[ENDWALKER SPOILER!] On Zenos

[SkyEdge1]

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


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!


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



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.

I'm of the same mentality, I loved Zenos as a parallel to the WoL. Because we are not so different in execution if not in intent. How many countless mobs, monsters and (frankly) just natural fauna have we decimated in pursuit of our single minded goal of saving the realm. What makes his final moments to me so poignant is that (think anyways) Zenos realized he is going to lose, in terms of Raw power he doesn't want to win against us, I belive he realizes he cannot, he, by his own words wants a battle where he can fight and spend the entirety of his lifes force and energy, his very being against us. He is the wave crashing against our insurmountable wall, and that is the ONLY thing he has to give us. His full unbridled and unfettered attempt to strike at our might. And us, as an adventurer, as a wanderer in search of new and exciting things how could we see that as anything other than a rival posing a challenge. Thats why that fight, in all its anime cringe felt so freaking great to me. Again tho, just my lens!

[Illmaeran]

I just finished the MSQ and have the same opinion as I did previously; he needs to stay dead. This was a proper end to his arc and character. His time came and went. Leave him to rot in that interstellar/interdimensional space.

[Denishia]

As someone who was bored to apathy by Zenos before even the first instanced duty in Rhalgar's Reach and whose opinion on the character only plummeted, in part because his 'lives only to fight' single note characterization does not work as either something I find appealing or as a dark foil to my WoL/me as a player. But! I was deeply amused that Zenos's role in Endwalker was to be confronted with his own irrelevancy to the WoL and the narrative. He never felt like my WoL's rival or the one I had felt compelled to stop - in SB that was Fordola and Yotsuyu, ShB he was nothing, and EW it was Fandaniel(at first). That we turned away from him and then later Alisaie read him the riot act was cathartic. I was calling him "Team Rocket" in my head throughout EW, except I felt that was an insult to Jessie and James.

On the final fight- I was at first elated because I thought the MSQ was at least giving us the false option to walk away from Zenos's proposed fight. I wanted our WoL to at least attempt to before the story rails forced this last fight. Which, for once, wasn't completely boring. (One of my many issues with Zenos is the contradiction that he only cares about fighting the WoL as the only exciting fight- and yet his fights in solo duties and Ala Mhigo are ones that I found yawn-inducing and only the Shinryu fight fun). So if this Cloud versus Sephiroth at the Edge of Creation duel is the way to finally rid ourselves of this wannabe villain, so be it.
But as my FC teases, I'm a FSH main. Zenos needs to have fought against the RNG of reaching Grandmaster Caster/Big Fish, and then we can be archrivals in glorious competition.

[Lium]

Zenos felt a little bit like Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3 to me. The writers wanted to create an equal to Shepherd. A nemesis. Instead it just fell flat and was not at all received well by the players.

At least Zenos was established a couple expansions ago and wasn’t just created on the spot. In a weird way, Asahi would have been a better rival because he would have at least had an emotional motivation to fight and try to kill the WoL. He had a personal stake in it.

All that being said, I didn’t dislike Zenos. I just thought he was rather one note. My biggest issue with him was how he managed to cross the whole universe all by himself so fast when it took several nations on the Source gathering adamantite and sacred relics AND the beast tribes summoning primals to power a ship just so it could achieve what was essentially escape velocity.

Yet Zenos did it no problem. I get he consumed what was left of the Mothercrystal but that still seemed a bit much.

[wereotter]

2) Um, he is left in a place dominated by Dynamis, Zenos, a person with extremely strong feelings.
I am guessing even a fraction of his even subconscious feelings could heal him or even bring him back, remember that meiteion said "feelings control reality here" so him just getting back up could be very possible.

I mean no one is dead until they confirm them dead (see also Nanamo, Gaius, and Nero) BUT.... we left Zenos as close to death as he left us, and we survived thanks to Alphinaud's emergency ministrations. So there's a good reason to believe that he died out there at the edge of the universe.

[Lium]

Hold up. If you play a lallafel what does that last cutscene look like when you charge each other and start punching. I bet it’s hilarious.

[Crushnight]

Hold up. If you play a lallafel what does that last cutscene look like when you charge each other and start punching. I bet it’s hilarious.

https://youtu.be/THtEDfILHT4

There you go enjoy the stupid hilarity of Zenos having it out with a potato

[Lium]

https://youtu.be/THtEDfILHT4

There you go enjoy the stupid hilarity of Zenos having it out with a potato

LMAO. Actual LMAO.

[Juzjuzz]

I enjoyed Zenos so far, i see him as a rival for the WoL but not as an aventurer.

[DaemonInazuma]

I loved the fight at the end and I still believe this isn't the last we've seen of Zenos especially with all of the unanswered questions about his avatar, his dreams, and why Emet-Selch experimented on him. Now, if he comes back as the Zenos we know or is reborn is up for speculation. I think this is the send off to this "Zenos."

I've said for a long time that our character is Goku. We are a positive flat character. Our entire purpose in the story is to grow stronger and be the inspiration of hope. If we're Goku, then Zenos is definitely Vegeta.

Zenos starts out as royalty and the strongest of all the garleans. Everything is meaningless to him until we show up. Though he beats us twice, he sees our potential and then finally, we best him. Having played his part to perfection as he says, he ends his life. Except his resonant or will to fight us again prevents him from dying and he goes through an arduous process to recreate that feeling. He tries to provoke us through hate and despair, but our fight is with the Final Days and not him.

Thus, Ishikawa did a great job of using Alisaie to tell Zenos if "he ignore's the plight of others, no one will give him the time of day." This is a great statement from Alisaie, a friend who seeks to surpass the WOL, said to Zenos, a "friend" who seeks to surpass the WOL. Both seek the same thing with one marked difference, Zenos's apathy to everything.

By that simple cutscene, Ishikawa changed Zenos's character for the better, proof in the fact he shows up at the end to help us rather than absorb Meteion or some other nonsense. He CARED that the universe holds together long enough for us to have our fight. To me, the only answer to his question is "That I can't deny." It sums up the purpose of playing any MMO or RPG in general, to grow stronger and rise to the challenge.

Finally after the fight, he asks "Was this life a gift or a burden" and "Did we find fulfillment?" These are rhetorical questions and he dies before he can give his answer. This comes back to my statement above. The dev team will answer these questions, but I have a feeling it will be a long time before they do.