[ENDWALKER SPOILER!] On Zenos

[Bright-Flower]

Zenos is a fairly one note, on dimensional character. Whether you like him or not is largely going to come down to whether the one thing he has appeals to you or not. For some people they like him, for some of us we're not into it and that leaves him with nothing else to offer us as a character.

[Loggos]

Zenos is a fairly one note, on dimensional character. Whether you like him or not is largely going to come down to whether the one thing he has appeals to you or not. For some people they like him, for some of us we're not into it and that leaves him with nothing else to offer us as a character.

I agree and my point is not to argue that I'm objectively right or anything.

I know that this is the subjective perception of someone who doesn't like this character, so because I felt the finale was so impressive, his inclusion in it obviously had me think many thoughts, too, haha.

As I said before, I wish they would have given us a choice. You can either battle it out with him on his terms (and I'm sure there are enough Zenos fans that would have made the development of his fight worth it, esp. considering it's not a full trial and there is a lot of other content in the game that only appeals to specific sub-groups of players).
Or you can just leave him.

That would have been the ultimate freedom to role-play your WoL like you want to.

[StealthPaladin]

Zenos is a fairly one note, on dimensional character. Whether you like him or not is largely going to come down to whether the one thing he has appeals to you or not. For some people they like him, for some of us we're not into it and that leaves him with nothing else to offer us as a character.

mmmm I think he is flat on purpose, because it is only the very base of his character to come.

[Bright-Flower]

mmmm I think he is flat on purpose, because it is only the very base of his character to come.

If they had any plans of building upon his character and making him a layered, deeper character, they would have done it in SHB/EW. That they brought him back and decided DIDN'T have him change much and then gave him just about the best ending you COULD give his character, doesn't feel to me like they're planning on keeping him around to develop. If that was the plan, they wouldn't have killed him again. It would have made more sense not to drag him into the climax and quickly wrap up his story at the end if they were planning on more, they could have left him contemplating things in ala mhigo to develop more over 6.X patches or something.

[nighttimebunny]

I think it was partially symbolic, like we killed the old Zenos now.

[MagiusNecros]

I appreciate the Guts/Zodd relationship we have with Zenos.

[Crushnight]

Obviously massive spoilers for Endwalker

Zenos deserves nothing and that final fight just compounded how much I just hate how Zenos has been treated since 4.0 .

Zenos was a good villain in 4.0, since then however he has been taken off the rails and become narratively bankrupt. I knew Ishikawa wasn't going to be able to pull it off, she tried her best but Zenos is not the type of character she can write for.

Zenos is a force of nature character and while he has been shown to have great power, none of that power has been earned by himself. His bodyjacking of the Elezen resistance member is the only instance of subconscious bodyjacking making it feel way more artificial in his power boosting.

Nothing Zenos has done deserved bringing him back as everything he has done could be done by someone else in universe so what was the point? To give him a big instance fight? Just not worth the narrative stigma imo.


Zenos can survive committing suicide via slicing his own throat against his conscious will, he'll survive being left at the edge of the universe with the power source of dynamis being effortlessly tapped into by him because all his power boost has to take no effort because Zenos is just the best no matter what he does.

Except when he wants to die ofc.

Sigh I was sick of Zenos before EW and EW just made it worse.

[StriderShinryu]

Frankly, I mostly enjoyed the way Zenos ended up being treated. He was basically put in his place repeatedly by multiple people telling him to just get over the whole rage hard-on he's been carrying forever now. He was basically shown to have just been being used by Fandaniel. He essentially disappeared for most of the expansion only to show back up as a glorified taxi. Then, in the end, we were actually given the option to basically tell him ourselves that he was full of it and he could just go on believing whatever he wanted to about our motivations as he clearly wasn't getting the message otherwise (which would only have been improved if we could have literally just walked away and left him to die in a blackhole).

[Alleo]

I was glad that the last fight gave at least options to not agree with all his talk. I just said to him that I cant let him leave since nobody knows what he will do if he gets out and gets bored again...of course the fight(s) itself were not that hard and thus they have to give him plot powers again...I just take it that the WoL simply was so tired after fighting the Endsinger that Zenos got some hits in. The last part where we both charged up our fists was so over the top that I had to laugh. One of the few times that show the WoL fighting in a cutscene and it has to be against that guy.

I wished that Fandaniel would have offed him or something, because other than being a plattform for us he was not really necessary for the plot. In the end I would have liked it more if the WoL got badly wounded against the Endsinger. Then after that one talk they will collapse not able to get to the point where they can leave and before all is lost they get saved by the device. Instead Endsinger seemingly does nothing to us (of course that could just be the limitation on what they are allowed to show) and we nearly lose our life against that man.

The option to walk away without a fight would have been the best one for my character. To not give him the conclusion he wanted. Not after all he has done.

[Loggos]

Frankly, I mostly enjoyed the way Zenos ended up being treated. He was basically put in his place repeatedly by multiple people telling him to just get over the whole rage hard-on he's been carrying forever now. He was basically shown to have just been being used by Fandaniel. He essentially disappeared for most of the expansion only to show back up as a glorified taxi. Then, in the end, we were actually given the option to basically tell him ourselves that he was full of it and he could just go on believing whatever he wanted to about our motivations as he clearly wasn't getting the message otherwise (which would only have been improved if we could have literally just walked away and left him to die in a blackhole).

I completely agree with the "being put in his place" aspect and that his redundancy in the story serves him right. (And lol at "glorified taxy" because it's true.)

But that's why it made me so salty that it is him who almost kills me, haha. If we could have really "put him in his place" for good with that last fight then that would have been a lot more enjoyable to me.

(People have brought up good arguments re: why he is so strong, I still have my reservations and have brought up some counter arguments and I don't think any perspective is wrong here. We are talking space magic that can conveniently be scaled up and down for story-purposes anyways. So I'm fully aware that it remains a completely subjective question of taste.)

I was glad that the last fight gave at least options to not agree with all his talk. I just said to him that I cant let him leave since nobody knows what he will do if he gets out and gets bored again...of course the fight(s) itself were not that hard and thus they have to give him plot powers again...I just take it that the WoL simply was so tired after fighting the Endsinger that Zenos got some hits in. The last part where we both charged up our fists was so over the top that I had to laugh. One of the few times that show the WoL fighting in a cutscene and it has to be against that guy.

I wished that Fandaniel would have offed him or something, because other than being a plattform for us he was not really necessary for the plot. In the end I would have liked it more if the WoL got badly wounded against the Endsinger. Then after that one talk they will collapse not able to get to the point where they can leave and before all is lost they get saved by the device. Instead Endsinger seemingly does nothing to us (of course that could just be the limitation on what they are allowed to show) and we nearly lose our life against that man.

The option to walk away without a fight would have been the best one for my character. To not give him the conclusion he wanted. Not after all he has done.

This describes how I feel but much shorter and much more concisely than I ever could.
(Although I'm still not sure whether the story implies we are tired because I still believe Zenos wants to fight us at our absolute peak and not get an advantage due to tiredness which could lower his obsessive ecstasy he is expecting from The Ultimate Fight against us. For me the story implies that we are finally "ready" to face Zenos and that it's exactly how he envisions it.)

In the end I would have liked it more if the WoL got badly wounded against the Endsinger. Then after that one talk they will collapse not able to get to the point where they can leave and before all is lost they get saved by the device. Instead Endsinger seemingly does nothing to us (of course that could just be the limitation on what they are allowed to show) and we nearly lose our life against that man.

Yep, that's exactly how I wished the ending would have taken place.