Zenos: The Big Bad (The Feedback Thread, Part 1)

[Cilia]

Zenos' last line before his intended suicide - "Farewell, my first friend. My enemy." - says in six words as much as Emet-Selch's numerous monologues about his backstory and motivation did.

Even if his backstory and motivation don't make him interesting or likeable, I still find him more pitiable than hateful.

[Grimr]

OK, so I can see Zenos is acting as the Wild Card. Square Enix has committed to a path, even if we don't know what it is, but that path is relatively predictable with the status quo we have now (especially given that what would have happened had we not been spirited away from Ghimlyt was explained to us in 5.0).

Since the Warrior of Light was nowhere to be found, Gaius and Estinien eliminated the threat of Black Rose (for now), Zenos went home to kill Varis, and now the whole war has taken a new course.

For the record, it was zenos himself that utterly destroyed black rose. He doesn't want anything to get in the way of his duel with the wol. Of course with zenos even existing it brings up the point of the eighth umbral calamity occurring. I can see no way it occurs with zenos at the very least with black rose. He would destroy it every timeline. It would of had to happen another way or it would of produced a light void the exactly opposite of the 13th shard.

[Vyrerus]

He also took a contrary stance to the other Ascians in his interest in the "gifted", was implied to have objections to harm coming to Minfilia via Nabriales, was the only one who initially approached the MC in a non-confrontational manner

He blasted Minfilia with a ray of darkness, and then lead us on a wild goose chase into the desert, where he threw demons and lesser Ascians at us in droves. Not exactly, "non-confrontational."

I'm sure Fandaniel will have his own mysteries, and he may even get center stage, but they have to give Zenos some more dialogue if he's going to be around, and this will have them expound on him in some form. And I wonder how they will choose to expound on him.

[Alleo]

This is precisely why I don't think he's the last boss, and if anything.... I think he's going to help us defeat the last boss(es). He's our friend after all, and we are very much alike in many ways, as people have pointed out in this thread. One thing Zenos has shown time and time again is his desire for us to live and become better. I don't think he'll be defeated and kill himself or let himself be killed knowing that the WoL will be facing the big bad primals alone...

All of this talk about being his friend and being similiar comes down to each individual WoL. I never ever saw him as a friend and just because he thinks we are his does not mean that we have to agree with that. Before we managed to at least hurt him a bit he never ever cared about us at all.

I also dont think that my WoL is in a way similiar to him. My WoL only fights because she has to and she fights because she wants to protect the weak people. I am not sure how that makes her in any way like him. And even if its canon that the WoL enjoys a fight its made clear that its not to kill people but for the fight alone. Unlike Zenos who makes every fight a fight to the death.

Also about not killing himself because the WoL would fight alone: He did though...after he lost he killed himself and it was just a side effect of the echo that he is alive. He only cares about fighting us again but I doubt that he does that because he does not want to leave us alone. After all if he is able to defeat us it would mean our death.

I am also still not sure what the huge amount of interesting traits there is in his backstory. He was really strong as a child and he is bored because he is that strong. I am really curious what more there should be? After all until now he was again only introduced as someone to hate. As a pure evil character. Any more backstory would have to be given in future patches if SE suddenly decided to make him more than he was planned to be.

And while the prince was surrounded by countless servants, they were as machina to him, trundling about on invisible rails, bereft of independent thought. Nor did he hold the learned men and women who served as his tutors in much higher regard. His brilliant mind found their lessons-their very existence-monotonous, and he preferred the silent company of books.

With such an upbringing, he could not choose but be different from other children. Indeed, it could be said that he was never a child at all. Innocence and playfulness were quite alien to him, the former expunged by his earliest schooling and the latter afforded no outlet. His days were uniformly joyless, and he went about his scheduled tasks with apathy. Thus did he pass his first four and then summers-in a steel-grey blue of tedium."

I marked some of the words because for me at least they show that part of his upbringing was thanks to his own view of the world. (Which is strange for a child...) He saw the servants as machina with no independent thought. He held the tutors in no other regards and he preferred books over people. He might have had an upbringing where his parents were not there for him either through death or other things but he himself also did not let others near him because he saw them as machina...He also was seemingly not playful because that already bored him.

[Cilia]

Anyone who's taken basic psychology courses will tell you that "Nature vs. Nurture" isn't even the right question; both shape an individual's mindset, the debate is over how much weight each has.

Yes, even with both Varis and his unnamed dead mother hypothetically being loving parents to him it's possible Zenos could still have ended up the way he is, but it would be much, much less probable. Further what we have about his upbringing suggests (if not outright states) he had no positive attachments to anyone at all - having never been given the chance to be a normal child, attended to and raised by servants who would cater to his every need and whim. Being as academically gifted as he was, blessed with Garlean constitution, afforded every privilege in life but lacking any sort of attachment to anyone, and raised in a culture that glorifies domination through force, that Zenos turned out the way he did is... no surprise at all. (And that's not even getting into whatever experiments Emet-Selch and/or Varis implicitly performed on him.)

Aside from his sword instructor (who he easily bested after a bit of improvisation), the PC is the first person Zenos has ever met with the ability to deny him. That he would have an unhealthy, obsessive attachment to them is... also unsurprising.

Of course Zenos sees the PC as a kindred spirit - they keep showing up in the only place he feels alive, always ready with new tricks and techniques to catch him off-balance. It's interesting, to him. It breaks up the tedium his life has been so far.

One of the things addressed in the presentation is that while the PC may not feel the same (or outright despise him), Zenos sees them as a genuine friend; the issue is that he's so horribly, horribly maladapted the only way he knows how to express himself is by trying to kill them.

And this is all without getting into whatever may be revealed about him in Endwalker.

Not every antagonist needs to do this:

---

Apropos of nothing... Anima is showing up in some capacity, and while it's possible she's just the Matanga primal, given her personal connection to Seymour in X I can't help but wonder if there might not be more to her than a boss fight for the sake of having a boss fight.

[sciencebot]

By the way, you mentioned Emet liking theater and Varis banning it. I've also seen various people say that Zenos grew up reading Emet's plays/books but I haven't found that information myself. Is this in one of the lore books?

It's been a few years, so I misremembered slightly: Varis didn't fully ban theater, he instituted a censorship system and banned anything that wasn't sufficiently favorable to the Empire. That gets brought up in the first quest for Return to Ivalice, "Dramatis Personae".

It is a little-known fact, outside Garlemald at least, that the late emperor was a devoted patron of the arts who supported various theater troupes to the tune of much coin.

Indeed, Solus was so enamored of the Majestic players that he ordered the construction of this very airship, that the troupe might perform in every corner of the Empire.

When his grandson took the throne, however, everything changed.

Now, all theater troupes domestic and foreign must submit their works for approval by the central imperial board of censors. If a play is deemed vulgar or inflammatory, it is banned and the troupe denied their writs of transit. The worst offenders? Well, they are never heard from again.

This policy has effectively left playwrights with one of two options: compromise their creative integrity to curry favor with His Radiance, or put down their quills altogether.

As for Zenos reading Solus' work, I haven't heard about that, so I don't have any idea! I know the Zenos short story says he spent his time reading as a kid, though I don't think it says exactly what.

[Denishia]

sciencebot's excellent post on why Zenos as the thematic foil for the reprehensible ideology of Emet/Ascians/Garleans and the might makes right/only some people are worthy is the strong, dare I say sole, reason for his existence as a villain, let alone a continuing one into EW.
For all that everyone raved at how sympathetic Emet Selch was in ShB, I spent all of it ranting at Emet because I actively disagreed with his motivations ("14 'lesser copies' means you have 13 times the number of possible friends, you jerk") and looked forward to the final boss fight to defeet him. Emet was engaging even if his character wasn't as entertaining or sympathetic as others thought, and he was a good foil to the Exarch and Thancred and the central theme of ShB.
Zenos on the other hand, I never liked. At no point during SB or after. The kindest thing I could say was that he was so flat as a character that he made Fordola and Yotsuyu by contrast stronger. Both I understood and emphasized with their motivations and backstories while also feeling that drive to defeat them. Zenos never gave me any stronger emotion than meta disappointment and boredom. Part of it is because of the character tropes I despise , "Hunter of the Greatest Game" and Blood Knight who only has interest in fighting are at the bottom tier of shonen villains, only working if they are minor villains in a cast of more interesting and story-useful antagonists. Especially because I started playing XIV out of love of FF's story-telling Zenos as the dark mirror for the WoL doesn't really work if you are a DoH/L main at heart, after all. Also why the DRK 30-50 questline fell flat for me because I played my WoL without the resentment of helping others out via fetch quests which that job questline needs as a lynchpin. Also can't stand the "Katanas are Superior" trope and thought Zenos's visual design was unappealing, so it was almost comical how much he was tailor-made to not work as an antagonist for me personally.
But for EW he's getting rid of the katana and the ugly armor, so he's less of an eyesore
Fandaniel also isn't a villain archetype I find most compelling, but at least his personality contrasts to Zenos's apathy. (A danger of his character - if you have a character whose defining trait is ennui, then it doesn't take long for readers to respond to that boredom with boredom of their own)

But Zenos as the toxic culmination of might makes right and only the 'right' people matter, giving the player a chance to combat that, gives him a purpose. As a symbol, he can be internally and personality-wise flat as he isn't a character but a force.

Even if the only moment I'm really looking forward to is a dialogue option that has so far been denied to me, where the WoL is able to tell Zenos that fighting him is as lackluster and boring a prospect to the WoL as Zenos believes fighting anyone but the WoL is to them. Please let me have that.

[Beddict]

snip

I very much enjoyed this and it's a great take on Zenos. It's one of the reasons I am excited for Endwalker, to see the conclusion to the WoL vs. Zenos.

I agree that whether our WoL feels a kinship with Zenos is very individual. My WoL fights for the people she loves and all that, but she also loves a challenge and... while fighting is a necessity, she also enjoys it. She's also a very lonely person. Everyone that she holds dear admires her and holds her waaaaaay up there, and because of that none among them really see her as an equal. She's an inspiration to them and they aspire to become more like her. The only people who have remotely treated her like an equal (or someone who could be their equal) were Zenos and Emet. So at least in my case, the things that my WoL has in common with Zenos are: loneliness, a strong desire for challenge, a penchant for violence, a desire for a human connection based in equality.
In the meantime, she trained as a dark knight and learned to accept these 'darker' things about herself. While Zenos is worse in every respect, she still understands him, while everyone else (including Ascians) is completely puzzled by him and views him as a beast.

I also feel kinship towards Zenos. Not 100% on account of my WoL not being a psychopath, but the similarities are there. My WoL first arrived in Gridania seeking glory as an adventurer. I love exploring dungeons and beating up Primals. I love the lore of FFXIV and have explored every area to learn as much about the world of Eorzea as possible. I love Savage raiding with my friends because of the challenge I get when going up against a tough fight. I love collecting Relics and I'm working on my final Zodiac Relic because it feels good to get shiny new weapons. That's pretty similar to Zenos, a man who spent his youth training or reading books, a man who lives for the thrill of the fight, a man who collects weapons he finds interesting and even brings a golf bag into battle so he can switch weapons on the fly. Even though that's where the similarities end, I gotta admit that I get where Zenos is coming from in enjoying a good fight. He goes to extreme lengths to get those fights though, and he's completely amoral which is terrible, but he makes for a good foil to my WoL.

[twocows]

I wanted to leave feedback but there doesn't seem to be any proper mechanism for doing so (or rather maybe this is the mechanism), so I'll just share my thoughts here.

I don't want to be overly negative, but so far my impressions of the EW tie-in story content haven't been good. I just finished 5.4 and while most of the 5.4 content itself was pretty good, I found it very hard to be invested in anything that happened in the last quest, which seems to be the major hook for EW.

It's not so much that we're getting a villain we've already seen before (though that's of course not a great start, but it can work), it's more that we've gone from villains with nuanced and even sympathetic motivations (which I really liked) back to villains with cartoonishly evil motivations. It just feels like a step down to me. I'm sure there's some matter of preference here, but I'm just not excited for any of this, and the story is one of the main reasons I play this game. I dunno, maybe the motivations will be fleshed out more later, but this just doesn't seem like a good start; I'm not hooked, I was more rolling my eyes than anything.

It doesn't help that ShB was just so good. Everything from the setting to the story and characters to the smaller touches like music and worldbuilding (something games often overlook) was all just phenomenal. I want EW to be good, but this story so far ain't doin' it for me. I hope I'm wrong and it turns out great. I see other people are more into it, so maybe it's just a matter of preference.

[Bright-Flower]

I wanted to leave feedback but there doesn't seem to be any proper mechanism for doing so (or rather maybe this is the mechanism), so I'll just share my thoughts here.

I don't want to be overly negative, but so far my impressions of the EW tie-in story content haven't been good. I just finished 5.4 and while most of the 5.4 content itself was pretty good, I found it very hard to be invested in anything that happened in the last quest, which seems to be the major hook for EW.

It's not so much that we're getting a villain we've already seen before (though that's of course not a great start, but it can work), it's more that we've gone from villains with nuanced and even sympathetic motivations (which I really liked) back to villains with cartoonishly evil motivations. It just feels like a step down to me. I'm sure there's some matter of preference here, but I'm just not excited for any of this, and the story is one of the main reasons I play this game. I dunno, maybe the motivations will be fleshed out more later, but this just doesn't seem like a good start; I'm not hooked, I was more rolling my eyes than anything.

It doesn't help that ShB was just so good. Everything from the setting to the story and characters to the smaller touches like music and worldbuilding (something games often overlook) was all just phenomenal. I want EW to be good, but this story so far ain't doin' it for me. I hope I'm wrong and it turns out great. I see other people are more into it, so maybe it's just a matter of preference.

I definitely get that.

Though honestly I wasn't invested in Emet-Selch or the SB post patches either leading into SHB, but I ended up loving SHB, so maybe they'll pull that off again here.