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inbarfink · 5 months

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Okay, so, for the longest time the Tallests’ behavior toward Zim in ‘Battle of the Planets’ has always struck me as… odd.

I mean, of course the idea that they mock him publicly behind his back makes sense in general. That is a very Tallests Thing to Do. But the specific ways they mock him…

I dunno...maybe the intention is supposed to be like 'haha you're saying 'unstoppable death machine like it's a good thing but it's not!!' or something but... with the delivery and the general characterization of the Irken army it comes off as more of 'haha! it's funny because he's NOT an unstoppable death machine hahaha" and...

Like, yes. Zim is correct. He is, in fact, an ‘unstoppable death machine’. That is absolutely an accurate statement to be taken seriously. The only problem was that he’s an unstoppable death machine that’s too uncontrollable to prevent him from Death Machining his own people as well. That’s literally why you banished him, remember?

But then I took a moment to think about that.... It does actually makes sense that the Tallests, despite getting literal first-class seats to his rampage of destruction - might still have a problem with actually internalizing why Zim is so Bad.

Because Zim is basically the Irkenest Irken to ever Irk. He might be considered ‘Defective’, yes, but all of his defects manifest as the logical extremes of Irken ideology. He has, on paper, all of the skills and personality traits and ideals that the Irken Empire value - just exaggerated and twisted in a way that makes him the biggest milestone around the Empire's neck.

Zim is a pretty good fighter, infiltrator, pilot and scientist. Remember, he’s a Fast-Food Drone Play-Acting Alien Invasion to get him out of the Armada’s antennas now, but he was a legitimate actual Invader back during ‘Impending Doom 1’. And that’s with all the social barriers and prejudice that a short Irken like him is going to face. I’m guessing a lot of the selection process for Invaders is done by automated systems or extremely-detached Control Brains. And only looking at, like, Zim’s practice or test results - he should be an exceptional Invader on-par with Skoodge.

But we all know the truth is more complicated then that. Zim’s talents and training are hampered by his own massive ego, absolute inability to accurately assess threats and his impulsive desires for destruction and death. He’s unable to judge when he’s punching above his weight or tackling an endeavor beyond his abilities. He cannot admit when he has made an error, even just to fix or improve an invention/plan. And he always allocates his resources in the dumbest way possible.

And that’s all, like, emergent from Irken Ideology - or at least from Zim’s logical extreme of it. Confidence and selfishness are rewarded on Irk - Zim is mostly unusual in terms of sheer volume (or maybe he’s too Short to be allowed to have such a high opinion of himself.)

His inability to proportionally handle threats is emergent from the Empire’s ideals of Irken Supremacy. Zim is supposed to see all other species in the universe as stupid and inferior and worthy only of servitude and so logically they can’t be a serious threat to him, an Elite Irken Soldier. But he also needs to internally justify why all of these Clearly Inferior Beings are even a problem to the Irken Empire in general and for him in specific. Especially when he fails to conquer them as easily as a ‘Superior Being’ is supposed to. And so his ego and his insistence on Irkens being Superior has to elevate them into fearsome enemies.

That Speciesism is also why his disguise is so bad! We directly see it in the first episode. He had the option of picking a more realistic human disguises but he just found it too gross. And that actually seems to be a trend, considering every Actual Invader we see on the show has a disguise that is just as bad if not worse.

And Zim’s tendency towards delusions is also born, at least partially, from his devotion to Irken Ideology. Not just from the obvious insistence of the superiority of himself and his Empire despite his constant failures. But also… how do you balance out the Irken values of selfishness with the also-Irken values of loyalty and absolute obedience to the Empire and the Tallests? For Zim, the obvious answer seems to be ‘delude himself into believing whatever selfish personal whim he has is actually for the good of the Empire and the true will of the Tallest’. That’s how he can break All of the Rules All of the Time and still act like he’s just another obedient and loyal vessel of the Tallest.

And then there’s the value of destruction and cruelty. This is absolutely not a Zim-only thing - that is a value he got from Irken society in general. After all, it’s pretty clear they don’t even have, like, a token excuse for their universe-conquering aspirations. They’re just doing this shit because destroying and subjecting the universe seems Fun and Cool. I mean, ‘Battle of the Planets’ demonstrates that better than anything.

The Tallests have no idea of what to do with the planets they conquer. They don’t need them for anything. They decided Blorch's new purpose as a spur-of-the-moment decision and it was a Parking Structure Planet. Most of Irk’s single-use planets are pretty silly but this one especially so. Parking Structures only have value based on them being near a Place People Want to Go To, so a whole planet of them really defeats the whole idea. The Tallests only conquered Blorch and wiped out the Rat People because they want to conquer planets and wipe out sapient species.

And that is… exactly the same sort of meaningless cruelty Zim demonstrates. I mean… What Zim did with Prisoner 777 is literally just a smaller-scale recreation of what the whole Irken Empire did to the Vortians. And honestly, Zim actually has a slightly-better track record of actually getting ‘his’ Vortian to do what he wants. While the Irken Empire in general has basically shot themselves in the foot and assured all of their best technology is going to come with some sort of Stupid Hidden Flaw and all because they wanted to be the Conquerors rather than ‘just’ allies.

The difference is really just that Zim values destruction so much he has problem processing that directing the destruction at his own people is still a very bad thing in the eyes of the empire.

And that’s… kind of the ideological blind spot the Tallests fall into during ‘Battle of the Planets’, I think. They should know that Zim is very much an Unstoppable Death Machine, just one that they can’t control and thus should be kept as far away from the Empire and Operation Impending Doom 2 as possible. But in their little Irken-Ideology-Poisoned minds - being an “Unstoppable Death Machine” is a Good Thing and Zim is obviously Bad - so, obviously logically he cannot be an Unstoppable Death Machine.

And throughout this entire episode, the Tallest mock the idea that Zim is even capable of… not just achieving his and the Empire’s goals (obviously, yeah, he is incapable of doing that), but that he's even capable of properly causing destruction? Which they should know he is very capable of. And this is probably the closest he ever came in the show to legitimately destroying the human race. Only being foiled due to a huge stroke of luck on Dib’s part that nobody saw coming. And yet the Tallests were so certain that Zim, of all the Irkens in the galaxy, is somehow incapable of destroying a planet???

And at the end, Zim does prove himself as an Unstoppable Death Machine by, once again, managing to kill a fuckload of his own people while the Tallests laugh about how inaccurate that descriptor is for him.

This is extra ironic with the Tallests throwing that one guy out of the airlock at the start of the episode

They punish others just for not remembering Zim’s rampage, but they clearly have not internalized what it Means themselves.

The fact that a guy like that even managed to reach the most prestigious not-height-based position in the Irken military in the first place should be a cause of some serious introspection of how Irken Military training and evaluation is handled. Especially when you consider much more competent would-be-Invaders like Tak got dismissed and punished for things totally outside of their control.

But… It seems like the only lesson anyone in the Irken Empire learned was just “Zim is awful”. Which is true, but isn’t really getting to the root of the matter.

You can see another example of that mindset from the Tallests in ‘Hobo 13’. Because those two were so sure Zim was going to lose, and lose painfully. Because he is Incompetent, obviously that means he can’t do it. Totally forgetting that Zim actually totally has the athletic, combat and - most importantly, technological skills and out-of-the-box thinking that allowed him to survive and thrive.

I mean, yeah, that means he cheated and threw his entire squad to the dogs for his own personal gain and petty sadistic amusement but… that is absolutely not something the Irken Empire frowns upon. The Tallests especially love to torment and even kill off their subordinates for the pettiest of reasons. Skoodge, featured in both of these episodes, is a great example.

And like, ‘being bad leaders and tormenting their own underlings’ is basically what the Tallests spend the entirety of that episode doing.

That Sergeant had ideological problems with Zim being such a horrible and callous leader, but that’s clearly not a representation of the Irken Empire’s stance. Quite the opposite really. Zim might be a disgrace to Hobo 13, but he was an exemplary Irken. The only reason why him winning was a problem is because he’s Zim and they all hate him.

And speaking of the Tallests’ own behavior reflecting Zim’s… let’s talk a bit about ‘Enter the Florpus’.

Because the downfall of the Irken Armada in that story is not just Zim’s fault. I mean, it is partly Zim’s fault. Without him there wouldn’t be a Florpus in the first place. But the narrative makes it constantly very very clear that this is Not Actually a Threat for the Armada… if not for the Tallests adamantly and childishly refusing to change course.

The Tallests hate Zim, and they make it clear at every possible opportunity. And they hate him because he’s so damn incompetent and such a threat to the Empire’s safety. And yet they constantly demonstrate they possess the exact same core personality issues as Zim - they’re just slightly better having, like, a veneer of reasonability and being able to perceive reality (and also they are tall, which helps them get away with more.) And nowhere is it more obvious than ‘Enter the Florpus’...

Where the Tallests prove that they can be just as childish and single-minded -

And just as destruction-hungry -

And just as quick to deny reality -

And just as disrespectful of their underlings.

This recurring bit with the navigator is especially striking to me, because more than anything it makes me remember… Operation Impending Doom 1.

Two times the Irken Empire has been brought to the brink of collapse. And both of these times it is because a powerful high-ranking Irken (one time an Invader, the other time the Tallests themselves), refused to listen to the warnings and concerns of a lower-ranking expert Navigator - continuing with a course of destruction for their own people.

You could say the Irken Empire was doomed from the start because of their own philosophy of cruelty and selfishness. Eventually, it was bound to create someone like Zim - who takes the Irken Ideology to its logical extreme in the most destructive way possible. Or you can say the Irken Empire was doomed from the start because of their asinine height-based class system. Which basically inevitably assures that at some point the reigns of the Empire will be at the hands of someone buffoonish and incompetent enough to drag the whole Empire down with them. And both of these viewpoints are true in their own way but also…

The Irken Empire was also doomed from the start cause, whatever this is a result of a culture that highly values obedience to your superiors over common sense, or because punishments for disobedience are just so terribly severe - these two Navigators continued to push those knobs and drive that ship even as they knew their commanders were mad and their actions were just driving their own Empire towards oblivion.

Perhaps the Irken Military could use some sort of protocol of what to do when your superior is being clearly unreasonable and endangering not only the mission but literally the fate of your entire civilization? No, of course not. Yet another lesson not learned from Zim’s actions in ‘Impending Doom 1’. The only important lesson Irk needed to learn from that was just ‘Fuck This One Guy in Particular’.

Zim’s whole existence is like a twisted parody of the Irken Empire and all of its values. It’s really no wonder that the Tallest never got the joke.

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