Yeah people deciding they liked Zenos is some fan dumb. The guy sucked when he was introduced as a one note villain that was contrived to be stronger than you, he sucked when he was defeated and came back for poorly-explored reasons, and he never redeemed himself or anything. I think the story would have benefited if the WoL killed him alongside Zodiark on the moon, though I will concede that he is a nice counterpoint to the themes of the real final boss - instead of becoming a monster out of nihilism and despair, he becomes a monster out of a single-minded pursuit of his life's goal, which is some nice symmetry.
All that said I fucking loved Endwalker. There are so, so, so many long running series that fumble the ending, but minus a couple of small bugbears FF14 slam dunked it.
Fordola shows up again in the healer role quests during Endwalker. Her relationship with the Ala Mhigans is interesting - what do you do with fascist collaborators after a successful revolution? FFXIV isn’t grimdark enough for what I think is the correct choice, but the character development afterwards is engaging.
I also chose the option that told him I wouldn’t let him leave that place. I was always annoyed by Zenos’s weird power, it seemed very contrived (like Ranjit’s). I did laugh when he rolled up and asked why we hadn’t already beaten something as “banal” as despair though. He really believed in us.
I am more bothered by the Emelt-Selch stans. Dude is responsible for multiple genocides and possibly billions of deaths, yet he got a warm send-off before our last battle with the Endsinger.
It’s interesting to me that Endwalker and the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once had similar themes (determinism vs nihilism vs absurdism) despite having nothing to do with each other. I beat Endwalker then saw that movie relatively close together and it was on my mind then.
They're both hot. Thats it. Thats the entire crux of their stans. :vivian-shrug:
Killing Zenos should have been more of a priority, but there were bigger monsters to fight I guess.
I pray he stays dead but anticipate we’ll have to deal with his void avatar on the 13th
I picked "That, I cannot deny" not because I wanted Zenos to be my friend. I picked it because my character is a socially maladjusted murder goblin who is just barely one step above Zenos in terms of bloodshed soley because his two firing neurons of a moral compass told him he'd get better fights if he helped other people in fighting. He is a violent feedback loop of people praising him for killing big monsters, therefore he kills even bigger monsters for that dopamine hit.
My WoL really is like Zenos, but unlike Zenos he had the environment that allowed him to be a better person. None of the other Scions, not even Alisaie, gets that.
That said, Zenos is absolutely not my WoL's friend. Fucker bathed in the blood of countless innocent people because he was bored. Get Fell Cleaved, loser.
Wanted to say almost exactly this.
After literal years of having to go along with religious holy wars and feudalist revolutions from the wrong side with no option to say “Uhh hey this Pope is obviously fascist”.
I enjoyed an option that let me say “My WoL isn’t some naïve lawful stupid do-gooder.” Maybe as long as I’m fighting powerful monsters and it ends up protecting people, that’s enough for me. Because I sure as hell can’t figure out how my WoL wouldn’t have immediately sided with Ysayle otherwise.
P.s. also fuck Zenos, boring character. The only interesting thing he ever even did across 3 xpacs was bust through the dimensions as Shinryu and goad me. I’m still not sure how Krile did the calculus on giving the last aether stockpile to a different murder hobo.
P.p.s also G’raha could not be more boring. Every xpac I’m going to continue dying more inside to be fanboyed canonically.
