#i mean unless they really did some leg work it'd be kind of weird given *motions vaguely at Zero*

[contentiousprince]

y'know. i like that Zenos died on his own terms. but also the fact that he gets the same resolution in endwalker that he does in stormblood kind of drives me insane. like in stormblood he gets to take his own life after achieving what he believed to be the greatest joy he could ever have.

but then in endwalker he gets so much more development, and while i absolutely love the fight with him at the end there, letting him die on his own just kind of validates what Alisaie said about him dying alone. which like if they wanted to show he was incapable of change because of being too far gone or whatever then fine, the community can fix it fanfic our way into giving him happiness, but he very clearly does react to Alisaie! he very clearly thinks about what she says, and his dialog before your fight with him really suggests that he's come away with at least a bit of a new perspective on the matter.

it just strikes me as odd to not just bring him back as a villain, but very explicitly someone who is neither hero nor villain, who at first works entirely selfishly for his own goals, but by the end he's helping you out and doesn't even make you fight him despite the being the reason he was selfishly going along with the whole plan to end the entire world in the first place!!!!!! and then after all of that, what has really meaningfully changed from stormblood?

Zenos is still dead, it being by your hands rather than his own i don't think really affects all that much. the wol probably got character development but i feel like it being for that sole reason is weird. Zenos learning, and even changing, just to be set right back to where he was before is just so weird to me.