Olivia D'Abo (English) María Fernanda Morales (Spanish)
Tak is a female Irken and one of the main antagonists of Invader Zim. Her main goal is to take Zim's "mission" because Zim had ruined her training as an Invader. Vicious and determined, she is more focused on trying to gain for herself an honorable title as an Invader than revenge; Zim just happens to be in the way of getting it.
Despite her repeated assertions, she does show an inordinate amount of anger and bitterness toward Zim with good reason: fifty Earth years prior to Zim's arrival on Earth, Tak was going through training to become an Irken Elite, with the possibility of being chosen as an Invader. Zim, however, caused a major blackout throughout half of Devastis when he chose to retrieve a snack from a faulty vending machine by using a large battle mech (possibly a Maim Bot, as seen in Hobo 13) and shooting straight at it.
The resulting explosion blasted half the planet's power grid and trapped Tak in a training cell on the day of examination. Despite the catastrophic power outage, all tests continued on the other still-working side of the planet, leaving Tak stranded. She pled her case to her assigned Control Brain in hopes for some leniency, but her request was promptly denied. She was put into a janitorial squad to do hard labor on Planet Dirt for the duration of seventy Earth years before she could retake the examination.
Tak has dark purple eyes and square-curled antennae. However, she also has some rather distinctive features that make her stand out from ordinary Irkens. One is an implant in her head that possesses limited mind-altering abilities, such as mind control and erasing memories. However, it only works on the simple-minded.
Tak in her disguise
The other notable feature is her custom purple and pink uniform; although it is modeled after the standard Irken uniform, it also resembles a tailcoat in the back and has a small insignia on the front. Her boots are steel-toed and buckled, similar to another one of Jhonen Vasquez's characters, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. She also has a black beauty mark under her left eye and a crosshatched mouth, similar to GIR's.
Her human disguise, which is holographic, has short dark blue hair in a bob cut, very pale skin, black eyeliner, dark purple eye shadow, black pants, and a pair of silver stud earrings. Her clothing is similar to her normal Irken uniform save for some differences; it contains four different shades of purple and blue, and has a backpack which covers her PAK. She also only has three fingers, while other humans have four. This is possibly the only flaw in her disguise, though Keef also has three fingers.
Personality
Tak with MIMI
Despite the fact that she appeared in only one episode, it is clear that Tak's defining characteristics are that she's vindictive, wild, mysterious and rather cunning. She was shown to have a far more advanced disguise than the actual Invaders, choosing a hologram over a paper-thin disguise, and taking advantage of the population's obliviousness. Because she was only featured in a single episode, her personality was not explored to an extensive degree. However, it is very clear that she would be a more-than-capable Invader. Often her behavior is misread by audiences as denial of wanting revenge. However, the suffering she inflicted on Zim before revealing herself can be interpreted as not just a joy but a means of throwing him off-track while she constructed an enormous magma pump disguised as a Deelishus Weenie stand.
She stated that she doesn't want revenge, but to claim what was rightfully hers: the status of Invader. She sought to achieve this by reducing the Earth to a hollow shell by pumping out all its magma and filling it with snacks instead - hoping to appeal directly to the Tallest's taste for sweets. Judging by Tallest Purple's disappointment with the plan's failure, she likely would have succeeded in being reassigned as an Invader.
Role in Invader Zim
Her attempt to take over Earth and thus steal Zim's mission makes Tak an antagonist toward both Zim and Dib. Tak: The Hideous New Girl included her first and only appearance, but if the show had gone on longer, she would have made many appearances throughout the series, namely in Top of the Line. Her role would have mainly been getting in Zim's way of world conquest, making her a main antagonist. In the episode, she would have entered a competition among the other Invaders, during which their SIR Units would be put through a series of tests (not unlike a dog show). Tak's role would have been to sabotage the other SIRs, leaving all but MiMi, Skoodge's and Tenn´s SIR Units and GIR destroyed. Because the script was never recovered, her interaction with Zim during the course of the episode is to be determined.
She speaks with something approximating an English accent. Note her voice actress, Olivia D' Abo is also British. Also tending to dumb herself down when around humans, her voice sounds higher in tone when in disguise.
She designed her ship by modifying a Spittle Runner, painting it red, along with decorating it with her customized version of the Irken insignia.
The purple-pink spark of light that comes out of her right eye and into her left eye has psionic properties, which she used to make Sara apologize to her and, as an added bonus, eat her eraser. She tried to erase Dib and Gaz's memories, but they are apparently immune to her powers, because they are much smarter than the other Skoolchildren. This is thought to come from an implant that's placed on the left side of her head.
Based on her unorthodox methods and abilities, many fans have theorized that Tak may be a "defective" like Zim. This seems to be supported by the fact that she abandoned her janitorial tasks on planet Dirt, much in the way that Zim (a known defective) abandoned his station on Foodcourtia; both felt they were meant for something other than what the Control Brains assigned them.
Tak appears to have a high pain tolerance, as she reacts much less severely to Earth water than Zim.
While Tak is shown ejecting herself out of her ship at the end of Tak: The Hideous New Girl, the ship that crashes in Dib's yard is whole, leaving how she escaped alive up to debate.
Tak mentions Zim's Roboparents during her confrontation with Dib and Gaz, although she had never actually met them, which would imply that she may have followed Zim for some time.
Tak's name is also shared by an extradimensional entity in several books by Stephen King.
Tak was supposedly going to make an appearance in two of Snafu's webcomics: PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi, and Invader Zim: Manifest Doom. So far she has only appeared in Invader Zim: Manifest Doom along with her SIR unit MiMi.
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