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

[VictorTheed]

I'm ok with Zeno's being the big bad at the end of 6.0.

We've already had our feel of sympathetic villains with emet Selch and Niddhog and had our power hungry one with Thordan.

I like Zeno's being the deranged crazy one that gives no cares cause he just wants his battle and he kinda has that serial killer vibe to him, which makes for a good villain choice cause he's a must stop villain, can't let this guy carry on.

[Vyrerus]

We do, however, know that he really likes to talk, and explain stuff to us (as well as annoying Hades, in the way friends do). Which is kind of not what Zenos has been doing, since Zenos barely bothered responding to Fandaniel.

(Maybe Hythlodaeus's reincarnation is instead Gaius "Loves The Sound Of His Own Voice" Baelsar.)

[KageTokage]

I'm a little curious as to how Fandaniel's relationship with him is going to end up playing out, because presently it doesn't seem like he specifically needs Zenos to enact his schemes and is just roping him along because he knows he's one of the only things that can actually oppose us at this point.

I'd be a touch disappointed if he just ends up getting offed once he's served his purpose, especially after Zenos made it clear how little he actually matters to him. Making his plans hinge entirely on the cooperation of someone who could be described as unpredictable as best would be rather silly.

[Kesey]

I'm ok with Zeno's being the big bad at the end of 6.0.

We've already had our feel of sympathetic villains with emet Selch and Niddhog and had our power hungry one with Thordan.

I think the word you were looking for is tragic. Emet, Nidhogg, and Thordan are tragic villains. They are tragic because we see the motivations for their actions.

Fandaniel could be one, but needs to be fleshed out better. The cutscenes and announcement showcase at least give us the "promise" of this coming to pass in the future.

Zenos, on the other hand, does not have the makings of a tragic villain. We could point to his upbringing, but the dude has been blabbering on about transcendence for so long I'm not sure any abuse he received from his family really matters. Plus if his family was going to be the anchor of his character development he would have denouemented when he murdered his father. Then the whole fight the WOL thing is tired, as we already did this two expansions ago and he committed suicide in response.

[Theodric]

If Zenos really wanted another fight, he could just waltz over to Eorzea and cause trouble. The Warrior of Light would respond and the two would clash again.

It feels contrived for that not to happen and for Zenos to sit around in Garlemald complaining that he is 'bored'. Literally any time a Primal or other major threat pops up within Eorzea or the Far East, the Warrior of Light is called forth to intervene. There is an exceptionally long track record of that happening. Practically everyone who matters knows that pattern by now.

[RyuDragnier]

If Zenos really wanted another fight, he could just waltz over to Eorzea and cause trouble. The Warrior of Light would respond and the two would clash again.

It feels contrived for that not to happen and for Zenos to sit around in Garlemald complaining that he is 'bored'. Literally any time a Primal or other major threat pops up within Eorzea or the Far East, the Warrior of Light is called forth to intervene. There is an exceptionally long track record of that happening. Practically everyone who matters knows that pattern by now.

That sadly doesn't help Zenos's obsession with making his and the WoL's next battle the greatest battle the planet will ever know. Which is why he's doing what he's doing and why he's bored, he wants to fight us in the world's greatest battle, but has to wait on Fandaniel to set everything up. In the meantime he has nobody to fight who would be on his level to sate his appetite.

[LineageRazor]

That sadly doesn't help Zenos's obsession with making his and the WoL's next battle the greatest battle the planet will ever know. Which is why he's doing what he's doing and why he's bored, he wants to fight us in the world's greatest battle, but has to wait on Fandaniel to set everything up. In the meantime he has nobody to fight who would be on his level to sate his appetite.

This, exactly. Zenos doesn't repeat the same battle twice. When he suffers defeat, he searches out and employs a new tactic to win on the next attempt, as he did by employing magical equipment to overcome his sword instructor in his backstory. He fought us as a human (final boss of Ala Mhigo) and lost. So, he fought us as Shinryu, and lost. He apparently decided that there was no higher plateau to strive for at that point, as he took his own life. When that failed, he was a bit aimless for a while, but eventually decided to try to find another way to up the ante - and he found one, apparently in the Ascians and Zodiark. Now, he's prepping for that.

To simply cross swords with the WoL again would be pointless; he already knows the WoL can beat him on that battlefield. He needs to find a new tactic to face him with, and that is why he is currently waiting in boredom while Fandaniel makes it all possible. It's not laziness, exactly; if Fandaniel were to cross the line, Zenos would probably kill him and find his own way to Zodiark, but as long as Fandaniel is useful, Zenos is willing to let him do the heavy lifting.

[Crushnight]

I regard Zenos(currently) as the 2nd worst villain in the entire final fantasy series.

He had a solid death in 4.0 and it was undone, which retroactively makes 4.0 ending and Stormblood as a whole worse just by his mere existence, especially when he did what in the entire 4.X series kill a few nameless npcs in different bodies then head off to get his own body back in 5.0.

He gets plot mcguffins as much as we do with even less reasoning, he fully resisted the pull of the lifestream with no crystal and no body to jump into for an indesernable amount of time(whenever his body was cleaned up from the gardens is the earliest he could have body swapped but given how his body showed/had no sign of life until Elidibus decided to take it he certainly wasn't in there for awhile), body swapping having no knowledge of being able to do it and mastered it immediately to be able to do so again to suit his purposes, seeing the colour of souls (he just does this casually at the end of 5.1 like he has always been able to do it, no no you have not Zenos).

He is so terribly written that he cannot answer the question "If he got what he wanted and won the fight, What would he do?" You can give hypotheticals(suicide again, search for new person who may give him that feeling again, destroy everything) but you can't give a statement of he will do x because that is how badly written he is, If Zenos were to win he would stop as a character, when you know the villian's motivation, you should be able to answer that question easily with a they will do x and we know Zenos' at this stage.

I use to like Zenos for what he was, but he has long overstayed his welcome and I want him gone, he will without a doubt be Endwalkers's worse thing to happen to the story, nothing will even come close to him.

[Vyrerus]

I regard Zenos(currently) as the 2nd worst villain in the entire final fantasy series.

Who's the worst villain then?

His death in 4.0 is immediately followed by the credits scene showing Elidibus take on a face that disturbs Varis... it's later confirmed to be Zenos's face, so... it was the plan from the start. As far as Zenos winding up in a Resistance soldier... I wish they'd explained it more or showed it happen in a flashback by now. I would love the details on his return and the why of it. Though talking about it now makes me wonder if he chose not to mold that Elezen to be more like his body, or if he just didn't know that he could. He had some knowledge of the soul.

Let's also examine if he didn't know he could do it or not. Remember with me, the second boss in Ala Mhigo. Aulus mal Asina.

Aulus mal Asina: "Recording subject's performance...

"I shall have to share these findings!"

"Initiate soul extraction!"

"Hah, success!"

"The soul rebels?!"

"My word, this data..."

"Impossible... Incredible..."

This is the man who performed the Resonant experiments, breaking down souls and using them to copy the Echo onto other souls. Since he shared all of his data with Zenos at some point, then Zenos has some idea about how souls work, and that they can return to the body once they are pulled from it. Since we do without having ever done it before, then why not Zenos? Also keep in mind that Aulus mal Asina employed magitek in that battle that could detect our souls and even push them around to attempt to keep us from our body long enough that we would die. Why not bake that detection into the Resonance?

A lot of Stormblood was a gamble on trying to tell details by having the players pick up on them in gameplay. Given how most of us are though, with liking a concrete statement, it didn't go over so well with most people.

Not trying to say that Zenos is a riveting character, just saying if you look for the details surrounding him, then you'll find things.

[Vyrerus]

I regard Zenos(currently) as the 2nd worst villain in the entire final fantasy series.

He had a solid death in 4.0 and it was undone, which retroactively makes 4.0 ending and Stormblood as a whole worse just by his mere existence, especially when he did what in the entire 4.X series kill a few nameless npcs in different bodies then head off to get his own body back in 5.0.

He gets plot mcguffins as much as we do with even less reasoning, he fully resisted the pull of the lifestream with no crystal and no body to jump into for an indesernable amount of time(whenever his body was cleaned up from the gardens is the earliest he could have body swapped but given how his body showed/had no sign of life until Elidibus decided to take it he certainly wasn't in there for awhile), body swapping having no knowledge of being able to do it and mastered it immediately to be able to do so again to suit his purposes, seeing the colour of souls (he just does this casually at the end of 5.1 like he has always been able to do it, no no you have not Zenos).

He is so terribly written that he cannot answer the question "If he got what he wanted and won the fight, What would he do?" You can give hypotheticals(suicide again, search for new person who may give him that feeling again, destroy everything) but you can't give a statement of he will do x because that is how badly written he is, If Zenos were to win he would stop as a character, when you know the villian's motivation, you should be able to answer that question easily with a they will do x and we know Zenos' at this stage.

I use to like Zenos for what he was, but he has long overstayed his welcome and I want him gone, he will without a doubt be Endwalkers's worse thing to happen to the story, nothing will even come close to him.

As for what Zenos would do if he won... he'd likely spare our life, that we might rise up and defeat him, knowing we're the only one who might be able to do that.

If he killed us in the process... assuming he has the power of the closest thing the setting has to a true God, then perhaps he would go to other stars, seeking challenges greater than us, lest he give into despair. He's an escalation anime. That's what they do. Perhaps he'd wind up like Boros in One Punch Man.