Is Zenos Sephiroth?

[Thatusernameistaken]

Most likely I'm being paranoid, but did anyone else get some serious Sephiroth vibes from the end of Death Unto Dawn and from the EW trailer? When the Stormblood theme kicks in, Fandaniel comes up the elevator and starts talking to/about Zenos and it makes it very obvious, but man I swear the camera angle on Zenos in that scene is a Sephiroth teaser. If we're supposed to know who Fandaniel is talking to/about in that scene, then why hide Zenos' face in that transition?

And in the scene where Zenos is picking his new weapon, idk but it just felt like a very on-the-nose nod to Sephiroth and Masamune, especially considering his weapon choice wasn't revealed right away, which is when I first started seeing them setting up a Zenos is Sephiroth reveal.

And while there are some pretty big holes in the theory, the more I think about it the more similarities pop out. It's already pretty obvious that Zenos is awaiting his "Reunion" with the WoL, and Zenos is currently presiding over an apocalypse involving the moon (Meteor) and just wants to watch the world burn while attempting to merge with the will of the Planet to become a God. Sound familiar?

Am I just that desperate to see Sephiroth in the game, or is anyone else getting that vibe too?

[Cleretic]

We already have Sephiroth in this game! He just had a few more arms. And a few less letters.

In honesty, I do think Zenos is a play on the general archetype that Sephiroth is a part of, the 'pretty human (or human-seeming) side-antagonist that starts off appearing relatively grounded and equal but becomes a much bigger threat through magical means'. (See also: Seymour, Vayne, Kuja.) It's a formula that works, so why not use it? And similarly, knowing that there's some visual elements of Sephiroth scenes that work... why not borrow them, too?

Of course, they miscalculated and forgot to copy any of the reasons Sephiroth is interesting, so ultmately it's less of a true recapture and more of a hollow resemblance with similar plot beats.

[RicaRuin]

Of course, they miscalculated and forgot to copy any of the reasons Sephiroth is interesting, so ultmately it's less of a true recapture and more of a hollow resemblance with similar plot beats.

This, basically. Especially since the Remake makes Sephiroth seem more like a threat and moves away from the 'mommy's boy' image he had from the original game.

But yeah, I feel like they try to push Zenos as the next big Sephiroth, giving him the spotlight of antagonist in the current plot line's final expansion... but he seems so bland in contrast to some other villains we had.

(On that note, 'Zenos doesn't need a coherent reason, he just a force of nature' argument some pull to justify why he is different from same vibe Sephiroth doesn't really do the trick for me, especially after Tales of Arise. It just can be done better.)

[ItMe]

Zenos is Reaper.
Sephiroth will be his shade. Confirmed.

[Tsiron]

So as a long time Sephiroth fan, I've come to realise its not so much his personality that's interesting, but his backstory and the way the original game used him... or, rather, didn't! You barely saw him!

The less said about Compilation Sephiroth, the better... but unfortunately Zenos veers very close to Compilation Sephiroth personality-wise, in his singular obsession with WoL. Their backstories are fairly different (then again we don't really learn much about Sephiroth's childhood) but there's hints of Zenos being either experimented on or being the result of an experiment, even before he started doing it to himself.

I expect we'll learn more about that in Endwalker, tho

[Misutoraru]

at this point I would say not so much, despite it seem SE trying so hard to push Zenos to be the ultimate villian in FFXIV

Sephiroth from FFVII have complex mental "issues", since learning Genesis defaction and Angeal gone rouge.
and eventually learning the truth of Project Jenova break his mind, drive him into believing he is decendant of Cetra, and the "chosen one", revenge on human race thing.

Zenos currently just look like a man who want chaos, enjoy carnage, he just like a man can not be reason with. I was disappoint about SB because I feel Zenos being the Big boss for SB feel quite shallow. However, very little we know about Zenos, hopefully SE would write a compelling back story for the insanity of Zenos in EW

[Tracewood]

At least Sephiroth started out as okay until he learned of his true origins. Zenos as far as the lore goes was always just a nasty, nasty person.

Either we end things with him in 6.0, or he's going to just "away" until the plot decides to need him again.

[Cleretic]

This, basically. Especially since the Remake makes Sephiroth seem more like a threat and moves away from the 'mommy's boy' image he had from the original game.

But yeah, I feel like they try to push Zenos as the next big Sephiroth, giving him the spotlight of antagonist in the current plot line's final expansion... but he seems so bland in contrast to some other villains we had.

(On that note, 'Zenos doesn't need a coherent reason, he just a force of nature' argument some pull to justify why he is different from same vibe Sephiroth doesn't really do the trick for me, especially after Tales of Arise. It just can be done better.)

Personally, I think the remake actually made Sephiroth less interesting, but that's because I like the angle of FFVII essentially being High Fantasy The Thing; I preferred the reading that Sephiroth is nothing but a mask for an unknowable alien being, that Sephiroth himself has been dead since before the game started and we're just dealing with a horror-beast using his body as a convenient meat puppet. Which is clearly not the intended reading going by all the expanded universe stuff, but it holds up in the original story.

But I find it interesting when you see people compare Zenos to a 'force of nature' as a positive, because it actually highlights the reason he doesn't work. You wouldn't watch a movie about a hurricane because you think the hurricane is a compelling and interesting character; you watch a movie about a hurricane because you want to see how it impacts the lives of those affected. And Zenos isn't impacting anyone in a compelling way by himself; he's just getting in the way of and destroying things that actually are interesting.

Even leading into Endwalker, Zenos isn't the person setting any of the compelling parts of the upcoming situation into motion: Fandaniel is.

[Theodric]

I think that characters such as Zenos can work but they need to be handled a certain way to truly feel intimidating. The super powerful swordsman who is merciless and only feels alive when he's in the middle of battle is not a rare trope, especially where JRPG's are concerned. Yet as it stands, Zenos simply leeches a lot of what makes the Garleans and Ascians compelling and gets in the way of their stories. There's a good reason why the likes of Regula van Hydrus and Emet-Selch are generally considered to be deeper and interesting characters than the likes of Zenos.

To counter the inevitable, I will also agree that not every antagonist/villain needs to be sympathetic. Yet if they're not going to be sympathetic, they need to be entertaining. Zenos spending a great many scenes accomplishing little beyond complaining about being 'bored' didn't exactly help to make him compelling. Now anything he does do is going to be attributed to Fandaniel.

Media Tour Spoilers:

With Garlemald being unveiled as a level 83-85 zone, I'm hoping that means that Zenos will be dealt with around that point. He already served as the final boss of Stormblood, essentially. We've had multiple fights with him outside of his time as Shinryu. We're inevitably fighting him at least one more time during Endwalker...but I do hope there is a twist and he turns out to be a useful idiot or liability strung along by Fandaniel and then gives way to some other, bigger threat.

Personally, I don't see many similarities between Sephiroth and Zenos beyond some very light coincidences. I think they're very different characters, ultimately.

[MoofiaBossVal]

The resemblance to Sephiroth is superficial. Their only similarities are that they are pretty long haired bishounens who wield katanas and are the strongest men in the world. Otherwise, they're very different in characterization and in their role in the narrative. Sephiroth was a very inhuman character and spends most of the game offscreen. You don't get to see him in the present day until near the end of the story. Whereas with Zenos, he has quite a lot of screentime, and is somewhat humanized with his boredom, and his thirst for challenge and glory.

Sephiroth's menace worked because you didn't really see him, and you saw just enough of him to really scare you (ie, him massacring all of those Shinra personnel, or impaling a giant snake monster that your party struggled to kill on a stake). The biggest problem with Zenos is that for all of his screentime, he hardly feels threatening. Thus far he hasn't been allowed to kill anyone the player cares about (except Varis. RIP). If this moment had actually stuck, he'd have far more of a presence:



It also doesn't help that he has spent almost the entirety of his screentime just sitting around waiting for the WoL to come to him. He'd feel far more terrifying if he was pursuing the WoL into Mor Dhona, slaughtering anyone who got in his way.

As for his role in Endwalker, I'd rather Zenos be defeated and then become a party member half way through the story instead of turning into yet another boring god monster final boss. Having the final battle be a man to man duel with Zenos would be cool but I don't trust the writers.