Did Zenos ruin Endwalker

[Renathras]

Villains having golden opportunities to kill the protagonist is not uncommon. In fact we see this all the time in comics, anime, movies, books, etc. While Zenos has every intention of killing the WoL, it is a grand battle that he seeks. So if the WoL isn't at their peak, and not coming at Zenos with their all to bare, then he cannot have the battle he wants.

It's basically like the Joker in Batman. Crazy different quality of writing across all the various Batman comic runs and cartoon episodes, but here and there they really do him right and focus on his character and his relationship with Batman. How, to the Joker, Bruce Wayne is the mask. How the Joker KNOWS Batman is Bruce Wayne but won't ever tell anyone, because that's not the game to him. The game to him is matching wits with "The Bat", trying to get Batman to break character, even trying to get Batman to break his own rule and kill the Joker. One disturbing comic has him take Batman and the Bat family where he's got all their faces wrapped in bandages and their faces cut off their skulls (the skin) and sitting in a pot on the table in front of Bruce, causing him to think that he literally cut of their faces (something that happened to the Joker in this timeline/comic run. But then (spoiler alert) it's revealed that those were just masks he threw into the boiling pot and all the Bat family (and their faces) were okay, because the Joker's goal wasn't to actually harm them, it was to win his personal game with Bruce. Joker has even saved Batman from death (more than once) because he wants to be the one that defeats Batman. And he doesn't want to just kill him - as he's had ample opportunity - he wants to BEAT him.

It's one of the things that makes the Joker, when written well, an interesting and multifaceted villain across the Batman multiverse, since his motivation isn't just "get lots of money" or "get lots of power" or "kill Batman". And even with the vastly different quality the character has been written at over the better part of a century at this point, it's been pretty consistent across all his incarnations, including when he broke Superman instead in Injustice.

Zenos is like that.

His motivation isn't "kill the WoL" or "make the WoL suffer". His motivation is "good fite" since he feels completely meaningless otherwise in the world and his life. All his actions after his resurrection (and arguably before it) are consistently in service to this objective. And, interestingly, he DOES have a tiny bit of character growth - when Alisaie says he won't listen but the only way to actually get what he wants is to actually help people for a change, it actually gets through to him. Even if selfish, he's not stupid, and when he realizes she's right, he does that very thing. He even DOES show more intelligence and rationality than most when he points out himself that his evil and cruelty would be no less evil and cruel if he "had a good reason" for it, piercing what is often an irrational delusion people have that evil actions might somehow be less evil (or less harmful) if they have have a good reason behind them. Ironically, Zenos does a quicker and more moral takedown of faux morality than basically anyone, and does so in such a dismissive, offhanded way to point out JUST HOW faux it is.

Like the Joker, he's a character that sees the thin veneer of his reality more truly than most. But unlike the WoL and Scions, whose answer to this is hope, his own answer is nihilism; distinct from Meteon's despair, but occupying a similar domain of "not evil for the sake of it". In a way, it makes him a better villain than most, since his objective isn't just to be a bad guy for the hell of it.

.

Note: I'm not saying he was the best and most perfect villain of all time.

But I am saying he's better than a lot of those we've had in MMOs and fiction. His SB era incarnation was pretty crap, but EW made him into an actual character AND did so in a way that made his prior showings still in character, leading to a consistency. And his end was a good and fitting resolution for him.

He was a fine character for what he was, and I hope we never see him again as his end was what it should be.

EDIT:

No. And I, in fact, agree with this post from Reddit:

Not completely, but I do mostly agree as well.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Zenos isn't my favorite character, but I know he has a fan base so it was probably nice for them to see him. I could have gone without, but that said I still found Endwalker to be amazingly heart-warming and Zenos didn't change that for me.

10 out of 10, always recommend!

[Fiel_Tana]

Zenos was annoying and I wish they'd let us just leave him there without fighting him, but for me it wasn't the thing that ruined EW. There were other things in the story that ruined it to a far worse degree.

That said, I really hope he's truly dead and gone this time.

[Simple_Barghest]

That said, I really hope he's truly dead and gone this time.

The amount of fucking "look, he's dead, we're talking about how dead he is and how good everything is now that he's perma-dead, see? *wink wink nudge nudge*" the MSQ has had recently, coupled with Zero's repeated lines of how 'Zenos was traumatizing for me to be contracted with' and every smarmy line from Yoshida regarding his death, has me convinced they're going to asspull his return again somehow.
I'm probably just being paranoid, but the coy attitude they're taking with it doesn't feel right.

[Fiel_Tana]

The amount of fucking "look, he's dead, we're talking about how dead he is and how good everything is now that he's perma-dead, see? *wink wink nudge nudge*" the MSQ has had recently, coupled with Zero's repeated lines of how 'Zenos was traumatizing for me to be contracted with' and every smarmy line from Yoshida regarding his death, has me convinced they're going to asspull his return again somehow.
I'm probably just being paranoid, but the coy attitude they're taking with it doesn't feel right.

I have the same sinking feeling that he'll return as well, the signs are there. Really, really hope we're wrong.

[Simple_Barghest]

I have the same sinking feeling that he'll return as well, the signs are there. Really, really hope we're wrong.

My next theory if he doesn't return 100%, is that they're going to have a dramatic helmet-flies-off reveal for Golbez showing him to be a piece of Zenos on the 13th.
Making Golbez the "splintered-off piece of Zenos' noble nature" or something along those lines.

I hope I'm wrong entirely.

[GaiusDrakon]

Forced to let him help you...or else we lose. You're complaining quite LITERALLY for nothing.
Zeno is our final boll in a 1v1...yeah! The guy who's been our foil since SB. The guys who's been waiting for us for all or ShB as well as all of EWs base story. The guy who went so far as to become a reaper and even plan to become Zodiark himself to fight us. Yes he was our final boss.
The very mirror of us, the player

Mirror for you maybe lmao

Imagine actually liking him

[Jojoya]

Literally what is the point of him existing

Pure guess here:

SE had a different plot planned for 6.0 and Garlemald in which the Resonant would play a key role. Naturally, Zenos would need to be there as evil Emperor and Resonant Overlord.

Then they chose to push the Hydaelyn/Zodiark conclusion from 7.0 to 6.0 and had to chop off most of the intended Garlemald story. That left Zenos dangling with no real purpose for his resurrection in 4.x. So they moved him to a side antagonist for 6.0 since he had enough fans in the player base. Note we still never got any satisfying story about the Resonant and SE might as well have made Zenos a Garlean half blood that managed to end up with the Echo. It's not he and his dad had any love for each other.

[Renalt]

For what I hated him in Srormblood I strangely liked him for in EW. I have no idea what flipped me around on that but it happened.

However it ended perfectly and he better stay dead or no dead period will ever matter ever again.

People are already set on Ystola being an immortal so any death from here on out will not have the emotional impact they think so they are better off not trying.

[CelestiCer]

At the end of everything... " Kaiten removal ruined Endwalker for me!! "