[ENDWALKER SPOILER!] On Zenos

[Roda]

Final quest spoilers, of course.

I agree with all of your points, except for the fact that there's no justification for him being so strong. Its the one place where his power level is justified. In a space comprised almost completely of dynamis, a character that is driven entirely by emotion is going to be as strong as he wants to be. Its dumb and boring, yes, but it isn't unjustified.

I much rather have had them drop a Boulder on his head while he was out doing something irrelevant, but im going to just keep this as my personal headcanon

And I get that he's a literal personificationof endgame, but that really only works if we view endgame as a personal challenge instead of a way to spend time with friends... for me, that vibe is already covered by the power of friendship trope and the themes of perservering.

[Loggos]

Final quest spoilers, of course.

I agree with all of your points, except for the fact that there's no justification for him being so strong. Its the one place where his power level is justified. In a space comprised almost completely of dynamis, a character that is driven entirely by emotion is going to be as strong as he wants to be. Its dumb and boring, yes, but it isn't unjustified.

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.

I much rather have had them drop a Boulder on his head while he was out doing something irrelevant, but im going to just keep this as my personal headcanon

Hahaha, I completely agree with that!

And I get that he's a literal personificationof endgame, but that really only works if we view endgame as a personal challenge instead of a way to spend time with friends... for me, that vibe is already covered by the power of friendship trope and the themes of perservering.

To be honest it didn't even feel like a personification of end-game to me. He is only so strong because the game tells us so and has no playable connection to the endgame, right (if we are talking raiding)? For me, I feel like this mentality would be represented a lot better by a character that a) actually embodies this concept as a somewhat playable experience in the game or b) whose narrative is in any way compelling. Being force-fed the narrative that he is so powerful, only lives for the hunt and only cares about the thrill of battle does nothing to me if my only reaction to him is being annoyed because of the shallow writing. He was never a symbol of power or relentless pursuit to me. He was just...annoying and quite frankly often bordering on being pretentions. But that's just my personal taste.

And I also agree, endgame is a very personal thing. For me, a great story finale is The endgame. For others it's social aspects and for yet again others it's raiding.