Tired of Zenos (spoilers)

[MarsAstro]

And here he is as the headliner for Endwalker, it doesn't hype me at all, and even less with the other old joker type cheap joker, having as appearance and body that of Stormblood's worst second villain...

It's really not great. SE showed us that he was able to make cool baddies with great ideals for their races in Shadowbringer, but here...

No hype, although I'm curious to know what the WoL is going to do on the moon !

You're forgetting something.

Remember the trailer for Heavensward? Remember how much allusion there was to the Holy See and the Archbishop being the main villains and final boss? Absolutely zero.
Remember the trailer for Stormblood? Remember how much allusion there was to Zenos and Shinryu being the main villains and final boss? Absolutely zero.
Remember the trailer for Shadowbringers? Remember how much allusion there was to Emet-Selch being the main villain and final boss? Absolutely zero.

So what makes you think the teaser trailer for Endwalker gives you any information of who will be the main villains for the expansion? Do you really think that after all these years of being careful with spoilers and not giving away too much plot in advance, Square-Enix would suddenly begin a tradition of giving away the main plot and headliners in a teaser trailer for the finale of the story?

My point being, be patient. We don't know anything about where this is going yet. All of us used to think Ascians were boring and generic too, then Shadowbringers happened. Let's not be too quick to judge Endwalker when we haven't even seen its full trailer or Shadowbringers final patch yet.

[Kozh]

I do admit that I often see villains like Zenos to be uninteresting and shallow. I do recognize that this type of villain is needed and if they are well-written. However I just can't see myself liking or finding Zenos interesting/compelling, even if the writing is as good as ShB. I just feel like it's not possible to make him interesting without retconing/changing his character from his SB self.

Thw only thing related to Zenos I'm looking forward too, is only why he dreamed the final days and what has emet done to him. I don't care about Zenos himself nor his duel with us. I would be happy if turns out he's the level 83 or 89 trial and not the final boss (very unlikely though).

I'm not even sure myself why I hate him that much. Maybe because he's the combination of all those villain tropes, such as:
1. Villains who only care about battle (battle freak)
2. Emotionless
3. Being super creepy and obsessed with the MC

[Kozh]

You're forgetting something.

Remember the trailer for Heavensward? Remember how much allusion there was to the Holy See and the Archbishop being the main villains and final boss? Absolutely zero.
Remember the trailer for Stormblood? Remember how much allusion there was to Zenos and Shinryu being the main villains and final boss? Absolutely zero.
Remember the trailer for Shadowbringers? Remember how much allusion there was to Emet-Selch being the main villain and final boss? Absolutely zero.

So what makes you think the teaser trailer for Endwalker gives you any information of who will be the main villains for the expansion? Do you really think that after all these years of being careful with spoilers and not giving away too much plot in advance, Square-Enix would suddenly begin a tradition of giving away the main plot and headliners in a teaser trailer for the finale of the story?

My point being, be patient. We don't know anything about where this is going yet. All of us used to think Ascians were boring and generic too, then Shadowbringers happened. Let's not be too quick to judge Endwalker when we haven't even seen its full trailer or Shadowbringers final patch yet.

I do agree with that "we have to be patient" part", but to be fair since endwalker is the finale (going to wrap us the HvZ saga), we already knew the key players. The big bads are Zenos, fandaniel, and zodiark (even though he's more neutral in some sense). Unless they pull a "sike!", it's almost sure we're going to deal with them. I would be happy if I was wrong, since I don't want Zenos to be the final boss, but the way they set up things... It's very likely he's the focus of endwalker.

[LaughingBanana]

I actually like Zenos. It's a refreshing change amidst all these scheming and "sophisticated" villains that we actually have one that is straight-forward in what he is doing.

[kidalutz]

I do admit that I often see villains like Zenos to be uninteresting and shallow. I do recognize that this type of villain is needed and if they are well-written. However I just can't see myself liking or finding Zenos interesting/compelling, even if the writing is as good as ShB. I just feel like it's not possible to make him interesting without retconing/changing his character from his SB self.

Thw only thing related to Zenos I'm looking forward too, is only why he dreamed the final days and what has emet done to him. I don't care about Zenos himself nor his duel with us. I would be happy if turns out he's the level 83 or 89 trial and not the final boss (very unlikely though).

I'm not even sure myself why I hate him that much. Maybe because he's the combination of all those villain tropes, such as:
1. Villains who only care about battle (battle freak)
2. Emotionless
3. Being super creepy and obsessed with the MC

I feel it's because we seen Zenos done better in Sephiroth and Kefka.
The Plot Armor

that said I'll say it again Final Boss is going to be Zenos only he's going to be Zeromus( FF IV uber villain Source of all darkness hydaelen is going to use the last of her strength to make them vulnerable we'll own them and it'll be bittersweet af)

[Jeeqbit]

Remember the trailer for Heavensward? Remember how much allusion there was to the Holy See and the Archbishop being the main villains and final boss? Absolutely zero.
Remember the trailer for Stormblood? Remember how much allusion there was to Zenos and Shinryu being the main villains and final boss? Absolutely zero.
Remember the trailer for Shadowbringers? Remember how much allusion there was to Emet-Selch being the main villain and final boss? Absolutely zero.

Although you are right about the cinematic trailers, the launch trailers that show game footage usually show the main villain at the end. In fact they spoil it quite a bit as you can see at these links (spoiler warning).

https://youtu.be/TGFZ6RJqTWY?t=284
https://youtu.be/qBEvWWdKOBA?t=306
https://youtu.be/CxHSSRjFH14?t=234

https://youtu.be/UmQm76wFfKk?t=319

[RicaRuin]

I'm not a Fan of Zenos either. And yeah, I often hear 'but not every villain needs a deep motivation, some are forces of nature'. Well, personally, I think even if seen as that Zenos is bland and uninteresting. I'm open for possible development and more depth of his character with Endwalker, but as things stand now, I can't stand him. It just feels... undeserved for a bland character like him to get the spotlight as the big baddie for the climax of the story.

He's just... someone that I feel they want to push to be something like the next Sephiroth. And after VII Remake, that's kinda hard to achieve. Biggest fear is that they give him a theme that's supposed to be on par with One-Winged Angel. I love Soken's music, though.

(Keep in mind, this opinion is based on current knowledge, where Zenos is still bland and things are made to look like he's the main villain.)

[ReynTime]

And yeah, I often hear 'but not every villain needs a deep motivation, some are forces of nature'.

I think that's a really weak argument people like to throw and it makes little sense. Not every villain needs to be sympathetic. But the defence people throw pretty much translates to: "Not every villain needs to be compelling or well written". And I'm sorry for those who think that works, but no. If the villain in question is meant to be a focus point then yes they absolutely SHOULD be more compelling than "I'm like Goku but evil".

Calamity Ganon is a force of nature. He works as a threat, but as a character he's boring as hell. Zenos is not much better.

[Jeeqbit]

People say he's bland, but that's just how they've chosen to perceive him. He does have a lot more depth. Although politics may bore him, he is willing to use politics to get what he wants (a challenge) and do a lot of smart stuff to make it go as planned. I mean involving The Moon in his plan? This is a smart guy, not a mindless cyclops that just wants to chase you.

He started off raiding Doma, then came to take over The Black Wolf's territory as well and carefully killed any generals in his army that did not themselves participate in battles. Terrible as it may be of him, it produced an army with pro-active generals that had been in battle and lived and shows his ability to rule.

He was fascinated by the idea that The Echo can be used to control and influence others, which he then used to control Shinryu, showing the side of him that is interested in science.

I can see how he gets reduced to being like a mindless cyclops that just wants to fight you for no reason, but he does have some depth and that depth has fascinated me, especially his interest in the science of The Echo.

You could argue that The Black Wolf was just like him while he was on his conquest. The desire to go around taking over territories and defeating powerful foes to make yourself more powerful is something instilled in a lot of garlean rulers from birth, so why would Zenos be any different?

[Bright-Flower]

but it's hard to take on a level 70 when you're level 63.

This actually about sums up my power scaling options with SB.

Treating levels that literally in the story. DBZ esque power level incrases are boring. Getting our asses handed to us but then having our numbers go up so we're able to fight the bad guy on equal footing in the climax is not compelling storytelling. It'd be more excusable if this was in a new story, a fresh, inexperienced adventurer getting their teeth kicked in but then growing stronger over the course of the story. But by this point we've bee doing this a long time and nothing we do between Zenos beating us and us beating him is out of the ordinary for us at that point.