The Bizarre Lack of Development and Pathos Concerning Zenos [6.0 Spoilers]

[Anonymoose]

I haven't had an opportunity to put together all my thoughts yet, but I can at least try to get my Zenos-related ones into the same basket to put my own spin on this idea.

I started a thread a while back focused on getting everyone's expectations and opinions in one place because so many threads eventually devolved into bitter Zenos talk. (I think I'm ready to admit out loud more often how frustrated I am that - during Shadowbringers - suddenly 80% of Lore Forum threads would become the same few people passively-aggressively repeating the same few points at each other ad nauseam until almost all the fun-focused and good-faith debaters stopped coming here entirely, but that's a whole other can of worms, lol.)

My opinion after Endwalker? I feel like I lost a bet to Natsuko Ishikawa, fair and square, lol.

Zenos subverted most of my worries about him. He didn't take up Endwalker's oxygen. The story of the world coming together had little to do him. "One guy who wants to fight the Warrior of Light really bad" had nothing to do with people reflecting on their values. He didn't hound us or murder our friends for no reason. Rather, he spent the time between realizing that creating chaos hoping we'd fight him because "that's what a hero would do" wasn't doing eff all for his cause and the end of the story actually reflecting on who we were. He reflected on his goal and how to accomplish it in consistency with his own blend of existentialism and nihilism - life has no meaning but what you make of it, and he didn't make much out of much...except when it came to us.

In Garlemald, I joked, "Dude, if you wanna fight that bad help me kill The Sound and we'll beat each other up." not expecting that to happen.

By the end of the story we had wandered so far away from anything we were thinking about prior to Endwalker that I spent the last dungeon saying to the stream, "What is this about? Why are we here? We already know what Meteion found. The Ascians? Hydaelyn? Zodiark? SMALL POTATOES. All part of a cosmic orchestration challenge existentialism and nihilism and the sad bird girl and now we've reached 'flying space clock' Final Fantasy. I give up. Zenos, come back. Zenos, make it make sense."

And then he came back, lmao.

He reflected on who the Warrior of Light really is, he let us finish our mission entirely, and then he walked up and challenged us at the end of the universe, where no one could see us, where no one would be affected, where no one would ever know, and (A) admitted that he understands that we had no reason to want to fight him before, and (B) suggested we fight for no reason than but that he's more powerful than he's ever been and being an adventurer means taking challenges for the sake of being challenged.

He still hated the world, he still refused to believe it had any value, he was still a monster. But he took the time to understand the Warrior of Light in their proper context.

And I just sat there staring at the screen and was like...

AH, F#$K IT. <slams the first option>

I hate that I love it, if only for the jokes I made along the way coming true and what that did for my personal experience, lmao. With concerns about the appropriate emotional tone and theming of a final chapter of an epic fantasy story out of the way, my concerns with Zenos were limited to "Does his survival add more to the story than undoing his otherwise perfect death at the end of 4.0 took away? Do we get a return on that investment at all?"

Now, I realize that the scene deliberately cut away avoiding showing him dissolve into mist. The guy who came back after almost cutting off his own head. That can only mean they want plausible deniability. Ambiguity. The freedom to choose later whether to say he's dead or was just only-mostly-dead. But please leave him dead. Y'all did the impossible. Leave him be. (Tell me what Emet-Selch did, tho.)

But with regard to specifically what this thread is about, I think we can make it work in the context of what I'm saying:

Over time the player base can let what happened marinate a bit more, and respect a bit more that, sure, Zenos was a lonely, pitiable man who for the most part lived a cold empty life and did horrible things trying to achieve selfish goals ... sure, he was a product of his environment; given the circumstances of his existence and his personal experiences, who else could he have been? ... but in the end he took the time to get what he wanted in an effective way and delivered a memorable moment on his way out the door.

He thought he was our friend in a twisted way. He tried to be a good friend in kind in a twisted way. The sum of all of those parts gives rise to a whole that I think does facilitate its own kind of compassion for him...in a twisted way. One as warped as he was.