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

[Coletergeist]

It's too bad that all he's been doing lately is sit and talk about being bored while occasionally killing Garleans. He was much more active in his pursuit of goals back in Stormblood. I hope he'll be more active in Endwalker.

I mean, we *are* going to the moon. I think shid be getting pretty interesting soon.

[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

[Erendis]

In SB Zenos disgusted me because he was insane rabid monster and I guess that was writer's intention. Now I'm just bored of his boredom and it's like a nightmare to come true that he survives till 6.0...

[Alleo]

I hate that you can't edit posts on mobile.

But also to add. Can't an antagonist just be simply 'mentally unhinged'?

They can be and depending in which way they are unhinged it can even be fun since such characters are often quite unpredictable. My problem with him though: He already got one expansion where he was like that and we beat him. Having another such expansion where the only difference will probably be his weapon and maybe his power level depending on if he gets Zodiark or not is imo boring. We already know this character. We know that he is obsessed with us. If this was his first introducing to the story and maybe before that we only heard some tibids here and there then I might have found him interesting but he already got his stage...

Also another problem: 6.0 will be the end of a story that is years long. I just dont want someone like him to be the last boss.

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!

Hate boner is a very strong word. Arent people allowed to not like a character now? He is bored this is his whole arc. He is bascially bored of life and the only good thing now is to fight us. He has no greater goal, nothing at all. The Ascians before they were fleshed out were also critizied for being too one dimensional but at least they still had the air of mystery: Why are they doing it? Elidibus also had a bit going on with his talk about us joining their side if we knew the truth.

I agree that they sadly had not done much with Ascians for quite some time but then you have Emet-Selch. He too was an Ascian and he was so much fun. Every scene with him was a delight. And at the end even though I knew it was for the best and that he needed to be stopped it was still sad because you could understand him in some ways and you also knew that a great character would be gone from the story. That for me is the sign of a great villian.

Elidibus was fleshed out a tiny bit more before we ended him imo way too soon...imagine if they had given us a whole expansion with him. Maybe even temporarly team up with him to take down Fandaniel. No matter how evil the Ascians were, for me even someone like Lahabrea was way more interesting than Zenos.

[Lauront]

I thought it was very telling that we've had multiple teasers of Zenos doing very little aside from sitting around on a throne looking very bored...only for his big reveal in the expansion cinematic to consist of - you guessed it - Zenos sitting around looking very bored. As a character he does absolutely nothing for me. He was mildly intriguing for the duration of Stormblood's initial MSQ's but then he just started to overstay his welcome and exist at the expense of characters with much more potential and depth.

Misija needs to lend him that chair of hers. Then he won't even have to get off it to be a boss fight.

[filkry]

I think it's clear that Zenos is pursuing his goals in the background of the 5.X patches. He's made some sort of deal with Fandaniel to get access to Zodiark. Why isn't he seeking us out? Because he knows he can't beat us yet! We're only getting snippets of what the two of them are doing right now. We don't even know why Fandaniel needs Zenos - what has/will Zenos do for that side of the bargain?

I also object to the idea that Zenos is some kind of hypocrite for wanting to use Zodiark's power (rather than his own) to fight us. He doesn't care about an honourable fight, he cares about participating in the fight. Whether his tools be legendary katanas or the eldest and most powerful of primals, he will use them to increase the intensity of battle.

[waifugenerator]

I don't think he's one-dimensional at ALL and feel like that label is more an indication of people being unable to see a character three dimensionally unless their contadictions and motives are laid bare. I'd go as far as to say "boring" is a core element of his character. It's like irl when people have the misconception that psychopaths are complex and mysterious, when it's actually the complete opposite in that their inner worlds are profoundly boring, infantile even. I see Zenos similarly and I think that in itself makes him interesting! Although I guess that sort of characterization isn't very entertaining on screen and only works in the context of like, an exploration of an interpersonal relationship.

[Cilia]

I think Zenos can be very interesting, if you actually try to understand him.

He's not entertaining, sympathetic, tragic, redeemable, or particularly complex, but if you actually try and get into his headspace, try to understand why he says and does the things he does, there's more to him than a psycho killer.

tl;dr: For all his physical power Zenos is a poster boy for mental illness.