I liked Zenos as the unexpected wildcard outside agent to the Scions vs Ascians conflict after Stormblood. Varis getting killed off without having done anything was eh, but I overall liked the Luca Blight direction Zenos was heading towards (mad, bloodthirsty prince who torments people and kills his dad and burns down his empire so he can have fun). My main disappointment with Zenos is that outside of the last scene of 5.0 and the bodyjack scene in 6.0, he never felt like a threat. He doesn't kill anyone who mattered or burn any towns. At the very least, Y'shtola's death in 4.0 should have stuck, and Zenos should have shanked either G'raha or Alisaie in 6.0.

Zenos would have felt threatening if he was actually doing bad guy stuff during the ShB patches, rather than just lounging around waiting for the next expac to happen (and even then, Zenos pretty much spends most of Endwalker doing nothing). Maybe he should have been trying to pursue the WoL to the First. Or maybe he would waltz into Mor Dhona or Ul'dah and start slaughtering people left and right until the WoL came. Or if the WoL was unreachable, maybe he would start hunting down Hraesvelgr and trying to derive entertainment from killing him. At least then there would have been tension from him. What Zenos did to the people of Garlemald is sad, but I literally met Jullus 10 minutes ago. For a villain so obsessed with trying to get a fight with the WoL, you'd think that he would try making the WoL extremely motivated to fight by killing the people or destroying places that the WoL cares about. But that ties back into nothing bad ever befalling heroes.