How Endwalker FIXES Zenos (FFXIV Lore)

Comments · 1.1K

• LO

  @lordblazer · 4 years ago

  Zenos went to the end of the universe just to throw hands. Like honestly, respect for always keeping your goals as a priority. a very inspirational character.

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• BA

  @bainbonic · 4 years ago

  What&apos;s always interested me about Zenos is that he&apos;s never been just a bloodthirsty brute. For all his complete boredom at the world and bloodlust, back in SB what got me was when we first got his interest in Doma, he suddenly switched to talking in downright poetic terms. &quot;For the time between the seconds, for the sole pleasure left to me in this empty, ephemeral world.&quot; And it&apos;s a trend he continued, when he talks about drinking a sea of souls while looking at the moon in the last patch before Endwalker, he speaks in iambic pentameter. <br><br>Zenos has always been portrayed as extremely intelligent, but not in the usual strategic villain intelligence. He&apos;s always indicated this philosophical side to him, and while in SB and ShB it was easy to just say he&apos;s wrong, actually putting his nihilistic philosophies to the test in EW actually proves them right. His counter to Jullus is honestly spot on and even when Allisae fires back, she doesn&apos;t poke holes in his beliefs, she just calls him a dick and points out that he could be spot on but nobody will care if he keeps being a dick. Similarly, his philosophy perfectly contrasts Meteion&apos;s, and actively argues <i>for</i> life despite his destructive tendencies. His final words are, again, really poetic but also surprisingly poignant.<br>&quot;In these fleeting moments, there is a spark. Blinding, brilliant... gone too soon.&quot;<br><br>Zenos is straight up depressed when we first meet him, much like Hermes and Meteion. But while their beliefs translate into not thinking life has a point so we shouldn&apos;t bother, Zenos believes that even in the darkest despair, there <i>is</i> a spark that can be found, and that devoting oneself to that spark is how we rise out of despair and make life worth it. By the end, he actively champions the idea that this spark can be anything for anyone, for us it&apos;s the heroic cause, for him it&apos;s the thrill of his life hanging in the balance. Such things don&apos;t need artificial justification like mortality or justice, that&apos;s the mistake the empire made. The desire alone is what justifies action, individual self-actualisation. We don&apos;t save Ethyris because it&apos;s moral, we save Ethyris because we want to, that&apos;s enough. That&apos;s our spark.

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• B3

  @b3ardedragon921 · 3 years ago

  &quot;Why does it still live? Surely its no match for you&quot; - best friend gassing me up

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• MR

  @Mr9TalesFox · 4 years ago (edited)

  Scions: You can&apos;t do this alone.<br>Zeno: Why this depressed bird still stand? It&apos;s nothing for you.

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• ST

  @stuckin_2015 · 4 years ago

  Those moments lying on the ground with Zenos brought tears to my eyes. What he said just made me think about how we weren&apos;t so different. About what could have been if he had simply been born to a family that loved him. In that moment, despite everything he had done, all the atrocities he committed, I wanted to comfort him.

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• MA

  @MalzraAirwynn · 4 years ago

  As far as villains who got what they wanted, I&apos;d put Ilberd on that list too. Ala Mhigo is free and the empire decimated, largely due to him setting Stormblood into motion.

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• MA

  @maevekirkland9452 · 4 years ago

  Zenos is also the first to answer Meteion&apos;s question with a real answer. not one covered in the bias of a life of pain, or apathy.<br><br>He answered Jullius when asked why he did what he did. he responded with &quot;would it be better had i a reason&quot; but after that, he continues and says, in far more words, that everyone makes their own purpose in life.<br><br>he knew the answer to the question before we even knew the question was being asked.

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• BR

  @brazokie · 4 years ago

  I love how he thought black rose was &quot;boring&quot; and helped it not end the world. Also, doing the final fight with him as a WHM with the frilly pink level 89 set totally looked like an &quot;I&apos;m done with your shit&quot; moment.

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• DI

  @DioDinero · 4 years ago

  Some folks were also questioning why we couldn’t just “walk away” at the end of the MSQ as Zenos implied.<br><br>Realistically, this is just an all around bad idea. Zenos, at the end, is giving you every opportunity to fight him to the death with no stakes other than your own lives. That’s genuinely the nicest thing he’s ever done. You could walk away and he could go back to being a threat to your mental health and everyone around you just to get your attention— but instead he wants to give you a clean, cathartic break from everything. Even if your character doesn’t like him or doesn’t agree with him, there would be no better time to close out his chapter in the story of your life than right there.

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• CA

  @carbodude5414 · 2 years ago

  My favourite part about Zenos&apos; speech towards Jullus is that the scene happens so soon after the Elpis part of the story<br><br>We just saw a guy broke down because he felt that life had no meaning and projected that onto his daughter. Then, of all people, its <i>Zenos</i> who had things figured out; no one is born with meaning so you should decide for yourself rather than ramble on about hopelessness and it doubles as a brutal critique on Garlemald&apos;s culture of justifying its years of invading and colonizing other nations as some kind of &quot;greater good&quot; born out of a misplaced sense of victimization

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• ZA

  @Zazzaro703 · 4 years ago (edited)

  When Zenos chased me down to the edge of the universe and came crashing through the shield like the Kool-Aid man just for his damn 1v1.... he earned my admiration and the ass whooping that was coming his way 😂. I thought it was a great end to this arc of the Zenos story (I don’t think he is truly gone just yet).

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• LI

  @LizzyThePirate · 4 years ago

  I adored how his story went, but I really felt bad for giving him such a lonely grave. I just..... I know he wouldn&apos;t care if that was his grave but I would like to honor our friendship more than just leaving his corpse at the end of everything and alone.

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