How to fix Zenos one dimentional character

[Puremallace]

So as a lot of people know compared to what drives the unsundered Ascians vs what drives Zenos it is like comparing Lord of the Rings trilogy to Dr. Suess.

We are missing some SERIOUS backstory to Zenos so all we see is....hunt yesss the hunt more hunt yeahhhh. Compared to Emet or Elidibus it is a waste of a character.

How to fix
So if the plan is to keep this guy around we need a quest chain somewhere involving the echo showing how Zenos went from an innocent kid to sadistic psychopath. Not sure how you want to do it but if we go from the fine wine that is Shadowbringers back to one dimensional huntboy Zenos for an expansion we are going to have problems.

I mean you guys took Elidibus from a side character with not much backstory to a fully fleshed out hero/villain in one patch. Zenos needs this same justice done so he is not wasted and quickly forgotten and generic enemy #1.

[Kuroka]

Something tells me he was the kind of child that killed small animal just for fun lol....

I just cant picture him as innocent, misguided maybe, but not that.

[ItMe]

we need a quest chain somewhere involving the echo showing how Zenos went from an innocent kid to sadistic psychopath.

Zenos doesn't need to be made sympathetic.
Every character doesn't need a tragic backstory.
There are other ways to make a character more rounded.

[Sauteed]

Just kill him off and try again. Problem solved. Would be great if Greg did it and the weird horn noise you hear when Zenos shows up slowly swaying his hips played when Greg shows up from then on.

[Puremallace]

Zenos doesn't need to be made sympathetic.
Every character doesn't need a tragic backstory.
There are other ways to make a character more rounded.

Well if we are going full Valens with the guy then I need him to start killing off some jedi kids to get stronger with the dark side because all of the crazy stuff they say he does is off camera. If we are not going full sympathy for the guys we need to pick up the level of crazy.

[MoofiaBossVal]

I don't think Zenos is one dimensional.

I think he works well as a foil to the WoL. They're the two strongest warriors of their age, going beyond the impossible, but one only reluctantly fights out of necessity, while the other fights for self exaltation. One doesn't dedicate all their time exclusively to fighting, doing other things like having fun with friends and crafting, while the other has devoted their entire life to the path of destruction.

I don't want to see a tragic Zenos backstory. I like how he is a self made man, one who had a vision and dedicated his life towards attaining that vision. Through his own hard work, he has attained mastery. We already have too many villains in FFXIV with tragic backstories. If there is a Zenos prequel, I want to see him working hard to learn new techniques and overcoming foes, like in that short story in the Enclyopedia.

It is my hope that when Zenos and the WoL duel again, that Zenos wins. It makes sense. Zenos simply has devoted more time in his life to becoming stronger than the WoL. The strength in the WoL is not in his martial power, but in his convictions and his friends, things that Zenos does not have. So ofcourse the WoL and 7 other friends will beat Zenos in a trial (hopefully this trial can be a trust with the Scions on the first time, like the Varis fight). And the WoL is also a crafter, a builder, which I would hope would be relevant in the true end goal of the story: fixing the Sound (which I hope isn't just another JRPG god monster we kill).

[RyuDragnier]

It is my hope that when Zenos and the WoL duel again, that Zenos wins. It makes sense. Zenos simply has devoted more time in his life to becoming stronger than the WoL. The strength in the WoL is not in his martial power, but in his convictions and his friends, things that Zenos does not have. So ofcourse the WoL and 7 other friends will beat Zenos in a trial (hopefully this trial can be a trust with the Scions on the first time, like the Varis fight). And the WoL is also a crafter, a builder, which I would hope would be relevant in the true end goal of the story: fixing the Sound (which I hope isn't just another JRPG god monster we kill).

No, Zenos will probably lose. My only hope is that instead of a Trial, he's given a solo instance 1v1 fight with the WoL...that later gets exaggerated into an actual extreme trial.

[Crushnight]

Zenos already has a 'sympathetic' type backstory, he has been experimented for a long time, most likely since he was a child, based on the dreams he supposedly has had all his life, his father despised him and treated him as a monster for who knows how long, and his mother is somewhere dead or alive idk.

I just don't care for Zenos because the character he is meant to be and the character he has been shown as are different.

Zenos is meant to be the antithesis to the WoL, a huge force of nature character who gets stronger as we do.

What went wrong was having him live, for so long doing next to nothing.

He has suffered the Minfilia effect of stuff that be great showing how twisted he is, what he is willing to do, it is all off screen, what we get on screen has been slain daddy and sit on throne thinking menacingly, riveting for a force of nature character.

Force of nature characters are simple by design because their actions are the spectacle that keeps you engaged with them. Zenos has no ham, no cheese, does nothing but sit on his butt thinking of senpai, and he has been around since 4.0 over 2 years and he suffers because of that.

They cannot fix Zenos at this point, he has had far far too much time to be made better. I give Flandaniel a pass for now because he is recently introduced AND he actually does stuff to cause us concern. Zenos is unfixable to me, I dread any scene he will show up in and I just want to permanently kill him off already.

[Theodric]

There's a lot of common misconceptions in regards to Zenos' childhood. He wasn't mistreated - his father went off to war, yes - but that's pretty standard in this sort of setting and hardly something limited to Zenos' situation. He wasn't left without people to interact with. He pushed them away willingly because they 'bored' him. The experimentation he engaged in was also by his own choice and violation. In fact, his father was against Aulus' experiments and had him banished from Garlemald. Zenos simply took an interest in the guy and teamed up with him later on. When he was younger, he pushed crystals into his own flesh in an attempt to get around his inability to manipulate aether.

Yoshi-P is also on record as also stating that Zenos isn't intended to be sympathetic in any way - he's just a monster with no sympathetic qualities and doesn't care about anyone or anything beyond the thrill he gets from fighting the Warrior of Light. Granted, I do think there are ways in which he could have been handled better and made to be more interesting but he really just seems to be a walking, talking plot device at this point.

[ObsidianFire]

There is a short-story about a "typical" incident in Zenos' childhood and... he definetly doesn't have a "tragic backstory". At least, not the way the term is usually thrown about. For all that Varis doesn't seem to be around, he seems to have provided Zenos with a good education and everything one could reasonably expect a prince to want. Zenos just... is really messed up in his head. Even back then. He was already finding everything too easy and wanted more of a challenge and wanted to get stronger (via any method possible). And he was definetly as board already as we see him in Stormblood. His character in Stormblood is... pretty much unchanged from that; he's just got more power and people to terrorize now. Granted, finding out he was seeing dreams/memories of the Last Days of Amarot since forever definetly explains a lot about why he could have been that messed up. But I don't see how Zenos turned out being the only way someone going through that could turn out either.

The biggest change to Zenos' character was... finding out someone like the WoL existed. Someone who really was at his level and was capable of defeating him fairly. It changes his perpetual board state into an obsession that revolves about a person. And the thing is, Zenos acknowledges he could do something different than obsessing over the WoL once he doesn't die; he just doesn't want to.

He's certainly one of the most self-aware, self-made villians I've seen in a very long time. He also is really board to watch as he hasn't really been doing anything in ages and his rational for what he does is so obvious and uncompelling.