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

[Veloran]

I see this as a talking point a lot, so tell me, what was the whole point of Stormblood?

At the time, anyone would have said advancing the "war with the empire" plotline, which was mostly on the backburner since the climax of 2.0. Since then we'd met the new emperor in Heavensward, so 4.0 was about dealing with the mad prince who embodied the absolute worst aspects of Garlean rule, setting up a direct confrontation down the line. Basically, moving from being on the defensive back in Eorzea to on the offensive taking down imperial provinces. But then Zenos lived, killed his dad, and completely wrecked Garlemald, so now it appears the imperial war plot is just straight up done for. Which is why when you ask what the point of Stormblood currently was, there's really not a good answer. Right now I can only guess "to introduce Zenos to the plot", but of course you really don't need a full expansion to do that.

[Vyrerus]

At the time

I like this answer, because it's sort of a complete answer and a non-answer simultaneously.

With hindsight in tow, it is pretty hard to flesh it out from a, "while it was current perspective." I'm of the mind that the point of Stormblood was to do a lot of worldbuilding in a very short amount of time, with the war with Garlemald basically being the excuse for why we go globe trotting. First time leaving Eorzea and what not.

I also think that what they were striving to do with Zenos was to show us a sort of, "Luke in Palpatine's Throne Room scene" only it'd just be a Darth Vader and Luke, no Palpatine. I guess? The analogue I'm trying to describe is that in Return of the Jedi, the war with the Empire and the Second Death Star is a very pivotal thing for the galaxy, but it's juxtaposed against the personal conflict for Luke. The way the battle goes for the rebels fluctuates along similar lines to Luke's confrontation with the Emperor. I.E. The real battle is good vs. evil, and the personal battle is what's directing the battle outside. Of course, that's not what's actually happening in universe, but it's what's happening with the script.

How I relate this to Stormblood is in the fact that when we do face down Zenos, he now knows more about our own gift and how to use it than we do. Since they can't have quite the same personal dynamic, nor the real isolation of the Emperor's Throne room scene, they resorted to a very direct showing that our real enemy is our old enemy, primals. Primals brought about by the Ascians. It's also because there's been no real overarching explanation on the Echo as with The Force, and we've had no mentor or master with directive for it. I'm just saying it's treading somewhat similar grounds to the RoJ thing mentioned before.

Bear with me. Every patch during Stormblood ends with tying Ascians and Primals and the special world back into FFXIV. Simply casting down an Empire is a fairly tired trope, so they want to keep us in feeling special while also delivering an original. The ultimate point of Stormblood is that we take war to the Garleans, but we find out they were puppets to the Ascians all along.

A major theme of Stormblood was liberation, and the way I see it, they wrote Zenos into the story as a way to liberate themselves as writers and destroy the empire so that they wouldn't have to stick with that trope.

Heh, I sound like I'm reaching to myself.

Anyway, as an aside, it's actually sort of a trope in itself, because it's usually what happens to empires in Final Fantasies. The Empire is destroyed or beaten somehow at a middle/late point in the story, and then the real threat rears its ugly head. We could scrap what I just spent 45 minutes pulling out of my dumper, and say that this was the point of Stormblood. To show the Empire is beatable, and then have them casted aside by a greater force.

This happens in FFII, FFVI, FFVII(hey Shinra maybe an Electric Company... but... Business Empire), and now in FFXIV. Maybe I missed one? Anyway, in FFII, the Emperor is killed, and the Empire is pronounced defeated, but then the Dark Knight takes over and resumes the war only for SURPRISE HELL EMPEROR!

In FFVI you engage the Gestahlian Empire across many different skirmishes, from Doma to Narshe to Vector itself. You turn to the Espers in desperation, and they ransack the imperial capital. The Empire sues for peace, but then shows their true colors and raise the floating continent, and you engage with their air force. Once you're there, it seems like it's the end of the game, and you're going to have to stop the Emperor and Kefka somehow... Only for Kefka to betray the Emperor, cast down the Empire entirely, and destroy it, and the world, leading into the World of Ruin arc. You never actually get to engage the Emperor himself in combat in FFVI.

FFVII has it happen pretty early. You invade the Shinra HQ, and you likely know the details of it better than I do, but your attempts at stopping Shinra are foiled, but while you're in prison the real bad guy swoops in and kills Shinra himself along with most all of the building personnel. After that, Shinra's still around, but you know they aren't the biggest threat, even though they're 100% responsible for Sephiroth being who he is.

[Cilia]

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Nobody can really say what the narrative purpose of Stormblood in the bigger picture was; while the writers are often ahead of what's released (they were working on Endwalker while Shadowbringers was current, f'ex) the story still follows a linear path and has to build on what came before. (Unless you use clunky retcons, like "Yda is really her kid sister Lyse impersonating her.")

The "point(s)" of Stormblood, as I see them, are twofold:

1. Show why the Garlean Empire needs to be opposed, even if it's not wholly evil. The fact so many suffer so greatly under Imperial rule is something that should not be tolerated, no matter how "good" it is to some provinces.
2. Get Lyse to leave the Scions. As I see it they simply didn't know what to do with Yda and Papalymo, so they were both (effectively) killed off in Stormblood's prologue to give Lyse the motivation to be 4.0's (intended) main protagonist, who filled her role and then left the party (so to speak).

As an addendum, Yotsuyu's character arc existed to give a scathing criticism of certain Japanese cultural norms past and present. Zenos' role in Stormblood was to force the player character (and likely the player themselves) to question why they fight.

The point of Stormblood was not just to "kill Zenos," and the only way his survival would invalidate the purpose of the expansion is if that were the case.