And then I realized... (ShB Spoilers!!)

[HyoMinPark]

Aye I loved how they kinda setup for that in the Ivalice raids when they mentioned Solus had a love for the theater it really shows in his character

The story writers have a really high bar set with Emet lol

I’ve gotta be honest: not looking forward to going back to mustache-twirling Zenos eventually. Whether that be before or after we deal with Elidibus. I’d hope Natsuko can make him more compelling than he was in SB—but he has been sort of like that annoying fly that snuck into your kitchen for me, so I’m still like :/ about him being bad.

[RivinStormfang]

The story writers have a really high bar set with Emet lol

I’ve gotta be honest: not looking forward to going back to mustache-twirling Zenos eventually. Whether that be before or after we deal with Elidibus. I’d hope Natsuko can make him more compelling than he was in SB—but he has been sort of like that annoying fly that snuck into your kitchen for me, so I’m still like :/ about him being bad.

That's my biggest worry about the story going forward. Zenos was a terrible, boring villain and I really would have preferred it if he'd stayed dead. Varis was evolving into an interesting character during the end of Stormblood; I think they should've let him take the reigns of main villain for a while instead of just dropping Zenos back on us. But then we got Emet-Selch and I was just blown away with how well-done he was as a villain. If they really try to make Zenos the "final boss" of the Ascian storyline, as they seem to be hinting towards, it's probably going to be a huge disappointment after what we got in this expansion.

[Enla]

That's my biggest worry about the story going forward. Zenos was a terrible, boring villain and I really would have preferred it if he'd stayed dead. Varis was evolving into an interesting character during the end of Stormblood; I think they should've let him take the reigns of main villain for a while instead of just dropping Zenos back on us. But then we got Emet-Selch and I was just blown away with how well-done he was as a villain. If they really try to make Zenos the "final boss" of the Ascian storyline, as they seem to be hinting towards, it's probably going to be a huge disappointment after what we got in this expansion.

I think the kind of villain they were going for with Zenos could have worked, it's just his execution was utterly flaccid. The unstoppable force of nature who has the depth of a thimble but doesn't need any complex motivations to be interesting or fun to go against? That's a legitimate way to write a villain and has been used to pretty great effect in the series past with villains like Kefka. Kefka does have a tragic backstory that informs you of how he got the way he was but it in no way affects who he is /now/. Zenos likewise has an informed backstory where you understand why he seems stripped of all humanity, it's pretty heavily implied he was experimented upon, but he just wasn't interesting enough to work with what he was given.

My hope is that Ishikawa can work her magic and at least make Zenos /fun/ to go against if not particularly interesting or complex. I think it's a touch too late to fix his character in such a drastic fashion unfortunately. Though I sincerely hope she has something planned given that like you said it's hard not to notice the writing on the wall that's hinting at Zenos being the final boss of this particular overarching storyline.

[HyoMinPark]

I think the kind of villain they were going for with Zenos could have worked, it's just his execution was utterly flaccid. The unstoppable force of nature who has the depth of a thimble but doesn't need any complex motivations to be interesting or fun to go against? That's a legitimate way to write a villain and has been used to pretty great effect in the series past with villains like Kefka. Kefka does have a tragic backstory that informs you of how he got the way he was but it in no way affects who he is /now/. Zenos likewise has an informed backstory where you understand why he seems stripped of all humanity, it's pretty heavily implied he was experimented upon, but he just wasn't interesting enough to work with what he was given.

My hope is that Ishikawa can work her magic and at least make Zenos /fun/ to go against if not particularly interesting or complex. I think it's a touch too late to fix his character in such a drastic fashion unfortunately. Though I sincerely hope she has something planned given that like you said it's hard not to notice the writing on the wall that's hinting at Zenos being the final boss of this particular overarching storyline.

Zenos seemed interesting enough during Stormblood—especially since he was the first villain that had ever really “defeated” us; so I was kind of intrigued by him in the beginning. I could even accept his abrupt death at the end of 4.0’s story, though that was kind of like “o okay well he dead so uh... what now”. When they brought Elidibus back in Zenos’ body, I thought that this had potential—but then we find out Zenos is running around in the body of a Haurchefant doppelgänger and I kind of rolled my eyes. Especially since his entire reasoning was just to get his body back so he can RAWR FIGHT THE WOL again. It just felt like empty motivation to me, and there’s not really been anything about Zenos’ character that made me sympathize with him even though he was the villain. So the part of 5.0’s ending where he was just like “Bye Varis” and stabbed him made me kind of roll my eyes again, because I thought to myself “Really... we have to deal with him again?”.

I’m with you in hoping that Ishikawa can make him at least an interesting character in 5.x—even though I think it’s a bit too late for him to develop the kind of complexity and depth that Emet-Selch had. So I’m remaining cautiously optimistic in that regard. But it is disappointing to think that Zenos will be a “final boss” of this expansion too, since we already dealt with him ad nauseam in 4.0 and 4.x (even if 4.x was technically Elidibus body-snatching Zenos—which was more interesting, honestly).