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

[Rosenstrauch]

Wait, when was Venat sundered? Venat, being Hydaelyn's heart, just can very much imagine not being in the blast radius of her own attack. It would also be counterintuitive to sunder herself, no?

Venat was sundered at the same time as everyone else, most likely.

[SaberMaxwell]

Venat was sundered at the same time as everyone else, most likely.

I'll need to look at that screenshot later since my phone won't blow the text up to a readable level. Until then I can't say it's impossible but it still seems counterintuitive to sunder herself when one of the points was to hold Zodiark at bay.

EDIT: Can read it now. That's an interesting tactic on her part lol, but I cede.

[Rosenstrauch]

I mean, it's seems obvious to me why Hydaelyn needed to sunder herself as well. Keeping Zodiark sealed is a full-time job. And even though sundering him made him weak enough to be sealed in the first place, it also meant there were thirteen additional Zodiarks. If they were left to do as they please, what would stop them from simply hopping back over to the Source?

Ergo, Hydaelyn had to sunder herself to keep them sealed. And as Hydaelyn is significantly weaker than Zodiark anyways, the difference in power lost is significantly smaller on her part than on Zodiark's. She doesn't have to be stronger than him to seal him away, just "strong enough".

[SaberMaxwell]

I don't know, that logic doesn't really track for me. If we were to assume that 1/14 H was all it took to seal 1/14 Z, why would 1 H not be good enough to seal 1 Z? As well, every rejoining made her job significantly harder, that job being keeping Zodiark sealed, which at this point would just be 8/14 H sealing 8/14 Z, which shouldn't be that much more difficult that 1/14 H sealing 1/14 Z.

If that makes any sense?

That's just how my mind approaches that subject anyway. Even assuming that to be the case though, all 14 shards of Hydaelyn/Venat are probably accounted for by her. I'd be beyond surprised and skeptical to learn Zenos is a shard of Venat (though you didn't say he was, I saw someone suggest he was somewhere).

[Rosenstrauch]

If you want it broken down into algebraic equations, I regret to inform you that I haven't practiced math to any serious degree since dropping out of college.

But in layman's terms, think of it like this: Hydaelyn has a hidden bonus to her power level that lets her overpower Zodiark, so long as his power is divided up below a certain threshold. But if even one fragment of Zodiark is uncontested, there is nothing stopping him from pulling a Piccolo and fusing with Kami to become a Super Namekian.

[SaberMaxwell]

That's the kind of claim that would need explicitly stated backing and honestly feels like an oversight. As far as the math itself is concerned, I'm basically suggesting:

If 14 shards of Hydaelyn can seal 14 shards of Zodiark, then 1 whole Hydaelyn should logically be capable of sealing 1 whole Zodiark. 8/14 Hydaelyn should be just as capable of sealing 8/14 Zodiark (which is our current state) 1/14 Hydaelyn is of holding down 1/14 Zodiark, yet she struggles more and more with every rejoining which would suggest to me that he's gaining more power while she remains stagnant.

I'll have to look into that cutscene again and see because, even if that's in the story as word of God, that doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

[nighttimebunny]

I explained in great detail why I want Zenos back. And I am not the only one who feels this way. If people don't bother to read what I wrote and decide to interpret it however they please, there is no point in me repeating myself ad infinitum for each and every single person who ignores everything previously said.

I give up on trying to explain my perspective on Zenos to people. They just write him off and don't listen to any side other than their own, usually without any facts and just their own hate of the character. :/ It gets exhausting, and I'm pretty done with it at this point. I'll only respond if someone has something interesting to say.

Anyways, they will be the ones upset when he comes back, his voidsent having taken the blows for him

[Vuro]

Really disappointed by how nasty some of the people in this thread are. We get it, you don't like a character because you're incapable of appreciating his turmoil and how it came to be - you don't have to drop all civility to make this clear. Hardcore Zenos dislikers are some of the most unpleasant people this fandom has to offer, lol.

Anyway, really enjoyed your thoughts OP, and they mirror my own. Especially when people like Gaius and Amon were afforded much more sympathy, I'm truly boggled that Zenos was not approached with more care. I'm not going to get my hopes up that he'll be revisited in any way, due to the nature of that final battle, but man...I sure would be thrilled to pieces if we saw him again in some form.

[Cilia]

While I am very keen on the idea of Zenos being a wayward ally, I'm fine with his story ending the way it did. He didn't find happiness in anything other than duels to the death that pushed him to the limits of his ability, and given his willingness to do whatever it took to set up those sorts of situations I can't agree leaving him alive would have been a wise course of action. Asking the PC to risk their life every encounter with him seems... more than a tad unreasonable.

(Plus he was pitifully easy to finally beat after the Endsinger. I didn't even come close to going down except when he used his scripted moves.)

Meanwhile grandpa Emet Selch gets a free pass despite being responsible for the death of at least 6 reflections. As well as creating Garlemald who waged several wars and is also responsible for so much death. Much more then Zenos ever caused.

And it can be argued that Emet Selch is also responsible for how screwed up Zenos is. As Emet saw anything that was sundered as lesser then him.

Emet-Selch gets a free pass because what he's doing is good from his perspective, while Zenos knows what he's doing wrong but doesn't care.

All the people and civilizations Emet-Selch is responsible for the annihilation of would beg to differ, no doubt, but they're not around to give us a sob story about it.

In regards to Zenos being screwed up, that's heavily implied to be a mess of natural psychopathy, parental neglect (Varis was too busy with his military career to raise Zenos, and his mother died when he was very young), being born into utmost privilege, and his natural talent leaving Zenos with little to nothing to aspire to. Thus he found happiness in the one arena he wasn't guaranteed to succeed in: mortal combat, and even that took finding a worthy opponent to match him before he found happiness in it.

Emet-Selch is responsible for creating the authoritative, militaristic Garlean culture that shaped Zenos to a degree, but he's not wholly responsible for how he turned out.

[kaynide]

The only redemption arc I will accept out of Zenos is in him living alone on some island quietly, doing the only thing that gives his life meaning now:

Being the best cat dad he can be by giving his horde of stray cats their best lives.

I enjoyed him, but I am satisfied if this is his death. I don’t want to cheapen it..but I also won’t be surprised if he comes back in a void-related expansion/raid/etc.

Though I will concede: a major plot point throughout ffxiv is redemption and forgiveness. So he has that going for him.