Did we all forget most of the people he was murdering or subjugating were also not good. Not saying it is right or what he was doing wasn't bad, but he stated he wished to give them adversity so that they would grow stronger and learn from the brutality. Many give Zenos alot of crap, but at least in all things he was honest at least in jp voice acting. For some reason many will say Zenos is bad, but who was the one stoning their own people? Even throughout ARR people who are fighting to get ala mihgo back try to kill you, disrespect you, and make the dumbest untactical decisions possible, it did not make me sympathetic to their cause. Gaius called them savages and literally right after they act like savages. Really breaking the stereotype by killing one of your own people.
He is a male Tsundere of course he would say he doesn't care. I almost here the baka with over exaggerated blush on his face.
He is a cutie! He is so sweet and does things that may not be 'the good guy way' of doing things but hell if he isn't doing things directly from the heart. He literally sucked up Shinryu draining it's power, he stopped black rose single handedly, he had me at his last words in the royal menagerie. I picked the option to wish to just speak with him for longer even if he didn't have much time left. His last words 'you are my first most cherished friend, and my enemy' just killed me. I haven't gotten to endwalker awesome yet but just from shadowbringer and stormblood he is one of my favorite characters. I can't wait to get to some of the parts you described because I know for a fact he was helping us as he always does, maybe without knowing it, or just passes it off as 'no of course I didn't do that'.
I think they mentioned something a while back, but it is hard to find that Zenos was treated very poorly possibly due to having magical affinity which was why the experiments of the echo worked so well on him, he may have even had the echo before all of them, but didn't awaken to it until later. I have to replay through much of the story when I am finished with it because there is so much I missed or do not remember in the long journey. I was so freaking happy he body snatched of course into an elezen with the WoL track record crushing on elezen seems the norm. Alot of people miss the subtle dialogue within the story or understand Zenos' motives. His motive is simple and honest, he wishes to finally feel fullfilled in a life he has only known pain or nothingness. WoL finally gave him something to live for, and I truly hope that poster they teased all the way back during the fanfestival of 'Akatsuki' with Zenos and Estinien comes true.
On a side note going through post shadowbringer and even post stormblood before why does our WoL always look so angry when Gaius shows up? Is it because of msq roulette? Because he really didn't do anything that bad, unless....oh it may be because tecnically we are an acian and he is hunting them down? I don't know I just find the reactions towards certain characters