Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

[Melichoir]

Why did we have to kill Emet-Selch? Yes, yes, I know: Ascian and Empire combined made him the sum total of all "evil" insofar as the Eorzian universe is concerned. But he was also complex and pretty darned interesting - far, far more compelling than any other Ascian that Square-Enix had yet written.

But we had to off him. So... so much for that.

I just don't understand the decision. Yes, he was the expansion's antagonist (of sorts), but he could have definitely served an interesting role as some kind of dark horse champion - a 'Loki' of FFXIV, if you will. And, if not that, just don't kill him so quickly - defeat him, drive him away, but don't eliminate all possibilities of reappearance moving forward.

Sigh.

All that is out the window now, of course... but it sure would be nice not to just throw away interesting characters every time your writers accidentally stumble onto one. Yet, amazingly, they seem to accomplish the inverse - killing everyone interesting, like Yotsuyu, but managing to make the truly insufferable ones eternal (like Minfilia, and then - because reasons - Minfilia 2.0).

Interesting doesnt mean they dont get the axe. It's good you find him compelling.

As for killing him, frankly, I still somewhat view it as suicide by WoL. He makes it very clear to us early on that he isnt looking for a direct fight with us because the odds are not in his favor (as we have a habit of killing ascians). This gets even more important when he literally says they got all the time in the world - should they disrupt their plans on the first its not that big a deal. Regroup and start again til they succeed. In reality there was absolutely no reason for Emet to actually fight us. He remains fairly calm and composed throughout the entire xpac til the end, where he just gets mad and is like "Fight me Bro." which was out of character up til that point.

Emet wasnt an idiot and a blowhard. If anything, I think that while he did get mad at you for not living up to his standards, I think that anger is because on some level he probably did want you to and was angry you werent quite there. Him fighting you was to goad you into rising to the occassion and becoming someone with the potential to be an equal and prove that you and everyone else are not just things but actual living things, even if its fully understood that he might and probably will die should that happen. Pair this with the melancholy at the end, and I think that he was at the end just tired of it all and really didnt want to keep it up.



TLDR: He doesnt have to fight you, but out of character does, with the likely intention of dying intentionally if atleast to push you to be worthy of being called alive.

That was my read at the least after thinking about it. No matter how you cut it though, he was definitely a more memorable villain than the previous ones.

I second this, I actually always liked Zenos in all his one-dimensional glory. He's simple but with purpose in that he has none, he's like a reflection of us, all our power but no desire to use it beyond to be tested and he finds all (save us) to be lacking.

The compelling part of Zenos to me was that he actually not only fought us head on, but straight up kicked our asses 3 or so times. Up until then, we typically fought people as one and done and after a while it was kind of expected that being the WoL, youd always win. Zenos actually seems to be able to beat us and make our survival not guaranteed. It was refreshing.