attempting to logically explain zack by Eviaded Posted 20/05/2008

Eviaded wrote : There are many fans upset with the revelation that our beloved Zack could be gone. The fact that he could be a killer makes them mad.

My thought? It makes sense.

Here's why.

Purpose. Zack desperately wanted a purpose. He tried to find it in Iraq but they sent him home due to 'failure to assimilate' and with the idea that it was wrong that the Jeffersonian was the only place he could fit. He needed to find his own purpose.

Note: Sweets pointed out early in Season 3 that the silver skeleton was 'Gormogon's sole purpose. Zack was not there for that but it was a hint if a connection. On re-watching the Gormogon episodes this past Sunday that scene was my first hint that Zack was the apprentice.

Personality. Zack's entire personality, as most people view the concept, was defined by imitating others. His sole quirks and markers were the result of his rational brain. His hobbies and loves all had rational backing. Model airplanes? Applied engineering. Love of singing? Calculated to win friends. King of the Lab? You could see that even when he claimed the title, Zack often had a look of 'I don't get this game'. He played it because Hodgins did. Being correct in his science was all Zack needed. Hodgins even said to him at one point, "If you're ever going to properly imitate being human..." We had all the signs and what they all pointed to was a weak personality who was primed for someone with a stronger personality to come in and give him purpose without trying to influence Zack's own personality.

Most of the people around Zack had someone, in the end. Hodgins and Angela had each other. And more and more Brennan, his scientific mentor and mother figure, had Booth. Cam was becoming his new mother figure but it seemed to be too little, too late. Zack needed a strong guide and his main ones - Hodgins and Brennan - now had other concerns. That left him ripe for the Master's picking.

But what truly made the transition to killer possible? His supreme governing nature: The Rational. The one thing Zack could truly lay claim to was his intellect and rational being. In Season 1 he was asked what he would do if someone presented him with an irrefutable argument to do something others would deem wrong. His answer? Not without checking with Dr. Brennan, Angela, and others first. But they have drawn more and more into other relationships leaving him more isolated, more vulnerable.

Logic and reason were the only things Zack could call his own. Brennan is very much like Zack, but with her strong emotional attachment to Booth and reverence for life her rational brain is tempered by a vibrant heart. This is how she knew exactly how Zack reached his conclusions, without falling prey to them herself.

(Note: I cried like crazy on re-watching this scene.)
Zack: If you knew what I know, you'd understand. You'd be proud of me.
Brennan: I've always been proud of you, Zack. I've never met anyone more rational or intelligent. But there's a fault in your logic.
Zack: With all due respect, you aren't cognizant of his logic.
Brennan: Assumption number 1: Secret societies exist.
Zack: Accepted. Hodgins has been explaining this to me for years.
Brennan: Assumption number 2: The human experience is adversely affected by secret societies.
Zack: Accepted.
Brennan: Assumption number 3: Attacking and killing members of secret societies will have an ameliorating (improving) affect on the human experience.
Zack: Accepted.
Brennan: All of your assumptions are built on a first principle, Zack. To wit: the historical human experience as a whole is more important than a single person's life.
Zack: Yes.
Brennan: Yet you risked it all so you wouldn't hurt Hodgins.

I really cried when they did...

Zack is more rational but Brennan is more complete. She acknowledges, to a point, her heart and therefore can incorporate it into her decision-making. By ignoring it or not understanding it Zack is even more at it's mercy. He realized this too late.

This wasn't as sudden as it seemed, to me. It was foreshadowed heavily in 'The Verdict in the Story'. Zack made mistakes? He could make a bigger one. Brennan is rationally capable of taking a life? Then Zack most definitely is. But there's a difference. Brennan could do it to rationally head off a death of a loved one: brain tempered by heart. Zack could do it on the basis of any irrefutable argument. Personal relationships need not, and should not, be involved.

Zack is not insane and Sweets knows it. Some might rationally try to argue he is in some ways more highly evolved, beyond what society can handle. Science is striving to create robots unconcerned with emotions. Personally, though, I think it could be a bit exhausting to have a robot to which you must prove the reasoning for every command...

We're not supposed to see Zack as 'bad'. For all his intellect and all his logic he never could grasp the one most important aspect of the human condition:

Booth: Brain and Heart, Bones. Brain and Heart.

Zack missed the heart completely. And for that we should feel sad.