Quote Originally Posted by RivinStormfang View Post
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.