On one hand, Zed's your classic "jerk student finds forbidden power, kills master, runs his own group" guy. We now know he has even gone as far as kidnapping Vastaya to power up his order. On the other hand, we know he hates Jhin, and is willing to work with Shen to stop him. I think we were even told by Riot that he helped out against Noxus. We're told that he's a complicated man, but what's inside his head?
A lot of villains work with this mindset: "If I can't have it, no one can."
If Zed wants all of Ionia, then he can't allow anyone else to take it from him. That includes Noxus.
With that being said, I think he wants more power even if it upsets the balance. Remember, that he doesn't care for any of that shmuck that Shen's father taught the two. Taking magic from Vastayan lands and siphoning it from their people can definitely upset the balance even further and fuel his nefarious purposes.
He wants Noxus gone, so nobody intrudes on his turf. He wants Jhin dead because that is a common enemy of both him and Shen. That, and traumatic issues.
Makes sense of you think with a selfish mindset.
Zed wants power and control, but I don't think he wants it merely for the sake of defeating Shen or to simply boss other people around. I think he wants all the power and control in Ionia because he feels like he knows what's best for it and no one else does.
After tracking Jhin all those years only to spare him, Zed feels like tradition is what's leading Ionia to become the mess that it is and that only through himself and his new order can Ionia be saved and made better.
The way I see it his quest for power began with good intentions. He believed criminals such as jhin should be gotten rid of instead of incarcerated and he sought power to enforce his idea of justice. However now he has become corrupted not only by the acts he had to commit in order to gain the power but most likely by the power itself. The shadow magic he uses must have been forbidden for a reason after all, and his death animation seems to suggest the shadows have some sort of sentience and isn't just another form of magic. That is my understanding of Zed's character anyway, I could definitely be wrong.
I've always assumed
Zed = Vegeta
Shen = Goku
Zed: "I must defeat you at all cost." Shen: "Zed, you HAVE TO RESIST THE SHADOWS! You'll lose yourself." Zed: "(Zed laugh) I will defeat you. BEHOLD MY NEW POWERS!"
I believe Zed is looking for revolution.
i don't think he's actually evil. i think he just thinks he can do kinkou's job better by killing the vastayas and spirits instead of maintaining balance with them.
It appears to me that Zed does want to enforce order. Its just that he goes over corpses to aquire more power to do so.
Zed's a douche
Yeah, it seems Riot is very divided on whether Zed is a morally grey extremist who has a twisted sense of justice but still a sense of right and wrong or a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain who wants all the Magic Animal Peoples dead.
Zed is a very weird character to me now. Previously he was nothing but a petty waste. Literally went out and stole dark magic because he didn't win a duel, like could you get more pathetic?
It's good to see them developing him beyond that.
Zed seems like the go-to "Villian Man doing Evil Things" for Riot right now which is, fine? But not fine at all actually because Zed ends up not having an identity within the Lore anymore. He's just an Evil guy thats always doing random Evil things,for? What reason? We don't really know at all right now which is the worst.
Zed seems to be the Antagonist Ninja man of everything right now.
