Tribute to Zenos

[Faust1105]

Imo Zenos was a direct reflection of the WoL from the Garleans side and without the surrounding relationships to mold him into what the WoL is ( a super warrior who shows up to save the day, from their pov you're a super weapon that shows up and annihilates all of them and their friends just like Zenos ).
It's pretty obvious that's what the devs were going for when you look at him from Asahi's and the other Garlean soldiers pov in Stormblood and the whole body-swap sequence, he's like a perversion of us.
If you actually paid attention in the story you'll know that the WoL isn't exactly innocent when it comes to pretty blindly slaughtering people en masse or just based on the word of someone, we're pretty blood thirsty ourselves ( especially when it comes to beast races or anything we see as '' evil '' ) .
Makes perfect sense as a nemesis but people treated him like '' the main villain '' which I think was a mistake.

I think he fit really well in this expansion especially as a nihilistic nemesis which is the same but also the direct opposite of the WoL.
As someone that enjoys challenges in games I think he was partly also meant to be a reflection of the player ( people who do Savage, Extremes and Ultimates at least ), which also plays into the WoL as a thrill seeker.
Zenos is basically us and the WoL at our core without all of the surrounding stuff like connections to others and restraint.
Don't most people basically play games to fight and to kill? There's a reason why violence is the overwhelmingly most popular gameplay style that basically everything revolves around.
He's just a more raw and honest reflection of that part of us in the setting and also us as players of games.
We pretend to be all civilized but we still indulge in violence for entertainment and have with real violence historically too and tbh probably would today if more extreme violence was legal too.

Zenos's presence and role in the story makes a whole lot of sense with his character he's basically a story skipper who gives zero shits and just wants to fight you.
The Ancients were always what the overarching story revolved around it was never about him.
And tbh Zenos still had more depth as a character than most video games villains did, just because he didn't have soap opera storyline meant to make us sadge about him doesn't mean that there was nothing to his character.
He was a very reasonable and predictable villain that couldn't be reasoned with, but he was reasonable and was fully aware of what he was doing and unapologetic about it.
In a game full of liars he was probably one of the most honest character lol.

Some great insights! I do believe you hit a lot of the "between the lines" that SE was throwing into the story. Which is why I chose a song that was meant for Batman and Joker - very similar relationship comparison.

[Gemina]

Some great insights! I do believe you hit a lot of the "between the lines" that SE was throwing into the story. Which is why I chose a song that was meant for Batman and Joker - very similar relationship comparison.

Coincidently enough, Zenos in EW really reminded me of Joker from Lego Batman, which was an exaggeration of the version of the Joker that stands as Batman's opposite (not the only version of the Joker btw). The theme of 'I exist because you exist' is very strongly played with these villains.

I always understood where the hate for Zenos was coming from, which only made it more saddening that people basically wanted for him to be something that he wasn't. Something else interesting to point out about Zenos, is that thus far he is the only villain in FFXIV who accomplished his end goal (post 7th calamity).

[Misplaced_Marbles]

he is the only villain in FFXIV who accomplished his end goal (post 7th calamity).

Since his goal was to go out with a bang, that was always going to happen in the end. If every villain became such a mustache-twirler, they'd all get what they were after.

On that note, if Zenos comes back, he needs to come back with waxed mustache.

[Kolsykol]

Coincidently enough, Zenos in EW really reminded me of Joker from Lego Batman, which was an exaggeration of the version of the Joker that stands as Batman's opposite (not the only version of the Joker btw). The theme of 'I exist because you exist' is very strongly played with these villains.

I always understood where the hate for Zenos was coming from, which only made it more saddening that people basically wanted for him to be something that he wasn't. Something else interesting to point out about Zenos, is that thus far he is the only villain in FFXIV who accomplished his end goal (post 7th calamity).

I thought it was great when he respected the fact that you didn't want to fight him, I can't think of another villain doing that lol.
And he did it twice.

He didn't just want to fight you he wanted you to want to fight him too.

Edit: Obviously he wanted to egg you on in bad ways, but still.
He wasn't just out simply to kill you.

[Garet]

I thought it was great when he respected the fact that you didn't want to fight him, I can't think of another villain doing that lol.
And he did it twice.

He didn't just want to fight you he wanted you to want to fight him too.

Edit: Obviously he wanted to egg you on in bad ways, but still.
He wasn't just out simply to kill you.

Agree. The fight and challenge is his main goal hence if he knew his opponent would probably not give their 200% effort to the fight then it would be useless for him haha

[Velovictus83]

@ Kolsykol - You are epic. Agree 100%
That's why I thought the song choice was amazingly fitting and well done with the subtle nuances portrayed through the lyrics

[TaleraRistain]

Imo Zenos was a direct reflection of the WoL from the Garleans side and without the surrounding relationships to mold him into what the WoL is ( a super warrior who shows up to save the day, from their pov you're a super weapon that shows up and annihilates all of them and their friends just like Zenos ).
It's pretty obvious that's what the devs were going for when you look at him from Asahi's and the other Garlean soldiers pov in Stormblood and the whole body-swap sequence, he's like a perversion of us.
If you actually paid attention in the story you'll know that the WoL isn't exactly innocent when it comes to pretty blindly slaughtering people en masse or just based on the word of someone, we're pretty blood thirsty ourselves ( especially when it comes to beast races or anything we see as '' evil '' ) .

That's a good point to make. I know SE wants to keep RP options open and such, but I think people forget that our WoL isn't our original character to build from the ground up. The WoL in the story does have personality traits established by the writers and developers. And one of those personality traits is we can be pretty bloodthirsty sometimes when something is pitted against us. We leave a trail of bodies, too. They just disappear when we're in our dungeons or the overland and there aren't cutscenes with us surrounded by them.

[Faust1105]

That's a good point to make. I know SE wants to keep RP options open and such, but I think people forget that our WoL isn't our original character to build from the ground up. The WoL in the story does have personality traits established by the writers and developers. And one of those personality traits is we can be pretty bloodthirsty sometimes when something is pitted against us. We leave a trail of bodies, too. They just disappear when we're in our dungeons or the overland and there aren't cutscenes with us surrounded by them.

Haha, very good point XD It's a shame we dont have those cutscenes! =O

[TaleraRistain]

Haha, very good point XD It's a shame we dont have those cutscenes! =O

We couldn't keep our squeaky clean image if we did.

It's like my other favorite series, Assassin's Creed. The bodies don't disappear there (unless I toss them in hay or with certain skills). And I am acting for the right reasons. These are bad people who need to be stopped. But it's impossible to deny that I'm a murderhobo with the trail of bodies I leave behind.

[Kolsykol]

That's a good point to make. I know SE wants to keep RP options open and such, but I think people forget that our WoL isn't our original character to build from the ground up. The WoL in the story does have personality traits established by the writers and developers. And one of those personality traits is we can be pretty bloodthirsty sometimes when something is pitted against us. We leave a trail of bodies, too. They just disappear when we're in our dungeons or the overland and there aren't cutscenes with us surrounded by them.

Yeah, it's easy to see how scary we are from the pov of those who aren't on our side ( doesn't mean they're evil either ).
I mean, there's a dungeon where we're told to go and kill a mine full of slaves early on and we kinda just go and massacre beast tribe people just because we're told to.

The WoL is good at heart but I also think that it's pretty clear that we're also very quick to do some pretty heinous stuff.
The faction leaders aren't exactly guilt-free either but we still consider them good people and do what they say without questioning it a lot of the bad stuff they've done is stuff we've been the enablers of.
Our characters are basically adrenaline junkies who over time have become more responsible due to the people around us.
Zenos was just a lot more self-aware about it and unapologetic he didn't need a reason while it could be argued that a lot of the '' adventures '' we've had have just been excuses to kill people who don't necessarily deserve it and in some cases have done no wrong.

Edit: Kinda reminds me a little of in Mass Effect how people glorified certain Renegade options like punching an annoying reporter in the face in public and generally just abusing the Spectre status.
People are totally fine with it and still consider Sheperd a good person.
Unless he's full Renegade I guess but I think most would still consider him good in the grand scheme of things.

I thought it was cool that Zenos was a lot more honest about it there were just no excuses or dumb attempts at rationalizing it which we ultimately do all the time in games and often in real life even.
A lot of people condone violence irl just out of spite for even rather minor things.