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

[Vyrerus]

I still find it funny that people have this hate boner for Zenos, because, "He's just bored and boring and doing nothing all of the time!" Like... The Ascians before him. Elidibus before him. Every meanwhile scene before him. Like, sure, occasionally they did some stuff like talked to new antagonist NPCs for the patch. Or ominously talked with Urianger in Gubal library. Or laughed maniacally at frozen Great Wyrm eyes. The substance was always the same though, "Haha, evil Ascian master plan. Mwahaha, evil laugh. Something something Hydaelyn's champion's days are numbers something something chaos."

Not saying Zenos is a step up, but I mean, where was all this hate for the Ascians?

Though this also has me thinking, isn't it quite delightful? The old king of meanwhile scenes, Elidibus, literally took the body of Zenos and was used in meanwhile scenes inside of it, and after he left it, and Zenos took it up again... meanwhile scenes!

[Mansion]

I still find it funny that people have this hate boner for Zenos, because, "He's just bored and boring and doing nothing all of the time!" Like... The Ascians before him. Elidibus before him. Every meanwhile scene before him. Like, sure, occasionally they did some stuff like talked to new antagonist NPCs for the patch. Or ominously talked with Urianger in Gubal library. Or laughed maniacally at frozen Great Wyrm eyes. The substance was always the same though, "Haha, evil Ascian master plan. Mwahaha, evil laugh. Something something Hydaelyn's champion's days are numbers something something chaos."

Not saying Zenos is a step up, but I mean, where was all this hate for the Ascians?

Though this also has me thinking, isn't it quite delightful? The old king of meanwhile scenes, Elidibus, literally took the body of Zenos and was used in meanwhile scenes inside of it, and after he left it, and Zenos took it up again... meanwhile scenes!

Well there are several "I'm tired of Ascians" topics on the forums too...
I agree though, apart from Emet-Selch's big moment throughout 5.0, Ascians aren't great villains from a character point of view. I am among those who have no real empathy for Emet / Elidibus. the 'rember us' sounds hollow to me. Elidibus IMO was completely victim of Emet's success and his moment in 5.3 was weird when he had close to zero development since his first appearance in 2.X. Ascians are the main plot device.

Zenos is the first iteration of a villain without a real cause, which in a sense is refreshing because adding backstory to the big baddies sometimes feels redundant (especially when it's "I was bullied as a child"). For me he just lacks the charisma to make him enjoyable.
The only comparison I can draw from Final Fantasy is Kefka, who has a bit of backstory but he is just evil by choice and pleasure. And while he isn't a lovable character, his writing is perfectly adequate in the big scope of the story.
Zenos however... is just there. He doesn't really make sense in the power scaling of our character. He doesn't represent anything once he has been defeated in 4.0. We know we will have to fight him (again), but I don't feel we are doing everything we do in order to stop him. That's my main issue, he feels so incidental in our story.

[Recon1o6]

Not saying Zenos is a step up, but I mean, where was all this hate for the Ascians?

Though this also has me thinking, isn't it quite delightful? The old king of meanwhile scenes, Elidibus, literally took the body of Zenos and was used in meanwhile scenes inside of it, and after he left it, and Zenos took it up again... meanwhile scenes!

The ascians are a weird example since different ones did different things
Everyone was confused about Elidibus. He never appeared much onscreen till 4.3 but his appearances were clearly doing things contrary to the other ascians OR making him out to be someone who gets others to do things for him.

that being the case: lahabread was clearly manipulating gaius. We fought Nabriales who damn well nearly gave the ascians a calamity causing stick. Lahabread and igoreyheom or however you spell it were active in HW MSQ behind Thordan (we caught up to them before him)

An ascian was behind Alexander's failed summon and the WOD turning up. Sb they were completely absent but in retrospect we can deduce that they were prepping for emet's death as the emperor until elidibus started doing things
We've also seen some lesser ascians teaching the sacrificial rites to the beast tribes for the ARR ex's and in the summoner questline.

Its not that the ascians haven't been doing anything, its that they've been manipulating other villains into doing things, and each time bar an incident in HW they confronted us, they got their arses handed to them if not slain. Plus, Gaius has been out there slaying ascians too and on the other shards things haven't always gone to plan either so some ascians will be on soul fragment hints to raise folks to office to replace the fallen.

Zenos meanwhile invaded the reach and thats about it in SB msq. He sat around waiting, then spent a few patches finding his body.

His current role seems to be to voice the playerbase's frustrations at fandango