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

[KizuyaKatogami]

Something to note about the whole “Fandaniel isn’t the final boss” thing. He said Fandaniel isn’t the final boss, but that isn’t even his real name. It’s just the seat. Could simply be a red herring to make us think he isn’t but in reality the final boss is him but under a different name. Just food for thought. I really hope to god Zenos isn’t the final boss though and he just gets killed off early. Having him off so people as the final boss of not 1 but 2 expansions (let alone the expansion to tie up the entire plot line from 1.0) would be really sad to see.

[KizuyaKatogami]

My whole post agrees with you, I just disagree with the reason, Zenos simply hasn't been given the lead, all he's been given is "Set up the stage and work with this person and stand/sit in the back while this guy speaks." That was my whole point, he's been relegated to doing nothing pretty much his whole run. Any character handled like that would be terrible, when he DOES get to do something, I like what I've seen but it's so rare, she said it in jest, but Katie_Kitty's joke is on point, if all Emet did every time we beat a Warden was brood in a chair on his own for a few moments, he wouldn't be the lorded villain everyone loves, he is, because he was utilized.

To Theodric's point yes, we fought him 3 times during Stormblood but as with a lot during that expansion it wasn't really executed very well, first time wasn't even about us, second time we attacked him and it ended about the same and he still wasn't really paying much attention to us, the third time was really the only time you could really call it a fight and it was also the only time we had proper dialogue and some kind of progression of his development and our growth with him, it was also collectively the most we'd spoken and would speak the whole run, which goes back to the problems Stormblood had, we literally didn't interact with our primary antagonist at all, they made it a personal story about him wanting a good fight but then never really had him realize we could give it to him until the last 5 minutes of run time.

There was no build up, they just did nothing with him, you could have removed him from the story and little would have changed, Fordola and Yotsuyu felt like the primary villains of the expansion it just felt like they didn't know what they wanted to do with Zenos, like they had the idea for him, but no clue where he should fit into this particular part of the narrative, though wonky as it was, he was part of the story and has lingered in the background since, honestly he feels more at home where he is now, it's a shame in how he got there though.

In regards to set up the stage etc etc. To be fair that was also Elidibus. He only had 2 patches and even then it wasn’t until the 5.3 patch that he really took the stage. And even then with that little bit of time he turned out to be a good character. That’s my issue with Zenos. Yes Zenos didn’t have the whole lead but there are other characters that also haven’t but turned out perfectly fine. Elidibus prior to 5.2 had just had a few moon cutscenes and then a brief cutscene at the end of ARR but still managed to be endearing and interesting to keep people interested. Zenos really don’t bring that at all. It’s just the same thing over and over with him and at this point it’s just stale and boring given how many times they’ve tried to force us to fight him or some form of him (i think it’s around 5-6 times now which is ridiculous).

[Katie_Kitty]

In regards to set up the stage etc etc. To be fair that was also Elidibus. He only had 2 patches and even then it wasn’t until the 5.3 patch that he really took the stage. And even then with that little bit of time he turned out to be a good character. That’s my issue with Zenos. Yes Zenos didn’t have the whole lead but there are other characters that also haven’t but turned out perfectly fine. Elidibus prior to 5.2 had just had a few moon cutscenes and then a brief cutscene at the end of ARR but still managed to be endearing and interesting to keep people interested. Zenos really don’t bring that at all. It’s just the same thing over and over with him and at this point it’s just stale and boring given how many times they’ve tried to force us to fight him or some form of him (i think it’s around 5-6 times now which is ridiculous).

By this logic, it's unfair to judge Zenos now since he hasn't had his defining 5.3 moment yet. Nobody liked Elidibus before 5.3, he was just a cartoon villain.

[WhiteArchmage]

Something to note about the whole “Fandaniel isn’t the final boss” thing. He said Fandaniel isn’t the final boss, but that isn’t even his real name. It’s just the seat. Could simply be a red herring to make us think he isn’t but in reality the final boss is him but under a different name.

This... DOES hold some ground; the final bosses have either been ultimate summons (Knights of the Round, Hades), or superbosses (Ultima Weapon, Shinryu); so Fandaniel's "True Name" could in fact be a superboss or summon from a previous FF and THEN be the final boss.

Granted, considering Amaurotines have names from Greek Mythology, the pool is rather small. But we also know that there's something "wrong" with him, both being the complete opposite of his Scion of Light and Scion of Darkness titles, as well as his convocation stone being damaged. This could suggest his "raising" was corrupted somehow and he's in a similar position to G'raha; not ENTIRELY his original self, but also not fully his older self.

[Theodric]

Nobody liked Elidibus before 5.3, he was just a cartoon villain.

Plenty of people liked him - the Ascians became more popular as of the reveal in regards to Amaurot but they were not lacking in fans before that point. Indeed, some of us very much enjoyed his calculated and methodical approach as well as vague but intriguing statements back in the days of ARR and HW. I strongly disagree that he was a 'cartoon villain'. Much like with Varis, however, it seems as though the writers had to tweak things because a lot of people misread the motives and intentions of characters who did not ham it up as much as with other key antagonists.

As for Fandaniel and Zenos potentially not being the final antagonist of 6.0, I wouldn't be surprised if both serve as the 'Vauthry' of the expansion and then, just as we think we're done with the story...there's the the final zone and a major plot twist.

[KizuyaKatogami]

By this logic, it's unfair to judge Zenos now since he hasn't had his defining 5.3 moment yet. Nobody liked Elidibus before 5.3, he was just a cartoon villain.

uh what? People absolutely did like Elidibus before 5.3. That’s a weird assumption to make lmao. That’s like saying people didn’t like the ascians before shadowbringers. There was a lot to them before, shadowbringers just spelled it out for the slower people.

[BlitzAceRush]

In regards to set up the stage etc etc. To be fair that was also Elidibus. He only had 2 patches and even then it wasn’t until the 5.3 patch that he really took the stage. And even then with that little bit of time he turned out to be a good character. That’s my issue with Zenos. Yes Zenos didn’t have the whole lead but there are other characters that also haven’t but turned out perfectly fine. Elidibus prior to 5.2 had just had a few moon cutscenes and then a brief cutscene at the end of ARR but still managed to be endearing and interesting to keep people interested. Zenos really don’t bring that at all. It’s just the same thing over and over with him and at this point it’s just stale and boring given how many times they’ve tried to force us to fight him or some form of him (i think it’s around 5-6 times now which is ridiculous).

That's pretty subjective as I had a hard time remembering Elidibus existed half the time given he was gone for so long and really did nothing, Zenos at least showed up often enough to be remembered and did things in his small meanwhile segments, even in his chair sitting moments the plot was moved along vs a lot of Elidibus's "Balance must be maintained" but find out next time what I mean by that.

Katie_Kitty also makes a valid and fair point, you can't really use Elidibus as an example of a good villain given he embodies pretty much every bad quality of Zenos, ironically he even mimicked Zenos's sins while in his body, he did little while in it, spoke big in small amounts, then managed to match one of Zenos's feats, he knocked us down, though unlike Zenos, he actually lost, needed his powers and an assist from Graha to do it.

Elidibus is effectively Zenos 1.0, he mulled about for 3 expansions before getting a "defining" moment and then gets "killed" off, guess we'll see if his successor can do any better.

[Theodric]

Perhaps it would be of benefit for some people to refresh themselves on the events of ARR, HW and SB? By no means was Elidibus simply standing around in the shadows during that period. He had numerous defining moments manipulating events in his favour, or attempting to. Indeed, he was directly responsible for bringing the Warriors of Darkness over to the Source. He also confronted Minfilia directly at one point and is directly responsible for gifting Nidhogg's eyes to Ilberd, which kicked off the renewed hostilities with Garlemald. In addition to that, he manipulated Varis and contributed to pushing away a chance to make peace between Garlemald and Eorzea as a consequence of his actions where the Populares were concerned.

...and all of that is with Elidibus being a character working behind the scenes by his very nature and only confronting the Warrior of Darkness as a last resort. Meanwhile, Zenos is built on the thrill of the fight and has...done very little outside of the occasional flashy fight with minimal consequences.

[BlitzAceRush]

And yes, there were plenty of people who liked the Ascians prior to ShB, I thought they were alright, was curious where they would take them, after ShB they did get a lot better as they had direction and people could understand them, even if you couldn't agree with them you at least could see why they'd want to do what they're doing. Gone was the "ZoDiArK iS tHe OnE tRUe GoD" and in its place was an actual motivation. But the Ascians prior to ShB and especially in ARR lacked direction they did feel very comic book villain, that's not to say there wasn't reason back there, it just wasn't portrayed.
That doesn't really salvage Elidibus for me, even retroactively taking Emet's reveals into account he just did a whole lot of nothing and wasn't really all the developed, even Lahabrea, who felt very retroactively developed to make sense of how he acted, it worked for him, the "He was crazy and fanatical because he body hoped too much" worked, it turned a potential continuity error into a fairly interesting trait, ShB Elidibus just ends up feeling like a totally different character, because he goes from nothing to being an actual character in 3 patches.

[KizuyaKatogami]

And yes, there were plenty of people who liked the Ascians prior to ShB, I thought they were alright, was curious where they would take them, after ShB they did get a lot better as they had direction and people could understand them, even if you couldn't agree with them you at least could see why they'd want to do what they're doing. Gone was the "ZoDiArK iS tHe OnE tRUe GoD" and in its place was an actual motivation. But the Ascians prior to ShB and especially in ARR lacked direction they did feel very comic book villain, that's not to say there wasn't reason back there, it just wasn't portrayed.
That doesn't really salvage Elidibus for me, even retroactively taking Emet's reveals into account he just did a whole lot of nothing and wasn't really all the developed, even Lahabrea, who felt very retroactively developed to make sense of how he acted, it worked for him, the "He was crazy and fanatical because he body hoped too much" worked, it turned a potential continuity error into a fairly interesting trait, ShB Elidibus just ends up feeling like a totally different character, because he goes from nothing to being an actual character in 3 patches.

I agree with your latter part at least in regards to him feeling like a different character, however i don’t think that’s due to him going from nothing to an actual character but moreso, if we look back at ARR and how that Elidibus was and then look at ShB it’s incredibly different, and my main thought is that they had something completely different planned but had to scrap it due to having to have graha survive last minute since the community loves him(yoshi even saying they had two endings planned for 5.3). However, Elidibus wasn’t just in the foreground really. In ARR he talked to us, HW he had monologue and influenced the warriors of darkness, in SB he took zenos’ body and influenced Varis, and then in ShB he literally basically killed us if not for the plot armor/holes of Azem and Graha. He at least was more of an adversary than Zenos imo who just had nothing going for him other than he wants to fight.