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

[Edax]

One person's "selfless act" is another person's torture. A person being kept alive to be sliced apart only to be healed so they can be sliced apart some more is neither selfless or benevolent. Only when directed towards the common good does it become possible to be identified as such. When directed towards personal pleasures it ceases to be selfless and instead becomes malevolent. A healer charging into a battle to see how much blood they can see shed by the people they keep alive is saving no one, they are breaking people for their own amusement. Even they themselves are no exception from their twisted desire.

That's not battle lust, that's Piquerism or Hematolagnia, which is a different from Zeno's twisted desires.

A philanthropist giving money to someone can be seen by some as a selfless act, but you have to take into account who is receiving that money and what they do with it. A philanthropist giving money to a somnus addict is actively helping destroy a life quite likely for their own amusement. Not so selfless anymore. Just look at how "selfless" Teleji Adeleji was.

A philanthropist giving money to a somnus addict is still a selfless act, which isn't actively helping to destroy a life. Drug addicts need money to live, especially just to prevent lethal withdrawal symptoms. And I would not call Teleji Adeleji, whom incited riots and attempted assassinations, a philanthropist.

Some could try to construe us fighting primals as "selfless" until it becomes a case of us actively pushing Beast Tribes to summon more primals so we can have our good fight and satiate our desire to feel alive.

But this isn't even a remote possibility in the story. This is something the WoL would NEVER do. So showing the consequences of something that isn't even the option for the protagonist is pointless. Is Oriel also a dark shadow of the Warrior of Light? She's a somnus addict and if the Warrior of Light became a somnus addict, then perhaps the WoL would engage in child slavery too. But where's the connection? Zenos has no relation to the WoL, they don't walk similar paths, there are no points where their characters parallel each other. So Oriel becomes just as valid "shadow" of the WoL as Zenos is.

[TankHunter678]

That's not battle lust, that's Piquerism or Hematolagnia, which is a different from Zeno's twisted desires.

Not all that different. Zeno's entire thing for seeking challenge is all self serving for his own pleasure. What I talked about is for the exact same reasons. Self serving for the sake of personal pleasure, one that could only be experienced in the clamour of battle where no one can complain about a healer healing people who are suffering. Even if the heals may... "miss" the intended target and prolong the fight.

A philanthropist giving money to a somnus addict is still a selfless act, which isn't actively helping to destroy a life. Drug addicts need money to live, especially just to prevent lethal withdrawal symptoms. And I would not call Teleji Adeleji, whom incited riots and attempted assassinations, a philanthropist.

A philanthropist he was however. He handed out money to the needy, a selfless act by your own definition, so that they could rebel against the people they hated who slighted them, who held them back, who refused to help them, who refused to help their homeland... and he wanted gone for different reasons. He was all about helping those less fortunate.

Same thing with a somnus addict. You give them money they get more somnus, it takes intervention to save them from their addiction, which would be a selfless act. Feeding their addiction to watch them self destruct is not.

But this isn't even a remote possibility in the story. This is something the WoL would NEVER do. So showing the consequences of something that isn't even the option for the protagonist is pointless. Is Oriel also a dark shadow of the Warrior of Light? She's a somnus addict and if the Warrior of Light became a somnus addict, then perhaps the WoL would engage in child slavery too. But where's the connection? Zenos has no relation to the WoL, they don't walk similar paths, there are no points where their characters parallel each other. So Oriel becomes just as valid "shadow" of the WoL as Zenos is.

Oh but it is a possibility. You see we are talking about giving into battle lust, giving into the rush of personal pleasures, to the point where the common good ceases to be a concern. Which is the state Zenos is in.

You see the WoL/D right now would not encourage the appearance of Primals to have something to do because that goes against the common good. A WoL/D who has fallen and no longer cares about the common good? Well just look at the DRK storyline: The WoL even contemplated letting Leviathan murder everyone in Limsa Lominsa because of asshats like that merchant who complained you got blood on his merchandise after you risked your life to get it back so that his life would not be ruined. Cannot blame it on Fran either, as the end of that storyline revealed that Fran was actually YOU, your own darkside that has to be suppressed every time you do a quest. The darkside that just wants to be free of all this WoL bullshit, all these thankless jobs where you put your life on the line for pittance, free to do whatever you want whatever you desire.

And if you were free and you felt like fighting primals for the rush, and you did not care about the common good because fuck the common good what has that ever gotten you? Well then you would go and encourage the appearance of primals to satisfy your personal desires.

Just like Zenos would go out of his way to actively encourage the growth of people who could become a challenge for him, just to satisfy his personal desires.

If the WoL became a somnus addict then yeah, once they exhausted their money and needed to get their somnus kick they very well could go and do what Oriel tried.

After all, at the core of our character is a lingering desire to be able to do what we want to do instead of always having to go do what others need, demand, us to do "for the common good". It waits on us to call upon it, to liberate us from the cycle of servitude to the whims of others.

If you haven't, go play the DRK storyline. Even if you do not intend to do anything else with the class.

[kidalutz]

Not all that different. Zeno's entire thing for seeking challenge is all self serving for his own pleasure. What I talked about is for the exact same reasons. Self serving for the sake of personal pleasure, one that could only be experienced in the clamour of battle where no one can complain about a healer healing people who are suffering. Even if the heals may... "miss" the intended target and prolong the fight.
.

Except look at how far you are reaching to try and make Zenos relatable as a shadow to the Protagonist? You have cherry picked what if so hard that the dead characters you used are even cringing. Use everything Zenos has shown in his screen time that has made him comparable as the Protagonists Shadow? Cause frankly after doing all of his appearances in my journal again I'm still coming up with Saturday Morning Cartoon Villains Right Hand Man.He's this guy.Didnt work out for this guy.

[SaberMaxwell]

Edax does have a point from what I'm reading. If the standard for having Zenos as our shadow is "if we were just like Zenos we'd be just like Zenos" then I prefer Gaius as my shadow. The guy who, like WoL fights for what he perceives to be the greater good and for his ideals, even if (especially when) those ideals are at odds with the ideals of the people he's trying to save.

[MuseTraveller]

I think it's a bit too early to judge Zenos so harshly. So far he has been fairly plain to me but it doesn't mean he won't or can't end up as being complicated or interesting. I think every villain so far, gone or still present, had or has potential to be more than Saturday Morning Cartoon Villains. However, one has to consider the writers and how much time they can afford to spend on fleshing out individual NPCs when they have a lot more to consider when doing a patch/expansion story.

Often we find sympathy and depth through the small details - a character's glance, a character's hesitation, specific words said at specific time, small gestures, the way the camera pans, a more detailed flashback, etc. All these small cosmetic things sadly often get skipped when you have to crunch content closer to the deadline.

And so we end up with what we feel "bland villains" every once in a while when they do in fact have the potential to be quite interesting and engaging but we never get to explore them. Let us hope Zenos won't end up this way!

[Theodric]

Zenos was never intended to be anything other than a psychopath. Yoshi-P has repeatedly stated that Zenos is a character who is not intended to be worthy of sympathy. He does not have any redeeming qualities. That doesn't stop people liking him, though people around these parts need to careful not to buy into head-canon over established facts when it comes to Zenos, his actions and his motives.

[TankHunter678]

Except look at how far you are reaching to try and make Zenos relatable as a shadow to the Protagonist? You have cherry picked what if so hard that the dead characters you used are even cringing. Use everything Zenos has shown in his screen time that has made him comparable as the Protagonists Shadow? Cause frankly after doing all of his appearances in my journal again I'm still coming up with Saturday Morning Cartoon Villains Right Hand Man.He's this guy.Didnt work out for this guy.

If you want someone flatter you could always go for Vauthry, whose immense pride and honest belief in himself being a god is something that the player character could have found themselves falling into with how much they were being elevated by their peers and how seemingly unstoppable they had been. To be honest I never really did like Zenos all that much, and I was in a way happy to see him be satisfied and take his exit from the story. He deserved to die, and did so on terms he agreed with. He became satisfied at last and took to exit the stage... only to get screwed over by his own plan.

I am not trying to make Zenos relatable. Zenos is a simple character with simple desires that are hard for him to attain, who will do whatever it takes for him to attain those desires, and will shape the world around him however necessary to satisfy those desires. Something that the player character as shown in the DRK 30-50 quests wants to be able to do, pursue their own desires. Is Zenos basically a standard blood knight? Yeah. Could our character have wound up going down his path? Yeah. Lets be honest, the majority of WoL characters only really know one thing: how to most effectively murder people, monsters, primals, and anything else too stupid to stand in our way. We live and breathe combat and death. Is it really so hard to imagine our character developing an attachment to the, as Warriors call it, "Thrill of Battle"? As a shadow Zenos represents what could have been.

I do not expect Zenos to be successful villain, because in truth he is not really qualified to be a villain. Even when he was introduced he was not really a villain, he was a force of nature that was related to some of the villains. I expect Zenos to throw a spanner in the works of other villains, maybe actually help a villain if it furthered his own goal to cultivate your strength for the final confrontation, and die satisfied again when we stomp his powered up ass and smash his soul like we do Ascians. That is all Zenos lives for, to fight and die at the hand of someone who gives him true challenge. If he has to pull some extra work to make sure we are up to par then he will.

[Alleo]

Oh but it is a possibility. You see we are talking about giving into battle lust, giving into the rush of personal pleasures, to the point where the common good ceases to be a concern. Which is the state Zenos is in.

You see the WoL/D right now would not encourage the appearance of Primals to have something to do because that goes against the common good. A WoL/D who has fallen and no longer cares about the common good? Well just look at the DRK storyline: The WoL even contemplated letting Leviathan murder everyone in Limsa Lominsa because of asshats like that merchant who complained you got blood on his merchandise after you risked your life to get it back so that his life would not be ruined. Cannot blame it on Fran either, as the end of that storyline revealed that Fran was actually YOU, your own darkside that has to be suppressed every time you do a quest. The darkside that just wants to be free of all this WoL bullshit, all these thankless jobs where you put your life on the line for pittance, free to do whatever you want whatever you desire.

If you need some possibilities that are not happening in the game right now to make someone the mirror of a character then maybe that is a good way to show that we are not one right now.

The WoL could be many things, they could be drug addicts and only doing it to earn the Gil, they could be secretly planning world domination. But as long as these are not shown as character traits or behavior ingame then they are not canon. And the canon WoL is flawed but overall good character that often does the main stuff to save the world. And as Alisaie in the one short story shows, he also does help out other people with different stuff. He might grow more and more tired about some fetch quests but that is only just human.

Also Fray was the pure embodiment of our anger. Of course that will lead to over the top comments and reactions. In the end Fray was angry that people just threw us into the danger they themselves created without thinking about our lifes. The thing is: The WoL overcame Fray thus overcame the anger and continued to help.

[LineageRazor]

I am pretty sure Hamlet would fail the Bechdel test.

There's a big difference between the Bechdel Test and the Edax test. The Bechdel Test was never intended to be a measure of the quality of a work, by the author's own admission. Its sole purpose is to illustrate a TREND in writing, in works both good and bad. The implication being that it's far more common to find a "Hamlet" in literature than a "Hamlette", as it were. What this trend actually means is up to interpretation; certainly there are no shortage of individuals quick to point out how it might relate to "the Patriarchy", or what have you.

The Edax Test is VERY MUCH intended to be a measure for the quality of a work, and stands by the principle that any work that utilizes a certain trope MUST BE BAD. That there is NO WAY to take that particular literary formula and construct an enjoyable and meaningful story from it.

I stand by the assertion that there is no trope that by its very nature cannot be written well, and thereby feel that the Edax Test is invalid. It was constructed on the fly to try to add legitimacy to Edax's dislike of a certain character, who does admittedly qualify as a not-very-compelling use of the trope.

While I haven't brought it up before, it may well be the case that NOT EVEN ZENOS qualifies for the Edax Test. Can Zenos progress the story if he kills the Warrior of Light? Certainly he could! In fact, we know exactly what he would do, if he were to overcome his worthy foe. It's the same thing he did when he overcame his tutor: Seek out a NEW worthy foe. In fact, wouldn't it be a hoot if he decided that a grand contender for the position of next-worthy-foe could well be the foes who've been giving his PREVIOUS worthy foe so much trouble? I could easily see Zenos taking his battle to the Ascians themselves - or if he felt truly ambitious, he might assist them in their plans so that he could take on Zodiark himself. There's always a bigger fish - but Zenos is not satisfied with that. The Hunt continues until he is the biggest fish of all.

One could argue, "Nuh uh, that won't happen, if Zenos won he'd do X!!!1!" until one is blue in the face - but we don't know. And we never will know, because, for obvious reasons, Zenos isn't gonna kill us. If this was a work of literature, however, and not an MMO, What Comes After would depend on the talents of the writer, not some arbitrary rule.

[Edax]

There's a big difference between the Bechdel Test and the Edax test. The Bechdel Test was never intended to be a measure of the quality of a work, by the author's own admission. Its sole purpose is to illustrate a TREND in writing, in works both good and bad. The implication being that it's far more common to find a "Hamlet" in literature than a "Hamlette", as it were. What this trend actually means is up to interpretation; certainly there are no shortage of individuals quick to point out how it might relate to "the Patriarchy", or what have you.

The Edax Test is VERY MUCH intended to be a measure for the quality of a work, and stands by the principle that any work that utilizes a certain trope MUST BE BAD. That there is NO WAY to take that particular literary formula and construct an enjoyable and meaningful story from it.

You misunderstand, the Edax Test is a meant to be a measure of the writing. Perhaps it would be better if I edit my signature even through this results in me committing a double negative.
"Can the Antagonist progress the story if they destroy the Protagonist? If the Antagonist cannot, then they are not well written." The Alien in Alien is barely written as it remains largely an unknown, but it is not necessarily a bad antagonist, just not a well written one. The Alien in Alien is appropriate for a horror movie, but what makes Ash so great is that Ash is a well written antagonist. And we know full well what would happen if Ash, and by extension The Company had won because it was a detailed part of the story.

While I haven't brought it up before, it may well be the case that NOT EVEN ZENOS qualifies for the Edax Test. Can Zenos progress the story if he kills the Warrior of Light? Certainly he could! In fact, we know exactly what he would do, if he were to overcome his worthy foe. It's the same thing he did when he overcame his tutor: Seek out a NEW worthy foe. In fact, wouldn't it be a hoot if he decided that a grand contender for the position of next-worthy-foe could well be the foes who've been giving his PREVIOUS worthy foe so much trouble? I could easily see Zenos taking his battle to the Ascians themselves - or if he felt truly ambitious, he might assist them in their plans so that he could take on Zodiark himself. There's always a bigger fish - but Zenos is not satisfied with that. The Hunt continues until he is the biggest fish of all.

One could argue, "Nuh uh, that won't happen, if Zenos won he'd do X!!!1!" until one is blue in the face - but we don't know. And we never will know, because, for obvious reasons, Zenos isn't gonna kill us. If this was a work of literature, however, and not an MMO, What Comes After would depend on the talents of the writer, not some arbitrary rule.

The reason we can argue until we're blue in the face is because Zenos is not well written. His motives are so simplistic that Zenos can't function on his own because he's not a fully formed character. His motivations are vague apart from his single fixation, take that fixation away and he'll be vague again.

Zenos might fight the Ascians, but we he wont do it for any reason related to the story. Again I have to stress that FFXIV is not a fighting anime and we are not in a tournament arc, Zenos seeking the strongest opponents has nothing to do with the story. The fact that there are some strong figures in the Light vs Dark storyline does not mean the story is at all related to Zeno's hunt.

Now tropes aren't always bad, but they aren't always good either and the tropes that Zenos imbues harms the story. Zenos pulls the "Not So Different" trope when he claims that he and the Warrior of Light are the same since both want to taste the blood of their enemies in battle and it falls completely flat. Zenos is clueless, he has nothing of value to say as he knows nothing about the WoL and thus he does not even care about the Warrior of Light despite being a creepo stalker. A villain monologue that has nothing of value to say is just wasting time. We all already knew that stalkers are bad, we didn't need 2 expansions dedicated to a stalker whose unrelated to the core story.