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20px-Cquote1.png Gaz: Normally, you crying on the floor is hilarious, but come on.
Dib: It’s all my fault, Gaz! Why aren’t you saying ‘I told you so’?
Gaz: 'Cause making fun of you is no fun when you’re this sad. You’re my brother, man. I only torment you because I know you can handle it. I’ve done way worse than throwing you in a space prison. This is nothing, get up!
— Gaz telling Dib that she actually does care about him, Enter the Florpus.
20px-Cquote2.png


Gaz Membrane
Homeworld Earth
Gender Female
Hair Color Purple
Eye Color Brown
Affiliation(s) None
First Appearance The Nightmare Begins
Voice Actor Melissa Fahn (English)
Ana Lobo (Spanish)
Haruhi Nanao (Japanese)
Yvonne Greitzke (German)

Gazlene "Gaz" Membrane is the tritagonist of the Nickelodeon animated Invader Zim franchise, serving as the secondary antagonist of the cartoon Invader Zim and the deuteragonist of its 2019 TV film Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.

She is also the daughter of Professor Membrane and the menacing younger sister of Dib Membrane. Known for her dark, violent and antisocial personality, Gaz has frequently expressed her disdain for the rest of the human race, seeming to care about only two things in the world: pizza and video games. Few have been known to get between her and those two things and walk away unscathed.

Appearance

Gaz

Gaz's full appearance on the show.

In the show, Gaz has short straight purple hair in a stylized bob cut and wears a short black dress with striped gray sleeves, striped reddish leggings, black shoes, and a necklace in the shape of a skull.

This led many fans to assume she was a Goth, but the executive producer, Jhonen Vasquez, did not view her as such.

So in order to make her seem less like a Goth, he redesigned her appearance for the comic series in an attempt to change her impression with the fans. In the comic series, she now wears a teal t-shirt with a white pixelated video game design of what appears to be a rabbit skull on it, a black skirt, and thick gray boots, a look that is carried over into Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.

GazIZComic-1

Gaz's new appearance in the comic.

When she was younger, she dressed similarly, but with the addition of a pink hair bow. Though her dress style is vaguely gothic in appearance, as mentioned beforehand, the executive producer does not see her as such.

The most unique characteristics of Gaz are her hair and eyes. Her purple hair, resembling a stylized bob cut, is cubic and fashioned into five spikes, resembling a set of fangs or a mouth; however, for the comics and Enter the Florpus this was changed to look less angular. While normally squinted or closed, her eyes widen when she is surprised, enraptured, or deeply irritated, revealing them to be brown in color (though they were blue in the original pilot).

Personality

Screen Shot 2012-08-04 at 4.33

Bringing down an elevator singlehandedly.

Gaz is best known for her short-tempered, creepy, dark, gothic, misanthropic, tough, tomboyish, cynical, and antisocial nature, along with her obsessions over pizza and video games. If a person interferes with her, or with what she enjoys doing, she will often vow revenge, meaning Gaz has a tendency to seek revenge on those who cross her... and she usually gets away with it. Although whether or not she follows up on her vow depends on the situation.

Two prime examples of her vengeful nature can be seen in "Battle-Dib" where she made sure Dib had a terrible time and couldn't accomplish his mission to see their father so he could show the Swollen Eyeball Network his findings on Zim just because he took the last slice of pizza and in "Game Slave 2", where she stalks and terrorizes Iggins in order to get back a handheld console that was stolen from her. This also makes her incredibly petty as she was even planning on "making Dib pay" for drinking the last soda during "The Nightmare Begins."

In line with her dark nature, Gaz has rarely been seen smiling, with the exception of Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus. She also smiled a few times in the Pilot, but given the many inconsistencies seen in it, its canonicity is dubious.

Gaz cares little for most people and generally regards human interaction as nothing more than a means to an end. Several issues of the comics have shown her playing online with other gamers, although whether these are friends or simply another means to an end is unknown.

Dib Inside Out (Bloaty's Pizza Hog)

Gaz's usual concern for her brother's welfare.

Her attitude towards her brother, Dib, is a bit more complex. Although she frequently complains about his behavior, his voice and his desire to save the Earth from Zim, she still walks to school with him, sits next to him at lunchtime, and even partakes in chatter when he’s nearby, hinting that while she will still inflict vengeance upon him if he crosses a line, their behavior with each other simply reflects typical sibling dynamics: squabbling, but affable enough. Her opinion on Zim is probably slightly higher. While she thinks he's so bad at his job of invading, she at least acknowledges that he has powerful technology to destroy the planet but sees that he can't use it properly.

Although she is often angry and bitter, her few interests have been known to coax a more positive side out of her. She has shown more of a more fleshed-out personality in the comics and Enter the Florpus, showing more concern for her brother Dib's well-being.

In Enter the Florpus, Gaz reveals that she's only tough on Dib because she knows he can take it and shows that she actually does care about her brother.

Role in Invader Zim

Gaz Game Slave 2 1

Gaz with her eyes open in determination.

Gaz is the only person, with the exception of Dib, to recognize that Zim is an alien but doesn't care. In "Bloaty's Pizza Hog", she replied to Dib's comment on Zim with an indifferent "but he's so bad at it", and in "Gaz, Taster of Pork", she remarked that he's "too dumb to take over the Earth."

Gaz often stays out of Zim and Dib’s conflicts, but on occasion, she has bailed out her brother - but only when it benefits her, like in "Bloaty's Pizza Hog" and "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever". Although she usually only plays a supporting role, often as the unwilling sidekick to Dib, she has been the main subject in some episodes of the show and issues of the comic.

Abilities

Fiery Background with Gaz (Gaz, Taster of Pork)

An immediate change of atmosphere occurs when Gaz is agitated.

Throughout the show, Gaz has been shown to have several strange powers. These include, but are not limited to: offscreen teleportation, levitation, and some sort of pyrokinesis. On more mundane levels, she has also demonstrated the ability to pilot Irken ships and perform some type of martial arts (described in the "Ten Minutes to Doom" transcript as "ninja moves").

Earlygaz

One of the rare occasions she has smiled. Here, she is smirking at Zim when he is about to chew beans.

Although Steve Russel has stated that Gaz possesses some level of supernatural power, Vasquez has gone on record stating that Gaz has no genuine powers of any sort and that she is simply "someone you don't want to anger".

If Gaz is a creation of Membrane’s, as Dib possibly is, then her more supernatural abilities, as well as her intelligence, could possibly be a result of her artificial nature.


Relationships

Dib

Dib and Gaz

Gaz's relationship with her older brother can best be described as anything but warm, as Gaz hates Dib with every fiber of her being and has gone as far as to physically and verbally abuse him when he gets on her nerves during the course of the series, though there have been times when she restrains herself from hurting him, mostly because her father asked her to be nice to him, as was the case in "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars". However, it can be said that Dib isn't exactly the best sibling either, as he was the reason as to why she was cursed to taste nothing but pork, though he did try to get the curse removed and still got beaten up by Gaz and didn't get any sympathy from her as he sacrificed himself to prevent her from the punishment he thought she was going to suffer.

It wasn't until Enter the Florpus that Gaz revealed that she is only hard on Dib since she knows he can handle it, showing that despite everything she still cares for her brother, even though she still doesn't show any sympathy for him when he is in pain whatsoever.

Zim

Zim and Gaz

Zim and Gaz

Although they hardly ever speak to each other, Gaz is not afraid of Zim and knows his identity as an alien "Invader". However, unlike her brother who sees Zim as an actual threat, Gaz doesn't care as she quickly realized that Zim is too incompetent to conquer Earth. It should be noted she she is unaware that Zim was not actually sent to conquer Earth and that he is actually an exile, if she knew this, its possible Gaz would have a lower opinion of Zim or still wouldn't care.

Despite that however, she underestimated the Irken in Enter the Florpus. as he successfully teleported the Earth towards the path of the Irken Armada and for the first time, she understood how dangerous Zim could be and even began to hate him (but still never feared him), as he was responsible for her father's disappearance. Interestingly, in early episodes she didn't care if he tried to kill all human life, opening the possibility that there are some lines she's not willing to let Zim cross. Despite this, however, fans still continue to pair Zim and Gaz together as a couple, completely ignoring the events of Enter the Florpus altogether.

On Zim's end, he views Gaz as nothing more than "Dib's scary little sister" and has repeatedly made the mistake of overlooking that she is far craftier and more dangerous than Dib. However, there are hints that he is intimidated by her and has tried to prevent her wrath. interestingly, Gaz has saved Zim's life at least three times as seen in "Battle-Dib", "Mysterious Mysteries" and the unmade episode "Ten Minutes to Doom", the last one of which would have been their longest interaction to date.

Plans were in place to have them be in a potential relationship (at least when Gaz is a bit older), starting with a version of the pilot, but they were shelved. The plan was to have her be one of Zim's allies in his plans to conquer Earth.

GIR

GIR Smiles at Gaz (Bloaty's Pizza Hog)

Similarly with Zim, Gaz hardly has spent any time with GIR. She first saw him out of disguise in "Bloaty's Pizza Hog" and was hardly impressed with the fact that she met an alien robot, and was equally unimpressed with the many weapons GIR had at his disposal; she unsurprisingly grew quickly annoyed with him. The most time she has spent with him was in the episode "Tak: The Hideous New Girl", where they work together to drive MiMi crazy. This is noteworthy, as GIR amazingly was able to make Gaz dance and even went as far as to give her a kiss, much to her disgust.

Their limited interaction, however, is quite predictable (and somewhat different) in that GIR seems to be infatuated with Gaz, but she has little tolerance for him, which surprisingly GIR seems to understand, as hinted in their first meeting where he admires her beauty and she seems to get annoyed at him for it. This however is contradicted by the fact that unlike anyone else, Gaz actually gives him a warning rather than any type of physical or verbal abuse, probably because she believes that GIR is too stupid or careless to understand the full extent of the harm she could give him.

Professor Membrane

Gaz and Professor Membrane

Professor Membrane might be the only person to whom Gaz shows a level of respect and love to, despite being neglected by him for most of her life except one day a year, as seen in "Bloaty's Pizza Hog", which showed that the Family Dinner Night (the only night of the year in which Gaz, Dib and Professor Membrane pass time together as a family, due to being so busy) is important enough for her to go to save Dib, and bring him in time and unharmed.

She seems to be the only one of them that cares that they rarely get to see their father, and is therefore more willing to go out of her way to spend time with him when she can. Although she seems to admire her father, she seems to get extremely angered at him for lying to her in "Dibship Rising", perhaps the only seen time she ever does get angry at him.

During the episode "Gaz, Taster of Pork", it was shown how much the Professor loves his daughter, as he quickly became distressed and desperate by the fact that he couldn't invent a cure for Gaz's "disease", and went as far as to "protect" her by putting her in a special insulating suit and confining her to quarantine, then builds an entire specialty area to try to find the cure. Unsurprisingly, he may not have been aware of the psychological effect this may have had on her, and justified her incarceration by simply being for "the name of science." At the end of the episode, they have dinner at Bloaty's again.

However, based on their interactions, it is clear that the Professor and Gaz have a lot in common: Both of them have little patience for Dib's antics, for their own reasons (the Professor considers Dib insane, while Gaz just thinks he's annoying).

Tak

G&T

Gaz briefly met Tak in her Base of Operations which was in the Deelishus Weenie company. They both hardly paid the other much attention, but clearly Tak acknowledged that Gaz was smarter than most humans, as she was not only immune to her mind erasing abilities but was also the only human who has caused her any sort of pain, as Gaz soaked her with poop cola that somewhat burned her.

Interestingly, while Tak never took off her disguise in Dib's presence, she did deactivate it as she was making her escape to do her plan, not caring that Gaz saw her, most likely because Tak didn't see the point as her identity as an Irken was already revealed.

Iggins

G&I

Gaz encountered Iggins in the episode "Game Slave 2". Their first meeting was anything but friendly, as she quickly grew irritated with his gloating over his gaming achievements, and he even thought she had a "funny name", apparently unaware that he insulted her. When the two finally reached the front of the line, there was only one Game Slave 2 left, but it was reserved for another person by the name of "Clarence Wong". Iggins made off with it by faking his name, but was called on his deception by an angry Gaz, who warned that Iggins wouldn't get away with it without "invoking her wrath anyhow."

Unrepentant, Iggins claimed that he "saw an opening and went for it", and added insult to injury gloated by saying "that's why I'm the superior gamer." When he got back to his house, Iggins was already well into his new game, but was then haunted by Gaz in his own home. After a long, horror-filled chase, eventually he surrendered the Game Slave 2 to her, only to then almost die in an elevator crash. Interestingly, when they first met, Iggins' heart made the cartooney "love sound", hinting at a crush on Gaz.

Clembrane

C&G

From the get go, it was evident that Gaz saw the clone of her father as an annoyance, due to his low intelligence and immaturity, but apparently she was able to calm him down when he threw a temper tantrum when he was told he wasn't the real Professor Membrane.

Interestingly, Gaz was the one to give Clembrane his name; this may be due to the implied time together they spent as Gaz told Dib that she had tried to escape but Clembrane was too fast. Curiously, she never once tried to physically assault the clone like she would have with everyone else (as he was a clone of her father), and by the climax of the movie, she grew to care for him as she defended him against Zim and said he made the best pudding.

Sightings







Facts of Doom

He Will Pay! (The Nightmare Begins)
  • Gaz was voiced by Melissa Fahn in the original English version, and by Haruhi Nanao in the Japanese dub. In the German dub, she is voiced by Yvonne Greitzke, and in the Spanish dub, she is voiced by Ana Lobo.[1]
    • In contrast to Gaz who is a vengeful, misanthropic girl, Melissa Fahn auditioned for the role of Ariel from "The Little Mermaid" who is known to be a happy, helpful woman, she was called back many times, but was turned down because she sounded slightly too young. The role was given to Jodi Benson.
  • In the French dub of the series, Gaz is renamed "Zoe".
  • Her voice actress, Melissa Fahn, has stated in the commentary for "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever" that Gaz actually can show positive emotions and love others; she just does not like people interfering with her life and thinks she is better than others, hence her rotten and ill-mannered demeanor around most of the people she makes contact with.
  • Melissa also stated in the same commentary that Gaz is the smartest character, even more so than her own father, agreeing with Jhonen Vasquez. This seems to explain why, unlike Dib, she doesn't view Zim as an ultimate threat to Earth, she however learned in the TV movie that she severely underestimated the Irken.
  • While never actually said in the show, it is hinted in several episodes that Gaz has a girly side to her but doesn't want anyone (except her family and possibly Zim) knowing. In fact, in the commentary for "Gaz, Taster of Pork", it is stated by both Melissa and Jhonen that at heart, Gaz is girly.
  • Ironically, in contrast to Gaz’s usual attitude, her voice actress, Melissa Fahn, is actually very pleasant and friendly.
  • Gaz was the third main character of the series to be introduced (right after Zim and Dib in the show’s premiere), the second human to be seen in the series, and the only female protagonist overall.
  • During the intro, Gaz breaks the fourth wall by putting her hand on the screen and brusquely shoving it aside.
  • Gaz's full first name is Gazlene, a play on the word gasoline. This play on words fits her personality rather well: like gasoline when ignited, Gaz has a very fiery temper when provoked.
    • She is one of the only main characters to have a full name with more than one syllable, or a name that is a wordplay.
    • The word "gaz" is also the name of a type of candy found in the Middle East.
    • The word, translated from Farsi, means "sap".
    • The word is also the French word for gas (as in the fuel).
    • According to Name.org, Gazlene also mean "Edgy scary person!!!!"
  • Like Zim, Gaz is ambidextrous. She can be seen drawing with her right hand in "The Wettening" and with her left hand in "Bloaty's Pizza Hog".
    Super close up of Gaz's face

    Gaz's eyes

  • Although her eyes are brown in color, they were supposed to be light blue, as they were in the Pilot. A coloring error led to her current eye color.
    • A few issues of the comic series give Gaz different eye colors - Issue 5 presents them as green, while her cameo in Issue 17 presents them as purple.
  • In an image on Nicktoons's official site [Citation Needed], Gaz is seen sitting on the floor playing her Game Slave 2 in Zim and Dib's classroom in front of Ms. Bitters, who is growling at her. However, "Parent Teacher Night" and "Gaz, Taster of Pork" notably explains that she is in Mr. Elliot's class, so this was most likely an error or simply a way to show three of the four main characters in a picture.
  • Even though Dib and Gaz were the first humans to find out that Zim’s an alien, they aren’t the only ones that know this, since The Children of the Bright and Shining Saucer as well as the crowd at the Alien Life: Fact or Fiction? convention saw him undisguised and later on Mr. Dwicky discovered that Dib was telling the truth about Zim being an alien and in the unfinished episode “Return of Keef” a certain red headed boy would have been the last human to know this.
    • However only Dib and Gaz are the only humans that know about the existence of the Irken Empire.
  • Her hair prior to Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus resembled open jaws, possibly of a carnivorous creature, adding to her intimidating and scary nature.
  • In some episodes, her height and size occasionally change, possibly due to some animation errors on the part of the artists. She is sometimes seen taller in her surroundings and other times shorter. The shape of her head can also be seen as angular or round in different episodes.
  • Gaz is a playable character in Nicktoons MLB, alongside Zim. Best used as a pitcher, her throw (which leaves behind a trail of cartoony skulls) is one of the fastest in the entire game. Her clothes are the same as in the show, only her dress has pinstripes, and she wears a red baseball cap, which transforms into a first baseman's helmet when she is at first base.
  • Gaz appears in Nicktoons: Globs of Doom, with Melissa Fahn reprising her role. She can be rescued alongside her father in the Skool stage. When you rescue her, she actually congratulates you; however, she is not playable.
  • Unlike Dib who rants about Zim being an alien, Gaz told the Shadowhog in "Gaz, Taster of Pork" that he indeed was an Irken Invader and he seemed to believe her. This shows that Gaz has more credibility than her brother.
  • Interestingly and fittingly, since Gaz hates people but had a fondness for piggies, she made her first friend when she met the Shadowhog, which was ironically due to Dib cursing her with his spelldrive.
  • Gaz is the only character in the series that has ever gotten an onscreen kiss on the lips, albeit an unwanted one from GIR as seen in "Tak: The Hideous New Girl."
  • In "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever", Gaz's anger and hatred are said by Jhonen Vasquez to be the cause of how she was able to fix the Tak Runner. If not taken as a joke, this could suggest that Irken ships can be fixed faster by intense emotion alone, which makes sense as at the time Gaz had a strong desire to inflict revenge on her brother.
    • Alternatively, it could've simply been another of her unique abilities.
  • Gaz is one of three characters shown to scare or at the very least, intimidate Zim, the other two being Sizz-Lorr and Hobo 678, however by “Enter the Florpus” Zim has gotten used to Gaz or at the very least grown more cautious around he.
  • Of the four main characters, she has the least screen time in the series. Paradoxically, she's also the lead female character on the show.
  • Gaz has been absent in 19 episodes, has made 2 small cameo appearance, her voice has been heard offscreen twice, and has appeared without speaking twice.
  • In some aspects, Gaz could be considered a secondary antagonist of the show since she has made it harder for Dib to save the Earth in some occasions; while at the same time she also could be considered an anti-hero for helping save the planet, albeit against her will or with some reluctance.
  • Gaz is the character Jhonen Vasquez was the most excited to get back to writing for the comics. He said that she got the "least love in the series" and that she just "had a role to play, there really wasn't much room for her to be more of a person."
    • Jhonen also claimed that he likes her more in the comics since she's "more fleshed out" while in the show she was "a bit simple."
  • Vasquez has stated that the four main characters aren't evil, although with Gaz it can be hard to tell since she can be merciless towards anyone who interferes with her life which she seems to believe is "justified."
  • Arguably, Gaz is the least liked character in the series, especially due to episodes like "Gaz, Taster of Pork". When the show still aired, many parents made complaints about Gaz's cold treatment of Dib. However, neither Jhonen nor Melissa have address this concern at all.
  • It can be said that Gaz hates humanity more than Zim does, but unlike him, she has no desire or motivation to cause its destruction. This is probably because, as mentioned above, she views human interaction as a means to an end and while she likes being alone, she acknowledges that without people around, there wouldn't be any pizza or video games, her main interests.
    • However, in "Dibship Rising", she tried to destroy the Earth and by extension, the human race, though this is the only episode where she attempted it.
  • Gaz is one of the four characters to have conquered the Earth, as she took over the planet while pretending to be Zim in Issue 21. The others were GIR in "The Trial", Emperor Zim in Issue 12 and Zim himself in Enter the Florpus.
  • Issue 40 shows that even in a universe where everyone is nice, Gaz can still be scary, as she's so overtly friendly that she forces people to partake in tea parties and sleepovers with her against their will.
  • Issue 44 reveals that Gaz is an excellent skier.
  • Gaz's eyes are open throughout Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus much more frequently than in either the show or the comics.
  • TruthShrieker (Issue 0) features the only time in the comics where Gaz is wearing her classic black dress from the show, during the "interview with Dib" where she's impersonating her brother.
  • In The Art of Invader Zim, Aaron Alexovich stated that Gaz's hair style on the show never made sense to the him and the crew until the toys came and he saw a toy version of her. He then says that he prefers her new hair style in Enter the Florpus, as it makes more sense to him.
  • It was once speculated she was a goth girl because of her dark nature, clothing, and appearance; yet Jhonen said something about her not being a goth but only her style, her outfit being heavily based off of Pepito from Squee!. Vasquez possibly changed Gaz’s design in the comics and movie to portray her more as a gamer.
  • Despite Jhonen Vasquez going on record several times that Gaz isn't a Goth, she was still ranked on the Cartoon Goths: Good to Evil video as the fifth most evil Goth by WickedBinge.
  • In the show bible, she and Dib Membrane are inspired by the main characters, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from The X-Files. As both Gaz and Dana are a foil to both Dib and Fox, skeptic, mature, and have more credibility than them.
  • During the duration of the show only once was Gaz impressed by seeing alien life and that was during the TV movie in which she and Dib saw some Space Whales.
  • Her characterization in Enter The Florpus has had a mixed reaction from the fanbase, as some fans praise her character development while other fans criticize her actions as "too inconsistent" as she alternated between being her usual self to being “too nice” to characters such as Clembrane and Dib something she definitely wouldn’t have done in the series.
    • this led to her character development being criticized as a bit rushed with no in universe explanation as to her attitude change.
    • Her redesign also had a mixed reaction from the fanbase, as some fans praise her new appearance while others panned her “gamer look” as it was a major change from her original and iconic dark design which some fans considered to be a big part of her character.
  • Gaz and GIR are two of the main characters that seem to really like pigs as their favorite restaurant is Bloaty's Pizza Hog, the two of them also made friends with pigs, Gaz with the Shadowhog and GIR with a random pig,
    • Also, Gaz’s favorite video game is Vampire Piggies franchise she plays on her Game Slave.
  • Jhonen Vasquez has said that while Dib is his favorite character, he enjoys writing for Gaz the most since he felt he didn't get the chance to write for her enough.

Gallery

Main article: Gaz Membrane/Images

References

  1. http://es.doblaje.wikia.com/wiki/Invasor_Zim Invasor Zim on doblaje wikia

See also

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