A certain someone isn't coming back [Spoilers]

[Rulakir]

I didn't like Zenos in SB or ShB and I couldn't understand the fandom he had. However, I was surprised how much I liked his character in EW. While I'm not devastated he's gone, it's more that he's in a long line of more interesting characters who were permanently killed off so that we can continue to hang out with the eternal Scions who I am utterly bored of at the moment. I'm particularly not looking forward to the focus on Krile. I'd trade Zenos for her and half the other Scions in a heartbeat.

I am disappointed there were a lot of plot points involving him that were completely dropped or hand waved away like 'did Emet find a way'. It seemed like he was being built up for something else and, much like the Ancients, they decided they just wanted to be done with him.

[KageTokage]

What also has me confused is that they don't talk about what happened to his SOUL, but go on and on about how utterly destroyed his body was. They once made such a big deal about his soul being as immortal as an Ascian's, so what happened to that? If it did persist, I hope he has a chance at reincarnation (if Hades and Hyth's souls found their way back to the aetherial sea, I don't see why he can't), because if someone like Amon is allowed to try again, then so should he, now that the Empire isn't around to mold him into a monster.

I think we're just meant assume he burnt out his soul through overexertion.

Ascians were immortal only in the sense that their souls could persist in absence of a body, but said souls could still be destroyed, whether by being forcibly "shattered" through an intense burst of aether like we did with the aid of white auracite, or simply being consumed by something that burns excessive amounts of aether like a primal or powerful magicks, as happened with Lahabrea and Elidibus respectively.

The thing that confuses me is the mention is that it's also possible for souls to be eradicated entirely as was explicitly stated in the case of Hydaelyn and her summoners. I'm also hoping they'll actually follow up on the whole blasphemy issue to confirm whether or not the turned are really deader then dead or if perhaps that same trace of the soul that persists in the case of "destroyed" Ascians remained for them as well.

[Iscah]

I like to hope that the "absent" souls of the blasphemies aren't destroyed but ejected at the point where the body's aether is displaced by dynamis.

[sidurgu-12]

I like to hope that the "absent" souls of the blasphemies aren't destroyed but ejected at the point where the body's aether is displaced by dynamis.

given meteions dead star cage i think thats what happened.

[kaynide]

Re: Zenos’s avatar

It wouldn’t surprise me if the avatar he took is the 13th shard of the WoL/Azem. We know that some voidsent have sentience (Diabolos for example), so it wouldn’t surprise me if this avatar became a major antagonist with the intent of killing us and absorbing our energy a la Highlander.

Not really a direction I find particularly interesting, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

[KageTokage]

I'd assume Zenos would not settle for a weak voidsent, so shard or otherwise the thing probably occupies one of the higher rings of their hierarchy, which the sentient, scheming types seem to inherently fall into. It being our shard would allow them to attach more significance to him having possessed the ability to perceive soul "color", though.

I personally have doubts it's going to be a long term antagonist and is going to be resolved by 6.3 in our obligatory MSQ trial, though whether that's temporarily by simply banishing its soul back to the void or more permanently as a result of it crossing over to the Source proper so it can actually be killed and potentially rejoined will remain to be seen.

[YianKutku]

still curious about his avatar/voidsent and what's going to happen with it. it's been hinted at too much for it to not make a return.

We don't even know who our avatar is supposed to be, or why it deigned to make a contract with us.

(Or why my character's RPR avatar is still contracted, given I've fed it nothing but a diet of non-sapient wildlife in FATEs, clones in the Crystal Tower, and fellow voidsent in World Of Darkness.)

[Lyth]

Your avatar is a shard of Zenos haunting you from the 13th.

[Cleretic]

I think they're definitely going to have a story about Zenos' Avatar at some point, because they've mentioned there's more story going there (and it is WAY too cool a design to not bring back in full focus). That might end up being your Zenos Sendoff; give his story a bit of an epilogue by jumping back to an unseen part of it. Not entirely unlike what they did with Yotsuyu, but without the part where Yotsuyu was still alive.

As Cleretic said, the edgy prettyboy villian archetype is so overdone now I just wanted to be finally rid of him (Emet was never edgy, he was a far more cerebal and trickster villian than to have to rely on cheap grimdark imagery, and had a more mature hairstyle than Zenos, who I just wanted to hack at his stupid blonde 80's surfer locks with a pair of scissors after he started getting around helmetless following his fake-out death), so it's good to hear that he really is dead now and is never coming back - left to rot on the edge of universe with no way back. Unloved and unmourned.

Good riddance.

I'd definitely put Emet in the field of 'dark and edgy pretty men'. Even if he's more than just 'dark and edgy pretty man' by story, it really can't be discounted that a big part of his appeal really was that he's a charismatic villain with something resembling a point, who is also by objective measures an uber-war-criminal, and wizard of darkness, whose true name is from the god of the underworld. If you're into Zenos because of the 'dark and edgy factor', you're into Emet-Selch for the same reasons, even if there's other appeals there too.

For the record, my gut-vibe of characters competing with Zenos in the field of 'dark and edgy pretty man'...

-Estinien (the diet variant)
-Emet-Selch
-Gaius, but only post-Stormblood
-Elidibus (not dark palette-wise, but definitely tonally, and edgy enough to compensate)
-Mitron if you're into a fixer-upper job
-Fandaniel, in two different flavors
-Hesperos

And let's be honest, if you want to flex into headcanon, the only Ascians that can't fit into this are the ones that are canonically women (Igeyorhm, Loghrif, Emmerololth). Even then, there's an angle you can work.

But in Stormblood when Zenos was current, none of them were really a thing. Estinien existed, sure, but wasn't really a major player (or known as hot). Dark and edgy women were putting up good numbers at the time (Fordola, Yotsuyu, Ysayle was still semi-recent), but I think we all have to admit that they serve different fanbases without as massive an overlap as you might first think; Zenos and Yotsuyu appeal to different crowds. Zenos was the only 'edgy man' game in town around Stormblood; it's just that over time that market split.

Thank you for reading (or more likely skipping over) my pointless and semi-serious deliberation on FFXIV shipping/character-focused fanbases. I have put too much thought into this. I could do a whole presentation on this, but I don't really have much in the way of a thesis statement, and also nobody cares.

[Jandor]

given meteions dead star cage i think thats what happened.

After we found out about that I assumed those souls were missing because they got slurped up into the cage. I guess with Meteion gone they'll be free to leave now, but probably won't end up back in Etheirys particular lifestream.

Your avatar is a shard of Zenos haunting you from the 13th.

The parallel headcanon I never even considered.