#vortz

well kinda, in pure ability he’s likely one of the smartest irkens seen as he was one of the few irken scientists, he also makes most of his tools and upgrades his pak (which it seems like most irkens can’t do, requiring most of their equipment to be premade)

of course that’s already pretty obvious in the show, but my main point is that he knows what people actually think of him, the tallest literally said “i hate you” to his face and he just doesn’t actively acknowledge it

it seems like he knows (atleast somewhere deep down) it’s just that he despises to actually acknowledge it

there’s been multiple instances where he’s actually confronted with the fact no one cares but everytime that happens, he sees that people pity him and immediately snaps out of his depression (mostly shown in the movie and the quarterly)

(he’s literally going to CRY in this panel (irkens eyes do a water bubble thingy when crying))

he’d rather keep his ego intact than actually accepting some form of help

ANYWAYS back on zims bigbrain-ness

i think something similar is happening with how he acts on earth, kinda pretending to be naive/stupid for the sake of keeping his emotions together

he has destroyed/took over multiple planets SOME DURING THE DURATION OF THE SHOW, yet suddenly can’t think of a single way to successfully take over earth

he’s a extremely capable soldier, yet ‘struggles’ to kill a child

EVEN THE CHARACTERS NOTICE HES BEEN GOING EASY ON EARTH

it seems like he wants to stay on earth, even in the timeline where he successfully takes over the planet, he stays

earth and more importantly fighting dib gives a purpose in life

he NEEDS to have dib constantly thwarting his plans or else he just gives up entirely

it doesn’t seem like he actually cares about taking over earth that much, all he wants is approval from his tallest

he wants them pay attention to him, to care about him and invading in his eyes seems like the only thing left that he can’t screw up

he gets to see that in the timeline where he takes over earth, he actually gets that approval yet realizes how stupid it all is

it’s not enough for him to stop but it’s likely enough for him semi-give up on actually invading earth

with this, there ARE two people who will pay attention to him, that will care about him

Dib and Gir, their entire existence revolves around giving him something, gir with helping him and dib with thwarting him

(there’s also mini moose I GUESS)

part of the reason he’s defective is because he can love, and want to be loved

irkens are supposed to only care about the tallest, meanwhile zim literally says he loves mini moose and cares about all his robots (even giving the purely battle ones names “once you name it, you get attached to it”). he also cares about dib to a certain extent, choosing to save him when he doesn’t have to (this is shown in the comics more than the show)

uh1!1!2!!2!1 conclusion1!2!!3!2!1

technically it has 4 endings, well, 4.5

1 : invader dib

no, it in no way was a planned ending ever, but i feel it deserves mentioning considering how prevalent it was

it originally started on TAIZS when the producer was interviewed, he went on to confirm there was a intention to steer the show towards IRK and talking about its “”existence””

(also istg there was a ask where he vaguely explains the plot as a joke but i can’t find it for the life of me)

there were multiple versions of it but there’s two that circulated the most

A: “this special would have allegedly followed Tenn’s kidnapping by the Meekrob, and an all-out war happening between the Meekrob and the Irkens, which would have ended with Zim (aided by Gaz) being victorious over Dib, The Resistys, and the Meekrob, and finally conquering Earth.” (fan wiki)

B: the focus of the show would slowly shift towards irk, dib would get more crazed trying to stop the empire, zim and gaz would team up (or date, depends on who you asked) and stop both dib and the empire. everyone else dies and zagf/r saves the rest of earth

2 : space smoothies

In a nicktoons magazine, IZ made its “””final””” return. in which it had its first comic iteration where zim successfully took over the earth, but just kinda gives up when he sees the merch of himself. dib complains and zim offers to just have a jolly ol’ time in space, them both leaving earth in disarray while just being buds

3 : dookie loop

The “”canon”” ending, basically zim traps dib and the rest of the universe in a timeloop due to not being able to finish a puzzle. blah blah blah i’ll rant about his reasoning for that in another post ANYWAYS,, he eventually finishes it and resigns to fixing the timeline, but the “fix timeline button” doesn’t work and the universe implodes, everyone dies.

4 : nothing is real

i haven’t fully pieced together the lore but this is what ive gathered

rk is god. kinda.

in their orginal universe, zim and dib are real people, dib has gone missing and zim conquered earth. the conditions are really bad till he finally gets the idea to just indoctrinate them all

rk uses the comics as a “coping mechanism” of sorts, avoiding what’s really going on by just reading the comics, it’s really the only think they can do anyways

here’s where my idea sort of splits

A : they continue reading the comics and recapping them all, imagining this fantastical world where life is just zim and dib fighting in middle school, each winning and losing occasionally. rk starts making their own comics and aus, getting more and more absorbed by the characters of zim and dib that anything other than them is incredibly distressing

they get so sucked into their own mind that at this point they feel as though they ARE the creator of these characters and comics. when the story in their mind gets too off track, when it’s getting to the point where it might end, they insert themselves into it and fix whatever issue there was

B : bk (brain kid) is god essentially, rk was originally from the universe as described before but was scooped up by bk at some point and put into the recap section of the comic universe, something similar to in issue 40. in the comic universe, IZ isn’t real, it’s just a comic. yet rk is still able to manipulate the story and interact with the characters, when the comic is finally coming to and end they step in and just start everything over again

oh yeah in both A n B what i mean by ‘the comic ending’ is that earth is burning and no one wins, both zim and dib are about to die

⬆️ sorry if none of this made sense 😭 i’m struggling to word it correctly + still theorizing

4.5 : timetravel