Disclaimer: I do not own the lovely Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Marvin, Eddie, or anyone else I may mention. To put it more simply, I don't own "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Author's Note: I dashed to the cinema to watch "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and found myself thinking throughout the entire film, "God, Sam Rockwell makes Zaphod pretty sympathetic." And so I felt for him at the POV gun scene. Just some drabble I thought of when I went home.
How to Break a Guy Who Doesn't Care
As they go back...as they go away from Magrethea...he finds himself...
Thinking.
Thinking, and, oddly enough, reminiscing. Enduring a merciless nostalgia he didn't know he was capable of feeling.
He can't remember the last time he really thought about anything. He never really thinks. He is impulsive. He is unpredictable. That's what the tabloids say whenever there is the slightest hint of gossip surrounding his famous name.
He's come to terms that the mold they'd created for him is what he really os.
President Zaphod Beeblebrox: Impulsive and unpredictable.
That's what he is.
But Trillian...what was Trillian?
He can't fit Trill into a mold. It makes him frustrated. It makes him think.
What is Trillian?
Trillian is beautiful. He vaguely recognizes this when he is around her. It is his shallow side that registers it. She is the perfect, but he does not regard her as the perfect. Until this point he has regarded her as just a pretty girl.
Trillian is brilliant. There is not a question in his minds that she is brilliant. But it is not as much book-brilliance, he realizes now, as it is people-brilliance.
Trillian understands people.
Trillian listens to people.
He can never listen to people. It bores him. It confuses him. It makes him think.
He does not like to think.
Trillian is vulnerable. She is not distinguished by any means. She needs to find someone to "help" her. When he found her, she was alone. He thought he was giving her company. "Helping" her.
But that is not the "help" she wanted. Trill is still alone. He knows it now. She has made it abundantly clear.
Zaphod hates hitchhikers.
Trillian is warm and friendly.
Zaphod had to separate his mind to become satisfactory to people.
He does not understand the pull she has on him. He knows he does not love her. He has never loved anyone in his life other than himself.
Perhaps it is the knowledge that she does not love him that is frustrating him so. He always simply assumed she was in love with him and was tagging along with him because she was just a lovestruck girl.
He hates himself for classifying her that way. He does not understand why. It is not himself he should be hating. There are much better people to hate.
Arthur Dent, for example.
The Earthman has ruined everything for him.
He has made Trill see that she can do better than Zaphod.
Zaphod does not consider Arthur better than him. He considers Arthur much lower than himself.
He cannot see it.
He cannot see what it is that Arthur has and he lacks.
Trillian calls it "understanding."
He has tried to understand her. He HAS. He tells himself he has tried with all his might.
But something in his heart screams that he has not. He has not appreciated her at all.
And she has finally seen him for what he really is.
Impulsive. Unpredictable.
President Zaphod Beeblebrox, the guy who doesn't care.
He is still thinking.
And he thinks to himself now that he does care. And he thinks to himself that fact is as impulsive and unpredictable as he can ever be.
Closing Notes: What did you think? I loved the way it turned out. Peace.