[ENDWALKER SPOILER!] On Zenos

[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!