Is it weird that I like Zenos as a villain?

[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?