Invader Zim's ending plan

I have never read that comic, so I can't say that it's a Take That!. Jhonen seems to be more prone to Bittersweet Endings. Johnny is no longer a waste-locker, but now, due to losing the benefits of coming with it, he's a wanted man. Squee is sent to (and implied to escape from) Defective Head Meat Institute, though his parents still hate him, and his life has yet to stop sucking. Devi gets her life back, but it will never be especially great. Zim and Dib fail to destroy to Earth and expose Zim, respectively.

edited 27th Aug '10 4:58:07 PM by Daionusthe23rd

^ But it wasn't really about exposing Zim, was it? I always saw Dib as more "...Alien is threatening the planet. I gotta do something about it."

True, and he does focus more on that as time goes on. But one of his major goals seems to be proving his sanity by exposing Zim.

^^^ 1 2 3 4 (hope that works). The fangirl in me protests it is wildly OOC. But oddly charming.

^^ I figured both. It annoys me when people assert he only wants to expose Zim and doesn't care about the Earth or its inhabitants though.

edited 27th Aug '10 5:46:02 PM by Tyoria

That was definitely a weird ending.

I liked it. And I can actually kinda imagine Dib going "Screw humanity let's go fart around in space!"

THAT WAS THE GREATEST COMIC IN THE HISTORY OF EVER.

on a semi-related note, my favorite part of Invader Zim was that there wasn't a clear person (or Irken) you were supposed to root for. Zim was the protagonist, but he was trying to enslave humanity, so yeah. On the other hand, Dib was trying to protect Earth (kind of) but he was kind of a prick.

I've posted so many links in this thread they're all starting to run together in my head, but I know one of the interviews Jhonen had he talked about how he liked blurring the lines between the characters and that in a lot of ways Dib was just as contemptuous of his fellow human beings as Zim, and the interviewer responded with "yeah, Dib's an asshole," and Jhonen's reply was something to the effect of "he's not really a bad person, he's just frustrated with people and starts screaming at them because he's sure they won't listen — and most of the time they don't."

I felt absolutely horrible for him in "Vindicated" where once he thought he had a friend and someone who'd take him seriously, he comes across as fairly decent. Plus he's like, eleven. Compared to the other kids his age, he's a saint.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I think they were definitely trying to make people wonder about who if anyone they should root for, but on the other hand, I've seen people say Zim and Dib are "just as evil" and it kind of bugs me as being a simplification in and of itself.

Agreed. I don't understand where people get this whole strictly Black-and-White Morality idea from. Yeah, Dib might be trying to save the planet, but he has this slight fixation on cutting open Zim. (Mostly during the earlier episodes.) Which I don't remember being okay at any age.

Well, I don't know many if any people who see it as a black and white thing. Zim and Dib being "just as evil" would be either Black and Black Morality or at best Grey-and-Gray Morality — I'd put the series in Black-and-Gray Morality.

I see it as relatively black and white. Dib is OBVIOUSLY the more heroic of the two.

Once we need to start talking about things being "relatively" good we've likely already ceded the ground to Black-and-Gray Morality. The whole point of Black and White is that it's about absolutes.

Dib is like, somewhat less evil and insane than Zim. Then again Zim's pretty damn evil and insane.

There's really no 'good' in Invader Zim. There's only fanatical devotion (Zim and Dib), unrepentant self-centredness (Gaz) outright apathy (Membrane and most everyone else) or too crazy to be one of the above. (GIR)

I don't buy the relativist argument that Dib is the "white" guy because he's not as bad as Zim, but I don't buy the absolutist argument that because he's not white he must be black either.

I felt much the same about Death Note's L. It seemed like a lot of people had to paint him into one of two corners — either as bad as Light, or else an absolute champion of justice and integrity. (Which isn't even getting into the people who thought Light himself was the good guy.) I think you were supposed to question his motives. I think he emerged as someone worth rooting for anyway. This loser being me is something I can live with.

And Membrane wasn't really apathetic. He was mostly beneficent, if erratic.

edited 30th Aug '10 1:36:38 AM by Tyoria

Membrane was in denial about the whole "alien" thing. HE'S NOT IN DENIAL, YOU'RE IN DENIAL!!!!

Ms. Bitters, however, was most definitely apethetic.

edited 30th Aug '10 12:21:59 PM by Daionusthe23rd

Dib's more of a Knight Templar about Zim, though. I mean, he'll go through anything to stop/kill him....

I didn't see Membrane as being actively in denial, more like too absentminded to actually consider the prospect that something was up — Dib calls Zim an alien and he immediately thinks "foreigner" rather than "extraterrestrial". And so on. Dib's reputation (even if undeserved) probably doesn't help.

Being willing to endure anything personally in order to achieve a goal is more the mark of the Determinator. The Knight Templar either makes other people (as in bystanders) endure a loss of freedoms (think the Delouser), or only has a vendetta in the first place because they think All Crimes Are Equal (think Slab Rankle).

I heard that say the creator said that zim died a horrible death in a crash.

Very, very rarely do I encounter any misinformation that does not come with an appended "Jhonen said X". To quote our own Invader Zim page on the issue:

God Never Said That: Unfortunately, the Word of God label has been falsely appended to so many baseless rumors that its tag might as well be Word Of Some Guy Whose Post I Read On A Now-Defunct Message Board Two Years Ago. Which, hey, is not to say that guy can't be right, just that you should adjust your credulity accordingly.

If they can link you to an interview where you yourself can read him saying it, that's one thing. Most likely, the best they will be able to do is say they read it on someone's post at deviantart or link you to some fan-wiki (coincidentally written up by a guy who got his information from the same post at deviantart).

In fact, if we consider that it is assumed that the final (originally) dib was going to commit genocide, then.

Shades of Conflict of Invader Zim: Black-and-Gray Morality —> Evil Versus Evil.

zim is a genocide (at least mentally), and Dib turns into genocide.(Take your pick).

edited 2nd Oct '10 7:48:37 PM by cclospina

Zim is a bunch of dead people?

it is assumed that the final (originally) dib was going to commit genocide

It is?

edited 2nd Oct '10 10:41:54 PM by Tyoria

He planned to destroy all irkens, that's called attempted genocide.

from that point of view, Dib would become as evil as zim.

Evil as Zim? Not sure....the Irkens have commited thousands of (offscreen) acts of genocide. An extreme of dealing with them, yes, but not evil. More like A Lighter Shade of Gray.

This was pretty hazy, far-off planning we're talking about. I don't know the exact wording that went into it, but even if it did say "destroy" (and ISTR it being "conquer"), it's a bit of a leap to assert that means Kill Em All and not "destroy their infrastructure and thus defeat them."

Going by Jhonen's "he's not a bad person" remark, genocide would either have to be a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon or else Moral Dissonance like crazy.

What is the nastiest thing we've ever seen Dib do? In "Dark Harvest" Dib is vilified for drawing a spectacularly gruesome picture of Zim being vivisected (dissected alive), which is admittedly gross and disturbing, but in the same episode Zim himself is running around literally probing around in people's innards and I do not, from this, assume they are Not So Different because I think fantasizing about something is not at all on the same level as actually doing it!

Bottom line: I need something a little more concrete to believe in this supposed genocide besides a vaguely-worded ending plan that can be stretched to mean that if you start with a presumption and assume the worst. You very casually asserted it was a common assumption, but it's a serious charge.

edited 14th Oct '10 1:41:12 AM by Tyoria