The importance of a rival

[sindriiisgaming]

There is only a single scene that I liked Zenos in post-StB, when he, as Shinryu, shows up at Ultima Thule, looks at the Ensinger, and goes (paraphrased) "Why are you taking so long? it's just the embodiment of despair wielding an unspeakable amount of a scarcely understood energy residing at the literal end of the universe. That's nothing for someone like you.", and he isn't playing it up, he genuinely believes it and the absurdity of the situation just makes me smile.

Otherwise he felt like a plot tumor, one that is used as well as it could be, assuming him being there was a necessity, but it wasn't, by nature of what stories are, he doesn't need to be there, and he shouldn't have been, because he just doesn't do anything of substance, the closest being when he steals WoL's body, and even that doesn't have a lasting consequence, it's just a scare, even when he shows up in Ultima Thule, much as I like the energy be brings out, he didn't have to be there, and all the moments he is there for, feels like could be done without him, hell I could've been convinced if he had lived, because him living, and perhaps being convinced to stop and go to therapy(Talkingway would have a field day with that guy...), would've added something to the world, and yes, him living would've caused other issues, especially around Zero, and exacerbate a different issue in how difficult it is to make something feel like a threat with how powerful WoL is, but that's a different story.

I do agree that one of the big flaws of DT is the lack of a meaningful threat, I never bought Sphene as the Big Bad, and I like Sphene a lot, I perpetually carry an HQ Sphene in my inventory because of her now, but she never hit me as a big enough treat for that position, Zoraal Ja is even worse, he is just pitiful, what we really need now is a threat that feels bigger then ourselves, but I also don't think that a rival would add anything to that end, a rival isn't meant to feel like a threat to the protagonist, it's meant to be someone they match themselves against and push each other towards improvement, which is also why Zenos is a horrible "rival", he was never a rival, he was an outright villain with an obsession with the protagonist.

I agree with you, zenos is really let down by the wiring. they dont know what they're doing with him, Ishikawa even admitted it.

which is also why Zenos is a horrible "rival", he was never a rival, he was an outright villain with an obsession with the protagonist.

Doesn't sound that different from kaiba, yet hes regarded as one of the most complex and well written anime rivals