Quote Originally Posted by HyoMinPark View Post
You’re ignoring Emet’s motives here. Why did he create all this destruction? To save his people. To save the people he loved. And there lies the key word here: love. Something a sociopath is not capable of feeling or even understanding.

It wasn’t directed towards us—we got the brunt of his negative, murderous emotions. But the fact remains that he felt very strong emotions towards what became of his people and his world. He shows more than enough emotion just in a handful of interactions in Shadowbringers (him speaking with you outside The Ladder in Kholusia, and his monologue prior to unlocking Amarout are two that come to mind). If he were a sociopath, then he wouldn’t be able to display as much emotion as he did in just those two scenes.

That said, he is still a villain and deserves to be vilified for everything he did to us and to our worlds. The difference between him and Zenos is that he actually has redeeming qualities. And we see them in Elpis. He also went quietly when it was his time—his resurrections have primarily been backstories and not to shove him down the player character’s throat in a forced attempt at making a foil/mirror to us. Emet is actually dead; versus Zenos who cheats death in order to do…absolutely nothing 95% of the time he’s on screen.



I’ve complained in this very thread about the Scions constantly cheating death. Their “sacrifices” in Ultima Thule were completely undermined by the fact that they weren’t actually dead. Thancred should have died after his fight with Ran’jit in 5.0—it was the perfect moment and closure for his character. And I was so disappointed that they just slapped a few bandaids on him and called it a day. Y’shtola is “killed” every expansion and made all better again a few quests later. It’s to the point that, should she actually die sometime in the future, I can no longer feel any emotional impact from it. That’s said, they did kill off two Scions: Papalymo—he’s honestly barely mentioned except in an offhand comment by Lyse; and Minfilia. And honestly, the ending they gave Minfilia was perfect. And it redeemed her character a lot for me.

And death should mean something in this game. So why further undermine it by bringing Zenos back for a THIRD time? That’s only exacerbating the issue. Especially since it seems unlikely that the writers will actually do anything with him. He’s been around for 2 expansions, and has barely done anything other than sit on his butt in every other scene sleeping or being bored.
You are wrong. Sociopaths can feel love. Even psychopaths can feel love. Sociopathy and psychopathy function on a scale/spectrum, and some psychopaths and some sociopaths do feel love. Do feel attachment. Do get attached. Do feel affection. There were actual interviews with people diagnosed with sociopathy or psychopathy and a number of them have confirmed that they did feel love, affection and attachment towards their partners or friends or family. And they do definitely understand it, even the ones who do not feel it, they can understand it as it is perceived/felt/described by others and they even feel regretful that they themselves cannot feel it. But again, sociopathy and psychopathy function on a spectrum. Not all psychopaths and not all sociopaths feel and act and think the same, some cannot feel love, but some can feel love. It is wrong to generalise. In the case of Zenos, we do not even know for certain whether he is a sociopath or a psychopath and even if he were, we do not know where on that scale he would fall. And we do not know these things because he is not properly developed.

And when I call for Zenos to be brought back, I don't want him to come back and again do nothing. I never wanted that for him, to do nothing, have no development. I always wanted him to have development, especially now when the main story is done and other characters could be developed more/properly.

I don't want Zenos to be brought back to undermine death. That is not the reason why I want him back. I want him back because I have many unanswered questions that I want answered with him alive and involved in the story and because I want him to be developed properly. If he had been developed properly back in Stormblood or Shadowbringers or even now in Endwalker, and then killed in a meaningful way, I would have been okay with that and I wouldn't have wanted him back. I just hate seeing wasted potential, having way too many unanswered questions, and so on. If my concerns had been addressed from the start, years ago, I would not be writing any of this now and I would have been perfectly happy and excited to move on to new villains.