#also me: let me cite my sources tho 🤪

[eemamminy-art]

If you're willing, would you share some of your thoughts about zenos? I just met him in my playthrough and I'm already obsessed and curious about how people misinterpret him

I have many thoughts on Zenos ahaha you can find a lot of my long-winded rambles about him in my tag for him! There will definitely be spoilers in this for both stormblood and endwalker, so if you're just going through stormblood for the first time I'd advise saving this to read later!

But in reference to the thing I was talking about with my partner yesterday was mainly like, how there's this idea people have of Zenos that he enjoys killing when it's simply not the case. Now don't misunderstand-- he doesn't hate it either. He's not remorseful. He's not even trying to justify the action. It's just totally meaningless to him.

When he's urging on the wol to be more violent and to let themselves loose against him, it's not for the sake of simply sowing more destruction. He wants to bring the wol down to his own level in order to debase himself. The reason he wants to encourage the wol to hurt him is because being challenged by them is the only thing making him feel alive. The destruction is something of just a natural consequence of that, of showing the wol that Zenos sees them as two sides of the same coin. Zenos is the emperor's attack dog more than his son, the wol is in turn the alliance's attack dog more than their ally (or so he thinks!).

When he talks about "the hunt" it's less this whimsical mass murder that people point it out to be, and really him seeking purpose, meaning, and happiness in the only messed up way he knows how. As a child he was only given praise and attention for causing harm, so he seeks an opponent that can harm him in return so he can feel something, anything. When he's collecting weapons from fallen warriors, they're not trophies or spoils of war, he's specifically interested in the history of the weapons.

I think it's maybe easy to forget, I mean stormblood was so long ago now and while the characterization is still there in endwalker, it's colored by the perception of others. Isse and the other Domans choosing freedom over fear, no matter how hopeless things are.

Jullus wanting to know why he would betray his countrymen and pleading to his empathy, when Zenos was shaped into a weapon by that empire and holds no love for his nation. Alisaie telling him that while he may have found a spark of joy in fighting with the wol, without empathy for others he will find himself alone and bereft of the one thing that makes him happy.

Zero trying to wrap her head around the way Zenos discarded lives as though they were nothing, while bearing some undefinable emotion toward the wol (obsession, competitiveness, devotion, fondness-- she's not able to define it and I think it's meant to be vague for the player's sake). All these characters in their words with and about Zenos do lay it out clear that he is someone who is devoid of emotions except for the relationship he has to the wol, but I think because they are rightly condemning him for the lives he has taken and destroyed, people misconstrue that to mean he likes killing. There's a sort of malice attributed to his actions when it's really just nihilism.

Now, I'm not saying that because he didn't like it, it means it's fine or something. I know people like to interpret it that way when you like a villain in anything lol. All this to say, this idea of Zenos being a psychopath gleefully murdering people is so far from the truth. He's a very broken man with deep traumas and depression, finding happiness only in wanting to be hurt and killed by the wol.

Maybe at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether he likes it or doesn't-- I find to most people it makes no difference, so it's easy for them to conflate the two things. But I think Zenos' very existence challenges how the player views their own actions. In the same way that Elidibus in the ShB 5.3 quest Faded Memories reflected back at them all the death and destruction that the wol has caused-- intentional or not-- I think Zenos serves a similar purpose narratively. He questions why, he questions what are good or evil really, and asserts that there's no point in trying to find a justification for death and murder.

I can see why it makes people uncomfortable! He's reminding the wol that they have killed just as much as he did, and questioning the "justice" behind the wol's actions. It's an uncomfortable thing to think about. I think it would be fun to have a wol that comes out of endwalker as a pacifist tbqh!

(Not to get on a tangent, but I totally thought post-HW and especially with the DRG 70 quest, that Estinien was going down that road. I was really sold on the idea just by my own interpretation of his actions and words, only for him to be not only just fine with fighting still but to be actually kind of into it for the sport, just with more humility and empathy now. Total missed opportunity imo! But this is not a post about Estinien!! 😤)

Going back to Zenos though, I think it's easier for people to not grant him a shred of empathy and to write off all his actions as those of a madman. He does after all say he wants the world to burn, for the selfish reason of having the wol all to himself. I get it's uncomfortable for the player character to be the one at the center of his attention. I get it!! But gosh there is a much more interesting character in there than just "guy who gets off on killing", if you just open your eyes and ears for a moment.

I do think that, given the themes in ffxiv's story overall, that granting empathy and forgiveness to even the worst of people is kind of the driving force behind a lot of characters' motivations. Raubahn recognizes Ilberd did all he did for the sake of their shared nation's freedom and future; Estinien recognizes Nidhogg was grieving and in pain as much as he was, leading to vengeance; Hien recognizes the cruelty of her family and others in Doma failed Yotsuyu every moment of her life, shaping her into a tyrant; Lyse recognizes the unrest in Ala Mhigo failed Fordola, pushing her into the false hope the Empire offered; all the scions and the wol recognize how the unsundered ascians bore the responsibility of their entire people on their shoulders and did the unthinkable to try to save their own; Wuk Lamat recognizes Sphene acts out of love and preservation for her people, no matter what it takes. On and on and on.

So I find it odd that Zenos never gets that sort of grace! It's easier to just make an enemy out of him than to see things from his perspective, even while most of the other antagonists are given some degree of empathy while still acknowledging they were wrong and had to be stopped.

He's really neat. I'd put him under a microscope and study him if his ass wasn't too big to fit on the slide.