeemable for me no matter how sad and cruel her past was .When she died I felt sorry for poor Gosetsu instead who just had to be reminded of the death of his family again through her

[Vahlnir]

There is still a potential for that to happen...I mean a glimpse at Zenos's past cuz since his storyline isn't over yet

Tho I absolutely agree with you on Yotsuyu,the over the top sadism on display made her irredeemable for me no matter how sad and cruel her past was .When she died I felt sorry for poor Gosetsu instead who just had to be reminded of the death of his family again through her

He probably thought it was all cringe worthy. Last we saw him he was like "Welp, that happened. I'm gonna wander the land and do Gosetsu things, you all have fun being terribly written."

(This isn't what was actually said)

[SenorPatty]

He probably thought it was all cringe worthy. Last we saw him he was like "Welp, that happened. I'm gonna wander the land and do Gosetsu things, you all have fun being terribly written."

(This isn't what was actually said)

Funnily enough, to me, he really did have that look in that particular scene where he's just done with all this nonsense.

That arc made me dislike Yotsuyu as a character. Once again, SE has to play the contrived 3dimensional card on a character that just can't be a simple sadist bitch.

[MetalSnakeXI1]

He probably thought it was all cringe worthy. Last we saw him he was like "Welp, that happened. I'm gonna wander the land and do Gosetsu things, you all have fun being terribly written."

(This isn't what was actually said)

K..........xD

Guess that's one way of seeing it xD

But yeah I'm not too fond of how Yotsuyu was written either.Tho trust me she is far from being the worst written Final Fantasy character.....that honor(or dishonor) belongs to the entire cast of FF13 throughout all games in that trilogy

[Vahlnir]

that honor(or dishonor) belongs to the entire cast of FF13 throughout all games in that trilogy

Never speak of those gaming atrocities. Ever.