Did Martin drag Zach through the cactus on purpose?
In the episode Wolf Hawks, there’s a scene where hawk-Martin grabs Zach and flies into the air with him, and along their flight Zach ends up getting dragged through some cactus. Of course it’s played for laughs, but some fans see a darker undertone to it.
I’ve seen it said a couple of times that Martin dragged Zach through the cactus on purpose to hurt him. Likely as revenge for all the times Zach has threatened, harassed, or hurt him, his brother, his friends, and countless creatures. It’s said that this is one of, if not, Martin’s cruelest act in the entire show, maybe even out-of-character.
Well here’s the scene, let’s analyze it:
So first of all, the only reason Martin grabbed Zach in the first place was because it was all part of the team’s plan to take back their miniaturizer which Zach had stolen and hid inside one of his Zachbots. Martin was simply using Zach as bait to lure the three Zachbots into a trap where they would be ambushed by the other three crew members. So this means that Martin wasn’t just harassing Zach for fun, he was just doing what he had to do to help his crew mates get their property back. This plan wasn’t motivated by revenge, but rather by necessity.
Second of all, Martin doesn’t seem to have a single angry bone in his body during this whole scene. He keeps a smile on his face pretty much the entire time, and he sounds straight up cheerful at times. This is not the behavior I’d expect from Martin if he was feeling truly angry or malicious. I mean, we’ve seen him be malicious before, and it looks totally different from this.
Look at his facial expressions in moments where he’s actually angry and low-key malicious. (In the first one he just shoved Chris off a very tall pile of clothes purely out of anger bc they were arguing, and in the second he’s about to beat up Zach for kidnapping his friends and Lost and Found the red panda cub.) He’s not trying to hide his anger at all, nor does he appear to take any pleasure from it at all.
So I think if Martin really was trying to harm Zach, he would have a much angrier demeanor. Not the smiles and the jokes we see him with.
Third, when Zach complains about being run into the cactus, Martin straight up says "oops, sorry" and then he doesn't fly into any more cacti after that. His tone of voice is that of shock, implying it was an accident and he never meant for that to happen. His facial expression is that of wide eyes and a frown, which also denotes shock and unhappiness. Plus there's the fact that he didn't run into any more cacti after that. If his apology was fake, you'd expect it to sound more sarcastic, or for him to have a smirk on his face, or for him to continue running into cacti anyway, but there's none of that. There's no evidence to suggest his apology is anything but genuine.
Alright so at this point it’s pretty clear that Martin did not drag Zach through the cactus on purpose. But wait, the scene isn’t over yet. Once Martin reaches his destination, he drops Zach from high up, and he lands with a loud “Ouch!”. Now this was definitely done on purpose, because how do you accidentally drop someone out of the sky, and also he showed no shock or remorse whatsoever when he landed beside him.
So does this negate the entire point I was trying to make about Martin not being malicious in this scene?
First of all, cartoon physics are different from real life physics, so what looks like a deathly fall to us, might just be a minor inconvenience to a cartoon character. Not only that, but the cartoon laws of physics are often inconsistent, changing to whatever is convenient for the joke or the plot in that moment. Such as in Flight of the Draco where Chris took a big fall from a tree and received a concussion as well as being traumatized so badly he couldn’t climb anymore, but then in Googly-Eye The Night Guru, both Bros take huge falls out of trees (Chris twice) and come away unharmed (as far as the audience knows) and with no trauma. So we can’t accurately assess how bad a fall is just by how high it is, rather the most accurate way to judge the severity of a fall is by the character’s reaction. So how does Zach react?
Well he does cry out in pain, so the fall definitely was painful. However, we also know that Zach is a BABY about pain and being hurt, as evidenced by The Mystery of the Weird Looking Walrus, when he accidentally pinched his finger in a tiny box and got the world’s tiniest cut and said “I cut my finger in half!” So I don’t know how much I’d trust Zach’s definition of pain.
Not only that, but Zach was well enough to immediately stand up and start joyously taunting Martin, so clearly he couldn’t have been in that much pain.
I think Zach is fine guys. It’s not that serious.
My final verdict: Martin wasn’t excessively cruel in this scene. Maybe a little bit rough but it’s not like he owes Zach kindness when Zach was literally in the process of stealing their property. Martin can be a little mean sometimes but this is not one of those times. Don’t slander my boy. (I’m not actually accusing anyone of lying btw I think it’s just a case of misremembering, I’m not targeting anyone)
