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

[Chained_Icarus]

[QUOTE=ForteNightshade;5754153

You mean Ardbert who was an ordinary adventurer who simply decided to put together a ragtag group? The same Ardbert who failed as a hero, unwittingly caused the Flood of Light to engulf most of the known world and who was coerced by Elidibus into sacrificing his body to cross over into the Source and kill us? Not exactly characteristics of a thrill seeker or altruistic adventurer the likes of which Azem is purported to be. If anything, Ardbert further illustrate how fundamentally different each reincarnated soul can be.[/QUOTE]

We literally kill Zodiark and trigger the End of Days. I'm not sure what your point is here. We often make things worse before they get better. It happens. I'm really not sure what you're arguing for here.

As for Azem you're really picking and choosing. This isn't just my fan theory or interpretation.

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Azem

Others have documented all the factual, straight from the official source (ie the game) stuff we know about Azem. It isn't vague. It's the same shit we do.

You didn't address the fact the WoL canonically seeks out challenges and has preferences and feelings outside our own (Warring Triad, DRK questline, etc).

If you don't think Azem's influence plays a big role that's fine - that wasn't the crux of my argument. My entire argument is that while vague the WoL still is an adventurer and a hero. They're always going to choose to do those things. It's like other FF games - you can generally name the characters whatever you want but you have no say in them going on the adventure and fulfilling their destiny.

FFXIV is a linear story JRPG. It isn't a choose your own adventure book. It isn't an open world multi choice game like Fallout. The WoL will follow a set path - there is no "well my WoL wouldn't..." because they would. They do. They did.

[Chained_Icarus]

The only issue is how exactly he will come back to earth. Does he want to? Where else would he go? And maybe we could see him there?

I love finding little clues and trying to put them together!

If you do the quest to unlock Stigma Dreamscape you learn that Ultima Thule has a second Ragnarok on it that's connected to the one back in Labyrinthios and they allow for instant transmission. Jammingway uses it to travel back there and help open his cafe. Zenos could easily use it to return.

[NyannCat]

More details on Zenos found in the story in this link (or alternatively in the FFXIV books/encyclopaedias):

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...s_the_offical/



"One might think it a blessing to be born into the ruling family of a vast and powerful empire, but for the young Prince Zenos-great grandson of Solus zos Galvus, revered founding father of the Garlean Empire-it was a curse.


From the beginning, Zenos was alone. His lady mother succumbed to illness shortly after bringing him into the world, and his lord father was seldom present, occupied as he was with his military campaigns and political maneuvering. And while the prince was surrounded by countless servants, they were as machina to him, trundling about on invisible rails, bereft of independent thought. Nor did he hold the learned men and women who served as his tutors in much higher regard. His brilliant mind found their lessons, their very existence-monotonous, and he preferred the silent company of books.


With such an upbringing, he could not choose but be different from other children. Indeed, it could be said that he was never a child at all. Innocence and playfulness were quite alien to him, the former expunged by his earliest schooling and the latter afforded no outlet. His days were uniformly joyless, and he went about his scheduled tasks with apathy. Thus did he pass his first four and ten summers-in a steel-grey blue of tedium."

That's really cool, I didn't know about any of that!

I really hope this is not his end and that he comes back with some really cool development.
I mean, we all win if it happens. We get a cool character in the story and that's it.

[Elysidelphi]

I never want to kill him again either, I don't think they'd make us a third time :P I noticed that his avatar covers both its eyes with a different set of hands. I wonder why? Whose hands are those and why does it have to hide its eyes?

I also found this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...fxii_crackpot/ I don't know much about Occuria but it's really interesting that they have some similarities in appearance

Other than Zenos being a reaper, he is basically an Ascian, right? He can see soul colors, body swap, survived suicide. Elidibus was too scared to fight him, why? And since we can only kill an Ascian by trapping them in and blasting them with aether, is it safe to say he's alive? The only issue is how exactly he will come back to earth. Does he want to? Where else would he go? And maybe we could see him there?

I love finding little clues and trying to put them together!

Yeah, sadly we didn't get to see Zenos's avatar very well, but it is fascinating that it covers its eyes, and I do wonder why it does that.

Thank you for that link. I read everything posted there, and the theory seems to be that Zenos is dead but his avatar is alive. That isn't very...optimistic.

Can an avatar revive/resurrect its master/host?

And you're right, Zenos has all of the Ascian abilities, so he should be very hard to kill solely based on that. If you also add the Reaper job into the mix, he should be basically impossible to kill, right? But then again...in our duel with him, he kept saying he needed to burn through his life's candle. What does that mean? Is that related to being a Reaper?

And very good point you've made: even Elidibus was too scared to fight Zenos before Zenos even became a Reaper. I do wonder why. Elidibus was an Unsundered Ascian, yet he was scared of a sundered being like Zenos. That was not explained properly/at all either. Like I said, many unanswered questions left about Zenos.

Hmm, Zenos might either use the power of Dynamis to come back on the Source and seek out the WoL, especially if he wanted more than just to fight them. If he actually started on a redemption journey, it would make the most sense to go back to the Source and start changing as a person. Or, there is the possibility that Zenos would use Dynamis to go to other stars, fight their strongest beings and improve his own strength, all because he wants to fight the WoL again...but I'd hate that, if it's just that, no matter how epic, I don't want to fight and kill him again, no matter the circumstances. I want to see him learn, grow, change, improve, I want him to want more than bigger and bigger fights.

But what Yoshi-P said really stood out to me:

"So of course, since Zenos is a Reaper, he would obviously be using an avatar,” he continued. “Zenos’s only friend is the Warrior of Light so in that respect maybe his avatar is some sort of variation of our Warrior of Light. (laughing) But please be sure to, I haven’t put it clearly here, look forward to seeing what happens with Zenos." - Naoki Yoshida

So if that really is a hint/clue, then maybe you are right and Zenos's avatar is indeed Azem's soul shard from the Thirteenth. Which is both interesting and worrying for me personally.

Do we know for sure that the WoL from the Thirteenth shard ended up turning into a voidsent? I can't remember this, so any reminder would be greatly appreciated!

From what I remember, I think Unukalhai is the WoL from the Thirteenth shard, or at least that's what he tells us. And I think he has the Echo as well? So if this was true and he didn't lie to us, then Zenos's avatar cannot be our soul shard from the Thirteenth. But then why did Yoshi-P say what he said? And if Unukalhai lied to us, why would he do that?

I think I'm missing something here about the whole Unukalhai/Thirteenth shard/Thirteenth shard WoL. If anyone can clarify, it would be very much appreciated!

Also, given how Yoshi-P seemed to focus on Zenos being a Reaper and his Reaper having something different/special, it seems to be a clue/hint that Endwalker MSQ won't be the end for this story. It seems that we will, at the very least, see Zenos's avatar again. But will we see Zenos himself again, alive? That's what worries me. I really want him back, not just his avatar.

[Elysidelphi]

If you do the quest to unlock Stigma Dreamscape you learn that Ultima Thule has a second Ragnarok on it that's connected to the one back in Labyrinthios and they allow for instant transmission. Jammingway uses it to travel back there and help open his cafe. Zenos could easily use it to return.

True! Thank you for noticing that and adding it here.

[Elysidelphi]

That's really cool, I didn't know about any of that!

I really hope this is not his end and that he comes back with some really cool development.
I mean, we all win if it happens. We get a cool character in the story and that's it.

Cheers to that! Let's use the power of Dynamis and will him back to us!

Did you read that whole story about his childhood? If so, what did you think of it?

[nighttimebunny]

If the reaper questline is anything to go by, his avatar likely protected him. When Drusilla said that the evil voidsent almost killed her, by starting to eat her, I was shocked like how could you survive such a thing, but then she revealed that he was simply eating the voidsent instead of her without knowing it, so she was perfectly fine. Then later during the actual fight with the voidsent, she rises after being seemingly dead, much to the antagonist's surprise. He thought her avatar was gone since he ate it, but there was still part of it left, keeping her alive. I wonder if when we fight Zenos we are just beating on his voidsent, especially since he is in form pretty much the whole time? And so his actual self is fine? He did take a last breath, but Drusilla looked the same as him then rose a few minutes later.

Oh, I took a screenshot of Drusilla's quote: "How am I standing here before you then? Orcus gorged on a soul that night. But it wasn't mine-not exactly. It was my avatar that filled his belly." I'm not sure how much of a stretch all of that is to relate to Zenos, but since he is the posterboy for the job I thought it could be relevant somehow.

There are too many unanswered questions about him, and if they continue to develop his character like they've began to I think that would be ideal. I don't know why they would start to develop him just to have him disappear for good, that sounds too unsatisfying for me and I actually think the writers really like Zenos and want to keep giving him a good story. As for people who think he should stay dead, I don't know why every antagonist has to die. I think he'd be perfect as a sidekick that we duel with sometimes. I just feel so bad that us, his only friend, left him alone there.

[NyannCat]

And you're right, Zenos has all of the Ascian abilities, so he should be very hard to kill solely based on that. If you also add the Reaper job into the mix, he should be basically impossible to kill, right? But then again...in our duel with him, he kept saying he needed to burn through his life's candle. What does that mean? Is that related to being a Reaper?

Ascians remain alive by taking people's bodies. What if Zenos' body is gone and dead in space, so now he gets a new, weaker body?

Kinda like what Fandaniel did to us.

[Elysidelphi]

If the reaper questline is anything to go by, his avatar likely protected him. When Drusilla said that the evil voidsent almost killed her, by starting to eat her, I was shocked like how could you survive such a thing, but then she revealed that he was simply eating the voidsent instead of her without knowing it, so she was perfectly fine. Then later during the actual fight with the voidsent, she rises after being seemingly dead, much to the antagonist's surprise. He thought her avatar was gone since he ate it, but there was still part of it left, keeping her alive. I wonder if when we fight Zenos we are just beating on his voidsent, especially since he is in form pretty much the whole time? And so his actual self is fine? He did take a last breath, but Drusilla looked the same as him then rose a few minutes later.

Oh, I took a screenshot of Drusilla's quote: "How am I standing here before you then? Orcus gorged on a soul that night. But it wasn't mine-not exactly. It was my avatar that filled his belly." I'm not sure how much of a stretch all of that is to relate to Zenos, but since he is the posterboy for the job I thought it could be relevant somehow.

There are too many unanswered questions about him, and if they continue to develop his character like they've began to I think that would be ideal. I don't know why they would start to develop him just to have him disappear for good, that sounds too unsatisfying for me and I actually think the writers really like Zenos and want to keep giving him a good story. As for people who think he should stay dead, I don't know why every antagonist has to die. I think he'd be perfect as a sidekick that we duel with sometimes. I just feel so bad that us, his only friend, left him alone there.

The more we talk about Reaper and its questline, the more I want to go through it myself!
Wow, so her avatar was actually keeping her alive even after she seemed dead. Very interesting. God, I must level Reaper and experience the story for myself! I also hope that the same happened to Zenos as well, that his avatar kept him alive even if he seemed dead.

Oh, question about the Reaper questline: when Drusilla was fighting the evil voidsent, did her name appear differently in different instances of the fight(s)? Or was her name always the same during all of the fights?

And yes, that's what I've been saying all along, that there are so many unanswered questions about Zenos and he has so much potential left, it doesn't feel like he's anywhere close to actually completing his arc, at least not in a satisfying way, in-depth way.

From what I know, Zenos is also very popular amongst the Japanese playerbase, so I hope to god that they will bring him back and do a lot more with him than they have ever done before.

People who want Zenos to stay dead dislike/hate him because they feel that he hasn't done/evolved much since he was first introduced in Stormblood, which is true. But they also forget that the Ascians, first introduced in A Realm Reborn, also haven't done much/evolved much all the way until Shadowbringers and Endwalker, meaning it took them 6-7 years to actually properly develop the Ascians.

And yeah, I too feel really bad that we, his only friend, left him there all alone, that was horrible to see and not very kind/heroic/above commonplace pettiness. I've always felt that it's a lot more heroic to help a former enemy/villain, than it is to help just the good/neutral guys.

[Elysidelphi]

Ascians remain alive by taking people's bodies. What if Zenos' body is gone and dead in space, so now he gets a new, weaker body?

Kinda like what Fandaniel did to us.

Yes, that's possible as well, and might even make it feel fairer when dealing with him. Although again, I don't want him back just to keep fighting with him. I want to see him develop and blossom into something more than that. I really, really want him back, even if it must be in a different body!