Dear SquareEnix/Natsuko Ishikawa - About Zenos in Endwalker *MAJOR MSQ SPOILERS*!

[Senn]

Now that I think about it Zenos is just like Vegeta. Originally Vegeta was only interested in his rivalry with Goku and afterwards found more things to care about.

That might be some interesting character development there. Slowly finding other things to care about as he tags along with you on occasion.

I haven't done the reaper quest, so I don't know the voidsent lore well enough yet, but we didn't actually kill Zenos's voidsent right? Apparently they need to be dealt with in a specific way or they won't die. So not only did Yoshi P tell us to pay attention to his avatar/voidsent thing... but I'm not even sure if it's dead. Maybe it could take over his body or prevent him from dying. And like I said before, there's dynamis - if we're thinking about scenarios in which Zenos could survive, these are some ideas you can play around with.

[HyoMinPark]

So, please, please, SquareEnix, please Natsuko Ishikawa, please bring Zenos back and give him an in-depth redemption story where he can find genuine happiness, warmth, friendship and companionship at journey's end. Please show us all that even monsters are capable of overcoming their own darkness and baser instincts if given the chance. Please show us that we are strong enough, wise enough, kind enough, generous enough to truly forgive a monster and take their hand in ours in genuine affection and friendship. Please show us that after everything we've been through, after we've managed to even forgive and befriend Meteion, destroyer of worlds/stars/civilisations, we can surely forgive and befriend someone who has considered us his first and only friend for so many years.

I couldn’t read the first part of this because I need paragraphs in order to fully comprehend arguments—otherwise I just go cross-eyed—but NO. Zenos does NOT need a redemption arc. He has no redeeming qualities to begin with, so a redemption arc would not work for him in any way so as to be believable. Any emotional depth that Zenos could have been given should have been given a looooong time ago. It’s too little, too late for a character like him to receive any sort of development at this stage. If you wanted development for him, it should have happened immediately after 4.0 finished. But we’re in 6.0 and he has done nothing other than obsess about fighting our character because reasons. He has not contributed to the plot of 4.x, 5.0, 5.x, or 6.0 in any meaningful way. He’s just sort of been there up until his VERY deus ex machina appearance at the very end of Endwalker.

TL;DR: Zenos is dead. He needs to stay dead this time. For good. I appreciated him far more as a character when he died at the end of 4.0. When he was brought back, all that appreciation disappeared.

[Miracle_Diva]

Being charitable however, if what you're actually trying to ask if why they get to live on in the story while he doesn't then refer to my first post in this thread that he has served his purpose and can finally rest as a plot device.

I've read your post, but my question still stands. How does he, even with what he did, doesn't deserve to come back, but Scions, that scarified themselves so many times just keep coming back as if nothing ever happened? Just because they are the "good guys" and Zenos is not?
I'm not trying to have a fight here btw, just curious.
Bad people can change too.

[Aneshda]

I think we did Zenos wrong. No matter what he done in the past. He was there at the end with us and helped us to save the World and it's Splitter. He deserves a comeback and while I think about it. Hydaelyn asked us if our Way was a good one and said then that she made a promise to us long long time ago. And no matter what promise that was, i have only 1 wish ... Zenos. I want to go with him on Adventures and the Job Quests in Shadowbringer gave us a Hint ... the 13 Shard. That is where I want to go with him and try to restore it with him together. He is my only friend, you cannot steal him from me.

[Elysidelphi]

I do want him to come back as some sort of anti-hero. I liked Zenos, and I want things to go forward, but not by removing him from everything and leaving him dead.
Like, I want him to get development. I didn't care about him until Endwalker, but then I was like "huh, he's actually a pretty cool character for an anti-hero rival sort of thing".

I agree with you so much! So happy to see that there are people who have similar thoughts and feelings to me in regards to Zenos. Thank you for not giving up entirely on Zenos, seriously, thank you!

I definitely want Zenos back and with in-depth development. There are quite a few questions related to him that are left unanswered and I am super interested in finding out those answers.
Some of the questions I have about Zenos are:
- why did his mother die? more details about this
- what's that connection between Emet-Selch and Zenos, what did Emet-Selch do to/or discover about Zenos?
- details about his childhood, including about his relationship with his father when he was younger/a child (maybe seen via the Echo/as flashbacks)
- why is Zenos so strong, even before getting his Resonant?
- what exactly was experimented on him?
- what about Zenos's soul?
- why does Zenos dream of the Final Days?
- how come Zenos can see souls/colour of souls? that's a very rare ability
- the extent of Zenos's powers/abilities, before and after the Resonant
- how did Elidibus using his body affect Zenos, were there any abilities left over from Elidibus in Zenos's body?
- why doesn't Hythlodaeus recognise Zenos? who was Zenos originally? Was he an Ancient? Was he human or something else entirely?

I know there is a big theory out there that Zenos is one of Azem's sundered soul parts. I would want a lot of details about that, if it turns out to be true. Like for example, how come there can be two sundered parts of the same soul on the same star (the Source), as in, one soul being us the WoL and the other being Zenos? Because there should only be one soul part on each sundered star. So what caused this anomaly? Did Emet-Selch cause this anomaly because he was trying to bring Azem back so he experiemented on Zenos? And if Azem and Zenos are indeed the same soul, it would explain their interactions, especially Zenos's obsession with the WoL. Just like Ardbert was drawn to the WoL, maybe that's also why Zenos feels so drawn to the WoL, way beyond a reason for fighting.

Or maybe Emet-Selch infused part of his soul into Zenos, maybe knowing that he himself (Emet-Selch) will die/be killed due to his duty, but at the same time he wanted to leave something of himself back on the Source and near the WoL/Azem? Which may also explain Zenos's obsession with Azem?

These would be interesting things to explore in more details and I would love it so much to learn about all these things and even more, maybe something completely unexpected.

Oh, and personally I became invested in Zenos since Stormblood. His obsessive hunt of the WoL stood out to me since the very start, but what got me really invested in him was his suicide scene back in Stormblood. I could talk forever about that scene. But that one scene got me hooked, I remember being happy when I found out that he's actually alive and the mystery around him only got me more and more invested. Plus, of course, the extra stories about him/his childhood and all the subtle implications about his life and personality.

[Jennah]

You know they done screwed up Zenos when the final fight had me LAUGHING at him getting back up. AGAIN.
Lord, I hope he stays dead this time.

[SilverObi]

I've read your post, but my question still stands. How does he, even with what he did, doesn't deserve to come back, but Scions, that scarified themselves so many times just keep coming back as if nothing ever happened? Just because they are the "good guys" and Zenos is not?
I'm not trying to have a fight here btw, just curious.
Bad people can change too.

I never talked about "deserving" to come back. I said he served his purpose as our foil (our Vegeta as other posters have said) and had a relatively dignified death and got what he wanted, and that would be undone if he's just brought back and absolutely ruined if he was redeemed and became another Estinien-type (which is doing a disservice to Estinien). Again, I'm saying he served his role and it's time to let him rest at the risk of him becoming a joke character if he hasn't already.

Bad people can never change too.

[Yencat]

I thought there wouldn't be anything they could do to make me dislike him more, but bringing him back and trying to redeem him would definitely do it.

I figured the bargain was that Krile told him where we were, he helped us against whatever it was that was getting in the way of our duel, and then we finally got to have it out where nothing and no one could interrupt us, and he lost? I never really liked him but I thought this was a fitting ending for him.

I wouldn't mind learning a bit more about him but he doesn't need to be alive for that, he's had 3 expansions now and I'd rather make way for a new villain than try and shoehorn him into the story any further just because.

[HyoMinPark]

I've read your post, but my question still stands. How does he, even with what he did, doesn't deserve to come back, but Scions, that scarified themselves so many times just keep coming back as if nothing ever happened? Just because they are the "good guys" and Zenos is not?
I'm not trying to have a fight here btw, just curious.
Bad people can change too.

It’s my opinion that the writers doing another fakeout with the Scion’s sacrifices in Ultima Thule actually lessened the emotional impact of that entire area for me. Because I knew they weren’t actually dead, I lost interest in all of their monologues with the lost civilizations and their “noble sacrifices”. I’m tired of death fakeouts and ready for some people to actually stay dead for once.

As I said above, I had more appreciation for Zenos when he died at the end of 4.0. But all of that disappeared when he came back—and it really didn’t help that they did absolutely nothing with his character. But I don’t think he’s redeemable. Even Yotsuyu wasn’t redeemable—yet the storyline they gave her in 4.2 and 4.3 was really good. And she was a better written character for it. They didn’t try to force this redemption arc on her because she didn’t need one. She didn’t deserve one. And neither does Zenos. Bringing him back ruins the ending of Endwalker—and do we really want to do that AGAIN?

I know there is a big theory out there that Zenos is one of Azem's sundered soul parts. I would want a lot of details about that, if it turns out to be true. Like for example, how come there can be two sundered parts of the same soul on the same star (the Source), as in, one soul being us the WoL and the other being Zenos? Because there should only be one soul part on each sundered star. So what caused this anomaly? Did Emet-Selch cause this anomaly because he was trying to bring Azem back so he experiemented on Zenos? And if Azem and Zenos are indeed the same soul, it would explain their interactions, especially Zenos's obsession with the WoL. Just like Ardbert was drawn to the WoL, maybe that's also why Zenos feels so drawn to the WoL, way beyond a reason for fighting.

Or maybe Emet-Selch infused part of his soul into Zenos, maybe knowing that he himself (Emet-Selch) will die/be killed due to his duty, but at the same time he wanted to leave something of himself back on the Source and near the WoL/Azem? Which may also explain Zenos's obsession with Azem?

This would ruin two of the best characters in this game. Our entire backstory as Azem is perfect. Emet-Selch is one of the best villains in FFXIV, if not the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole. Shoehorning Zenos into the stories of these two characters would just kill both of them. It would feel way too much like some sort of forced fanservice in my opinion.

Zenos needs to stay dead. He has served what little purpose Natsuko would give him given the terrible state of his character when he landed in her lap, and that should be the end of it.

[Elysidelphi]

That might be some interesting character development there. Slowly finding other things to care about as he tags along with you on occasion.

I haven't done the reaper quest, so I don't know the voidsent lore well enough yet, but we didn't actually kill Zenos's voidsent right? Apparently they need to be dealt with in a specific way or they won't die. So not only did Yoshi P tell us to pay attention to his avatar/voidsent thing... but I'm not even sure if it's dead. Maybe it could take over his body or prevent him from dying. And like I said before, there's dynamis - if we're thinking about scenarios in which Zenos could survive, these are some ideas you can play around with.

I didn't know about all those possible implications related to Reaper and Zenos being a Reaper as I haven't levelled Reaper yet. Thank you for bringing them up. You've certainly given me more hope now. And Zenos's survival being tied to his Reaper job and Avatar would be really interesting. And Dynamis playing a role in this as well, yes, that's also interesting.

I keep thinking about his death scene, his last words. His last question to us "Did you find...fulfillment?" and if you pay close attention to the way he says "fulfillment", in my opinion, his voice breaks when he says that word, it doesn't sound like a person who found fulfillment themselves. And he follows that question of his with "I..." and then stops/dies. That always breaks me. He doesn't sound like a happy person who is now dying. There is no smile on his face, no joy in his voice. He even said "gone too soon". He doesn't sound like someone who wants to die, who is happy with what he's achieved. I've gone over that scene literally dozens of time by now, analysing the hell out his words, his facial expressions, the tone of his voice. None of that, his words or tone of voice, sounds happy/at peace/ready to move on. He just sounds filled with regrets, maybe even pain and sorrow.