User blog:AustinDR/Zarm (Effort Post)

What's the Work?
So, this one is about one character that was brought up during the early days of the forum, but didn't receive much discussion. Without much of an introduction, it's Captain Planet and the Planeteers. You know the show; some teenagers are given some magical rings through which they can summon the eco-friendly Captain Planet, who aids them in their adventures of stopping the Eco-Villains, antagonists that are grossly your typical Card Carrying Villain. The show already has a CM in it, but I feel that this one villain wasn't really given much debate. Until now:

Who is he?
Originally, Zarm was a spirit of the Earth much like Gaia. However, due to some unknown events, Zarm abandoned Earth in search of other worlds. As the closest thing the show has to a Big Bad, Zarm is the resident Satanic Archetype who exists to cause as much destruction as he can out of pure hatred for Gaia and Captain Planet.

What has he done?
Zarm is introduced in the episode "The Conqueror." In the episode, Zarm disguises himself as a benevolent alien who offers to give the Planeteers gauntlets that would enhance their powers. However, Ma Ti senses that something's amiss about the alien visitor, and goes to consult Gaia on him. Meanwhile, Zarm subtly manipulates the Planeteers into fighting with each other over who's the most powerful. As they became more corrupted by the gauntlets, Zarm suggests that they destroy a missile base. What they do not realize is that once they do, the base would retaliate and send missiles at them. In short, Zarm was trying to manipulate the team into starting a nuclear war. Unfortunately for him, Ma Ti and Gaia stand in between him and his plan. It's also revealed through a hologram that the planet Zarm helped technologically ended up wiping itself out through nuclear warfare. After failing to win the Planeteers to his side, Zarm tries to destroy the missile base anyway before being defeated.

In the two-parter "Summit to Save Earth," Zarm rallies the Eco-Villains under his command, having them kidnap representatives of the Earth Summit while they would serve as their replacements. When Gaia arrives to stop Zarm, he captures the Planeteers with a tornado made of pollution. He then gives Gaia the choice of either saving the Planeteers at the cost of the Earth, or save them and let Earth die. When her guard was down, Zarm blasts her, causing her to revert into an elderly, mortal woman. As she was connected with the Earth, the planet itself will be destroyed in the event of her demise. Zarm then traps the Planeteers and Captain Planet in his ship for ten years. During those ten years, Zarm transforms the Earth into a CrapsackWorld where trash and pollution is everywhere (to describe how bad the Earth is under Zarm's rule, a bird visibly dissolves onscreen). Relishing at the fact that Gaia's time was running out, Zarm gives the Planeteers a chance to free her solely to drag her suffering out for as long as he could. Though per usual, Zarm gets defeated, and Captain Planet sends him back into space.

In his next appearance "Scorched Earth," Zarm takes possession of a dictator of the Pacifica named Morgar. Through Morgar, Zarm starts to destroy the landscape of the country via drilling for oil. When the Planeteers and the rebels arrive, Zarm issues a strategy he terms "Scorched Earth" basically meaning burning down your own land. Sometime later, Zarm coerces Morgar into issuing that the dam be destroyed. Despite reluctance from his right hand man, the dam is destroyed, placing several civilians' lives in peril. Even though he is defeated yet again, Zarm escapes, arriving in another country so that he could manipulate another dictator into destroying their land. On an unrelated note, Zarm also proudly states that he was behind every known dictator in human history.

In the "Dream Machine," Zarm disguises himself yet again, this time as a figure known as the "Dream Maker." In this episode, Zarm exploits a poverty-stricken man named Carlos into using the Dream Machine to wish for anything he wants. The result is he got his wish...only at the cost of his town's resources being depleted. Soon, Carlos' neighbors began to catch on, and they go demanding that their wishes be granted. As the wishes are granted, more of the resources in their home town dwindle. With no clean drinking water and air, Zarm suggests that they do what other civilizations did years ago and take the resources by force. As such, Carlos' home town starts a war with a neighboring town over their resources. Zarm clearly takes pleasure in the idea of getting these two cities to destroy themselves. And as per usual, he gets defeated.

In "Future Shock," Zarm enters into an alternate future timeline ruled by the Eco-Villains' descendants. He explains to them that due to some unforeseen event in time, their future was erased from existence. So, to keep that from happening, Zarm gives them the task of going back in time to destroy whatever caused the future's destruction. They target many different businesses causing great damage to them, and then they blow up a dam, causing the rushing water to flood into a town. Even though time was on the essence, Ma Ti insists that they save a young girl who was desperately trying to keep from getting swept away in the currents. Zarm realizes that the girl is the reason that the future timeline disappeared, so he demands the Eco-Villains to kill her. They corner the kid, but before they could deliver the killing blow, Ma Ti jumps in front of her. The Eco-Villains cease to exist, and Zarm retreats.

In his final appearance, the Planeteers are debating on the whole "nature vs. nurture" concept. Whilst arguing, two kids run out into the street when their ball rolls out. With a big truck threatening to mow both kids down, Gi states that she'd do anything to save those kids. So enters Zarm. Zarm offers to "help" Gi save the kids by placing them into a new world. In this world, if it is proven correctly that people aren't born to be bad but are transformed by experience, the kids will be saved. However, if Gi fails, she would work for Zarm. Gi reluctantly takes the challenge, and she and the other Planeteers are whisked away into the virtual world Zarm created. At first, it appeared as though Gi might be right in her assumption, but of course, Zarm cheats at the game by manipulating the kids' parents into arguing with each other. The kids hear the arguing in the virtual world, and they start to mimic their behavior. This culminates in the kids nearly destroying themselves out of blind hatred. But as you know the gist behind these episodes already, the day is saved and the parents learn to forget and forgive.

Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?
Now, this is where I had issues with. For any redeeming traits, there obviously aren't. While he would claim that his "might makes right" ideology is there to benefit society, it's made clear that only he would profit from the complete destruction of Earth. Throughout all of his appearances, Zarm pretends to be friendly when he's really trying to sow the seeds of chaos wherever he went. He has no tragic backstory either. Zarm was once a Spirit of the Earth before getting exiled by Gaia, which would mean that he would have moral agency.

However, as was pointed out once, Ma Ti's Heart Ring apparently has no effect on him. One of the purposes behind the ring is that it brings out compassion from whoever it effects. However, I would point out that despite that, Zarm has shown several times that he does comprehend what love or peace is. In his first episode, he pretends to be a benevolent alien in order to trick the Planeteers into kick starting a nuclear war. In the two-parter "Summit to Earth," he exploits Gaia's love for the planet by the Sadistic Choice of having either one die (the planet, or the Planeteers). In "Future Shock," he scoffs at the idea of heart being the most powerful source there is. All of these instances show that at the very least while Zarm may not feel love himself, he is aware that such concepts exist, but he deems them as weaknesses.

Overall, I am not sure on this one. I would like to say that there are no hints to Zarm being Made of Evil, but I do expect there to be some serious questioning there.

Heinous standard
Not an issue there. Zarm blows the heinous standard of the show out of the water effortlessly. All of his schemes amount to causing massive destruction on a daily basis and they have far reaching effects than most of the other villains in the series.

Conclusion
I will admit that my memories of the show are fuzzy at best, but from what it's worth, I feel that Zarm is worth a discussion regardless if he counts or not.