[Spoilers] Why Zenos is the most important character moving forward

[GenericMagus]

Zenos is going to be the most important character in the plot of FFXIV for the rest of ShadowBringers, and the rest of the story depending on how SE handles his importance.

Right now, there are many key factors that highlight his role, and why he'll be so prominent.

1. His manufactured Echo, the Resonant.
He has managed to attain a power beyond anything that was thought possible in the story. He truly embodies the Garlean philosophy on not relying on the power of gods, but instead has something that manages to not only equal it, but come from the works of man. This allows him to have influence over Primals as well, which will obviously be very important concerning the true nature of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, most likely taking either one of their powers for himself. Not only that, but it also upped his power significantly as well, where even in his body hopped form, he managed to beat his own self harboured with an Unsundered Ascian, showing his strength with this tool. He is arguably THE strongest villain we have right now, with a position to match to boot. He could most likely single-handedly wipe out the cast barring us right now.

2. He's is Varis's ultimate irony
The man who is ruled by the Ascians, his grandfather being an Unsundered, with him being a puppet king, engineered only for creating calamities. He has no real power, no control, things are out of his hand and he deems the only way to win is to create a race powerful enough to fight them. But he forgot, he already has that man. Zenos, his own son he despised, is the only Garlean not to be manipulated by an Ascian, tempered by a Primal, and is strong enough to overwhelm and force them to flee. Even Gaius, who survived, was a pawn of the Ascians, and though he may managed to defeat the Minors and the Red Masks, he is still too far out of reach for the Unsundered and their machinations.

He's everything Varis wants, yet he hates. He's his creation to fight the Ascians, but he never realised it. Zenos has everything Varis wants, the power and freedom to fight and choose his own destiny, not laid out for him, but he hates the monster he is. This is probably the strongest case of dramatic irony in the whole game, concerning what Varis wants and what he already has.

Zenos is in the perfect position to choose how the story progresses. He is the true Wild Card that can upset the balance of everything. Anything he sets his mind too, he can and will achieve. He foiled both Empire and Ascian plot by sheer-determination to reclaim what he wants, to stop the production of Black Rose by killing his father and beating his own imposter. He wants a fight with us, and he will pursue us by any means. This means if he deems any other obstacle to get in his way, he can very well see the Ascians as being a necessary to take out. If only his father knew what he have achieved.

3. He is truly our perfect antithesis.
We are both two sides of the same coin. If the WoL ever gave into their bloodlust, the thrill of battle and used a might makes right philosophy, we would end up as Zenos, while the opposite can also be true as well. We both possess unimaginable power, strength and resolve but there is a difference. Zenos is merely strong as he is because he was born with it, while we had to climb a mountain to reach the place where we are. But there is also another reflection on that as well. While we earned our power, we are also given power by the very God that sustains our world as well, alongside numerous other benefits as well. All of Zenos power is his own, and what he has been able to make to be on par with that as well.

He is the villain pre-Emet-Selch to have the most interaction with us. In his mind, he has a very warped kinship with us that we may or may not of returned and see in him. No other villain is as personal with us as is Zenos, for striking down our friends, being part of the Empire, having numerous deaths and sacrifices on his hands and representing what we see wrong with the Empire. No other villain apart from Emet-Selch can come as close as this to us. We are truly made for each other, whether we realise this or not.

These are the 3 major points why I see Zenos is the perfect villain for FFXIV and for moving forward.

P.S. May change/update to make points clearer/ add more.

[SeraphStray]

"...the power and freedom to fight and choose his own destiny, not laid out for him..."

"The power to transcend", as he says during our final fight with him in the Ala Mhigo dungeon.


I agree, but have a few problems with what this means;

1: I cant' stand his personality. After Emet (Hades) it's like...man, how are they gonna beat that? Oh...they're going back to Zenos. He's really kind of bland. He's a very well designed character in regards to aesthetics, but his personality is just..not interesting. The circumstances SURROUNDING him are interesting, but his mind is not. If that makes sense.

and 2: We've fought him so many times. He's the first villain to pursue us in the story. He assaulted Rhalgar's Reach, we fought him and lost. We attempted to stage an assassination, fucked it up, and lost another fight there. It took a lot to (we thought) put this man down. And he's back. Meaning..we have to fight him again, if not several more times. I hope they change up his mechanics because..good god.

[kidalutz]

These are the 3 major points why I see Zenos is the perfect villain for FFXIV and for moving forward.

P.S. May change/update to make points clearer/ add more.

Except he is beyond boring and insipidly dull he has zero motivation outside of must fight my frenemy I could see if he even had one quality that made sense but as it stands Zenos is the guy that walks up while you're dancing with your freinds and puts thier junk on your butt. classless , clueless, and deserving of whatever violence befalls them.

[Jaywalker]

I can’t reply to all of this rn because phone lol, but short version—agree with most of this and love the dramatic irony angle, disagree a little on the last presented point on how he achieved power compared to us and the nature of his difference as well as his might makes right philosophy.

I can type this ‘til my fingers are just sad little stumps and it will still end up lost for a bunch of folks lol, but seriously. For people who are annoyed and think Zenos is flat and just evil for evil’s sake—the most important thing about him and the entire reason he is an interesting and believable character is because he operates from the point of view of someone with no empathy. He is a serial killer above all else, morality in the sense of right and wrong aren’t even part of the equation for him. He also is an interesting kind of serial killer in that the rush he gets is NOT from killing people or inflicting pain, but from being in the thick of battle and actually working as hard as he can with failure as a real possibility.

Like. I really really think this might be a thing where you gotta know exactly what to look for going in or something. When you don’t know he’s confusing and weird, once you do everything clicks seamlessly and he becomes fascinating as all out. Saying this not to be dismissive or be like "you must love him", but because I figure it's more fun to see why something works than be left going "X seems pointless".

From everything I've seen, the way Zenos thinks about things is almost like he’s an alien. There are certain experiences that a normal person will have that he has never experienced and is incapable of understanding. He does not feel emotional attachment to others on a personal level. There is nothing they can say to emotionally hurt or bolster him. He likes roles, and roles can be filled by whoever fits the criteria. Individual identity is completely insignificant to him, maybe excepting (in the case of Fordola) when he he imagines he can see traces of himself in others. He gets no reward from personal relationships in any way. This includes the Warrior of Light, who he really doesn't know a thing about besides our combat prowess. Things that would give pleasure or pain to an ordinary person are empty and dull to Zenos. He doesn’t even feel sad, just painfully bored and apathetic. He might not spell it out in the way I am right now by going “I feel x” but seriously, if you look at his dialogue and behavior in every single scene he’s in it is very very obvious and consistent. I remember the Royal Menagerie cutscenes had a lot of pieces of evidence for what it’s worth. Not all of it, but a lot.

Being constantly bored and feeling nothing at all from the personal (even insofar as himself—his value is as a functionary role to be performed just like everyone else in his eyes), he was someone ready to latch onto anything that could give him a sense of drive and purpose. For him, that came from combat and trying to get better in the face of someone who could keep pace with him. Literally everything he inflicted on Doma and Ala Mhigo, all of the times he spared the WoL, was with the goal of engineering that opponent for himself. Think of it almost in the same way that Omega attacked WoL’s friends to induce a state of distress and desperation so we would fight harder. It’s the same kind of principle. Except Zenos isn’t doing it to return home or anything, he’s doing it purely so he has something, anything to strive for in life that makes him feel. He wants a sense of purpose. The rush of adrenaline and possibility of dying when he faces someone who can beat him actually let him feel something and he’s addicted to that.

Frankly, with all of this going on I am willing to bet that the elder primal Zenos tries to control is going to be Hydaelyn. She's actually accessible and not fragmented. Zodiark is harder to get ahold of and might full well be seen as the "weaker" of the two by Zenos anyway since Hydaelyn defeated him. We might get hit with top tier irony going foreword if we need to draw from Zodiark to deal with Zenos. Additionally, Elidibus mentioning us dealing with Warriors of Light could full well be that he plans to enable Zenos feeding on Hydaelyn.

I am pretty much 99.9% sure Elidibus is going to massively regret using Zenos though, this is like biggest mistake level stuff. He made the choice to enable him in a very desperate, cornered-animal way where there was no plan to speak of beyond “go wreck stuff”

[FaerieAura]

I really hate Zenos as a villain and I hope that he is quickly replaced. Being real, I do not find him all that interesting. Instead, my hope is that he thinks far too highly of himself - which he clearly does - and his plan to 'sup on the aether of Zodiark' completely backfires. Zodiark isn't just a primal, it is an Elder Primal, the primal to begat all other primals, the hopes and dreams of an entire civilization of sorcerer-Gods. Zenos is a petty, petulant fool who can hop bodies and who knows how to swing a sword really well. He is a child at heart, bent on playing games with the lives of others, he simply has so much power that he can actually damage the lives of others with it. He is a fool.

Let him jump in over his head and be drowned.

Let him try to feast on Zodiark and be feasted upon instead.

Let him become a vessel for Zodiark, and let us have an enemy that can truly be sinister, and let us face our real enemy head-on for a change, rather than just his servants. That would be a good use for Zenos. Anything else, in my mind, would simply be rehashing a character that we've already seen enough of in Stormblood. He was compelling there because he was our mirror, but our character has already proven that we are not him. We are beyond him; we fight for a higher purpose. We are not simply servants of the light, nor do we simply fight for the challenge of it. We fight so that there is a tomorrow for people to look forward to, for our friends, for our hopes and dreams. We are beyond Zenos. So let's face our real enemy, the ones who would deny our true purpose, not some fool who thinks that he's somehow our equal. He's not, and we know he's not, we've already proven ourselves to be beyond him.

[MuseTraveller]

After Emet-Selch, Zenos has really large shoes to fill in.
The thing that bugged me was, it felt like his body hopping arc had no reason? I thought him dying and being in a limited body would humble him or get him to experience things from the point of "those savages" maybe help him grow some depth but instead he just wandered around, killed random people, slapped Elidibus till he popped out of his body, regained his old body back and resumed his "HUNT!" ... great character development right there.

I hope whatever is next will prove me wrong and we get to be surprised in a good way but so far all I get from Zenos is - the guy really loves his S Rank hunt and would kill early pullers. :x

[Bright-Flower]

After Emet-Selch, Zenos has really large shoes to fill in.
The thing that bugged me was, it felt like his body hopping arc had no reason? I thought him dying and being in a limited body would humble him or get him to experience things from the point of "those savages" maybe help him grow some depth but instead he just wandered around, killed random people, slapped Elidibus till he popped out of his body, regained his old body back and resumed his "HUNT!" ... great character development right there.

I hope whatever is next will prove me wrong and we get to be surprised in a good way but so far all I get from Zenos is - the guy really loves his S Rank hunt and would kill early pullers. :x

Yeah his body hopping arc was squandered by having him not be limited by it and getting his body back too easily. What could have been an interesting journey was glossed over. If Zenos just goes back to being obsessed with fighting us I'm wary about how good it's going to be. Then again I didn't think Emet-Selch would be a good villain based on the 4.4/4.5 patches but he turned out fantastic. So maybe.

[FJerome]

Yeah his body hopping arc was squandered by having him not be limited by it and getting his body back too easily. What could have been an interesting journey was glossed over. If Zenos just goes back to being obsessed with fighting us I'm wary about how good it's going to be. Then again I didn't think Emet-Selch would be a good villain based on the 4.4/4.5 patches but he turned out fantastic. So maybe.

I am just really very sad we never got to fight Lalafel Zenos, Viera Lady Zenos or Namazu Zenos.

But really the idea that he could conceivably have been sneaking around in anyone's body and we wouldn't know until he drew a sword on us was compelling and horrifying and I wish they had done something with that, rather than resolve the issue before the WoLD even had the chance to find out that Zenos could body-hop.

[Iscah]

Agreeed on the body-hopping being over too soon.

I was really hoping for a plot where Fordola would 'recognise' him due to her overactive Resonance mind-reading picking up his thoughts.

[Daralii]

I am pretty much 99.9% sure Elidibus is going to massively regret using Zenos though, this is like biggest mistake level stuff. He made the choice to enable him in a very desperate, cornered-animal way where there was no plan to speak of beyond “go wreck stuff”

I'm pretty sure that's all he wants. His monologue on the moon was really just him lamenting his loneliness and how events had spiraled too far out of control for him to predict or influence toward any kind of goal. He's a broken man running on spite.