Zenos: The Big Bad (The Feedback Thread, Part 1)

[Lusavari]

But both "Evil for Evil's Sake" and "Sympathetic" seem like unsatisfying outcomes for Zenos if our boss is gonna be specifically Zenos.

That's part of the problem though. You're trying to apply a word to Zenos that is not applicable. He's not Evil. Nor is he good. Zenos merely IS. If you separate him from a Dungeons and Dragons morality system, it's much easier to appreciate. If he's anything, he's Chaotic Neutral. But even then, I don't think it captures who he is. Zenos was just acting as part of the Garlean Army because it was something to do. He cares little about the goals of the army. It just gave him a way to seek out fights and those quickly became boring to him. You need to see him as an unaligned entity. Because that's what he is.

[GoldStarz]

To me, Zenos is just completely irrelevant as a character and a threat. I hate him, not in an in-universe context, for how he works mechanically in the story because every time he shows up he is a drain on everything around him. In Stormblood, he took away time from the actually interesting villains we had in Fordola and Yotsuyu, usually giving nothing in return. In Shadowbringers, he killed off Varis and seemingly the entire threat of the Garlean Empire. And in Endwalker, I literally can't take him seriously as a threat because he feels like he has been thoroughly dealt with before that I can't feel any menace. I legitimately hope we don't have to fight him in any serious context (Hey Koji, I wasn't afraid of Fandaniel being the last boss, I'm afraid it is Zenos again) because I will be so sucked out of it.

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Except he really doesn't have the means since all of that was achieved for him either through Garlean scientists or Fandaniel. I won't deny that in-universe he's a serious combatant (or at least was because we've beat a version of his ass like three(?) times now including a time where he could use magic when Elidibus was using his body), but I think it's so weird they prop him up as a big bad guy when his true power is almost always given to him by another force. As for motive, his motive feels so flimsy I'd barely call it one at all. It honestly feels like they're just shoehorning in details so that he stays relevant after Stormblood. I didn't like him there, but at least if they made 4.0's end stick he'd have gone out in a genuinely memorable way. Even now, Fandaniel feels like the mastermind just entertaining Zenos' ego to make him think he's in charge when he's honestly just the dumb muscle. I genuinely thought that Fandaniel would just knock off Zenos once he and Garlemald served their purpose in 5.5 because he seems so extraneous.

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Not true. Even in Stormblood, you had Asahi hating you for claiming that you killed Zenos. Then you have a chunk of Shadowbringers involving Emet-Selch trying to forge a connection with you in hopes you can prove your worth to him. You could even make the argument that Gaius had personal stakes involved since near the end he wanted to recruit you and Cid to his side.

Not to mention that his personal connection to you means nothing if you don't have a connection to him and while Zenos does a ton of bad shit, most of it doesn't actually directly affect you. He kills off a minor character who you may have remembered from ARR, KOs Y'shtola, and spares you in fights that you probably could have won in-game because video games still haven't figured out how to do boss fights you're supposed to lose yet. Like even the one legatus in HW does more than that and kills off Ysayle and he's not even relevant to MSQ after that. Zenos is probably the least emotionally affecting villain in the game and yet they keep pushing him.