Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
I prefer nuance to outright villainy. Though if I'm going to have to stomach the latter, then I at least want charisma and entertainment. It's like Joffrey and Ramsay from Game of Thrones. Sure, they had very few - if any - redeeming qualities, but they were amusing to watch in their own right. Zenos' contribution to the plot outside of the base Stormblood MSQ has been less than satisfying. He's literally spent most of his time sitting around complaining about being bored as other, more interesting characters have been sidelined for his sake.

That he has inexplicably become the focus of both Garlemald's story and the Ascian story feels undeserved, as if he were simply put there to wrap up both as quickly as possible. It doesn't help that he's hardly threatening in any way to me. If he actually killed someone close to the Warrior of Light in an effort to enrage him and get a good fight? At least that'd make sense. Yet he hasn't and likely won't because the story has, of late, been very averse to lasting consequences and threat unless it's either a throwaway character or a sympathetic antagonist being killed off.
Part of my issue with him in 4.0 is the lack of consequences for losing to him.

In the attack on RR one named character I can remember dies, but Fordola killed him not Zenos. The attack was even Fordola's idea from what I remember.

Then he beats the WOL and injures Yshtola. The former isn't important because he gets bored and has his forces withdraw and the rebels, while bruised, don't even have to fall back from their base afterwards. And Ysthola's injury is just a means of having the plot focus on other characters for a bit and not anything serious.

Then in Doma, we expose our presence in Othard to attack him and fail. But....not only does nothing bad happen other than bruising our egos, but it plays out in our favor. Because it leads to Grynwaht showing up in the Steppe jus tin time to help us rally the Xaela against the Empire. I don't think anyone really calls you and Yugiri out for doing it seriously.

I'm not saying he needs to kill half the Scions or something but when losing to him doesn't really matter, it's hard to fear it happening again in the future. And the actual boss fights against him in these two instances feel slow and tedious because of his inflated health bar. The fights aren't difficult, it doesn't feel like we're scrambling to hold our own against a superior foe. It's just an easy fight with an arbitrary 'okay you lose now' cutscene put in. So for me at least, it doesn't get the emotional impact of feeling outmatched they were probably aiming for and the fights may as well have just been cutscenes of him beating us if that's all they were going to amount to anyway.