Personally, I love Zenos as a villain and how he represents your own character, the Warrior of Light in a way, mirroring them. He first shows up in Stormblood, but appears in multiple expansions throughout the story. He has this deep desire and need to take down the Warrior of Light (your character). Compared to other villains, a lot have lengthy reasons as to why they’re going against you, but Zenos keeps it fairly simple, gaining many followers on his journey. During the end of Stormblood, it shows Zenos using a katana to slice his own throat, expecting Zenos’ fight to be over, he still returns. Initially, it’s through other people who were his followers, but in later expansions, he himself returns. In battles, he typically takes part just for the thrill and having a great battle.
“Man should fight for the joy of it. To live, to eat, to breed—lesser beasts snap and howl at one another for this. Only man has the wisdom and the clarity to embrace violence for its own sake. For we who are born into this merciless, meaningless world, have but one candle of life to burn.”
An honorable mention when talking about villains and Zenos is Asahi, one of the most commonly hated ones by far as he’s evil and self-centered. He falls under the category as Zenos because of his insane obsession and love for Zenos, trying to follow his steps and leads but ultimately fails, being taken down by his adopted sister, Yotsuyu who he’s tortured when she was her innocent self, driving her to a more evil side by reuniting her with her parents who were cruel to her. Asahi is very aware of what he’s doing, but followed Zenos and Zenos was the one who asked him to trick Doma into summoning an Elkon (one of the primals, one of the beings that is worshiped in Eorzea), which Asahi followed this order by manipulating and killing his family to make this happen, all for his love for Zenos.
