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

[Jaywalker]

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This 100%.

Also lmao Zenos is the savage player who reams you out when you can't keep up but loves nothing better than a smooth victory showcasing their skill.

[Edax]

I agree and disagree here haha. I agree that WoL going "might makes right" would not become Zenos. If anything, he'd become Gaius. I don't think right even enters the equation for Zenos. Morality is irrelevant for him. If we are going to go into antitheses (which he is, but Zenos is hardly the only antithesis) the way Zenos foils the Warrior of Light comes from the ability to connect with and draw strength from others versus an entirely selfish and isolated strength. One involves being nurtured into power through connection, the other treats others as fuel.

I've seen this story told better in Bleach. Zaraki Kenpachi fights with his own strength while Ichigo fights using the strength of his allies and his zanpakuto. Zaraki starts off bored because he's reached the top but becomes excited at the prospect of confronting the protagonist because it's about the first real confrontation he'll have in a long time. The big difference in execution here is that Zaraki makes a serious effort to advocate his own ideology and try and convince the protagonist that he is correct. After the confrontation, Zaraki loses but he isn't necessarily shown to be incorrect since we are shown enough of his backstory to see that he clawed his way to the top from nothing using only his own strength. He earned his position and he's one of the most powerful characters in the series so at least we understand there is merit to his words and that he cannot be outright dismissed. He even follows a kind of warrior's code so you can understand why Zaraki has loyal followers whereas you cannot with Zenos. Zenos is rude, uncharismatic, dismissive, selfish, indulgent and seemingly nihilistic. Who would follow this guy? Even the Nihilists from the The Big Lebowski would loath this guy.

And wisely, Tite Kubo did not make Zaraki the villain. Zaraki is not the type of character that can handle the master villain role. He's not a planner or administrator and his philosophy of person strength just means he's work alone. Carrying out any kind of master plot would just run counter to his character. And this is the problem with Zenos. The moment Zenos became Emperor, is the moment all his failings as a leader and administrator destroy his ability to execute any plans to confront the Warrior of Light without it contradicting his character or common sense. Heck, using Black Rose would contricit his character because he wants to fight.

TV tropes is for superficial craft elements in storytelling and does not reflect good or bad storytelling on a structural level in any consistent way. Most of what I'm typing here is purely shooting the shit with fellow fans, but on this one point in particular seriously. It's actually a pretty big craft problem in writing right now that people keep latching onto surface elements without necessarily knowing underlying reasons for why something does or doesn't work. It's the difference between say, a top tier mangaka who has studied everything from anatomy to paneling to graphic design and so forth versus an amateur who tries to copy the mangaka without understanding those things at all and just sees "big eyes".

While tropes in of themselves are not bad, using Deus ex machina and Diabolus ex Machina are very poor ways to drive a conflict. Take the most famous duel in Japanese history: it was between Musashi and Kojirō, a contest of their own swordsmanship skills. That story could easily be ruined by giving Musashi the holy powers of the Archangel Gabriel and Kojirō given the powers of demon Mephistopheles. The problem here is that Musashi and Kojirō are no longer fighting using their own skills nor are there character experiences having any kind of impact on the outcome. It has essentially become a fight whose outcome is dictated at random by the writer since there no metric for holy/demonic powers, much like an anime beam struggle. If the story was about Musashi and Kojirō, then the writer has ruined it by making it a confrontation between Gabriel and Mephistopheles instead.

Having a character as a chosen one or with a remarkable ability, whether good or bad, doesn't automatically become bad storytelling. The Echo occurs within worldbuilding, isn't exclusive to one person, and comes with costs. The WoL has been incapacitated by it multiple times, Fordola who couldn't turn it off got hit worse. Zenos operates the same way a good chunk of real life people do and even the concept of him artificially implanting something that would put him in another person's point of view is crazy unpredictable and kind of revolutionary. We have no idea what this will do long-term for Zenos' character development.

I do have a problem with "chosen one" narratives, it robs characters of the agency. It is bad writing because it's the cheapest way to make an ordinary person special and to be given special treatment. Often times you can just rename chosen one narratives as "the good guy wins".
The problem with Zenos having the Echo now is that the writers have essentially made Zenos immortal. Zenos for some reason cares only for the thrill of the fight...but he cannot die and therefore his fight has no personal stakes. On top of that, the Warrior of Light cannot kill Zenos and thus cannot resolve the situation until the writer says so. Classic Diabolus ex Machina: they can't let the villain die so they just made him immortal to prolong the story. We have to wait for the writer to invent some Deus Ex Machina to kill Zenos.

Not every character needs to be driven by angst and personal demons. This includes villains. I'm saying this as someone who loves angst, personal demons, and villains. I'll even go a step further--there are ways to tell stories where characters remain static and the drama comes from seeing how they impact those around them. There are even ways to tell stories with no conflict at all, and the most prominently successful cases of this method come from Japan.

Zenos undergoes an arc from being directionless and desperately seeking purpose for himself to finding that purpose in an opponent capable of overcoming him. Someone who can truly challenge him and make him strive. He went from valuing no one to valuing someone for the role they fulfill in his life. It's a very, very simple arc, which fits with the fact that he has huge elements of human identity missing from his personal development. This is not missing in the sense of "writers couldn't be bothered to fill it in" but in the sense of "some people lack the ability to conceptualize X and have to fill and adapt to that in other ways".

You are absolutely right, not every character (and by extension the villain) needs a character arc. Frieza being a famous example. The problem here is that Frieza had no staying power, once he was defeated in DBZ, he no longer had a place in the story. When Frieza gets revived as robo-Frieza, he was only useful as a dps-check. If a villian never changes, if a villian cannot be reasoned with and if the villain doesn't even have a viable idology to try and convert people with, then they are one dimensional. Batman's Joker doesn't need an arc because he's driven by ideology. He's trying to prove a fundamental point about society and to change it. Zenos isn't trying to prove anything or change anything, he just wants to experience "fun".

Zeno's only arc it seems is that he went from complete inaction to confronting the protagonist. Generally speaking confronting the protagonist is the bare minimum that an antagonist must do. His ideology is: fight is fun. It's almost caveman in its lack of dimension. We might as well be fighting a immortal caveman.
Grynewaht

And with all this, seriously no one's gotta personally like Zenos but being a kind of character you don't prefer doesn't make him a technically ineffective character. Liking or disliking something is totally divorced from whether that thing is good craftsmanship. He's actually within a character type that is rarely done well and the level that the team has managed to do this consistently right is a very rare exception in media.

He's not a well written character. As I've said, he has no real ideology or philosophy to push, he has no strength that can be explained and he goes through no real arc. There's no reason for the WoL to listen to him because he's insane. He doesn't even make other characters go through arcs either. He's about as effectual as a Grynewaht. He's just a boss to confront that gets to live because the cut scene says so despite all logic.

All this stuff they're doing is coming from a very meticulous and deliberate place. If this isn't your favorite kind of character, don't worry there'll be others and he won't be in the spotlight forever. I just think it's important to give a little respect to the devs here, same way I'd give respect to say Bladerunner even though I can't seem to sit through it lol.

Hey at least I can acknowledge that Bladerunner jump started a new genre of film. A whole generation of films can after that can be attributed to Bladerunner cinematography. But we can still acknowledge that Bladerunner had very poor writing, they couldn't even agree on whether Decker was a replicant, which just created chaos in the story. If Decker was a replicant, it's a bad story and if Decker wasn't a replicant, it's still a bad story. It comes down to the writer, director, studio execs and actors not even agreeing with what story they were trying to tell, so they ended up not really telling a story that says anything.

You honestly know what would make my day?

if when the story continued we got a cut scene with Gaius just lopping off Zenos head completely so we were through and done with the most overwhelming one dimensional villain since the Emperor of Final Fantasy II Hrrm... wait maybe thats it Everyone pull out your blood swords..

The problem of that of course is that the writers have made Zenos immortal and they also setup an Imperial Cloning Facility. Killing Zenos is meaningless to the narrative now.

[LineageRazor]

Zenos undergoes an arc from being directionless and desperately seeking purpose for himself to finding that purpose in an opponent capable of overcoming him. Someone who can truly challenge him and make him strive. He went from valuing no one to valuing someone for the role they fulfill in his life. It's a very, very simple arc, which fits with the fact that he has huge elements of human identity missing from his personal development. This is not missing in the sense of "writers couldn't be bothered to fill it in" but in the sense of "some people lack the ability to conceptualize X and have to fill and adapt to that in other ways".

I wouldn't say Zenos was at all directionless. He knew all along EXACTLY what he wanted. Dialogue in the game indicates that this was exactly why he appointed Yotsuyu to Doma, why unleashed the Skulls on Ala Mhigo. He oppressed the people in order to try to dig out someone willing to fight back, to force the emergence of a hero. The Hunt long predated the Warrior of Light. His entire life was a fruitless search for a worthy opponent. Directionless implies that he did not know what he wanted, but he very much did.

Really, the extent of his character arc was going from "looking for a worthy opponent" to "FOUND a worthy opponent". In fairness, this DID result in a radical policy change for the guy, wherein he lost all interest in paying lip service to Garlean high command and was far less interested in prodding the downtrodden in the hopes that one would rise up and try to bite him.

The moment Zenos became Emperor, is the moment all his failings as a leader and administrator destroy his ability to execute any plans to confront the Warrior of Light without it contradicting his character or common sense. Heck, using Black Rose would contricit his character because he wants to fight.

I don't think Zenos's goal was to become emperor, nor do I think he HAS become Emperor. His goal was to stop his father from unleashing the Black Rose and possibly killing Zenos's quarry, not to take the throne himself. It's also very unclear that Garlean rules of succession would just hand the throne over to the guy - there was a civil war the last time an emperor died, after all.

Now that Varis is dead (if he's dead), that goal has likely succeeded. I doubt Zenos cares at all about what becomes of Garlemald at this point, whether they declare a new leader or destroy themselves through civil war. In fact, I'd guess he's all about the civil war - with no clear leader, the Garleans would be focused on themselves and far less likely to deploy chemical weaponry elsewhere.

[MrThinker]

I don't think Zenos's goal was to become emperor, nor do I think he HAS become Emperor. His goal was to stop his father from unleashing the Black Rose and possibly killing Zenos's quarry, not to take the throne himself. It's also very unclear that Garlean rules of succession would just hand the throne over to the guy - there was a civil war the last time an emperor died, after all.
Now that Varis is dead (if he's dead), that goal has likely succeeded. I doubt Zenos cares at all about what becomes of Garlemald at this point, whether they declare a new leader or destroy themselves through civil war. In fact, I'd guess he's all about the civil war - with no clear leader, the Garleans would be focused on themselves and far less likely to deploy chemical weaponry elsewhere.

While I agree that Zenos would be less than keen to take the throne, the reason for the previous civil war was because Solus (Emet) did not name an heir apparent at any point. There wad no clear successor so the two with greatest claims over the throne went to war. This is not the case with Varis and Zenos. We are told early on in SB that Varis named Zenos his heir. Looking back on this info, this was definitely to secure the throne at the current moment by getting rid of any hints of ambiguity like what followed the death of Solus, rather than Zenos being worthy.

[Edax]

The Bechdel Test, is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.

Now I'm completely making this up but:

The Edax Test, is a measure of how well written an antagonist is. It asks:

Can the Antagonist progress the story if they kill the Protagonist? If not, then the Antagonist is poorly written.

I believe Zenos fails this test. If he kills the Protagonist, he loses all motivation and his function in the story becomes obsolete.

Conversely, Emet would be able to continue the story if the Warrior of Light became a Sin Eater since that was a small part of his grand plan. His motivations don't revolve around the Warrior of Light and he has enough development to continue the story without him/her.

[Alleo]

But that's the same thing as us. While we earned the power, we're still given the Echo and Blessing of Light from up high, we didn't earn it until we had one turned off by Migardsomr to say that we earned it, but we're still given it at the start to stand high above all instead of earning it.

We did earn the blessing of Light. It was us doing great deeds that gave us the crystals and thus seemingly the blessing. And when that blessing was banned by Middy we were not weaker after that. We also seemingly work quite hard ingame if the job quests are canon so its not like we learned the job and be done with it, we have to train and put ourself at the limits.

Players might see their own character that way but the story makes sure to show that the canon WoL is not that kind of character. We simply care for the people and even though we are a hero with many deeds we still take care of minor tasks even if some starts to annoy us.

[Jaywalker]

The Bechdel Test, is a measure of the representation of women in fiction. It asks whether a work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added.

Now I\\'m completely making this up but:

The Edax Test, is a measure of how well written an antagonist is. It asks:

Can the Antagonist progress the story if they kill the Protagonist? If not, then the Antagonist is poorly written.

I believe Zenos fails this test. If he kills the Protagonist, he loses all motivation and his function in the story becomes obsolete.

Conversely, Emet would be able to continue the story if the Warrior of Light became a Sin Eater since that was a small part of his grand plan. His motivations don\\'t revolve around the Warrior of Light and he has enough development to continue the story without him/her.

Will try to answer the rest properly in a bit, but the Bechdel test and similar are exactly what I mean about superficial systems of evaluation. As a professional and as someone who has examined these types of tests in detail--using either as a serious system of evaluation gives the impression of not having the essentials down yet. Criteria like these act as skill handicaps and distract from fundamental issues of form. They're somewhat arbitrary shortcuts and (for the Bechdel Test) ideologically driven. This is totally divorced from craftsmanship.

I know I've been speaking in somewhat objective terms, and lean toward formal while talking shop. Reading less terse is something I still have to work on sometimes lol. With no faces and resumes on lodestone, stuff like that can raise the question of "what makes you think YOU know better???"

Since I prefer to be just another random player, there's plenty of room not to take me at my word. But I do have over a decade of expertise in pretty notable arenas when discussing this. Didn't intend to come across as mean or dismissive, just had a moment of blending my professional life and my fan life. Only mentioning background at all here because seems like it might help clarify a bit.

A big part of why I defend the devs is because I'm in the same sort of area as them. Not identical, but significant overlap. There is plenty I don’t know about their specific work, but when I look at them I see colleagues. The level of skill and (frankly) care for fans they’ve been exhibiting is off the charts and not something that can be taken lightly or for granted.

There was a point I used these kinds of tests while learning too. Imo it's very normal and doesn't reflect badly on a personal level or anything. I'd argue it's really important to stop though to keep growing as a creator. Might be able to explain a little addressing other points?

Still wanna invite questions and challenges to stuff I say, I’ll do my best to be clear with replies!

[Edax]

Will try to answer the rest properly in a bit, but the Bechdel test and similar are exactly what I mean about superficial systems of evaluation. As a professional and as someone who has examined these types of tests in detail--using either as a serious system of evaluation gives the impression of not having the essentials down yet. Criteria like these act as skill handicaps and distract from fundamental issues of form. They're somewhat arbitrary shortcuts and (for the Bechdel Test) ideologically driven. This is totally divorced from craftsmanship.

While the Bechdel test is not a hardline test of quality, it does highlight a specific problems. Star Wars may be well made, but that does not change the fact that the original movie only had 2 women in it within a cast of hundreds. The reason why Star Wars fails The Bechdel Test highlight a problem that most people perhaps have perhaps not considered before.

With no faces and resumes on lodestone, stuff like that can raise the question of "what makes you think YOU know better???"

I do not cook. That does not mean I'll tolerate bad food because of it. Nor does it mean I cannot have an opinion on the food despite lacking profession credentials. I can live by having a standard.

Now if you can refute my Edax Test, then I'll perhaps come out wiser then I was before. You need not be a professional to expose any flaws in my logic.

[Khalithar]

I know a lot of people hate on Zenos, but he's always been one of my favorite villains for reasons that may surprise people though I hope some share this feeling as well! We've fought against Ascians and otherworldly entities bent on manipulation, destruction, and grandiose plots to warp and reshape reality itself. But Zenos? Zenos doesn't want any of that. He just wants to fight and kill strong opponents and that's always been his hook from day one. As far as villains go, I find Zenos to be refreshingly... I want to say "honest" for lack of a better term. He's completely transparent about who he is, what he wants, and what he's about. In a story full of liars and manipulators, I actually love the fact that we have a villain with such a simple goal.

[Edax]

I know a lot of people hate on Zenos, but he's always been one of my favorite villains for reasons that may surprise people though I hope some share this feeling as well! We've fought against Ascians and otherworldly entities bent on manipulation, destruction, and grandiose plots to warp and reshape reality itself. But Zenos? Zenos doesn't want any of that. He just wants to fight and kill strong opponents and that's always been his hook from day one. As far as villains go, I find Zenos to be refreshingly... I want to say "honest" for lack of a better term. He's completely transparent about who he is, what he wants, and what he's about. In a story full of liars and manipulators, I actually love the fact that we have a villain with such a simple goal.

Was Grynewaht your favorite villain too? He was all those things and more.