[ENDWALKER SPOILER!] On Zenos

[Callalily]

As someone who likes Zenos, I think this final fight against him was supposed to leave you unsatisfied.

And it seems like the devs set him up to be an extremely elaborate decoy by hyping him up in the trailers and the promotion art, only to have all that suspense fall flat in the MSQ.

They certainly went out of their way to make the WOL feel thoroughly fed up with him.
How could you not? We have the potential death of the whole universe on our hands, yet this guy stands in front of us in a country he ruined, thinking still only of his own satisfaction!

It was just painful to see how disconnected he is from other people, even the person he considers his only friend.

I think Alisae did not just tell him off when she said that he will always be lonely if he continues to be selfish. I saw this as her actually reaching out a hand and giving advice to someone everyone else had given up on.

And Zenos does actually think about her words, as we see in that CS of him revisiting the Royal Menagerie in Ala Mhigo.

Even he himself recognizes that he is empty. The only pleasure he has is battle. Therefore, it is also the only thing he knows how to share with the WOL. The only way he knows to find fulfillment.
So you meet him where he wants to met. Give him the epic duel he thinks he wants.

Even if he is so flawed, he even fails at being a satisfying villain. We "help" him in the only way he wants to be helped.

But when both Zenos and the WOL lie dying, he realizes that while the battle gave him bliss, it is short-lived and fleeting.
When he asks if you, his mirror, found fulfillment I was thinking: "No! Of course not!"

He starts with "I...", but dies before he can answer his own question.

At this point, you see a gleaming in the sky. The teleportation device falls down next to you, teleporting you to safety just in time.

Yet when you talk to Urianger again after his CS in the Rising Stones, he says that Moenbryda's parents assured him the device is incapable of coming back by itself.
And he continues:
'Twas a miracle befitting the nature of that place, where emotion becometh tangible reality. Whence, then, arose this timely wonder? Thine ardent wish...or another's fervent prayer?

I take this to mean that Zenos finally realized he did not find fulfillment, did not find satisfaction in living only for battle. And that, you, his mirror ultimately did not find it either.
He wants you to be saved and live on. Because he finally understands that there is a reason other than battle to live or at least learned to hope there is.

At least this it how I interpret it, because the whole theme of the expansion up to this point was that nobody is beyond hope.

It would be very strange if you can give the literal incarnation of despair and hopelessness new hope again, yet this one fool who followed you to the edge of the universe because he was lonely is somehow supposed to be beyond it? I don't see how this could be the intent.

That said, my point is maybe the player is supposed to be left slightly unsatisfied.
The devs do want you to keep playing after all, and not use this opportunity of an a ending to give up on FF14 or MMOs.

[KageTokage]

Even he himself recognizes that he is empty. The only pleasure he has is battle. Therefore, it is also the only thing he knows how to share with the WOL. The only way he knows to find fulfillment.
So you meet him where he wants to met. Give him the epic duel he thinks he wants.

Even if he is so flawed, he even fails at being a satisfying villain. We "help" him in the only way he wants to be helped.

But when both Zenos and the WOL lie dying, he realizes that while the battle gave him bliss, it is short-lived and fleeting.
When he asks if you, his mirror, found fulfillment I was thinking: "No! Of course not!"

He starts with "I...", but dies before he can answer his own question.

At this point, you see a gleaming in the sky. The teleportation device falls down next to you, teleporting you to safety just in time.

Yet when you talk to Urianger again after his CS in the Rising Stones, he says that Moenbryda's parents assured him the device is incapable of coming back by itself.
And he continues:
'Twas a miracle befitting the nature of that place, where emotion becometh tangible reality. Whence, then, arose this timely wonder? Thine ardent wish...or another's fervent prayer?

I take this to mean that Zenos finally realized he did not find fulfillment, did not find satisfaction in living only for battle. And that, you, his mirror ultimately did not find it either.
He wants you to be saved and live on. Because he finally understands that there is a reason other than battle to live or at least learned to hope there is.

At least this it how I interpret it, because the whole theme of the expansion up to this point was that nobody is beyond hope.

Somehow, I never really considered that it might've been him that made the transporter return to our side, even though I did hear that bit of dialogue from Urianger.

I think I'd also like to think that's how it was meant to be interpreted since ever since it was mentioned that Zenos really does view us as his one and only friend in one of the Endwalker live letters, I had a strong hunch that he'd finally do something genuinely benevolent for us once his desire was inevitably fulfilled.

[Loggos]

As someone who likes Zenos, I think this final fight against him was supposed to leave you unsatisfied.

And it seems like the devs set him up to be an extremely elaborate decoy by hyping him up in the trailers and the promotion art, only to have all that suspense fall flat in the MSQ.

They certainly went out of their way to make the WOL feel thoroughly fed up with him.
How could you not? We have the potential death of the whole universe on our hands, yet this guy stands in front of us in a country he ruined, thinking still only of his own satisfaction!

It was just painful to see how disconnected he is from other people, even the person he considers his only friend.

I think Alisae did not just tell him off when she said that he will always be lonely if he continues to be selfish. I saw this as her actually reaching out a hand and giving advice to someone everyone else had given up on.

And Zenos does actually think about her words, as we see in that CS of him revisiting the Royal Menagerie in Ala Mhigo.

Even he himself recognizes that he is empty. The only pleasure he has is battle. Therefore, it is also the only thing he knows how to share with the WOL. The only way he knows to find fulfillment.
So you meet him where he wants to met. Give him the epic duel he thinks he wants.

Even if he is so flawed, he even fails at being a satisfying villain. We "help" him in the only way he wants to be helped.

But when both Zenos and the WOL lie dying, he realizes that while the battle gave him bliss, it is short-lived and fleeting.
When he asks if you, his mirror, found fulfillment I was thinking: "No! Of course not!"

He starts with "I...", but dies before he can answer his own question.

At this point, you see a gleaming in the sky. The teleportation device falls down next to you, teleporting you to safety just in time.

Yet when you talk to Urianger again after his CS in the Rising Stones, he says that Moenbryda's parents assured him the device is incapable of coming back by itself.
And he continues:
'Twas a miracle befitting the nature of that place, where emotion becometh tangible reality. Whence, then, arose this timely wonder? Thine ardent wish...or another's fervent prayer?

I take this to mean that Zenos finally realized he did not find fulfillment, did not find satisfaction in living only for battle. And that, you, his mirror ultimately did not find it either.
He wants you to be saved and live on. Because he finally understands that there is a reason other than battle to live or at least learned to hope there is.

At least this it how I interpret it, because the whole theme of the expansion up to this point was that nobody is beyond hope.

It would be very strange if you can give the literal incarnation of despair and hopelessness new hope again, yet this one fool who followed you to the edge of the universe because he was lonely is somehow supposed to be beyond it? I don't see how this could be the intent.

I don't even disagree with this characterisation of him but I think the timing of bringing his arc to a resolution was really off. Even if it is befitting for him as a character, it was not befitting for the rest of the story in my eyes.

And now you could say, this is again a symbol of his egoism, that he inserts himself into the finale even though it doesn't fit, but in the end it's not him who’s in charge of the story but the writers and as a writer it's your job to keep the overall story in mind to create the best possible version of it.

The finale had a really distinct tone. The emotional atmosphere of the endwalk, the music, your conversation with Emet and Hythlo, the flowers, Meteion breaking down before the last dungeon, us saving our friends to stay behind all alone, us casting an ultra-mega limit break with the help of The Power of Friendship and The Will to Live, freeing Meteion from her fate and having her sing her song of joy...all of this culminated in a really grand, glorious and highly touching setting.

The confrontation with Zenos was very different in tone and many felt like it really ripped them out of that "We just saved the Universe" emotion they had experienced just a few seconds ago.
For people who don't like Zenos that is simply not satisfying from an overall narrative point of view, even if it may make sense for the character himself.



If the intention was to show that nobody is beyond hope, not even Zenos, then I wished they would have resolved his arc at another point in the story and left the grand emotionality of the finale untouched.

Maybe they could have turned the timing of events around: We somehow fight him before and his last gift to us, that symbolises his change of mind, is paving the way for us or somehow giving us something/setting something in motion that enable us to fight Endsinger. (If it's not for the world then at least out of "respect" for us.)

The badass, “fight your nemesis at the edge of space” kind of feeling (ignoring for now whether he really is The Nemesis of choice for everyone) would have worked better for me if it occured before the Ultimate Salvation of the Universe feeling. Kind of as a mini-finale that leads up to the big finale.

That said, my point is maybe the player is supposed to be left slightly unsatisfied.
The devs do want you to keep playing after all, and not use this opportunity of an a ending to give up on FF14 or MMOs.

To be honest I don’t really see how not having to fight Zenos would lead to players suddenly feeling like they’ll stop playing FF, esp. veteran players (but I would assume something similar for newer players).

And how on the other side fighting Zenos would create so much desire to continue playing that it could cancel out the alleged feeling of “being so satisfied that you had your closure with the whole of FF14 and move on”.

To me it’s quite the opposite. A great finale makes me want to continue playing even more, because I trust this dev team to create the content that excites me and that I can’t wait to get my hands on. I really want to know what else they have in store, esp. now that we know we’ll get at least another 10 years’ worth of content.



Also, this begs the question of what kind of dissatisfaction we are talking about. You are describing a good kind of dissatisfaction that you feel within the narrative (just how effective narratives can elicit sadness or anger but it still “feels right” because it’s proof of a good story).

And there is also dissatisfaction that we are still lacking background info on him so one wishes for him to return and see what happens next with him.


But many people feel a completely different satisfaction, namely the pointlessness of his character and that he does not fit into the story.

Or the dissatisfaction that he is gone without you learning said background info, but at the same time bringing him back would be more than a questionable decision.

I think neither of these two last types of dissatisfaction are the kind of feelings that prevent you from dropping the game after the finale.

[Callalily]

The finale had a really distinct tone. The emotional atmosphere of the endwalk, the music, your conversation with Emet and Hythlo, the flowers, Meteion breaking down before the last dungeon, us saving our friends to stay behind all alone, us casting an ultra-mega limit break with the help of The Power of Friendship and The Will to Live, freeing Meteion from her fate and having her sing her song of joy...all of this culminated in a really grand, glorious and highly touching setting.

The confrontation with Zenos was very different in tone and many felt like it really ripped them out of that "We just saved the Universe" emotion they had experienced just a few seconds ago.
For people who don't like Zenos that is simply not satisfying from an overall narrative point of view, even if it may make sense for the character himself.

Yes, I agree with you about the mismatched tone of these two scenes. The dissatisfied feeling arising from this mismatch was what I was refering to.
So many emotional moments followed each other and then suddenly being made to fight Zenos felt overwhelming.

I believe the writers are aware of this effect. And I don't see them unintentionally rushing such an extremely important ending.
But if this is not an accident, why are they choosing to make you feel this way? Is it so you can confidently deny the question about fulilment? Is it so you can share the feelings of your character who seems to have finally reached the personal limit they have repeatedly been warned about? I honestly don't know. I just think it there must be a plan behind it.

Me saying "maybe they don't want you to quit?" is also just speculation.

And there is also dissatisfaction that we are still lacking background info on him so one wishes for him to return and see what happens next with him.

But many people feel a completely different satisfaction, namely the pointlessness of his character and that he does not fit into the story.

I agree with you here too! We don't know why Zenos was dreaming of Amaurot even before he had the echo, or why Elidibus referred to him as an "irreplacable test subject" and what, if anything, Emet-Selch had to do with it.
But these are questions that could potentially be also be answered in the abscence of Zenos. Maybe when/if we get to explore the Garlean palace further.

Zenos IS a pretty divisive character and while I personally like his charcter and would not necessarily mind if they brought him back, I agree that it would be difficult to do it after he was portayed as kind of a nuiscance to the WOL for most of EW.

There's probably more but some have said the devs are being coy about Zenos so I certainly think there could be more of him. He's had his moment twice now and the 2nd time he had to earn his way into getting his rematch. Since he can't seem to beat us he might as well join us and all that...

I was already writing my post before you added yours, but I really like this idea and your reasoning behind Zenos being a shard of Azem!

[Loggos]

I believe the writers are aware of this effect. And I don't see them unintentionally rushing such an extremely important ending.

That's possible and I suppose we will never really know. If it is what they had planned all along then I have to say I simply disagree with their writing decision here.
But as others have pointed out, maybe they really didn't know what to do with him in the end and they had kind of written themselves into a corner. They are not perfect either, after all. I do wonder about this.

But if this is not an accident, why are they choosing to make you feel this way? Is it so you can confidently deny the question about fulilment? Is it so you can share the feelings of your character who seems to have finally reached the personal limit they have repeatedly been warned about? I honestly don't know. I just think it there must be a plan behind it.

I absolutely see what you are getting at and I think these are really cool themes to explore. I particularly like the topic of our character reaching their limit.
For me personally it's just not exciting that it is Zenos out of all characters that is utilised to bring up these important questions about your character and that he is the one who almost kills me in such a crucial and emotional moment. In that situation I'd rather be almost killed by somebody else, haha.