Emet-Selch *Major Spoilers*

[Edax]

When we had the fight, our character was down. I was saying to myself now the poorly written and most boring characters appear behind me magically. And who knows? The Scions appeared and all the previous excitement was gone, killed in one moment.
Shadowbringers is good but they just have to (for some reason) carry around that ARR level pack of npcs around with us. And the moment they give us someone interesting actually they kill him off. We'll twice actually, glad that Zenos is still alive
Heanvensward ftw

Zenos is a prime example of a villain who should stay dead. He's walking around resurrected for 2 halves of an expansion doing nothing and wasting screen time. The one important guy he killed could have been killed by anyone else and the story wouldn't have changed. And the Emperor he killed had more motivation to work again the protagonist then Zenos himself does, we've moved several steps backwards now. Zenos is an antagonist that cannot progress the story if he destroys the protagonist because he's so thinly written. His entire purpose is to act as an obstacle to the player and he has no motivations outside of the Warrior of Light. If Zenos ever wins, he has nothing, he becomes nothing and thus the writers can't let him win. He's just a bowling pin to be knocked down.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Why did we have to kill Emet-Selch? Yes, yes, I know: Ascian and Empire combined made him the sum total of all "evil".

If you understand this, then what is the point of your question?

All things considered, no matter how much we liked him and he brought a well written motivation that makes theplayer sympathetic to him and his cause, he was a Villain, he was driven to kill you and your friends and your world and the 1st and all other worlds to achieve the Ascian Goal; to reform the worlds and bring back their god, and even their world that was lost.
He was never gonna be on our side and join us, so what is the point of keeping him alive? So we could have an extended reaccuring battle with him through out the expansion and he'd loose again and again saying "Ill get you next time"?
Its better for him to go out the way he did, then to have him stick around and where out his welcome and become an annoyance.....like Zenos.

And Im probly the only person here that likes Zenos, but even I think he's been around to long and dont find him engaging anymore.
Just a side note while im at it.....Yotsuyu NEEDED to die, she should have died sooner, her character was irredeemable, she had no good qualities to redeem, even her getting temp amnesia doesnt save her, especally because she eventually got her memory back, and was immediately ready to get back to business and destroy her countrymen. HOW and WHY would we keep her around?

[MirronTulaxia]

Ascians are tempered. Tempered people aren't reasonable. Even Ramuh, one of the most reasonable of Primals, still has unreasonable tempered Sylphs. It kind of has to be that way. The alternative is "everyone dies". You could argue about killing him when we did, but how long can you keep him around without removing him as a reasonable threat? If the Ascians as a whole just took a step back and we focused solely on beating the evil empire I suppose it could work, but I don't really see that happening. They seem determined to finish things now.

[TeraRamis]

If you understand this, then what is the point of your question?

Because I was being sarcastic; because labels-mean-someone-equals-evil is about the lamest excuse ever for motivation to hate a character.

These forums are increasingly helping me to understand why... creative vehicles like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey made boatloads of money.

[Theodric]

I'll say one thing, it's a real shame that FFXIV doesn't seek to take a leaf out of Elder Scrolls Online and allow the player character to have the option to side with various antagonistic characters and factions if they so desire instead of being bound to follow a very rigid path. Incidentally, that's something I miss about WoW as well - I could play a warlock or a death knight and actively have demonic beings and shambling corpses do my character's bidding if I so wished. Or I could create a character that was pure and righteous and had the light guide his blade instead.

If nothing else, hopefully Emet's popularity gives the development team more confidence to do something very bold with the story as it moves towards a conclusion. After all, there's plenty of people - myself included - who play JRPG's for the intriguing antagonists rather than for the often stereotypical protagonists.

[Lord_Umbra]

Zenos is a prime example of a villain who should stay dead. He's walking around resurrected for 2 halves of an expansion doing nothing and wasting screen time. The one important guy he killed could have been killed by anyone else and the story wouldn't have changed. And the Emperor he killed had more motivation to work again the protagonist then Zenos himself does, we've moved several steps backwards now. Zenos is an antagonist that cannot progress the story if he destroys the protagonist because he's so thinly written. His entire purpose is to act as an obstacle to the player and he has no motivations outside of the Warrior of Light. If Zenos ever wins, he has nothing, he becomes nothing and thus the writers can't let him win. He's just a bowling pin to be knocked down.

Why cant he win though, he won a Rhalgers, he won in Doma, he can easily beat us down & not kill us again & again. It's basically 1 Win 1 Draw 1 Loss each when comes to WoL verses Zenos.

Zenos is honestly to me not even a villain he has zero interest in getting in our way & will kill anyone who does get in our way such as his father, he's happily waiting for us to return rather then seeking us out or going to Rising Stones & killing our unconscious friends rest of Scions there whilst we're away.

Zenos interest is in battling us not killing us, so I doubt he'd ever honestly aim to kill us at this point we're only one that may ever be strong enough in his life time to offer him the challenge he seeks.
Also I'd say give XIV writers some credit they made the boring lets get them out of story already Ascians interesting again they can easily begin to change write Zenos into a different light. So interesting seeing how much NA/EU dislike Zenos.

As for Emet he committed countless Genocides & brought nothing but misery & harm to those of the shards, being sad that Emet dead is like being sad that Hitler is dead dude at the end of the day was fairly f-ing evil a monster that had be put down.

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

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).

Yotsuyu wasn't interesting. She was an anime trope, especially with the amnesia. I was beyond thrilled when she and her brother died. As for Emet, he's cool.

[Elladie]

he wasn't that great. Fanboys are always talking like he was the best thing since sliced bread but really he was just the only ascian so far with a personality and a coherent motivation. He really only looks interesting because the other ascians have all been mustache-twirling cardboard cutout villians.

Bottom line he wanted to kill lots of innocent people because he couldn't move on from the life he lived over 10,000 years ago. It was all one big pathetic pity party for him that he insisted on dragging many many uninvolved people into. Good riddance.

So, pretty much like G'raha Tia then? He had no qualms about killing all the people in the bad future to save the people in the past ....

[Edax]

Why cant he win though, he won a Rhalgers, he won in Doma, he can easily beat us down & not kill us again & again. It's basically 1 Win 1 Draw 1 Loss each when comes to WoL verses Zenos.

Zenos is honestly to me not even a villain he has zero interest in getting in our way & will kill anyone who does get in our way such as his father, he's happily waiting for us to return rather then seeking us out or going to Rising Stones & killing our unconscious friends rest of Scions there whilst we're away.

Zenos interest is in battling us not killing us, so I doubt he'd ever honestly aim to kill us at this point we're only one that may ever be strong enough in his life time to offer him the challenge he seeks.
Also I'd say give XIV writers some credit they made the boring lets get them out of story already Ascians interesting again they can easily begin to change write Zenos into a different light. So interesting seeing how much NA/EU dislike Zenos.

"Men die so that others may live. Those who survive are stronger for it" - Zenos
"You live for these moments-when all hangs in the balance, when the difference between life and death is but a single stroke. WELL I DO TOO"- Zenos
If he spared the Warrior of Light, Zenos would have even less character then he does now. He's not interested in duels, he's interested in dancing with death for the thrills despite being effectively immortal. He dueled the Azure Dragoon and Gaius at the same time and got bored immediately.

[Enla]

So, pretty much like G'raha Tia then? He had no qualms about killing all the people in the bad future to save the people in the past ....

Isn't it pretty explicitly stated that a good portion of the population in that future endorsed his efforts to change the past? Which was in direct contrast to Emet's claims that any but the Ancients would understand the necessity of sacrifice for the greater good? That plus I seem to remember there's also a line about that future potentially still being out there, just unshackled from the current timeline, because G'raha is still alive. Personally I enjoy the contrasts between the Exarch and Emet Selch. They work as fantastic foils for one another for exactly this ambiguous reason.

(Please do correct me if my memory is wrong, it's been awhile since I went through ShB and have only just started working on an alt to get through the story again. )

Jumping over to the Zenos connundrum, honestly speaking I can't muster up any interest in the man beyond his design. He's a pretty classic 'force of nature' villain and works pretty well in that regard. However the writers seem to ascribe more depth to him than the man actually has, and just keep bringing him back when the story and his arc likely would have had more impact with his self-inflicted death. I really hope he doesn't stay past 5.5, but I can't help but shake the sinking realization that the MSQ is setting him up to potentially be the final antagonist in some way.