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YES bread posted:ive never really dug the "zenos is distilled garlean ideology" read. characters like Varis, Gaius, and Quintus all explore their wacked-out mindset better while Zeno's big thing is isolation and ennui which are wholly unrelated. like yeah he says the words and does some of the empire-running chores but he's as disconnected from empire's goals and beliefs as he is from the rest of society. he really is just some guy who could have happened anywhere. Same. There's not really anything there except some surface level comparisons.
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Feb 9, 2022 00:59
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there's a little bit there to "zenos is a dark mirror to the WoL, representing the video game player behind the screen who wants to get in cooler and cooler fights, in their video game". I don't think that read holds up through endwalker, but it seems reasonable enough in stormblood
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Feb 9, 2022 01:00
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the character is a narrative foil to the WoL but it's just not in the meta "hrr hrr he plays video games wrong" way people like to meme about. he's the hyper strong guy who didn't have anyone to connect to. he never had a little elf homie to point him at monsters and do character growth with
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Feb 9, 2022 01:06
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I think they get even more meta with Zenos in EW tbh.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:07
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YES bread posted:the character is a narrative foil to the WoL but it's just not in the meta "hrr hrr he plays video games wrong" way people like to meme about. he's the hyper strong guy who didn't have anyone to connect to. he never had a little elf homie to point him at monsters and do character growth with The "Zenos is a savage raider" thing always felt like cope from the brand of person who gets angry when they see people with an Ultimate weapon tbh.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:08
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zenos is a savage raider and it owns. signed, a savage raider
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Feb 9, 2022 01:10
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Wrong thread
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Feb 9, 2022 01:12
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like i think you could apply parts of Zeno's character to The Bad Gamers but that's just because the character, is anti-social. he's not based on the gamers. hes just a hosed up guy who needs our kisses.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:12
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Zenos is a murderhobo mirror of the PC to be sure. He's the guy who skipped through all the cutscenes and never cared about the story, thinking it was just going to be another MMO. He's the speedrunner who got bored because he didn't let himself get invested in the game outside of having the biggest numbers and needing a peer who could appreciate those big numbers.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:14
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Zenos is a regular ffxiv player because like you (presumably) he enjoys fighting but unlike you (presumably) he does not find meaning in anything else in the game. Thus he is your foil.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:14
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Zenos is your foil because he is very big, so when he hugs you he visually envelops you
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Feb 9, 2022 01:17
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Zenos as dark mirror to the WoL never worked with me because it's true, and I'm tired of some loving loser I already beat hanging around. You never had any interesting fights, including your last one. Go away already so I can get to a good fight you loving nobody.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:17
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Recognizing the "foil" part of his character is actually very important.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:18
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i don't think it's accurate to say that zenos is distilled garlean ideology so much as he has lived through the absolute foreclosure of possibility it represents. the garleans in EW have some parallels to the omicron; consider quintus's whole speech about how garleans had to do an imperialism because life is a zero-sum existential struggle for survival and you cannot trust anyone else, versus the, uh, head robot guy's whole thing about how the omicron made themselves faster and stronger and more and more alien to themselves with the goal of defeating everything in their path, and then the sheer emptiness once they got there. zenos lacks the existential struggle for survival stuff but he does see life as essentially endless war of all against all in which there is no law or order save what you can impose by force. it's just that instead of being like quintus, who came to that philosophical conclusion as a result of Circumstances, zenos was just born to that life and can only begin to even approach imagining something else after he assumes the form of the ultimate dragon, helps you fight the apocalypse, and then achieves enlightenment through fistfights. isolation and ennui aren't treated as themes just for garlemald by the text, but the form of his isolation and ennui directly results from living at the epicenter of the world's stupidest empire. re narrative foils, i don't really think there's a ton of room for debate over whether the text considers zenos your mirror. no one has to agree with that read but that's getting into WoL headcanon at that point tbh and imo has little to do with the game as written. 
Valentin fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 9, 2022 01:18
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YES bread posted:ive never really dug the "zenos is distilled garlean ideology" read. characters like Varis, Gaius, and Quintus all explore their wacked-out mindset better while Zeno's big thing is isolation and ennui which are wholly unrelated. like yeah he says the words and does some of the empire-running chores but he's as disconnected from empire's goals and beliefs as he is from the rest of society. he really is just some guy who could have happened anywhere. It's less distilled garlean ideology and more the natural end point of it. He's a super strong Pure Blooded Hyper King experimented on and given all the benefits of the horrible fruits of magitek research. And he has no loyalty, no interests. He is nothing but the desire to destroy, which is exactly what his father made him. Who made him like that to be use to the empire.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:21
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the_steve posted:Zenos is a murderhobo mirror of the PC to be sure. Trying to think of him as like a take down of someone playing the game incorrectly is weird imo. Like yeah he's a mirror to the player but he's not shot at anyone, he's just got a similar perspective to you because of the way he is which is used to get meta with it.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:22
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ZenMasterBullshit posted:It's less distilled garlean ideology and more the natural end point of it. He's a super strong Pure Blooded Hyper King experimented on and given all the benefits of the horrible fruits of magitek research. And he has no loyalty, no interests. He is nothing but the desire to destroy, which is exactly what his father made him. Who made him like that to be use to the empire. I think it's more that he is incapable of feeling anything. The only time he really feels anything besides the boredom and ennui is when he's in a serious fight, and the WoL is the only person able to give him that fight. He's hellbent on fighting us because it's the only time he feels alive/anything at all and not just drifting through the motions.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:32
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Ibram Gaunt posted:The "Zenos is a savage raider" thing always felt like cope from the brand of person who gets angry when they see people with an Ultimate weapon tbh. Considering half the people I see suggesting that have cleared at least Savage if not Ultimate I kinda doubt it.
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Feb 9, 2022 01:43
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is there any other big recent game that tries to cause/play on bleed between the PC and the player as heavily as ffxiv does, particularly in endwalker?* i was thinking the other day about how fundamentally different the endings of nier automata and ffxiv are, since, speaking in the broadest possible way, nier automata takes the stance that you are outside the text interpreting it and ffxiv identifies you and the WoL as essentially the same. for something else in the nier vein, earthbound's emotional climax in the giygas battle hinges on distinguishing you, as a player, from ness, and acknowledging that you're playing a game. it still thinks the game matters—you are explicitly textually praying for the wellbeing of these fictional kids, and are probably meant to be like "drat yeah....i truly do care about ness and pals" and be emotionally moved—but acknowledges it as a game. imo the ffxiv script really tries to drive home the idea that you are the Warrior of Light, you're not playing her. that's why multiple characters all but turn directly to camera and say "have you enjoyed your journey?" in endwalker, that's why zenos goes so meta near the end. even e.g. moments where characters joke about how tedious gathering stuff for the titan feast was aren't usually just winking nods to the camera, they're a chance for the text to assert that you and the warrior of light feel the same things; it's also imo why the game goes so hard on the errand sequences, because the point is not just to vary the degree of narrative tension but to create in the player a feeling similar to what the PC is feeling. obviously it's not unique to say "you, the player character, did this, and so i am passing this judgment on the player" (see spec ops: the line, hotline miami, far cry 3, and so on), but there's something different and endearingly sincere about the degree to which FFXIV insists that your player character, who doesn't just represent you but in an essential way is you, is undergoing an emotional journey. it doesn't always land great (my favorite bad example of it is when fordola peeks into your brain, sees the events of ARR and HW, and basically goes "drat that was so hosed up....you're so strong to have made it through that"), but the text is so wholly committed to the idea that the emotional journey of the game is something you the player are not just viewing and playing but undertaking and experiencing (hearing, feeling, thinking....about, as it were) that it makes for something really unique. *e: rest of the post stands as-is i don't have any changes to it but i realized one answer is metal gear solid v, where the camera literally inserts itself into snake's head before each mission. Valentin fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 9, 2022 01:48
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Valentin posted:is there any other big recent game that tries to cause/play on bleed between the PC and the player as heavily as ffxiv does, particularly in endwalker?* i was thinking the other day about how fundamentally different the endings of nier automata and ffxiv are, since, speaking in the broadest possible way, nier automata takes the stance that you are outside the text interpreting it and ffxiv identifies you and the WoL as essentially the same. for something else in the nier vein, earthbound's emotional climax in the giygas battle hinges on distinguishing you, as a player, from ness, and acknowledging that you're playing a game. it still thinks the game matters—you are explicitly textually praying for the wellbeing of these fictional kids, and are probably meant to be like "drat yeah....i truly do care about ness and pals" and be emotionally moved—but acknowledges it as a game. It comes up a lot during The Rising stuff too, when the YoshiP stand-in is straight up thanking you for playing.
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Feb 9, 2022 02:09
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TGLT posted:A core component of fascism, and violent authoritarianism in general, is the glorification of violence. Violence for its own sake. Y'know, unlike the beasts that do it to eat or to breed. This is closer to how I actually read Zenos' relationship with the Garlean ideal. It's not 'Zenos is a man with a fully realized ideology' so much as 'Zenos is the inevitable beneficiary of fascist ideals'. If you glorify racial purity, cruelty, and violence against others, then you inevitably reward a cruel, violent rear end in a top hat whose only merit is being of the right race, regardless of if that's what you wanted. He's more an American History X-style Nazi than an actual 1930s-40s Nazi. ...naturally I've been thinking rather a lot about how to articulate this one of late. Cleretic fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 9, 2022 02:11
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Vitamean posted:it's a great line because out of context it sounds like nothing in particular so dudes hamming it up in voice or text chat won't really spoil anything for some poor newbie YES bread posted:zenos is such a simple character with such a straightforward arc that it's hysterical it could go over anyone's head. a teenager told my man he has to cooperate with people or he won't get things that he wants and he went "huh... fair enough" and had a whole introspective journey about it. he is not hard to understand.
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Feb 9, 2022 02:55
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Algid posted:Me upon hitting the end of the spoiler thread: I did it! I read them all! I...read them all... 
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Feb 9, 2022 03:05
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Yeah Zenos isn't a fascist, but he is absolutely the ultimate endpoint of what kind of person Garelan ideology creates. One thing I really like about his arc is that while he was right from the start that the WoL (at least my WoL) loves BIG FITES, he was wrong about why when he rants about the animal urge to hunt and kill and rip your prey's throat out. The reason why I said "You know, you ain't wrong" in the choice at the end is that he finally understood my motivation. He understand why I liked big fites instead of projecting his own reasoning onto me. His final dying monologue also is great for making you wonder what kind of person he might have been if he wasn't born into a fascist hellstate.
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Feb 9, 2022 04:22
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Cleretic posted:This is closer to how I actually read Zenos' relationship with the Garlean ideal. It's not 'Zenos is a man with a fully realized ideology' so much as 'Zenos is the inevitable beneficiary of fascist ideals'. If you glorify racial purity, cruelty, and violence against others, then you inevitably reward a cruel, violent rear end in a top hat whose only merit is being of the right race, regardless of if that's what you wanted. yea this is an important element. Zenos is absolutely not fully realized Garlean ideology because the Garlean ideology we see is an INCREDIBLY new, INCREDIBLY sudden one that he has no stake or claim to. The past 50 years are brand new territory for Garlean culture, going from a republic born in struggle and suffering to an empire forged by outside forces to push an agenda greater than them. Every Garlean 'old guard' we see like his father or Gaius lived through this change, they were born in the struggle and brutality and saw it become an empire. Gaius is the fully realized Garlean ideology, he's brutal and harsh but he genuinely believes in the idea that mankind is made weaker by becoming vassals to cosmic beings and such, and his entire arc we see is 'oh gently caress I've been used to do horrific things for a loving different flavor of cosmic being, this sucks, I hate this, I'm gonna loving murder everyone who did this to me'. His final point (so far, I hope he shows up further obviously) is as a caged beast, he literally has a guy following him around ready to murder him if he even shows a hint of reverting to the man we saw all those years ago. More importantly though, he WELCOMES that guy, he respects him, because he agrees it's better to die and maybe bring some closure to one of his many victims than to become that man again. There's mutual respect, but the sword remains over his head partially because he wants it to. That's Garlean ideology in its purest form, strength through strife, honor above life, and man's mastery of its own destiny. Zenos is the spoiled brat who profited off the 50 year shift. He never struggled and bled and froze for it, he just reaped (tee hee) the benefits while still getting the 'glory of conquest' education and cultural upbringing. You mesh that with the fact that he was apparently always at least a bit 'off' and it's no wonder he began to idealize violence for violence's sake. He's not a caged beast, he's a beast let out of the cage without having to even fight to be free, just kinda bored and wandering around eating anything that he can. His catalyst for ideology doesn't come until the Warrior of Light challenges him like he wants, an outsider non-Garlean stands up to him and even when he kicks the WoL's rear end at first the WoL remains standing and comes back for more because the WoL has a purpose. That's the core of the conflict, not Garlean ideals realized vs Eorzean ideals realized, but a lack of humanity that was never tempered or controlled vs boundless compassion, and that's a way stronger story when taken to contrast the actual Garlean vs Eorzean ideals clash that was Gaius vs the WoL.
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Feb 9, 2022 04:35
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That's also why Zenos' finale is in the expansion who's big blaring theme is 'you can't just ignore suffering and strife, you have to face it and hopefully grow stronger from it', because he never faced any himself. We were his first 'strife' and we gave him purpose and when we beat him finally and decisively his purpose was gone because he had finally worked through his 'strife'. He's not the alpha predator, he was just the bully kicking the poo poo out of weaker guys and going 'WHERE'S MY CHALLENGE' and him accepting that with his last 'was your life a gift or a burden' meant he had nothing left. Zenos dies when he gets his answer, just like everyone else in EW.
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Feb 9, 2022 04:42
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Zenos is the last person I'd say had a life without strife or suffering.
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Feb 9, 2022 04:45
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:Zenos is the last person I'd say had a life without strife or suffering. I mean, his past pain never really seems to register with him. He never had to face that poo poo like even his father did. He had a lovely life but that's by our actual human perspective not his.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:02
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sexpig by night posted:I mean, his past pain never really seems to register with him. He never had to face that poo poo like even his father did. He had a lovely life but that's by our actual human perspective not his. His backstory actually explicitly spells out how he discovered fights to the death are the only way he feels anything. Because he had a fight to the death with his sword master trainer who was using the situation as an excuse to use Zenos as a punching bag instead of any real training, and tried to kill Zenos when Zenos learnt his fighting style.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:09
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sexpig by night posted:I mean, his past pain never really seems to register with him. He never had to face that poo poo like even his father did. He had a lovely life but that's by our actual human perspective not his. No I think they mean Zenos loves strife and suffering and spent his life seeking and causing it. Zenos probably: "Only man has the strength of will and clarity of vision to seek out strife for its own sake!"
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Feb 9, 2022 05:14
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Lord_Magmar posted:His backstory actually explicitly spells out how he discovered fights to the death are the only way he feels anything. Because he had a fight to the death with his sword master trainer who was using the situation as an excuse to use Zenos as a punching bag instead of any real training, and tried to kill Zenos when Zenos learnt his fighting style. Right I guess my point is compared to other instances like that rather than that lingering with him as "that guy tried to murder me after beating the poo poo out of me constantly, that loving sucks" it stuck to him as "oh, this is how I feel good, neat" Like, with his dad his poo poo upbringing hurt him and led him to be so brutal. I guess I see Zenos as different because he already was like that, the swordmaster just kinda enabled it. He was a sadistic kid already, Mr sword man just gave him the tool and vocabulary.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:17
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SyntheticPolygon posted:No I think they mean Zenos loves strife and suffering and spent his life seeking and causing it. Oh. Oh yea but strife you cause on others doesn't count for narrative growth unless you go Gaius or Cids dad with it.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:20
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It's hard for me to think Zenos was born broken, but his environment did him in extremely quickly. And by the time his swordmaster decided to use him as target practice, there wasn't much left of what he could have been.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:22
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sexpig by night posted:Right I guess my point is compared to other instances like that rather than that lingering with him as "that guy tried to murder me after beating the poo poo out of me constantly, that loving sucks" it stuck to him as "oh, this is how I feel good, neat" The point is that Zenos never had a chance to be anything different because nobody took the time to try and understand him and his emotional development issues. Varis wrote him off as a monster before he was 10, and wanted to turn him into a rabid beast of a weapon by age 15. Especially because under absolutely brutal, impossible circumstances Zenos learnt an entire sword fighting style and theorised how to wield Aether to make it function. That’s how he beats the sword master, he stabs his sword hand with an Aether crystal to use Aether techniques with the blade. The sword master tries to kill him because somehow during the beatings and abuse Zenos still managed to study the technique enough to replicate it via reading books about it. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Feb 9, 2022 |
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Feb 9, 2022 05:23
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I think it's a recurring theme in the game that bad people aren't born that way, they're made bad by (usually childhood) circumstance. Zenos being beaten by his teacher while his absentee father doesn't give a poo poo is just one example of many.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:32
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Zenos is obviously a product of Garlemald in much the same way every freak and geek from there is but like honestly I don't think there's much meat there. It just ain't what Zenos is about or really connected much to what makes him compelling.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:36
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As someone that was fairly cool on Zenos thru and after StB I gotta say EW loving nailed the landing in a way that made me really get why StB Zenos was the way he was and turned me around on the character.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:46
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FuturePastNow posted:I think it's a recurring theme in the game that bad people aren't born that way, they're made bad by (usually childhood) circumstance. Kind of the same deal as Vauthry, really; Both are huge monsters, but at the same time both never really had a chance to be anything but a monster, due to a lovely family pushing them to be a certain way, to a lovely society that makes them what they are, to Emet Selch himself loving things up for them forever.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:50
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I think there's two big elements to Garlean society we see in Garlean villains: their sense of duty, and their sense of supremacy. Gaius is what you get when you put duty before everything else, Quintus is what you get when you have both in equal measure, and Zenos is what you get when all that you have is the sense of supremacy. They all showcase different negative aspects of Garlean society, though Zenos is the most abstract.
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Feb 9, 2022 05:56
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the guy's EW arc did a lot to show that he had the potential for growth and self-reflection even if ultimately he died questioning and unfulfilled, which in itself is pretty humanizing. and hell even then his dying wish was for the WoL to keep on truckin, which is a leg up on Endsinger's  "we died and it SUCKED!! no one should hope for better!!"
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Feb 9, 2022 06:02
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