I want to start this off with saying that I really really loved Endwalker. I am incredibly grateful for the hard work of the team on the expansion. Never have I had such a good time in FF14. Thank you ever so much for that! But with that said, I just want to complain (I don’t even want to euphemise it) about something that REALLY bothered me about the ending. It almost tainted it for me, at least a little.
I know Zenos has dedicated fans and at least on Youtube people seemed to love this ending and that is perfectly fine. But there is also room for those who really don’t like him. Like not at all.
So, here goes:
TL,DR: Zenos was completely unnecessary.
His involvement in the finale was so forced and not at all a satisfying experience to me.
For me he is completely undeserving of owning the final moments of the finale, of the story, of our character. Undeserving of this weight, of these emotions. He is undeserving of being so absurdly powerful that
he is the one that pushes us to the brink of death after we just defeated
The Apocalypse of the whole universe. He is undeserving of us giving him exactly what he wants after causing so much pain and suffering. He is also undeserving of all this because of his incredible one-dimensionality.
I understand what they were trying to do. You have saved the world but now that this is done you have room for your
personal business. So, you fight your biggest personal nemesis at the edge of space in an epic 1v1 in an atmosphere of the most wonderful cheesiness. Yes, the idea as well as the aesthetics of it were amazing.
But Zenos is not that nemesis.
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Very long explanation that would cause despair even in a Loporrit:
For me Zenos was the most boring, uninspiring and quite frankly the most one-dimensional major villain in this story. Nothing about him appealed to me. And I don’t mean this in an “I want to like him” fashion. Not every villain needs to be likeable. But to me nothing about him was interesting.
Emet-Selch started off as a kinda irritating rendition of “Solus” but became really complex and fascinating.
Fandaniel started off as a quite frankly annoying madman but his Hermes/Amon story added a lot of layers to him and made me appreciate him a lot in the end.
Zenos has nothing like this to me. He is just needlessly, disgustingly cruel.
But not in a way that it would ignite a passion in my heart to consider it my utmost fulfillment to give him the time of the day. I don’t feel any euphoria in fighting him to the last drop of blood. His boredom doesn’t lend any narrative “appeal” to his absurdly violent nature. With that I don’t mean a justification or something that suddenly makes you feel “oh, poor soul, he HAD to be a genocidal maniac” but anything that makes him
a worthy personal nemesis to your WoL in terms of story.
I never had a choice in that. Zenos just picked me as his “destined soulmate” and in the end I was forced to play along.
But I don’t really fancy jumping when the genocidal one-dimensional clown says jump.
So, here are my specific problems:
1. His absurd power level was not satisfying.
So let me get this straight. We just fought
the Apocalypse. The manifestation of all despair of not just of our world but of
the whole universe. Which would not just have destroyed us.
But the whole universe.
We survive this standing on our feet. Of course, because our friends’ prayers protected us, but nonetheless, we held our ground up to that point and afterwards defeated the Endsinger. The Apocalypse of the universe.
It would actually be very appropriate if THIS would have left us on the brink of death.
If we had our reconciliation with Meteion in our mind while our body is fading and we are saved from the clutches of death in the last moment.
A) Why is such an important moment given to Zenos?
B) And
why is he that strong?
It makes ZERO sense to me that we can withstand the Apocalypse but Zenos is so absurdly powerful that a confrontation with him leaves us almost with death?
We even needed Dynamis to power ourselves up to win. And yeah, sure Zenos could probably manifest negative Dynamis too, but the Apocalypse was a being of pretty much pure Dynamis. So, was his determination stronger than the despair of the whole universe? If it wasn’t Dynamis, was he just so strong Because He Really Wanted It or Because He Really Believed In Himself?
There is no reason for him to be that strong. It feels as if he is only so powerful for the sake of it. And to have this incredibly impactful moment of our almost-death
after everything we have gone through from ARR till now be caused by this character who simply doesn’t deserve to be in that spot of the narrative at all was…mildly frustrating.
Edit:
Some people have rightfully pointed out that
he is probably so powerful because of Dynamis + the energy of the Mother Crystal that he has absorbed + we are tired after the fight. Those are good points but I would still like to present
some counter arguments:
On Dynamis:
I would still argue that we have just fought a being that a) constists entirely of Dynamis if I'm not mistaken and b) has absored the despair of pretty much the whole universe which results in so much power that it can end our world and potentially the rest of the universe, too.
So the power Zenos can draw from his psychopathic determination would be somewhat comparable to that of The Apocalypse. It just doesn't feel fitting to me that the emotions of "I only live for the battle" are even remotely in the same league as the despair of thousands of dying civilisations - some of whom are apparently more emotionally and intellectually advanced than we can imagine.
I guess, one can write the story like that but for someone who doesn't enjoy Zenos this feels too convenient.
In addition, I would believe that we are also mentally fired up because we just received a huge dose of Hope, Love, and Friendship, and Salvation of the World (as cheesy as one may find this).
So if Dynamis runs purely on thoughts and emotions and we should have an intense emotional high after defeating one of the most powerful beings in existence (how is that for battle lust), saving the universe (and particularly our friends and loved ones) and even freeing Meteion then personally I would still feel like the Dynamis power of our own state of mind should blast Zenos into the horizon.
But most importantly, even though it would be very logical to assume that we are tired I think this would go against everything Zenos desires.
He wants to defeat us at our peak. He wants to have the ultimate thrill of the battle. It doesn't seem like him to exploit our weakness in order to get an advantage over us. He had several chances in the past to fight us where he had the upper hand but he is hunting the ultimate experience. He wants to prove that he can defeat us in our most powerful state or die by our hand. So, if we were tired this would completely undermine his own motives.
I also think that the story-telling of the last scene emphasises this. We don't "seem" tired. We seem like we are full of resolution (or even euphoria depending on what answer you pick), we Are powered up by Dynamis and the whole cinematic framing is that of two eager, powerful enemies who can't wait to battle it out. Not of two worn-out warriors (Zenos has been carrying our battle platform the whole time. I would believe this also quite tiring.)
So all in all the way I interpret it, the story is implying we are at our peak because we are finally "ready" to have a face-off with Zenos.
I know
our own power creep is a problem too because it's really hard to balance/handle, esp. after we've now beaten the Apocalypse. So I know, the writers often have to conveniently lower and increase our power for the sake of the story. But the crass juxtaposition, this direct sequence of events in THE most important moment of Endwalker with
this character and
with this result (our almost-death) made it feel so misplaced for me.
Maybe if we wouldn't have almost died like this, then I would feel a little less salty about it. But the impactful result of this fight makes all my points of contention so particularly frustratring to me.
2. The Timing was not satisfying.
This is a continuation of the last point but I want to give it an extra explanation.
The finale was incredibly emotional in my eyes. The trial is probably my favourite one out of all expansion finale trials. The section before the fight – the “endwalk”, Emet and Hythlodaeus, your friends – gave me goosebumps. The closure with Meteion was really touching. For my taste it was “the perfect” ending (there is no perfection, I know). It all felt right. For me that was the moment when the credits should start.
But then the mood shifts completely and we have to deal with Zenos again?...
When he asked me whether I also feel like he does my internal response was “No.
I don’t have time for you now. Go away.”
The same applies to his Deus ex Machina moment, when he appears after the Endsinger confronts us with the fact that we are now all alone. Again,
I understand what they are trying to go for. You can try to explain it all day long with the “juxtaposition” of you and your enemy, or with a cause so great that even enemies unite, or with irony, etc.
But to me it simply doesn’t work with Zenos. The loneliness brought up by the Endsinger was really important, it had a certain tone to it that I wanted to flow into the appearance of a great ally.
I was thinking that
Venat might return
as her own self (like Emet or Hyth) or maybe a primal like
Phoenix would appear, summoned from everyone’s prayer as a manifestation of our will to survive/rise from the ashes – being a throwback to Louisoix and the Bahamut’s Coil story.
When Zenos appeared,
I was praying that the writers wouldn’t mess this up on the homestretch.
3. Giving him what he wants and awarding him with this level of importance is not satisfying.
Lastly, the two points culminate in this.
The mentioned emotionality of the finale as well as the immense power of the entity we had to defeat obviously create a strong sense of weight. This is one of the most important moments in the story. You might have strong feelings, of sadness but also of closure, memories of nostalgia and melancholy, and so forth.
The weight of this moment spills over into the confrontation with Zenos and makes him feel incredibly important, an importance that for me his absolutely undeserving of.
The story really has to be closed with Zenos? Our character needs to have their final moment with him? He is the one that brings us to our knees – despite us beating him – and that Meteion/Fate/Our Friends have to ultimately save us from after everything?
It also forces our characters to lower ourselves to his level of thinking. Sure, we have the dialogue option to mitigate the tone of the confrontation a bit but even if you select the most benign one the setting still has this
strong atmosphere of “want”.
We want to fight him.
We want to battle him to the last drop of blood. He has always ignited such a hatred and lust for blood, for murder in us, that rivals his own, even if it stems from seemingly more “noble” motives (e.g., the anger that he is the cause of so much suffering). This bloodlust and hatred make us long (with dark euphoria even?) for this confrontation.
That is exactly what he wants. Since the beginning he never had any respect for life, not even his own. He only lived for this fight and he would be more than willing to die for it. I have absolutely no desire to reward this.
It feels like this person who harasses you because they love to see you angry/love to fight and if you give in you lose.
Personally, I would have preferred if he gets the
opposite. He does not get a fight. He is just locked away without receiving the euphoria of that confrontation in a manner that really doesn’t allow him to break free ever again – be it on earth or at the edge of space . He has to deal with the fact that he cannot have what he wants.
Maybe the devs could have given our players the
choice. You either fight him or you use Dynamis or whatever to seal him away straight away and strip him of his power for good or something like that. We could justify this with just having beaten the Apocalypse and right now our mind is in such a strong, determined and victorious state that Zenos is no match for the Dymanis we activate.
But if you want to battle it out “on his terms” then you have the option to do that.
Like this, players who love and players who hate Zenos would both have gotten an ending they want.
4. Bonus: Not knowing whether Zenos is REALLY dead is not satisfying.
Now this is only half-serious. I really hope that SE will keep Zenos dead for good and not try to bring him back somehow. And based on the tone of the final confrontation I want to believe that this is the case.
BUT.
Have we seen Zenos die? Do we know he is dead for sure? I don’t believe so. Considering he is so absurdly powerful, he has this seemingly endless determination to fight us, and he is in a space full of Dynamis it might not surprise me if he can actually save himself from death, find a way back to earth and harass us again.
Maybe this is also a recipe for a new evil super-entity: endless determination for battle, bloodlust and violence, full of hatred, in a space full of magical energy that runs on emotions? He might just as well become the Apocalypse 2.0.
Which would be annoying. Because I really don’t have time for him.
Originally Posted by Roda
Yeah, I see your point regarding Dynamis. I also guess that this is the most likely explanation. The reason why this is so unsatisfying for me is that we just fought a being that consists purely of Dynamis and that had also soaked up a big chunk/pretty much all of the universe's despair. So to think that Zenos' single-minded determination is even stronger than the level of despair (or at least somewhat comparably strong) that would have led to the destruction of our world and possibly the whole universe is just so...unnecessary for me, haha.
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