On Fandaniel (5.3 onward spoilers)

[YianKutku]

Well... There's certainly room for that, as we've only got a few scenes with Daniel but, having worked with people with antisocial personality disorder, there is such a thing as inherently having a complete disregard for the life of fellow man. This by no means implies that there is no depth to the person.

Fandaniel is going rather beyond simple disregard for the lives of their fellow humans, though. (That would probably be Emet-Selch, and implicitly the other Unsundered Ascians, who have disregard for the lives of their fellow Ascians, Unsundered or otherwise.) He's not just planning to actively kill other people, he also wants to kill himself, in the most spectacular way he can arrange. That kind of implies some sort of suicidal ideation, but I'm not sure if his rather shallow nihilism can explain it.

[Fate_Testarossa]

Here's a little theory I have regarding "Fandaniel". If we look at all the past Ascians that have possessed other people (Lahabrea - Thancred, Elidibus - Zenos, Elidibus - Ardbert), none of them ever really managed to act exactly the same way as the person they took control of. There were always some nuances that made them feel...."off". However, I do not really get that vibe from Fandaniel-Asahi at all. Current Asahi's manners feel completely identical to OG Asahi. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, cause going down the same old Ascian takes control of Person X route for the umpteenth time feels a bit redundant, but what if current Asahi is actually OG Asahi? What if the plan of Fandaniel to take over Asahi's body kind of backfired on him and OG Asahi is actually in control despite his demise in Castrum Fluminis?

The reason I think that this might be true is when Zenos basically doesn't even remember him. For a split second Asahi's expression is a mix of being genuinely surprised and shocked. The one person he looks up to the most basically just showed him that he couldn't care less about him.

[MoofiaBossVal]

Up until ShB, the game had a villain problem, where most of the villains were meh.

Gaius in ARR came off as a boring, generic "I'm going to take over the world" tyrant. Snooze.

The Primals in ARR were forgettable.

Nidhogg was an evil dragon. Rawr.

oh no the pope is evil! Snooze.

The Ascians were boring.

The only villains I liked were the 2.55 and the Stormblood villains. Illberd and Fordola were patriots who put their money where their mouths were to fight for their people, in their own way. Lolorito felt like a cunning, non-action big bad, but apparently that was just the HW trailer being misleading. Yotsuyu and Zenos came off as entreatingly evil. I did not like how they tried to make me feel sorry for her in the Stormblood patches. I also like Zenos on how he is the hero of his own story, on his quest for greatness, like Archaron from Warhammer 40k.

I thought that Emet-Selch was boring in 4.4 and 4.5. I liked him 5.0 but didn't love him like everyone else seems to. I also quite liked Elidibus. I thought that Ran'jit was cool but he would have been more sympathetic if we had gotten flashbacks showing his time with the prior Minfillias. Vauthry was forgettable.

I think that Fandaniel has been pretty entertaining thus far.

The one thing I do appreciate about FFXIV is that villains tend to die in a timely manner, usually within 3 patches or so of being introduced, the exceptions being the two overarching villains like Elidibus or Zenos who survived for multiple expansions.

[Jirah]

I don’t mine one we don’t need two, Freaking Ran’jit was more interesting than these two, the Griffon is more interesting then these two even one off villains like Lilith or most Job quest villains were miles more interesting.

Most believe “oh we don’t know anything about him” as he goes on with how he is beyond reason and with zero inkling of depth in 5.4 where 5.5 is supposed to big the big sent off from SHB to “Forespoken”

The direction is unholy generic but I hope they muster some sort of interest as 5.4 as whole was kinda rubbish

[Sophie_Lo]

Personally, I say give him a chance. And Zenos too, for that matter. After the compelling twists in both story and characters/villains in the main Shadowbringers storyline, I'm daring to believe that Fandaniel and Zenos both will surprise us in the future.

But I'm also ever the optimist, so... yeah. ;3

[JeanneOrnitier]

I'm all for waiting to see more of Fandaniel before judging him, but unlike Fandaniel Zenos has had plenty of chances already and hasn't once followed through. He's proven that he'll never be interesting to me.

[Crushnight]

Flandanny is just the love child of Kuja and Kefka, got Kuja's theatrics with Kefka's nihilism. He is there to try and be entertaining but during his whole scene I just thought "Kefka did it better", I honestly thought they would straight up have him say something with life dreams and hope but they avoided reusing lines at least.

The difference I found between 4.4-4.5 Emet to Flandanny is Emet at least had some intrigue with his plate of ham and cheese, Flandanny just eat the pig and drank the cow, so he is very 1 note, and when you pair it up with Mr I'm a force of nature character but I just sit on my butt thinking menacingly Zenos you get an unfunny comedy routine.

Flandanny could've hit better if he was paired with anyone else but Zenos.

If I wanted a fun Kefka like villain I'd go play FFVI or Dissidia.

[Endeleon]

My issue with people who don't like Fandaniel and Zenos is they don't seem to think it's an opinion,, or matter of taste. They state it like it's fact that they are bad. That's my issue. People don't like Thancred, and they aren't like this. Because they realize it's a matter of opinion... why are people so arrogant about Fandaniel and Zenos? It's strange. People are allowed to like them. You not liking them doesn't make them bad quality.

[Jirah]

My issue with people who don't like Fandaniel and Zenos is they don't seem to think it's an opinion,, or matter of taste. They state it like it's fact that they are bad. That's my issue. People don't like Thancred, and they aren't like this. Because they realize it's a matter of opinion... why are people so arrogant about Fandaniel and Zenos? It's strange. People are allowed to like them. You not liking them doesn't make them bad quality.

A very non-issue at that, your issues are that some people hold their opinion in value? Well golly gee maybe don’t take someone opinion so literally and debate why you think otherwise instead of getting mad at the opinion in the first place, much less exaggerate and say “they think they’re right!”

[Enla]

You know the more I think about it, the more Fandaniel as we've seen him thus far reminds me of Adachi from Persona 4. Which, to be fair, I don't think was a bad villain. The problem I had with Adachi was ultimately the same issue I'm worried about with Fandaniel and Zenos potentially being forced to carry the lion's share of villainry for the next expansion. Namely that Izanami, the true antagonist of Persona 4, was barely there and thus Adachi really had nothing to help bolster his simplistic motivations. The strength of Persona 4's characters was what held the game's narrative up however and made it's lackluster villains only a minor detraction from the entire experience. Thus I do hope that if Fandaniel is this simple of a villain - again not a bad thing - I hope other elements of the story will at least make it worth our while. Because yeah, like everyone else is saying he's being done NO favors by having to play off of the sheer void that is Zenos' current apathy.