Invader Zim / Tropes D to F

Invader Zim Trope Examples
A - C | D - F | G - M | N - S | T - Z

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D

• Darker and Edgier:
  • This show is by far the darkest animated series Nickelodeon (and to a lesser extent, other children's programming) ever produced, even making The Ren & Stimpy Show's attempts at Black Comedy seem juvenile. Meanwhile, The series was much closer to Vasquez's previous work, with a darker sense of humor.
  • Compare the unaired pilot to the first episode of the series (or just the series in general). The unaired pilot was goofy, lighter, and had more of a basis of exaggerated fun.
• Dark World: The Halloween episode features Dib flashing into an evil version of the normal world with monstrous versions of his already-weird home reality.
• Deconstruction: Of the alien invasion story. The real reason Zim's leaders sent him to earth was to get him out of their hair... er... antennae.
• Deer in the Headlights: Parodied in the "Ultra-Peepi" episode, where the masses aren't paralyzed in fear, but are too busy adoring his cuteness to get away.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • The Show Within a Show Mysterious Mysteries of Strange Mystery.
  • Not to mention that a lot of Zim's lines tend to use this. ("Let us rain some doom down upon the filthy heads of our doomed enemies!")
  • An easy-to-miss one in "Nanozim". When Zim's ship is scanning Dib's brain for the memory of where Dib hid a disc, it finds the memory and displays on the computer screen "Location Located."
• Destroy the Evidence: In "A Room With a Moose", Zim does this by having the evidence in question self-destruct while screaming "LEAVE NO EVIDENCE!"
• Deus Angst Machina: It's a Jhonen Vasquez creation, this should go without saying.
  • In "Walk of Doom", ZIM walks into the tallest building to get to the top to get his bearings of the city. As it turns out, that building is a bank that was just robbed, and his human disguise looks just like the bank robber. Cue Chase Scene.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: ZIM'd be a lot more effective if he could just learn when to quit. In "Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy" Dib had lost just about all of his ability to represent a threat to ZIM, but his continued attempts to KILL him after he'd already been crippled backfired rather spectacularly.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Punching a hole into other worlds is extremely difficult if you do it the wrong way it tears reality apart.
• Disney Villain Death: This is how Zim defeats his future self.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • ZIM and Gaz in particular. In ZIM's case, some examples (such as "The Wettening") overlap with There Is No Kill Like Overkill.
  • The episode "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom" is practically made of this trope. Dib throws a muffin at ZIM during lunchtime at Skool one day. What does ZIM do to retaliate? He constructs a brilliant Lotus-Eater Machine for Dib based on everything the boy wants to do in life, and in Dib's twilight years, while being interviewed on a TV show celebrating his accomplishments, the TV host asks Dib if he'd been the one who threw the muffin at ZIM all those years ago. Dib answers yes, and suddenly, ZIM's face appears on the faces of everyone in the audience. Dib wakes up, in the real world, connected to a machine in ZIM's lab. With this unpleasant little fact known, ZIM coldly tells Dib to get out. Crushed, Dib begins walking away, only to have a gigantic gun aimed at his face. What fires out of the gun? A muffin.
  • What happens if you have overdue books at the library? They confiscate your retinas.
  • While posing as an alien to act as Zim’s intern, Dib convinces him to kidnap and perform experiments on an internet troll.
• Do Androids Dream?: "...and why was my computer coughing?"
• The Dog Is an Alien: GIR disguises himself as Zim's pet dog — his disguise being a bad costume with a zipper and a tongue sticking out. And the fact that the costume is green gives one a large hint...
• Be Doomed by the Doomy Dooms of Your Doomly Doom, Doomed One!: This is, after all, the show that gave us the Doom Song, the Megadoomer, and even titles like "Mopiness of Doom" and "Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom". In the first episode alone there were no fewer than 36 "dooms," and said episode also gave us The Doom Song. Seriously, "Doom: The Series!" might as well be an alternate title.
• Door-to-Door Episode: The episode titled... wait for it... "Door to Door."
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: The way Gaz treats her older brother, Dib for bothering her is a non-romantic example. No wonder she's nicknamed "Dib's scary sister".
• Downer Ending: More than half the episodes end with Zim and/or Dib failing miserably at their goals.
• Dramatic Irony: Neither Zim nor Dib ever realize that the Irken Empire never intends to conquer Earth or that Zim's "mission" is a sham the Tallest concocted to get Zim as far from them as possible because they despise him (even when Tak says it straight to Zim's face, he's too narcissistic to believe the Tallest would think so badly of him).
• The Dreaded: Subverted. The Slaughtering Rat People were briefly this to the Irkens, the task of taking over their Planet Blorch was one no sane invader wanted. Blorch was inevitably conquered by Skoodge no less, though the alien rodents seem to have spread to and lurk in Earth's shopping malls. Though it's never addressed in depth.
  • Zim is known as Skyfist to the planets in the tiny galaxy
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: In "Hobo 13". He's actually one of the less sadistic examples of this trope, and objects to Zim using the other soldiers as fodder.
• Dueling Messiahs: Played for Laughs. In Issue 42, Zim and Dib crash-land on the planet Plim, whose natives have a prophecy that a hero will fall from the sky and lead them to the stars. But since they can't decide which of the two it is, they have to compete with each in what's basically an election to convince the Plim which of them is the hero.
• Dumbass Has a Point:
  • GIR does this fairly often:
    • In "Walk for Your Lives" ZIM's plan to eliminate the explosion (by setting it off on full speed!) is so terrible even GIR realizes it.
    Zim: That's it! Time!
    GIR: Whatchu sayyyyyy?
    Zim: If I can bring the time field around the explosion back up to regular speed, it'll fix everything.
    GIR: No it wooooon't!
    Zim: The explosion will blow up like normal and be gone foreveeeer!
    GIR: But won't it just explode? JUSTLIKETHIS, KABLAM!
    • Also in "Plague of Babies":
    ZIM: GIR! We've been seen out of our disguises! By a human!
    GIR: But Dib's seen us. He knows where we live!
    • In "Walk of Doom", when ZIM and GIR get horribly lost in the big city:
    GIR: Why don't we just ask the information humans for help?
  • Dib's continued crusade against ZIM, really. Yes, it's true that ZIM is too stupid to deliberately conquer the world, but he's also crazy enough to accidentally destroy it. Keeping ZIM focused on fighting Dib really is keeping the world safe... just not quite in the manner either of them thinks.
• Dysfunction Junction: ZIM is an egomaniac and strongly implied to be legally insane, GIR is a crazed Cloud Cuckoolander, Dib is a Butt-Monkey who desires affection and validation, Gaz is freaking scary, Professor Membrane is a Mad Scientist and neglectful father with a burning hatred for Santa Claus, and Skoodge is an oblivious Butt-Monkey. And that's just the main cast! The universes status as this would have been delved into more had the show gone on longer.

E

• Early-Installment Weirdness: In the original pilot, Dib is genuinely crazy, ZIM isn't hammy (and is also voiced by Billy West instead of Richard Steven Horvitz), GIR is actually helpful, and Gaz's hair is purple instead of maroon. Each character also appears to have More Teeth than the Osmond Family.
• Easily Conquered World: Which makes ZIM's repeated failures all the funnier.
• Easter Egg: Bloody GIR, a transparent image of GIR covered in blood that is hidden in frames throughout the show.
• Egopolis: Emperor Zim after conquering Earth has renamed every street after himself.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Zim's base.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Santa suit becomes one.
• Election Day Episode: An election is triggered after the actual class president goes crazy in front of the class. Zim wants to win the election because of the power that it would imply (never mind it's just an school election) and Dib wants to stop him because... well, it's his job, and his school life would suck with Zim in charge. He can't win because he's not popular, so he helps a secondary candidate. Dib succeeds in making Zim lose, but it turns out that the school just lobotomizes the election's winner to do the school's bidding, so in the end Zim thanks Dib for saving his life.
• Emotionless Girl: The Cashier at Sammy’s Rib’s n Diapers
  Cashier: Would you like to try the new Ribiyich, it’s back one final time. Oh God no, the horror of this sandwich.
  • Averted when Zim’s Mobile-Suit Human pooped out the morbidly obsessed GIR.
• Empathic Environment: "GameSlave 2": "The rightful order has been restored."
• The Empire: The Irken Empire.
• Enemy Mine: "Bolognius Maximus" (which provides the page quote), "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom", "Tak: The Hideous New Girl" and "Hamstergeddon".
  • Zim attempted this in "Planet Jackers", but Dib refused thinking it was a trick.
  • This is how Dib convinced Tak’s ship to help him defeat Zim.
• Energy Beings: The Meekrob.
• Epic Fail: After posting his video of Zim online, Dib received 91475 negative reviews in 10 seconds.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: After Dib proves that "Chickenfoot" is a fraud.
  Reporter 1: I bet this means Bigfoot is a fraud too!
  Reporter 2: And UFOs.
  Reporter 1: And hobos.
  Dib: No wait! Those are real! Except the hobos. Wait, no. They're real. I... I guess. But- what's wrong with you people!?!
  • Likewise Bill, a paranormal investigator who believes that cereal mascots are real, nevertheless insists that dinosaurs are a fraud.
• Evil Brit: Tak and the stupid aliens from "Abducted".
• Evil Duo: Zim (ego) and GIR (id).
• Evil Hero: For someone who hates humanity so much, Zim actually ends up saving the world more often than not.
• Evil Is Petty: Zim and Gaz.
  • Zim’s ultimate plan in issue 2 which he took 4 years to enact was to use an ancient transmitter to broadcast Dib's training montage from the slob he was in issue 1 across the entire galaxy and transmit the sound of laughter from every being in the galaxy.
• Evil Laugh:
  • Zim, regardless of onlookers.
  • Tak pretty much dethroned ZIM with her laugh.
  • Dib has a decent evil laugh.
  • As does his father.
  • Sizz-Lorr has one too.
• Evil Tastes Good: "I can almost taste the humans being destroyed — IT'S DELICIOUS!"
• Evil Teacher:
  • Mrs. Bitters.
  • Inverted with Mr. Elliot. He's so happy it makes you want to choke a kitten.
• Evil Versus Evil: Zim vs Tak.
  • Actually, Zim Vs. any character who treatens his mission (except for those with good intentions.)
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
  • The Doom Song; the "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom"; "Parent Teacher Night"
  • "Zim Eats Waffles," "Career Day."
  • Many Planets of Hats have notably obvious names, such as Foodcourtia (a planet of almost nothing but restaurants) or Dirt (which Tak was assigned to clean).
• Expositron 9000: Zim's base computer.
• Expy: On the commentary for "Walk of Doom", everyone is quick to point out how much the creepy drooling baby on the bus looks like Stewie.
• Eye Scream:
  • In "Bestest Friend", Zim is being stalked by his new best friend, Keef, for the whole episode, and in order to get rid of him, Zim uses mechanical claws to rip out his eyes and replace them with cybernetics. We all might mourn the show's untimely cancellation, but with stuff like that going on, it's a wonder it lasted on Nickelodeon as long as it did. It's only shown in silhouette, but that's quite sufficient.
  • There was also that episode where Zim crashed his ship into a giant screen. Said crash was jarring enough to knock one of his eyes out. After which he simply picks it up and sticks it back in.
  • There's also the bit in "Walk of Doom" when he looks straight at the sun and his eyes burn and bubble.
  • In "GIR Goes Crazy and Stuff", a guy returns two audiobooks to the library, but after a retinal scan is told they're overdue. The librarian then cheerfully tells him that they'll have to confiscate his retinas.
  • At the beginning of "TAK: The Hideous New Girl", a kid gets hit in the eye with a wiener, denting it.
  • In "Battle of the Planets", the Tallest bring up the ending of "Germs" where Zim covered himself in germ-free fast food meat. Apparently, after that episode, it fused to his flesh and he almost went blind when it invaded his eye sockets.

F

• Failure Is the Only Option: Zim will never conquer the Earth and Dib will never reveal Zim as an alien. More often than not, one's failure causes the other. Gaz herself knows this and as such she never really gets involved in their rivalry willingly.
  Dib: Don't you care that Zim is trying to destroy all mankind? Huh?
  Gaz: But he's so bad at it.
• Faux Affably Evil: Zim. The Tallest are arguably even more so.
• Fauxtastic Voyage: Inverted in "Room With a Moose".
• Fictional Currency: The Irken empire money is called money. And the plural is called moneys.
• Fish out of Water: The episode "Walk of Doom" just deals with Zim getting lost in the city and being unable to deal with the Earth's customs. First, he stares deeply into the sun and temporarily becomes blind. Moments before that, he tried to ride the bus without paying, only to get kicked out and called a weirdo.
• Flanderization:
  • Keef's stalker-ish aspects were highly amplified in "the Return of Keef" compared to his original appearance.
  • Dib got comparatively more crazy and "Zim-like" as the series progressed.
• Foodfight!: Pilot episode
• Forced Transformation: What Chickenfoot thinks he is.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Spoofed; not only was the original form not that uncomfortable, but they turned into shoes. Dib lampshades this, and gets smacked for it.
• Foul Cafeteria Food: The Skool cafeteria.
  Nurse's Assistant: He's missing his liver. That's how some kids react to the cafeteria food. The lucky ones.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Almost every headstone in the graveyard in "Mortos der Soulstealer". Messages range from "JEFF: HE WAS NICE" to "LET ME OUT" and more.
  • Bloody GIR often appears as an Easter Egg in several select episodes.
  • The end-credits of GIR's movie at the start of "FBI Warning of Doom" are mostly normal, but they also credit an actor named Private Poop who plays himself. There's also the warning sign at the beginning of the movie that mentions being "hunted down like the dirty monkey you are and forcing you to wear a moose skin and ride a greased piggy while singing folk tunes."
• Friendly Enemy: Zim and Dib in the Pilot.
• Funny Background Event: In "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom", three of the levels on the elevator are shown to be "Gym" "Pool" and "Tacos."
• Future Imperfect: Invader Zim takes place 20 Minutes in the Future and some traditions we have today have apparently changed. For Valentine's Day, people give out meat instead of chocolates due to a past event that Miss Bitters refuses to talk about. Also, Santa Claus has been changed from a person who gives out presents to a Jesus-like figure whose Second Coming is anticipated by the people of Earth.

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