i have to mcfucking lie down for a sec thinking about how zenos spent his entire life as a depressed battle hedonist fixated on enjoying “the hunt” because he was so deprived of human connection he didn’t realize that what he wanted wasn’t a powerful quarry that would bring him excitement but a meaningful fight with an equal where both fighters shared a bond so intimate it could only be expressed by crossing blades until their last breath.
the first and only person who ever managed to captivate him was the hero who kept transcending their limit the more they were driven against it because zenos wanted to experience that transcendence, that rush of having something so essential to you you cannot bear to not give your all for it even if it means extinguishing yourself utterly and completely. but because he’s never had a real bond with anyone, because he’s never had someone show him the real significance of anything and offer him a different perspective, he failed to understand that something “essential” means something “dear”.
the WoL was never fighting to die gloriously, the WoL was fighting because there were things they wanted to come back to, things they had yet to see and experience that would give their life joy. zenos time and time again could not see that threatening the things important to the WoL wouldn’t make them direct anger at him, it would make them direct care and love towards the things he was threatening.
that is why time and time again the WoL rejects zenos’s challenges in endwalker. zenos wants to connect with the WoL but doesn’t know how to because he doesn’t know that’s what he truly wants. it’s because zenos cannot completely understand himself that he cannot understand who the WoL is. his formative experiences were all enveloped in brutal violence and cruel neglect from the people around him. zenos had to survive and learn to think on his own, and his reproach towards jullus is dripping in unacknowledged hypocrisy and contradictions.
he tells jullus to use his own judgement and get it through his head there was ever any real good reason for war, that there is anything even remotely logical that could ever justify the atrocities garlemald has committed against the world, or that the rest of the world has committed against itself over and over. garlemald only waged war because they wanted to be strong and prove themselves above every living and breathing thing on the star. religion, politics, race, all those things were just pretense the leadership used so their commoners would fight their battles for them. so why does zenos choose violence? for no other reason other than that is what he craves, fully aware it is reprehensible, yet it is sincere.
and yet, he doesn’t realize this isn’t true. he is not wrong that there isn’t any sort of philosophical principle that could excuse supremacy, but zenos is also limited by his own, extreme and unfair experience that he deems universal. because he has no other point of reference, he believes that it is the instinct of all things to seek destruction, whether it is to destroy or be destroyed, that gives their lives meaning. that belief is what makes him a parallel to meteion’s nihilistic despair and her belief that if all things are fated to end then it’s better that they never begin.
zenos only starts shaking off this belief when alisaie tells him without fucking around that if he continues being self-centered and looking for a fight no one wants, then he will never ever have the satisfaction he craves for. he has to stop, wander, and reflect on what it was about his fight with the WoL at the royal menagerie that marked him so deeply. what is it he was looking for in the WoL, and what was it the WoL was looking for in him?
he must’ve realized that the answer, for his part, was joy. he wanted to experience joy with the WoL and that is the true reason why he seeks contest with them. and he must’ve realized the WoL sought nothing in zenos. there was nothing zenos could give the WoL because zenos wanted to take from them without giving anything back. that problem was rooted entirely in how zenos thought of both himself and the WoL. zenos thought of himself as a relentless predator who relished in violence and the WoL as someone who shared that drive for ruthless growth. when zenos takes notice of this, he realizes he doesn’t treat the WoL any different than how the masses would treat them, thrusting their selfish hopes and expectations on them without nary a consideration to who they actually are.
and that is why zenos makes the choice to rush to the aid of the first person they wished to befriend at the terminus of all creation. zenos offers his contest not to gratify himself, but to offer the WoL, as the adventurer they are rather than a hero everyone believes them to be, a unique, fulfilling experience no one else could ever say they’ve had: a one-on-one fight to the utmost limit at the dawning edge of the universe.
to cement that growth in zenos, the last thing he asks of the WoL was if their journey was worthwhile, if they found it fun. because what zenos finally cared about in that moment wasn’t his own satisfaction, but whether the person he cared about enjoyed themself. it’s extremely bittersweet that a person so damaged by a lack of human connection managed to find it at the very end, but didn’t get to hear the answer he was waiting for. in spite of all he did, zenos deserved at least that, an answer. a “yes” would’ve elated him, and a “no” would’ve at least reassured him he did his best to understand them and that’s what mattered. either way, it would’ve granted him peace. it was an attempt at kindness done in the blink of an eye, yet resoundingly transcendent.
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