The atrocity that was the "In from the Cold" quest ending - *STORY RANT*

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Dang, you have an obsession.



Also @OP. Lord of the Rings. Only one main character of the group dies, and its at the start of the second book. The other deaths are all fake-outs. Its a much beloved franchise by many.

[Eisi]

True. Although I appreciated the display of the efforts a hero would go to even in anothers' body to save someone, it did seem unrealistic that in the large amount of time it takes to complete that duty and crawl to Camp Brokenglass, that they wouldn't have had time to at least get one person.

It's unrealistic if Zenos' goal was for us to hate him. I think the end of the story was also intertwined in the reason why things couldn't happen. Players can forgive the deaths of countless people we have never seen and thus get hyped about the final duel in UT, but they couldn't have forgiven the death of a main character.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

I am not joking when I say even Freedom Planet had higher stakes than this. Hell, it had higher stakes than 2. Brevon is what Zenos should have been or at the very goddamn least Merga.

Cave Story had more stakes and the balls to onscreen

make you kill a literal child right before her guardian dies and you get his sword that at level 3 becomes an aoe with his spirit at the center of it. Is traded for the Nemesis if you do a certain side mission.

[EliaStormblade]

What expansion had stakes again? (By forumgoers' standards, at least)

[DPZ2]

In from the Cold so obviously set up a character death that Ishikawa literally had to step in, assume Fandaniel's form, clap her hands and deus ex machina in some massive plot armor for everyone involved. "That's it, everyone goes back to their bodies! Nobody dies!"

Your interpretation here is not my own. Nor, I think, are the motivations you assign to Zenos so pedestrian, at least to my own mind.

I've gone through that particular exercise in Garlemald on three separate occasions of late. The whole goal is to goad the Warrior of Light to pursue the now-dead Emperor in the Tower of Babil (for well known reasons once the Tower falls). It was never about Zenos going on a rampage and killing the Scions present. He could well have done that at most any time. The reason for the fall of that Tower would not have been accomplished at all with a demoralized Warrior of Light, now without support because, well, Zenos killed them all.

If you were expecting someone to die here, it would have been the Warrior of Light. It just wasn't going to happen. The Tower must fall.

[TheMightyMollusk]

It's unrealistic if Zenos' goal was for us to hate him. I think the end of the story was also intertwined in the reason why things couldn't happen. Players can forgive the deaths of countless people we have never seen and thus get hyped about the final duel in UT, but they couldn't have forgiven the death of a main character.

I felt it fit Zenos's character. He doesn't care enough about the Scions to go out of his way to kill them. The whole thing was just provocation because he wants the WoL pissed off and coming for his head instead of playing around with worthless stuff like protecting civilians or saving the world.

[hunkygladiator]

now you just attack people

Oh no! A taste of your own medicine!

[Eisi]

I felt it fit Zenos's character. He doesn't care enough about the Scions to go out of his way to kill them. The whole thing was just provocation because he wants the WoL pissed off and coming for his head instead of playing around with worthless stuff like protecting civilians or saving the world.

No he wanted us to want to kill him. He wanted us to hate him. He told us. He meant it. And yes, he should have been willing to sacrifice someone for that who didn't mean anything to him. A human life meant nothing to him, he killed so many people have you just forgotten?

[WantlessYoYo]

Alphinaud should have been there and just taken out cold with a scythe slice through his chest, bleeding out in the snow with Alisaie desperately trying to heal him, later escaping with his lifeless body as G'raha and Y'shtola try to defeat Zenos and Zero in a last ditch effort.

[TheMightyMollusk]

No he wanted us to want to kill him. He wanted us to hate him. He told us. He meant it. And yes, he should have been willing to sacrifice someone for that who didn't mean anything to him. A human life meant nothing to him, he killed so many people have you just forgotten?

I haven't forgotten anything. The whole point, though, was that all of those other people he killed? He thought it wasn't personal enough. The WoL came to Garlemald, but we were still just screwing around, so he went to make it more personal. Killing wasn't even necessary anymore once the point was made, and for all of his callousness about life, Zenos kills for reasons, not "just because".

If anything, killing the Scions might've been counterproductive. Stopping for a burial or getting them medical attention (or, for that matter, getting put on trial or chased out by the Ilsabard Contingent, who had no idea what was going on) would've delayed the fight Zenos wanted so badly. He's showing you he could do terrible things to make you hurry up and go after him to stop him from trying again.

(Before someone starts with "Well my WoL wouldn't do any of that", yours is not the canon WoL. Despite not getting voice acting, the WoL does have a definite canon personality.)