zim’s age & difference between irken and earth years
so, what i had realised is that it’s highly doubtful that zim is older than dib, more so, it’s likely that he’s younger, to which extent - can’t say surely, but zim can be, like, almost half an age of dib’s, more on that in this post
first things first, in my opinion zim is clearly child-coded, besides that, we can’t actually say, that an irken that is adult or a child in human years is really on that level of development bc irkens are simply a different species that have different biology, psychology and different world order
it was originally planned that zim is 160-200 years old (this info is questionable, so take it with a grain of salt). in human or irken years? that is a good question, most likely in irken years, you’ll see why later
the next question is, which years are longer? so, this is the question that is still unanswered by anyone (afaik) and we couldn’t know for sure, if it was not for a small detail: episode «the frycook what came from all that space»
the thing is, the foodening lasts for 20 years, zim has left the foodcourtia right before previous foodening started. sizz-lorr captured him only before the next foodening, which means, that in between zim’s escape from foodcourtia and him spending some time (no more than one earth year) on earth, a little more than 20 irken years had passed the question is, how much time had passed between zim’s escape and operation impending doom two, given that he could escape at any time? the answer is - a few minutes, he escaped literally as planet assigning already started (flashback from the same episode). given that foodening probably didn’t start immediately after his escape, it is possible, that 20 irken years have passed since he came to earth till some time before the episode takes place, which, may i remind you, is less than one year on earth
now, if we took that information in mind, we can conclude, that zim is around 8 to 10 in human years, but again, only if we consider that his age is an age that was originally planned
since zim’s age being 160 y.o. is highly doubtful, it’s ok to not agree on that part, but there is still some evidence, that zim is actually a child
that being:
zim as a human child in florpus
info from the show bible
and the fact, that zim being older than dib makes their rivalry simply unfair (if zim is younger this is not a problem, since irkens start to work and train at a very young age)
keep in mind that i could make a few mistakes along the way, would be glad if you correct me i would be also glad to hear your opinion or counterarguments on my findings
thanks for coming to my ted talk, jhonen is an ass and we’re all gonna die! peace!
right, I’m awake now, so I feel like my brain is working at capacity to actually, like, type this out properly.
I think the thing that frustrates me most about these arguments is “I’m right you’re wrong” when there is evidence to point in whichever direction you fancy. you bring up the show bible, which functions as “word of God” but then dismiss what Jhonen has said about his own creation, which is also “word of God”.
according to one “word of God” source, Zim is a child, whereas according to another, Zim is an adult. which I PERSONALLY believe means EITHER interpretation is correct OR, a secret third thing: he’s both and/or neither.
as soon as Zim is “hatched” we see him walking and talking, and he’s told to “report for duty”. iirc, irkens are considered “smeets” until approx 10 y/o. and if that’s true, then no, Zim is not a child. is he to humans? maybe! but he’s not a human. I’m not going to judge a non-human species by human standards.
but something absolutely vital to remember when dealing with Invader Zim: it’s meant to be entertaining, first and foremost. if that means it contradicts itself, that’s acceptable, to some degree.
in Hobo 13 Zim gets blasted into the sun. he’s fine the next episode. in Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain, he attempts to out wait Gir for an entire year, and yet in the next episode it’s business as usual, and no one seems to have aged. Zim and Dib drive a pair of celestial bodies around the solar system and this has NO effect on the rest of the solar system, for some reason. Earth gets transported outside the solar system altogether in Planet Jackers (and the Moon smacks into the Earth at the end), but this seems to have no bearing on following events. in Dark Harvest people survive the removal of vital organs, like, yanno, the heart. in Enter the Florpus, Dib goes from obese to ripped to normal in no time flat. also in Enter the Florpus, we see the Tallest’s have thumbs, despite not having them in the series (word of God says the Tallest’s have their thumbs cut off).
my PERSONAL interpretation is that Zim is both and neither an adult or child. my interpretation is that, for better or worse, irkens aren’t really given the time to “properly” age. the pak encoding means they can just kind of “skip” over certain parts of development. but I don’t think people who interpret him as a child are anymore “correct” than those who don’t.
good interpretation, ty, i kinda agree with you. as i already said, i don’t think that even if in human years he is a child, he’s necessary should be on that development level
i want to say, in my defence, that i dismiss jhonen words in interviews etc. bc he doesn’t care that much and says rly contradicting things, show bible is a written constant thing, which should have valid info, this is why i take it more seriously
i know that iz universe has like 9999 plot holes, contradictions etc. but in any way i just want to make some sence from all this info soup
