On Fandaniel (5.3 onward spoilers)

[NoblePigeon]

I'm sure there's gonna be legions of people complaining about how Fandaniel isn't nearly as interesting as Emet or Elidibus 'cause he seemingly has no actual reason to destroy the world, how his reasoning is seemingly one dimensional and, therefore, boring.

Good.

I'm gonna fight to the death defending the hill of "villains do not need to be morally complex to be interesting."

I am so mentally exhausted emphasizing with the main villains this expansion, or sifting through their intimately complex reasons for being villains. Not that that's a bad thing, cause I loved them all. But a villain DOES NOT need to be a Thanos to be interesting. There was nothing morally grey about villains like Frieza, DIO, Sephiroth, or Kefka, but they remain effective baddies anyway.

Wanting to be an evil person for its own sake is often chided as "not realistic" or "not as humanizing as a villain that likes to pet puppies on Tuesdays". I disagree. Real life morality is complicated, of course, but sometimes, there really are scumbags out there that are irredeemable scum.

Plus, Square Enix has proved, within a single expansion, that they're capable of providing much depth to the Ascians, the faction that everyone thought as one dimensional Saturday morning cartoons for a long time. I'm confident that they'll be able to make seemingly less nuanced villains like Fandaniel interesting in their own right.

In short: I know everyone has their preferences. Some like their villains to be sympathetic more than those that don't, and that's totally fine. What I *will* throw down verbal fisticuffs over is the notion that lack of sympathy somehow equates to being bland.

[RicaRuin]

Yeah, but we got a bland villain with no real motives or justification on top of another villain without interesting motives or the likes, and that's just really boring and meh.

[Enla]

Yeah, but we got a bland villain with no real motives or justification on top of another villain without interesting motives or the likes, and that's just really boring and meh.

This is my only concern really. I'm holding out hope that they're saving any depth Fandaniel might have for the next expansion - but if he /is/ this simple of a character I think it'd be a mistake to pair him with Zenos without adding a third wheel to counterbalance the sheer void that is their motivations.

Simplistic villains are generally fine. But they usually need a secondary, more complex villain in order to flesh them out and fill in the inherent weaknesses in their motives. Such as what happened in Stormblood where Zenos was ultimately the 'big bad' for the base expansion but much of our time was spent dealing with Yotsuyu, Fordola, and others to a certain extent to keep Zenos' the one trick pony from outstaying his welcome. That or they need to do something so out of left field that you cannot help but look up and pay attention. Kefka was simplistic and a force of nature, but he ultimately /won/ in his world. He became God. Likewise his antics were hilarious and deranged enough to make up for his lacking motivations which were brought on by the slave crown destroying his mind.

It remains to be seen if Fandaniel or Zenos can shoulder that kind of narrative responsibility. But if they can't, I hope that SE has some contingencies waiting in the wings to pick up their slack.

[NoblePigeon]

This is my only concern really. I'm holding out hope that they're saving any depth Fandaniel might have for the next expansion - but if he /is/ this simple of a character I think it'd be a mistake to pair him with Zenos without adding a third wheel to counterbalance the sheer void that is their motivations.

Simplistic villains are generally fine. But they usually need a secondary, more complex villain in order to flesh them out and fill in the inherent weaknesses in their motives. Such as what happened in Stormblood where Zenos was ultimately the 'big bad' for the base expansion but much of our time was spent dealing with Yotsuyu, Fordola, and others to a certain extent to keep Zenos' the one trick pony from outstaying his welcome. That or they need to do something so out of left field that you cannot help but look up and pay attention. Kefka was simplistic and a force of nature, but he ultimately /won/ in his world. He became God. Likewise his antics were hilarious and deranged enough to make up for his lacking motivations which were brought on by the slave crown destroying his mind.

It remains to be seen if Fandaniel or Zenos can shoulder that kind of narrative responsibility. But if they can't, I hope that SE has interesting secondary villains waiting in the wings to pick up their slack.

This is a concern I can get behind, in truth. The writing quality of the MSQ has picked up massively (which can't be attributed to any single person because it's a huge effort between amazing people, but Natsuko Ishikawa can take a lot of responsibility for that) so I'm not worried that they can't still make this pair up be interesting somehow. But if they swing and miss, yeah, it can easily dive into stale territory.

They drove the Ascians out of generic doomsday villain territory and into interesting doomsday villain territory, I'm confident they won't drive them back in.

[MicahZerrshia]

While I like villains that are just insane and want to destroy, I really hate the way they are portrayed as clowns. This fell on both fandanial and whatshisface from the emerald weapon questline. With their mannerisms and their facial expressions. That wide eye'd thing fandanial kept doing was just awful. You can be insane and not be a jester. It just makes them seem less threatening and kinda, well, just stupid. I know they are trying to portray them as insane, but its such a boring, lazy and overdone portrayal of insanity.

Yotsuyu, she was nuts and wanted to burn the place down, but she wasn't a clown. She was crazy done well. Not to mention her voice actress was amazing.

[Kesey]

I fail to see how Fandaniel isn't complex. He's had how much screen time? Like 4 cutscenes, two of which came just this patch.

So, there is the whole I want to die thing, which is fundamentally complex because he is immortal and doesn't have the option to die since he was raised into his Ascian rank. I assume this will be fleshed out in the future, but was he raised against his will?

Then there are the betrayal signals all over his relatively small screen time. He uses phrasing like "loyal" "faithful" and "in want of a new master" then the body he chooses to inhabit is one whose last name is "Brutus".

Not to mention he approached Zenos and their meet-up wasn't coincidental. But I think we're naïve if we can't see he is playing Zenos.

Bringing about the final days and summoning Zodiark is apart of this, but calling him "not complex" and that we should just "be okay" with this doesn't really give him justice when he's only just hit the scene and we can see the ground work being setup. It's clear by now he is going to be living past 5.5 and is the real villain of the next expansion, so lets give him the chance to be the big bad.

[Sauteed]

Probably in the minority but I feel ff villains kind of miss the mark people make them out to be. Ongoing since before alot of modern ff fans have been alive I'd wager [ not a bad thing being young btw wish I was again ] , but I feel this sentiment is true for xiv as well. When someone justifies murder with I don't think you're real it does not evoke a moral quandary or add depth. I am tempted to write out everything that bothers me with character "development" in ShB or even all of xiv and let people tell me I'm wrong or whatever, but to me ShB was bottom tier of the entire game in terms of expansion my least favorite part of the game by many steps in every single aspect. Story zones combat you name it. And barring a few tracks my least favorite music as well. Also not a fan of the title screen, cgi movie, title music, etc.. it is without a doubt least favorite. And the zenos stuff. Yeah I'll just stop now.

[Thoosa]

To me it felt like the time given to him was tacked on at the end when it could have been built up more and his motivations could have been expanded upon and had him in more scenes. Imo the stuff that came before could have easily been cut as imo that part of the story wasnt that great or interesting.

[Teraluna]

OP, thank you for raising the topic. The two current stated villains do seem to lack much (or any real) depth in their motivations.
Whilst this can be perceived as different than before, it does take away some interest in these characters.
I feel with the lack of real reasoning, they have lost the gravitas needed for a main antagonist(s)
They then become annoyances, rather than the focal point of the storytelling.
We will see if SE can add some more interest points to Fandaniel. Currently he just comes across as a kid let loose while his parent's are out, little attraction here.
As for Zenos. The character has stayed overlong, becoming a "it's me again!" parody of a villain.

[YianKutku]

As for Zenos. The character has stayed overlong, becoming a "it's me again!" parody of a villain.

I remember reading a comment somewhere (could have been on this forum) that Zenos has been relegated to "meanwhile elsewhere" cutscenes at the end of patches, for ten patches so far, and for all those patches.

I don't know if it really is ten patches, but it certainly feels like a large number of the recent patches ever since the end of 4.0. And it's not just Zenos's body as hijacked by Elidibus, but also Zenos's soul in its various containers.