Quote Originally Posted by Nabby View Post
I feel like a lot of people simply don't care for Zenos as a character and are using that opinion to criticise his involvement in the ending, rather than criticising the quality of the writing itself. Personally, I thought Zenos was a complete disappointment in SB and didn't earn his place as a villain on the WoL's level at all, especially because of how he finished himself off. But in EW, even if in the end he didn't end up doing a whole lot plot-wise due to being manipulated by Fandaniel, his arc did come to a satisfying end.
Agree with your post as a whole, but certainly the last paragraph, where you hit the nail on the head. I know, from reaction videos, comments on the forum, Discord and on social media, that there are plenty of players who never forgave Zenos for kicking the WoL's backside when we first fought him in 'In Crimson it Began'.

I've seen numerous comments about how it was ridiculous that the WoL could defeat Primals but was defeated by Zenos - but I feel that they missed the point somewhat. At that point in the game the WoL is powerful in combat with Primals, thanks in major part to the benefit provided by the Echo, but the Echo didn't really come into play Vs Zenos and at that point we had pretty much no experience fighting Garleans solo. When we previously fought against them it was alongside team-mates, either in the form of other players or of NPC supports. We'd never really faced a Garlean one-on-one and certainly not one as powerful and skilled as Zenos.