A certain someone isn't coming back [Spoilers]

[KingEli]

I mean, YoshiP himself basically said they didn't really know what to do with him in EW so they kind of just stuck him in there because they had to.

That's not what he said, he said "They were worried about how to handle Zenos. He is the only one who sees the WoL as an adventurer and not just a hero, so the fight is more of an extra than a final boss". It's pretty clear that it wasn't about them not knowing what to do and more how precisely they wanted to get him across, especially with his dialogue in Endwalker, everything is very deliberate and to think otherwise just feels like cope tbh.

[StriderShinryu]

That's not what he said, he said "They were worried about how to handle Zenos. He is the only one who sees the WoL as an adventurer and not just a hero, so the fight is more of an extra than a final boss". It's pretty clear that it wasn't about them not knowing what to do and more how precisely they wanted to get him across, especially with his dialogue in Endwalker, everything is very deliberate and to think otherwise just feels like cope tbh.

Exactly. You can interpret what he meant how you want to interpret it. I'm not saying what they did with him wasn't deliberate, but it was very clear he was just an extra piece in the story and they just forced him in because he didn't fit. If you took what YoshiP said as how you describe it then that's fine, but I'm basing it on how Zenos actually came across in EW. Copium indeed