Invader Zim alternate character interpretations

Forgive me for starting a whole new thread on the subject, but I felt it would be interesting to debate. Invader Zim is a series famous for its buckets of Alternate Character Interpretation, and for its sizable problem with Fan Dumb. Where do you draw the line?

Zim, for instance, is the axis of controversy to many fans. He's an abomination, no doubt, but to what extent? With brief and intermittent Pet the Dog moments, Zim almost redeems himself to the audience before becoming a Complete Monster again. How do you feel about this little monstrosity? Jerkass Woobie, plain old Jerkass or something in between?

Discuss opinions about the cast here!

I have two mindsets on Zim-

If you are playing close to straight ((See, for example, Dark Harvest, for the closest the show got to it)), Zim is a Complete Monster. Only when you're doing closer to comedic, you can play other angles, that make him more sympathetic.

Zim is an evil bastard in a humorously incompetent way.

You want alternate character interpretations for ZIM? Okay, here we go.

> He hails from a race of celestial conquerors.

> He acts a hell of a lot more melodramatic than anyone else in the race

> He's trying to get the attention of his peers, apparently.

> His peers don't exactly like him due to his quirks.

Conclusion? Zim's a Keet with a skin condition. If it weren't for the fact that his assistant is clearly this Up To Eleven, it would be a lot more obvious.

edited 10th Jun '10 4:57:30 AM by TheAlbinoPrimid

I think Dib is far more interested in proving that Zim is an alien to everybody else than actually trying to save anybody from him. Granted, Zim kinda sucks at killing people on Earth.

As for Zim, he's really bad at being evil. The most heinous things were indeed really heinous, but they were on his own home planet, against his own species.

As the annoying fangirl I am, I always found Zim to be blood-thirsty, yet wanting attention. He's short, and the irken empire abuses and socially excludes short irkens. Also, thanks to the WMG page, I seriously think he's autistic.

The way I see it, Zim's a horrible, megalomanic, obsessive little abomination. But the way he's portrayed as being dreaded by everyone, even his own species, and failure being the only option for him, he becomes almost sympathetic. He's a monster, but he's so bad at being a monster that once in a while you almost feel sorry for him.

And yes, that WMG page has me wondering to. As part of "the spectrum" myself, I can sort of see how Zim could be conceived as autistic or otherwise mentally atypical.

Dib never struck me as a real antagonist. He's not a bad kid, the world just hates him. Actually, I'll admit to being a little attached to this character, simply because he reminds me a lot of myself as a kid. That weird kid who sits in the corner playing with bugs all day? That was me.

Anyway, I always loved the dialogue between those two. It's twisted, cutthroat and often completely irrelevant to the plot, and the relationship between Dib and Zim as adversaries is an odd and entertaining one. It bugs me that people often frame them as having some kind of romantic undertone, especially with everything that would be wrong with that if it were true. Can't two characters just genuinely hate each other any more?

That's my rambling, one-sided opinion, anyway.

-Oh, and I forgot to add: Zim is obviously mysophobic. Am I the only one who thinks so?

edited 24th Jun '10 6:50:43 PM by Takwin

As also part of the autism spectrum (I'm an aspie), there is a lot of proof of Zim is also part of the spectrum:

• He takes a lot of things literally. ( "This has nothing to do with jelly!" as a response to "your just jealous.") The first thing you'll reply is "He's an alien! OF COURSE HE'S NOT GONNA GET IT! HE'S NOT FROM HERE!" But think about it. The Irken race uses English ( yet uses a completely different alphabet) as their primary language. Irkens are shown using English completely fine, and so does Zim, but Zim struggles with taking things literally, like a lot of people with ASD (including myself, very, very much)
• He is socially awkward and also keeps to himself. The Irken race is a social race, but Zim pretty much is anti-social in nature, barley communicating to GIR, even
• He's obsesive about a lot of things. World Domination, germs, defeating Dib, ect.

Speaking about another Zim character, I always found the Flanderization of GIR by the Fan Dumb particularly interesting. They constantly draw him as a sickeningly cutegreeny doggy, despite the fact that GIR was never actually intended to be a cute character as stated by Jhonen. I've also found that within certain Fan Fics that they tone down his insanity to simply a mild Cloud Cuckoo Lander status and make him the overall "Nice n' Friendly" character, despite the fact that he was freaking insane and even homicidal during the show. I guess they like to take Refuge in Audacity.

edited 31st Oct '10 4:46:17 PM by Mattonymy

Yeah. Pretty damn annoying.

I always thought that if there's one character who would go insane and kill everyone, it'd have to be GIR. Just once, I'd like to see what he'd be like if he was Flanderized in the opposite direction (ie heightened insanity and unstable tendencies).

I'm honestly curious as to whether or not GIR even has as a grasp over the concept life and death. I mean he's a mindless slave, if Zim tells him to kill, he'd probably do it without hesitation. (Well, if he worked properly he wouldn't.)

It's kind of a creepy/awesome thought.

edited 31st Oct '10 6:32:17 PM by PrincessGwenevere

The only way ZADR would work. (Not including second half due to sheer OOC-ness afterwards.)

Also, I'll just say Membrane is not stupid/ignorant, but simply in sheer denial over the plausible idea of aliens/Zim being one.

Yeah, I do believe Membrane believes other lifeforms exist, but he said himself that there were none "able to travel the massive distance to our planet anyhow".

I never understood why people make Membrane an asshole to his kids. Yes, he's a shitty father; but he was never hostile to them. He doesn't hate Dib, he's just disappointed in him.

I kinda hoped there would have been a moment later on where Membrane would have finally accepted Dib's choice.

With all due respect, a CMOH for Invader Zim just feels...off.

-shrug- There's a CMOH page. Granted there's only one entry...

'Sides, a Dib-fan can dream, right?

edited 31st Oct '10 7:43:50 PM by PrincessGwenevere

You could probably sneak in a CMOH if you deliberately undersold it. Have a speech that's heartfelt but totally rendered in Buffy Speak. Do a wide angle shot with some completely wacky event going on in the background. Give a character something the audience knows will affect them but don't give them a chance to respond, interrupt with a gag that immediately gets full attention. Et cetera.

like this "I just hope that poor GIR is alright against those Zombies!"

I can almost see that. Dib and Membrane have a small heart-felt talk, while Zim comes along a ruins it.

Since this is IZ, the tinier things seem all the bigger.

^^^ Zim's speech at the end of Hamstergeddon.

I thought that speech was a spoof of the whole C Mo H thing, seeing as how the mutant hamster crash-landed and destroyed the neighboring town.

I've always been kinda torn between Zim having something of a heart deep, deep down (like how he shows concern for GIR) and being a Complete Monster. (Like how he can kill Dib and not even feel some guilt.)

I have to say, I don't think fans are really to blame with that interpretation of GIR. Seriously, for most of the series, he comes off as more of a harmless The Ditz Cloud Cuckoo Lander who looks strangely cute in a dog suit. His psychotic aspects are kind of an Informed Attribute compared to what actually happens on the series.

It doesn't hurt that the episode that was supposed to dispel this characterization presented a GIR that, for all intents and purposes, replaced by a completely different personality that evidence suggests is simply what a working SIR would act like. From the viewer's perspective, that is not the GIR we've been watching.

Actually that's sort of what I've been thinking too. A lot of Zim's fans I'd call purely misaimed. GIR... is a bit more of a two-way street there, they kind of dropped the ball a bit with him, I think. I remember in the commentary where "America Loves GIR/Hates Dib" is a running gag, there are lots of moments they like to point out about GIR. Stuff like him saying "I like destroying!" or in "Bestest Friends" rushing out of the house after Keef and grabbing the bacon out of the pan still in Keef's hands. "See? He doesn't care about Keef!" I remember hearing that and thinking "uh, but... I mean, is there any indication he should be worried or something? And even if there were, why would we attribute that to GIR being callous and not just stupid?" And he says stuff like "[Dib] seems nice!" randomly too. He's random in a way that there's no real reason to focus on the negative side of the randomness.

Fandom, however, does tend to focus on the positive side of it. There IS often a Dumb Is Good vibe with him, where I think by rights he ought to end up somewhere around Ambiguous Innocence. I absolutely wouldn't call him harmless.

edited 2nd Nov '10 10:15:42 PM by Tyoria

I never got the Dumb Is Good vibe from GIR. Even if he enjoys Earth festivities and likes piggies that still doesn't make him an overall "nice 'n friendly" character as depicted throughout the Fan Dumb. For instance, see episodes such as Invasion Of The Idiot Dog Brain when he clearly doesn't know his own strength and is obviously crushing Zim to his own enjoyment. Or in Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom where he prominently chases and then attacks children just to get their candy. Or how about in Parent Teacher Night when he aggressively attacks a saleslady for "stuff"?

Honestly, I never really saw GIR as an "adorable", "friendly" or "OMG KAWAIIIII!!!" character as opposed to an extremely unstable one. He was funny as hell, but that's mainly because he's so off the wall and insane that he's a hilarious screaming threat. His insanity and malfunctions mask his true underlying nature, which is at his SIR core an extremely dangerous Well-Intentioned Extremist. It's just that he hardly ever works properly that he ever functions correctly.

That being said though, I don't really have a problem with people simply thinking GIR is cute. It's the Fan Art I can't stand.

edited 3rd Nov '10 12:51:22 AM by Mattonymy