Tired of Zenos (spoilers)

[Bright-Flower]

Zenos was a terrible bad guy, he was impressing by his relentless power during Stormblood's MSQ, but in the end, with his selfish aim to have fun in front of a powerful enemy, and making a complete mockery of the symbolism of the sacred katana of the samurai spirit, just by the fact that he had 3 of them. No need for 2 swords for the samurai's code. The nito style (2 swords) invented by Miyamoto Musashi was considered dishonourable before he was later taken as a national hero.

Back in SB I had a joke in my FC that Zenos was basically a weeaboo. Just taking up katanas because he thought they were neat and not really caring about Doman culture or anything beyond the surface level. Just 'cool sword gonna take this.'

Honestly him using katanas in the first place always felt a little forced to me. Like there wasn't much reason for him to really be drawn to that style of weapon other than 'this is the expansion we're introducing samurai let's give katanas to the bad guy' and I suspect they're going for the same angle with the new dps job and that's the type of weapon he'll replace the katanas with.

[Edax]

People say he's bland, but that's just how they've chosen to perceive him. He does have a lot more depth. Although politics may bore him, he is willing to use politics to get what he wants (a challenge) and do a lot of smart stuff to make it go as planned. I mean involving The Moon in his plan? This is a smart guy, not a mindless cyclops that just wants to chase you.

He started off raiding Doma, then came to take over The Black Wolf's territory as well and carefully killed any generals in his army that did not themselves participate in battles. Terrible as it may be of him, it produced an army with pro-active generals that had been in battle and lived and shows his ability to rule.

He was fascinated by the idea that The Echo can be used to control and influence others, which he then used to control Shinryu, showing the side of him that is interested in science.

I can see how he gets reduced to being like a mindless cyclops that just wants to fight you for no reason, but he does have some depth and that depth has fascinated me, especially his interest in the science of The Echo.

You could argue that The Black Wolf was just like him while he was on his conquest. The desire to go around taking over territories and defeating powerful foes to make yourself more powerful is something instilled in a lot of garlean rulers from birth, so why would Zenos be any different?

Has Zenos expressed any interest in the science of the Echo? I can't recall him discussing the science at all.

[Jeeqbit]

Has Zenos expressed any interest in the science of the Echo? I can't recall him discussing the science at all.

https://youtu.be/fyGc3QRDmR4?t=279

[Edax]

https://youtu.be/fyGc3QRDmR4?t=279

Still didn't see any interest in the science of the Echo with the timecode you provided. He speaks of the Echo as if it were just a weapon to use like a katana.

[Lauront]

I do admit that I often see villains like Zenos to be uninteresting and shallow. I do recognize that this type of villain is needed and if they are well-written. However I just can't see myself liking or finding Zenos interesting/compelling, even if the writing is as good as ShB. I just feel like it's not possible to make him interesting without retconing/changing his character from his SB self.

Thw only thing related to Zenos I'm looking forward too, is only why he dreamed the final days and what has emet done to him. I don't care about Zenos himself nor his duel with us. I would be happy if turns out he's the level 83 or 89 trial and not the final boss (very unlikely though).

I'm not even sure myself why I hate him that much. Maybe because he's the combination of all those villain tropes, such as:
1. Villains who only care about battle (battle freak)
2. Emotionless
3. Being super creepy and obsessed with the MC

On that point about Emet, it's an "if anything", because it's Fandaniel speculating. There may well be an alternative explanation to it, because fundamentally such visions are seared onto the aether of all souls given that they are all sundered remnants of ancient souls; it's the clarity with which he perceived them, absent a (known) triggering event, which is the curious part, in addition to their recurring nature. But I agree, it's more things around him that interest me, not the character himself per se. Personally I am more interested to see what this 'secret' Fandaniel harbours might be.

[Jeeqbit]

Still didn't see any interest in the science of the Echo with the timecode you provided. He speaks of the Echo as if it were just a weapon to use like a katana.

He explains that The Echo can be used to influence others the same way a primal influences others. That it's not that The Echo makes us immune to primal influence, but rather in a complete twist, we could possibly influence a primal instead. Which I found very interesting.

[MarsAstro]

I do agree with that "we have to be patient" part", but to be fair since endwalker is the finale (going to wrap us the HvZ saga), we already knew the key players. The big bads are Zenos, fandaniel, and zodiark (even though he's more neutral in some sense). Unless they pull a "sike!", it's almost sure we're going to deal with them. I would be happy if I was wrong, since I don't want Zenos to be the final boss, but the way they set up things... It's very likely he's the focus of endwalker.

We know Zenos and Fandaniel will have key parts, sure, but we don't know they will be the big bads. In fact, they've already said Fandaniel is not the final boss. I also don't think they've been setting up for Zodiark being the big bad, because basically all of Shadowbringers was about adding nuance to the "light vs dark" part of the story, so I'd be surprised if they go the "Hydaelyn good, Zodiark bad" route for the ending. I think if we're getting rid of Zodiark, we're probably also getting rid of Hydaelyn. It would make more sense to go more into the whole implication that the blessing of light is basically us being tempered by Hydaelyn, and couple that with how we just discovered a cure for tempering. Maybe we'll break free of Hydaelyns "blessing" and take her down along with Zodiark. Or maybe they both stick around, or maybe they merge. Either way, after the stage Shadowbringers set it would be weird for them to go the "we gotta fight Zodiark so Hydaelyn and the light can prevail" route.

I also doubt they would make Zenos the final boss again. As I said, it just makes no sense for them to suddenly feature the final boss of the expansion in the teaser trailer when they've always avoided giving away the main conflict in the cinematics so far. Every single patch they make a big deal out of not spoiling who the big bad will be, they always specifically point out how they take care to not give away too much, because they want the players to be surprised and experience the story with no idea what's coming. Why would they suddenly break that principle right at the very end of the saga, in the preliminary teaser for the expansion? I just can't believe these devs, with their history of carefully withholding key information, would heavily feature the main figures and conflict of the end of the story more than half a year in advance. I refuse to believe it.

Although you are right about the cinematic trailers, the launch trailers that show game footage usually show the main villain at the end. In fact they spoil it quite a bit as you can see at these links (spoiler warning).

Yeah, I know, the launch trailers are usually more spoilery. That's not really relevant though, because we don't have a launch trailer for Endwalker yet, we only have a teaser for the cinematic trailer. It wouldn't make sense to compare the Endwalker cinematic teaser to previous launch trailers.

[Bright-Flower]

I'll be glad if I end up being wrong but I suspect the final boss will be Zenos-Zodiark versus us juiced up by Hydaelyn.

[Edax]

I'll be glad if I end up being wrong but I suspect the final boss will be Zenos-Zodiark versus us juiced up by Hydaelyn.

Ugh, that would be so cliché. The least they could do is spice it up and have Zenos powered by Hydaelyn as a twist and actually put the title "Warrior of Darkness" to use.

[Bright-Flower]

Ugh, that would be so cliché. The least they could do is spice it up and have Zenos powered by Hydaelyn as a twist and actually put the title "Warrior of Darkness" to use.

I feel like the ship has sailed on the warrior of darkness thing sadly, though I do wish SHB had done more with it.