Have you ever, in your research into commentaries and interviews, ever seen anything that confirms the thing some fans like to pass around in favor of 'it's not pedophilia for Zim to be shipped with kids' that goes, 'Jhonen shipped Zim and Gaz and said they would've been endgame if the show hadn't been cancelled'? I know JV slapped that down in a commentary when someone said 'she's your love interest' to Richard (by saying there was no love in the show), so where are people getting this idea?
While I can’t offer any insight into the origin of this rumor, I can tell you the first place where I personally saw it, which was the fan-edited Invader ZIM Wiki.
As any Steven Universe fan who’s found themselves opening a page titled “Big Buff Cheeto Puff” can attest, fan wikis are notoriously prone to vandalism, often by the fans themselves. While mistakes and false information are usually removed quickly, the Invader ZIM fandom seems particularly susceptible to the rumor mill. Part of the problem has to do with Jhonen himself, who loves to give out obviously false information in interviews (such as the time he said that the series would end with ZIM becoming a lawyer) which eager fans assume is genuine. However, I can’t find a source where Jhonen said something like that even in jest.Â
An even bigger part of the problem is most likely the show’s incomplete nature. Since the series was unceremoniously cancelled, rumors abound about the direction the show might have ended up going, and these rumors are impossible to quash since the show’s cancellation makes them impossible to prove either way. The most speculation surrounds the supposed planned finale to the series titled “Invader Dib.”
For those who are new to the fandom, Invader Dib is the widely accepted title for a television movie which would have happened at the end of either the second season or the fifth season (I’ve heard either). Supposedly, at the beginning of the final season, whichever it was, ZIM was supposed to give up on his mission and flee Earth, causing Dib to pursue him across the galaxy in TAK’s ship. After a season of off-world adventures, Dib and ZIM would arrive on Irk just in time for a war. The story goes that the Meekrob, one of the races targeted in Operation Impending Doom II, would discover the Invader assigned to their planet, one Invader TENN.
The Meekrob would capture TENN and declare war on the Irken Empire. Dib and the Resisty would join the fight along with the Meekrob to hopefully take down the Empire once and for all.
That was the version as I first heard it way back in 2007 when I joined the fandom. However, over the years, all kinds of details have been added to this premise, stuff that probably wouldn’t be locked at the movie’s stage of development. Things like all the Invaders being mobilized to rescue TENN, SKOODGE being the one who actually saves her, TAK betraying the empire to side with the Meekrob, Gaz acting as some kind of incognito “Deep Throat” character whose identity would be hidden for the majority of the movie, and, finally, ZIM being declared the new Tallest with Gaz acting as his queen.Â
Probably what happened is that as the “Invader Dib” concept became more well-known, fans couldn’t resist speculating on the ever more tantalizing concept of a finale in a time when we all believed the series would never have a proper conclusion. Some of this fan fiction speculation made its way to the Wiki, where it was seen by tons of hapless youngsters who assumed, because it’s on the fan site, it must be true!
As for why this rumor has persisted for so long despite being debunked by a lack of sources and the testimony of the cast and crew as to the series’ lack of romantic content, it’s my personal experience that rumors usually persist because people want them to persist. ZAGR shippers want to ship ZAGR, and they’ll cling to any tidbit, no matter how flimsy, to justify their preferred pairing. It’s a textbook case of “I reject your reality and substitute my own,” proving that Invader ZIM fans might be Not So Different from the title character of the show.Â
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