Why do People Ship ZaDR?
The allure of the ZaDR ship has, and always will be ‘how do we go from mortal hated enemies to friends to lovers and how does time and maturity effect that?’. It is in essence a meta ship, having less to do with the characters in the canonical timeline of the show, and more about what they represent, what they can represent, and who they can become. The ship on most levels relies on its fans to speculate on what could be as a opposed to what is, unlike most pairings out there.
Stay with me.
Zim and Dib are fucking great FOILs, both sharing more similarities that one would first think.
both want to prove something to their superiors (Dib to his father, and by extent the world at large, and Zim to the Tallest and all of the Irken race)
both are crazy smart but also idiots (Dib repairs an alien ship for Christ’s sake and Zim used to be a scientist before earning the rank of Invader)
both are looked down upon HEAVILY (though this effects each differently as Zim is mostly unaware while Dib is very aware of how people perceive him)
both are lonely with their main non-familial social interactions coming from each other (THERE’S LITERALLY A WHOLE INCOMPLETE EPISODE ABOUT THIS)
both are trying to conquer something (for Zim it’s Earth and to a lesser extent Dib and for Dib it’s Zim)
All of that is in the canon of the show (and I’m assuming the comics, which I’ve only read bits and pieces of, so I’m going mostly off the show and the cut episodes). We have two characters are so opposed to one another’s very existence and yet they are mirrors of each other. But the kicker comes in when you think about what could happen later down the line in their lives.
What happens when Dib gets into his late teens, and has to deal with Hi-Skool, or when he goes out into the existential nightmare that is the real world? How long will he want to keep protecting a world that actively hates him? When will he realize his enemy is honestly the most relatable person in his life? What will that change for him? Will he become disillusioned with how awful humanity is and join Zim? Will he convince Zim to join him?
Likewise with Zim comes the questions of how does Earth change him? What happens if he integrates more into humanity? Does time make his quest for world domination less appealing? What happens when the Tallest’s ire finally get through his thick skull? Or if the Tallest just try to destroy Earth while he’s on it? Does he ever figure out what a good companion Dib makes, or how useful he is? Does he ever try to convince Dib to give up Earth as a whole? If he gives up the domination thing, what then does Dib represent to him?
And for both of them, when does that hate morph into something else? What happens if it did?
Its these ideas that make ZaDR so interesting, because we’ve been given a conduit for some very thought provoking explorations into the nature of hatred and two people who detest each other but at the same time NEED each other, as evidence by the planned episode, Mopiness of Doom. (< link to the unfinished animation done by Soapy Waffles, which is the full episode with all the voice acting, just not fully animated).
This episode was the pinnacle of everything a ZaDR fan wanted confirmation of. Here’s a break down if you didn’t click the link (BUT DO ITS A FUNNY EPISODE):
Dib gets tired of chasing down Zim and the pointlessness of it all, and decides to become a scientist like his dad. Zim does some more ‘evil’ and Dib tells him he’s done with the enemy shtick to which Zim finds great at first but becomes confused when Dib walks away from his monologue. Zim then spies on Dib in Membrane’s lab, saddened by how happy Dib claims to be and by how no one else even looks his way when he claims to have a new plan to take over the Earth. Zim’s reaction is to lose all his drive to the point that he just stops his schemes all together, become a shut in, and eats a bunch of junk food, all because Dib stops paying attention to him (its implied in the animatic he’s been paying attention to Dib’s new exploits as well with newspapers and magazines picture of Dib scattered across the floor, but i dont know if that’s canon).
It culminates in Prof. Membrane realizing his son isn’t happy, and when he questions Dib, Dib confesses that science isn’t for him it doesn’t make him happy because what he was meant to do was ‘catch me that alien!’. And, much to Membrane’s chagrin, he runs off to go tell Zim he’s back to being his mortal enemy, to which Zim responds by perking right back up and, according to Gaz ‘all is right with the world again’.
Not only is it canonical that these two are intrinsic to each other’s mental well-being, but those closest to them (Gaz and Gir) know it as well. Gir literally breaks into Dib’s house to beg him to go back to Zim.
And its easy, from that point, to begin to imagine what happens to that dynamic as Dib gets into adulthood and becomes more world-wise. There is so much potential there for fan speculation that its easy to see why it became such a niche and long lasting pairing. Ask anyone who ascribes to the ship, and they’ll gush paragraphs and paragraphs about personal headcanons regarding who Dib becomes as an adult and how his relationship with Zim evolved over time and how they eventually got together and what became of their lives.
Its never about how the two start a relationship in Skool while Dib is 12, but always about how their enemy dynamic slowly evolves into something more over many many years and how that opinion changes literally from person to person.
ZaDR is an inherently strange and meta ship, often delving into angst and violence and whump as its core genres given its source material. Its understandable not to see the appeal, but for those of us who do, its never been about what is happening in the canon of now, about the characters as they are presented. Its more about what could become of them later, about the natural evolution of the dynamics at play. About a mad paranormal investigator and an equally mad alien hellbent on conquering Earth.
About what happens when you grow up into an adult in a world that has always refused to accept you, and what happens when the mortal enemy you have is also the only one who genuinely understands you.
