In this video I present my theory of Zenos being a piece of sundered Hythlodaeus, and why I believe it to be true. I also go into other topics such as how the sundering might work, how the themes of Shadowbringers are present, and why Zenos and Fandaniel are as crazy as they are.
If you have anything to add to the theory, whether it supports or counteracts the theory, I would love to discuss it in the comments.
Shameless Self Promotion:
Twitch – https://twitch.tv/lokidum
Twitter – https://twitter.com/lokidum
Instagram – https://instagram.com/lokidumbtw
Discord Server – https://discord.gg/NddFEef
FAIR USE NOTICE
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research
All rights belong to their owners. Please support the official release.
Ignore the following:
#FinalFantasyXIV #Endwalker #Theory
source
Emet-Selch’s “mistake” in recreating Hythlodaeus is a passing thought that “Hythlodaeus would find out the truth”. Which makes me think Hythlodaeus was an uncanny scholar hellbent on figuring out the hardest of questions. And it also allowed his shade to realize that he was indeed a shade.
Don’t attribute Yoshi P’s genius to Square Enix. Sure they license all my favorite games. But I’m beyond trusting corporate.
Ascians are only the 13 sundered of Zodiark. The WoL is not one of them. The WoL is an Amurotine. Though you theory is possible.
I'm going more with the theory that Zenos is essentially ff7 Sephiroth.
A creation experiment by Emet Selch in hsi time with the Garleans. Sired by an Ascian to a Garlean mother and Anima will end up being a mutated version of his mother because of carrying him. That's why he has memories or dreasm, like a genetic memory and why he feels different and alone compared to everyone else. He's sort of a half ascian half garlean super soldier who has now been stuffed with multiple cloned souls/echoes.
Remember taht Emets job was also to carry the souls and hold them and Zenos can hold multiple echoes unlike otehr Garleans.
Likely to create a better vessel for Emet Selch. He went through multiple clones of Solus due to them deteriorating and Laha had jumped bodies so many times he was essentially going mad. Each time emet swapped bodies he would rest for an age in the space between worlds. Zenos was probably Emet/Solus experiment to create a more suitable vessel but deemed failure due to the inability to weild magic.
Zenos doesn't start referring to the Warrior of Light until fairly late in Stormblood. Early on, from how I remember, Zenos treated the WoL as more of a project, one to forge an opponent worthy of facing him. He doesn't start calling the WoL his 'Friend' until the WoL is actually able to face him in battle, coincidentally after he gets the artificial echo from Krile.
Honestly, I believe it's more likely that he is the rest of our sundered soul. You draw some cool comparisons here but I see Zenos being Azem's other parts as more likely. He is drawn to us and considers us his friend. He is nearly equal in power as shown in Stormblood. Still, this is a nice theory. Just doesn't have enough supporting evidence for me to get behind it completely. That said, you never know!
What if Fandy is the sole instigator of the Final Days? A society is never so perfect that it doesn’t produce someone so fucked up. Maybe Fandy was just trying to do it for science, which includes being sundered. Also on that note I thought that Zenos has the echo and the ability like an Ascian is through science too, and possibly Fandy has some hand on that. And maybe Fandy probably has a selfish reason. Remember recently Gaia and her pal Artemis show that even within the Convocation, Ascians can be motivated to act for their own ends. Maybe he was trying to revive his bottom bitch and used Zenos as a body so he gave Zenos the echo or possibly some sundered Ascian soul, and them summoning the final day is probably just a way to go to the moon (Ascian may have a protocol to flee the planet should the Final Day destroys everything) so his bottom bitch can regain their memory. Although unlikely that happens because it’s just literally recycle Raid story. Although I can see Fandy and Zenos fusing to make for a trial boss.
Been looking for videos after finishing the patch 5.5 story, thank you for this 😀
Good theory but there's a few things i want to go over.
I don't feel that acsian is the same as ancient. Ascians are ancients and many people are sundered ancients, warrior of light included, however a sundered ancient awakening to some fraction of their true self or power does not necessarily make them an ascian. Ascian is more of a job role or probably more closely an ideology or a religion given that at least two of their leaders were tempered by likely tempered by zodiark and the third became zodiark.
zenos isn't blessed by the echo in the same way as the warrior of light is, being a Resonant means he has taken on a form of artificial echo. functionally there's little if any difference but the echo is as far as i know something that a soul can unlock if exposed to an intense memory of its former life such as the star showers that resemble what happened during the ancients end of days. the process of making a resonant involves shaping the soul using a person who has the echo as a baseline and squeezing the aether out of vast numbers of people and implanting it into the resonant to be. If the talk of there being new creatures that were spawned after zodiark saved the world are true then a resonant could be created out of one of the newer souls.
I do think there could be something in the zenos as Hythlodaeus though, given the similarity in how they address the warrior of light and there is also another connection between Hythlodaeus and Zenos which is Emet. Judging from the tales from the shadows short stories on 14's website Hythlodaeus and Emet knew each other well and Zenos is the great grandson of solus zos Galvus who as we know was actually one of Emet's personas which he had been using to prod history into the shape he needed it to be to enable rejoinings. Solus only died around the time a realm reborn happened so zenos was certainly born while emet was still making use of that identity and with his own ability to see the colour of souls how could he not recognise his old friend.
Zenos on the other hand has claimed he has always seen visions of a burning city, even since childhood so perhaps Emet attempted to awaken the piece of Hythlodaeus but for some reason it didn't quite work as planned. It could be zenos was too young at the time and couldn't process the information his soul had awoken to, perhaps it has to do with a garleans inability to use magic or maybe there just wasn't enough Hythlodaeus inhabiting the body to bring him back without one of the crystals the ascians had been using to awaken members of the convocation since the crystals related specifically to members of the convocation and Hythlodaeus would not have had his own crystal as he was not a member.
Mikoto from the ivalice raids/bozja cared about moenbryda too besides urianger since she talks about moen constantly. But thats about the only extra stuff that moen has ever got since 2.0 but even so they havent exactly forgotten the role she played even if it was small. She just happened to know her from the studium in sharlayan.
Honestly I think Zeno's and Woo are not sundered versions of azem
Twthings you forgot. First the experiments on krile. She has the echo as well. The devs haven't picked that part up yet, only hinting that the experiments done on krile had something to do with how zenos could survive in another body and reclaim his own. Another thing is that zenos got the visions after he got his body back and after elidibus left it. Elidibus being unsundered is one of the three people who would remember the final days. Zenos is actually surprised when this dream first comes to him. I also think and this is just speculation on my part, but going by anime tropes I always took that my friend line as more along the lines of, hey you are just as strong and great as I am, isn't it lonely at the top of the food chain. No one understands our struggle of being so awesome etc. I am being a bit fasicious but in general it always read more along those lines. Zenos is always looking for a good fight and the rest of humanity seems like a waste of time to him. But WOL is the first person to make him feel alive in battle. There is a proverb I remembered that kinda fits, heavy is the head that wears the crown, again implying that it's lonely on top. No one can really understand how you feel as WOL or what you've done or sacrificed since because of your echo and eight times rejoined soul WOL is inherently different. Thought of another trope in vampire fiction, where they always go on about you may look human but you will never be a part of them. Sorry it got so long. I hope I got the thought across.
i recently tought Y'htola was part of Hythlodaeus tho >;> the way she giggles with her hand close to mouth is oddly similar
now do a theory with soldier 1st class
The whole theory crumbles when you recall that Zenos' Echo is not his but copied from Krile. Zenos may have been experiemented upon by Emet which gave results to him being the way he is, and explain the dreams he has. The soul seeing is Krile's thing more than it is of Zenos, Krile just isn't a master of Echo as Zenos is. I doubt Zenos would be Hythlodeus, rather, it'd make more sense of him being an attempt by ascians to recreate Ancients, cloning and all.
I'm not convinced, too little to go on
Are you sure we've only met 2 warriors of light? I seem to have met 3…
I like this theory and it does make a lot of sense
There’s also good reasons to think Hythlodaeus might be Y’shtola, as these to models share a lot of emotes. They both hold up a lightly closed fist in front of their mouth when laughing.
But he is Emet -selch great grandson
So I'm trying g to figure put how that would work
I would say Zenos is an Amaurotine but not an Ascian since the Ascians are just the convocation members / followers of Zodiark but he doesn't seem to care much for the gods besides wanting to like get their powers
Didn't Zenos inject himself with the echo with that experiment sort of like they did Fordola or am I remembering wrong?
I feel like a lot of people get confused about the differences between the Ancients and the Ascians. Every Ascian is an Ancient, but not all Ancients are Ascians.
The Hythlodaeus is a mad speeches teller too
3:03 "Run boy run! They're trying to catch you"
With this I have no other choice but belive Zenos is the ally we will be portraying when we wield the Scythe
Why you hating on my battle buddy? I don't have to hate him to want to fight him after all.
people forget that zenos is a direct descendant of Hades (Emet) so yeah hes part acsian part garlean. as to what he is, i think his version of the echo and other powers are from Zodiark and is the reason he is collecting souls because that was Zodiarks goal
interesting theory even if it conflicts with mine. i think Zenos is a shard of fandaniel. only the unsundered ascians were native to the source. i think hythlo was someone allied with venat
Zenos being a chunk of Hythlodaeus actually lines up perfectly with another set of theories that suggests that Venat and Fandaniel are actually working together to get Zenos and the WoL to eliminate Zodiark for Hydaelyn's ulterior motives. That theory also suggests Fandaniel actually isn't a member of The Convocation in as much as he was Tempered by Zodiark, but instead is under Hydaelyn's influence, and was working as a sort of Ascian spy against them.
That would give further reason for Zenos to appear as an apparent member of The Scions of the Seventh Dawn in the expansion artwork.
My only counterpoint to the theory is that Zenos is Emet-Selch's great grandson (I think Varis was his grandfather) so I imagine that was the reason why he's been having nightmares of the Final Days (we don't get a lot of information about Varis or Emet-Selch's son so its hard to say if Zenos is the only one who had the nightmares)
So because he's Emet-Selch's direct descendant, I dont think he could be part of Hythlodaeus
G’ raha Tia also says a few things related to ascians. While attempting to take the light away from the wol he says “ I have played my part” and then bids you good bye with “Fare you well, my friend – my inspiration” so maybe? Haha
Zero percent chance on this.
if he is Hythlodaeus then he just remembered it after he reclaimed his body
I don't see this at all for the simple reason the Hythlodaeus doesn't give off any of the same vibes as someone like Zenos.
I think it's far more likely that Zenos is actually Venat. Just like Elidibus has, as the heart of Zodiark, a single minded devotion towards "salvation." Zenos has a single minded devotion towards fighting the strongest opponent he can find. Venat, as the heart of Hydaelyn, would share this devotion as Hydaelyn's role was to contest Zodiark's power.
We know that Hydaelyn's strength has been waning from the start of the game, and we've now defeated the most prominent of Zodiark's servants, diminishing his power and influence also. This is good for Azem, who was opposed to both Primals' summoning. Perhaps as Zodiark's power is diminished, Hydaelyn's is in kind. Consider then, that there may arise a perverted incentive for someone like Zenos if he has discovered he is a part of Venat. If Zodiark is unleashed, there is once again a need for Hydaelyn's full strength. Zenos would benefit in multiple ways from the renewed conflict, even if the world suffered terribly for it.
This also plays into the theme of Light/Dark not being equivalent to Good/Evil. There are many people who've theorized that "Hydaelyn was evil all along" but I think that's way too simplistic a take. Primals are PRIMAL. The only reason we often see them as "evil" is because their nature causes them to fuck shit up for people. Hydaelyn, for the most part as far as we're concerned is not inherently evil, nor necessarily always good (especially not for the ancients who were sundered by her against their will), which is why someone like Zenos could potentially manipulate the nature of Zodiark and Hydaelyn for his own ends.
My guess is we'll probably have to beat all three of Hydaelyn, Zodiark and Zenos in order to subdue the chaos and conflict between light and dark.