Invader Zim really is the Raj in little, isn't he? · 6:53pm Mar 29th, 2020
An overweening incompetent, cast down and forgotten in a corner of the Empire. But a true believer in that Empire nonetheless.
Kipling would've had some pity for him:
Daily, though no ears attended, did my prayers arise
Daily, though no fire descended, did I sacrifice
Though my burden did not lift
Though I faced no lighter odds
Nonetheless
Nonetheless, I served the gods!
Note that's Kipling the impertinent young jackanapes*, not Kipling the old imperialist. The difference did not go unremarked, even in his day:
"I say, have you heard the latest about Mrs. Hauksbee?"
In the 1920's the BBC launched a news broadcast that was heard throughout the Empire. Each day at six o'clock local time it began with a recording of Big Ben chiming the hour. This was called "The Golden Hour" and many old Britons who were children abroad recall how their families would listen to it in reverent silence.
I thought of this when I read Patchwork Poltergeist's Zim fic "Stars, Even Here." It's not at all long--more a prose-poem than a story--so go read it. I'll wait.
It's about Zim's Golden Hour.
It isn't broadcast by his Empire. His Empire doesn't care that much about him. But he cares about his Empire, so he makes up his own Golden Hour. He makes it up out of sights not sounds, but it does for him what the Golden Hour did for all the little true believers cast down and forgotten in Jamaica and Hong Kong and Port Said.
He pretends it reminds him of Empire.
But really it reminds him of home.
So it's "armadas and blood" instead of skylarks and cider. What does it matter? That's home for him. And he yearns for it with all the sentiment (and sincerity) of a Tory eating parkin on Guy Fawkes day in Simla.
Not that he'd admit it. Sentiment is weakness and WARRIORS ARE NOT WEAK. Definitely not warriors of Empire, and most emphatically not this Empire. Not this warrior.
"But still," as Poltergeist says.
I know Zim. I've sat next to him at more than one pony-con and listened to him talk about the superiority of his race, the might of his technology, the inevitability of the victory his kind are preparing EVEN NOW YOU FOOLS. He's a white supremacist, a tech dick, a revolutionary.
And he's a motor-mouthed little loser who wants to go home. Only he can't because they don't want him there.
So he's me, too.
The one thing that drew us together was our Golden Hour, which was really more of a half-hour but still. It reminded us of our ideals, and it gave us a sense of belonging. And now it's over: on dune and headland sinks the fire...
But still we come up to the top of the hill and wait for our Golden Hour, the new one we made up because we care about the old ideals and the old home. And though everyone else moves on we will still be here whenever we can. Watching. Listening.
Lest we forget. Lest we forget.
* You know, the one whose first book was puffed by Oscar Wilde. No, that's not alternate history, that really happened.
Zim forever!
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AN' THE TURKEY ALLLLL ALONG!
Thank you for writing.
This is really good. Thank you for posting it.
(Stirring thoughts of something I'd like to write.)
The Golden Hour reminds me of a section from my other Zim-fic, The Ballad of Vada IV*:
And when I went back and rewatched the show, I realized that there are multiple instances of the other Invaders gathering together in meetings or taking bets on how long Zim lasts before he dies horribly. At the very least, they have actual contact and briefings with The Tallest. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Irken Empire has their own Golden Hour broadcast, a small chance to connect with their own kind again for just a little while. As a species, they seem to have a good deal of social contact, and if not as a matter of social bonds, then as a matter of species solidarity and pride.
Except Zim doesn't get that, because he's not a real Invader. Even if he was, nobody likes him enough to invite him to anything.
Not that it matters, because regardless of Zim ever acknowledged his estrangement from his society, it's still his people and it's still his home. Or at least he'd like to think so.
Like everything else, he has to make his golden hour for himself. Not that he needs anyone. Invaders are very self-reliant, you know.
*Don't get spooked by the 2nd person, I promise I know what I'm doing.
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Jack Barrett went to Quetta.
He didn't understand
The reason of his transfer
From the pleasant mountain-land.
The season was September,
And it killed him out of hand.
--"The Story of Uriah"
I feel a sudden disturbence in the Force, as if millions of teleworkers had cried out OH GOOD IT'S NOT JUST ME THEN, and were suddenly silent.
It strikes me that you could get a lot of good material for your Zim stories by reading Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling's first book (you know, the one Oscar Wilde puffed). It's a collection of short stories Kipling wrote about the English colonial civil service in the heydey of the Raj, while he was in the thick of it as a cub reporter.