NCIS meta: My Theories About Ziva David (where there is fanwank, and lots of it)
My Theories About Ziva David
Or: The One Where I Fuck Your Brains Out* All About Ziva
*”fuck brains out” = Israeli idiom for bullshit.
Oh, Ziva. You are awesome, you really are. Your banter is good. The boys respect you. You're a kickass Israeli chick, plus, I really like your clothes. But it appears that much like Heroes’ Hana Gitelman’s backstory, NCIS writers prefer their imagination over research, prefer melodrama over hiring one of LA’s 200,000 Israeli or former-Israeli residents as an advisor. Every time you butcher another innocent English phrase, every time you mention another fantastical detail from your backstory, I wince.
Of course, none of the Ziva factoids are strictly wrong, in the same sense that if we suddenly discovered that James Wilson had once been a woman, it couldn’t be said to be strictly wrong. Just... highly unlikely.
But, because I like Ziva, I have attempted to rationalize all the little logical fallacies she tosses out on an episodic basis. 'Attempted' being the key word. All the rest, I can just sigh and nod, sigh and nod. Luckily I enjoy this show enough not to care about the details, just fanwank about them as I am about to do here:
11 Israeli facts about Ziva David, Why They Are Wrong, and How Do I Fanwank Them Away
(Spoilers from Season 3 to episode 5x11, but only regarding Ziva's Israeli-isms and behavior, nothing more.)
1. Ziva’s name is Ziva
Why this is wrong: Because Ziva would have been a perfectly normal name for a girl in the ‘40s, but in the late ‘70s, not so much. It should be on the “old fashioned names to avoid” list, along with the English equivalents of Bertha, Gertrude, Mildred and Zelda. There’s even a song which goes:
Ziva, I’m not the same person anymore
Ziva, our generation is old fashioned
Ziva, you’re so unusual
Ziva, your name makes me nauseous.
What’s more, while the word Zee-va as pronounced on NCIS does indeed mean ‘brilliance’ and is a theoretically charming name for a girl, if you pronounce it Zi-vuh, it means ‘gonorrhea’. Not the author’s intent, I am sure.
How do I fanwank it away: Ziva’s parents were either very old fashioned, or cruelly decided to name her after someone dear to them, however uncommon that practice is in Israel. Ziva suffered from kids teasing her at school all her life, and she likes living abroad, because at least there her name sounds exotic.
(ETA: I just remembered that in addition to everything, Ziva is also the name of a specific phyllo dough U-shaped pastry. Couldn't find any good pictures online, but it's mentioned here and here. So basically, every single connotation of her name is weird.
2. In the army, Ziva rappelled down a cliff without safety ropes and swam three miles in freezing water at night.
Why this is wrong: Uh, what army? Are they talking about the one I served in, or the IDF Ninja Turtle Squad?
I don’t presume know every single secret training program that goes on in the army, but whenever something is as impressive as swimming three miles in freezing water at night, rumors spread so that “come on, everybody knows” about it, even while not officially knowing anything. Therefore I feel pretty confident in saying that soldiers in the IDF neither rappel without safety ropes nor do they swim for three miles in freezing water at night. If they did, it would be the members of one of the elite combat units, none of which have any female members, not now and especially not in the 90s, when Ziva would have been doing her military service.
How do I fanwank it away: Option A: On a weekend on leave or with some idiot friends, Ziva rappelled down cliffs with no safety because they forgot the equipment at home or at the base. Later, they went skinny dipping in a freezing spring, and caught pneumonia and never did it again.
Option B: Ziva likes to mess with the team’s mind.
3. “At Mossad, we started the day at 05:00.”
Why this is wrong: I admittedly don’t know the inner workings of Mossad, but come on.
My fanwank: Ziva likes messing with the team’s mind.
4.Ziva is used to Apple computers, not PCs.
Why this is wrong: Because I don’t know how common Macs are abroad, but I know how very uncommon they are here - and no public workplace, least of all one run by the government, would be using Macs, I guarantee it. I don't know anyone who has a Mac.
How do I fanwank it away: She either bought herself a Mac because she was seduced by the pretty design, had a boyfriend who used a Mac, or got used to them during her assignment in the UK and forgot everything she’d ever learned about using a PC.
5. “I'm Israeli. This is not my first blown-up ambulance.”
Why this is wrong: Because her nonchalant remark makes it seem like Israel is the world capital of exploding ambulances, where ambulances explode every Tuesday and we have grown weary and used to them. I actually looked this up to see if I could find any statistics. Well, I couldn’t find any cases of Magen David Adom (Israeli) Ambulances exploding at all, and this is what I could find about the use of Red Crescent Ambulances by Palestinian terrorists. Of the 12 cases specified, only in one does an ambulance actually explode (and it was in Jenin in the West Bank, a place hardly anyone would be referring to when saying ‘I’m Israeli’.)
How do I fanwank it away: Option A, which I don’t like: Ziva is a sympathy-seeking drama queen.
Option B: In the NCIS world, there actually were some exploding ambulances in Israel, and Ziva witnessed one in person/knew someone who died in the explosion, and it rattled her deeply.
Option C: Ziva likes cultivating her killer image and messing with the team’s minds, except sometimes she does it with bad taste.
6. Ziva knows nothing about even the most trivial US film/pop-culture references. (“Lions and spiders and bears, oh my”? "Johnny Depp is a pirate?")
Why this is wrong: Because Ziva is supposedly a multi-talented, extremely capable, bordering on being a Mary Sue. She’s been watching American TV and movies all her life because that's what we show here, she’s mastered six languages at least, she’s been on undercover missions that have lasted for months, and manages to pass by. We’re supposed to believe that she’s actually so ignorant about film history that she doesn’t recognize quotes and names of the most famous Hollywood movies and stars?
What I don't like about this is that it gives the impression that if Ziva doesn’t know movies/pop culture, then Israelis probably don’t know movies/pop culture, third world country that we are. I mean, not recognizing quotes from Dick Van Dyke or the Mary Tyler Moore show, fine. But Israel aired The Brady Bunch here in the ‘70s, just like everywhere else, and James Bond movies every Friday night. And stuff. And you don’t even have to watch movies to know references! Hell, I never saw The Godfather until last week, but I knew about the “offer you can’t refuse”, the Brando impressions, the various quotes.
How do I fanwank it away: Ziva grew up without a TV. Or no one ever took her to the movies as a kid. Or she simply doesn’t like movies (which was, ha, verified last episode). Basically, whatever explanations you can think up for an average American not to recognize the references Tony regularly makes on the show. It’s a quirk that has nothing to do with her not growing up in the US, is what I’m saying. Ziva's a book girl.
7. Ziva misuses so many American idioms.
Why this is wrong: Okay, misusing American idioms makes sense. Mostly. It happens to me too, except if I’m not sure about something, I’ll generally pause and think before blurting it our wrong, but fine, let’s say Ziva doesn’t do that. And Ziva’s amazing capacity for languages aside, let’s just fanwank that she’s quick to pick up grammar and slow to pick up the language. As an undercover spy, I imagine this would make it hard to blend in, but we can say that she’s never had to blend in in America, or that if she did, she still disguised herself as a foreigner, so that’s fine.
It’s just that sometimes the idioms she mixes up really are difficult, but sometimes? They’re so stupid, it drives me crazy. “Porcuswine. Porcupig. No, that’s not it.” Head-desk, head-desk, head-desk.
How do I fanwank it away: In the beginning, Ziva might have had a bigger issue with the language, and her mix-ups were real. As time went by, though, her English became a lot better than she let on, and only occasionally still makes an honest mistake, which is more often not understanding a phrase someone else uses than misusing a phrase herself. She continues deliberately mixing up her words because she likes it when they correct her, when they roll their eyes at her, likes feeling that this is her Thing, her part on the team, or at least one of them. She’s grown used to it, and it doesn’t harm anybody, and it makes her appear slightly less perfect, less intimidating, and she needs that with the people she loves.
8. Ziva doesn’t mistranslate Israeli idioms:
Why this is wrong: We know Ziva has language-adaptation skills, so it’s kind of weird that she never unintentionally translates Hebrew idioms into English. I know it happens to me all the time, and I assume it does to anyone who speaks two languages. I realize this kind of research would be a lot to request of the writers, though, although I think it’d be amusing. Therefore:
How do I fanwank it away: It does happen, except it’s never shown onscreen. In real NCIS life, Ziva sometimes says, “Do me a favor” when she means “Gimme a break.” She says “In fun” when she means “Sure,” and “in the small” when she means “it’s no big deal.” She says “stop fucking my brains out” when she means “stop bullshitting me”, but okay, that one was on purpose, just to see the look on Tony’s face, as was “that interests my grandmother’s left ball”, when she meant “I don’t give a shit.” And there are so, so many more she plays with, on purpose and not.
9. see: 6, except for: “My father used to tell me: Esh ketana sorefet arbe tiraz.” (A small fire burns a lot of corn.)
Why this is wrong: Completely ignoring her mispronunciation of the words, this saying simply does not exist. (Or, as Ziva might say: “it’s sucked from the finger.”)
How do I fanwank it away: This one, I am certain, is all Ziva messing with their heads. Tough as she might seem, she has a great sense of humor, and she totally made this up just because it’s so effing weird. If Tony ever asked her how to say “Hello, it’s an honor meeting you” in Hebrew, she’d tell him yesh li mesiba bamichnasaim vekulchem muzmanim, ie, “There’s a party in my pants and you’re all invited.” She’s, apparently, that kind of girl.
(Either that, or: her father was a nutjob. Which is kind of canon, really, when you think about it.)
10. Ziva spent her summers in Haifa.
Why this is wrong: Not wrong per se, just uncommon. The concept of “spending the summer” in places, let alone in Haifa, isn’t very Israeli. Israelis spend a week in Eilat, and maybe a week abroad, or both. If they have relatives in the kibbutz, I guess kids might spend a month there - that makes sense. But as a general rule, families don’t own more than one house, and houses aren’t built for more occupants than the immediate family. It would be awkward to crash at your aunt’s place for the entire summer, especially considering that it’s probably no more than an hour’s drive from home.
How do I fanwank it away: Ziva was a very special snowflake. Her parents were either very rich and had two houses, one in the Center and a big villa in Haifa (on the Carmel, maybe), which seems unlikely. Or, my preferred version: she had a single old aunt who lived in a small apartment in Haifa, and Ziva and Tali were sent there over the summers to keep her company, and also so Ziva’s dad could secretly spend some time with Ari, or at least Ari's mom. FOr some reason, I'm pretty sure Ziva's mother is dead. Anyway, Ziva didn’t like it much, but she listened to the old woman’s stories and went to the beach and to the port and the Science Museum.
11. Conversation from the latest episode, 5x11 ("Tribes"):
Bakr: Do you like Muslims?
Ziva: Yes.
Bakr: May I ask why? I don’t mean to offend, but… I’m curious.
Ziva: When you grow up in Israel, most of your neighbors are Muslim. My best friend was a Muslim Arab; he was a young boy. We were very close.
Bakr: Are you still close?
Ziva: No. He was killed, when I was 12. By an Israeli missile strike, in a hotel.
Bakr: There has been too much death.
Ziva: I agree.
Why this is so, so, so wrong:
I’ll tackle this one by parts:
a) “When you grow up in Israel, most of your neighbors are Muslim.”
Um, WHAT. If you mean it like, “When you grow up in the US, most of your neighbors are Canadian,” which has nothing to do with the question he asked (why she likes Muslims), then fine. If you meant it as actual neighbors, ie people who live in your neighborhood, who your kids go to school with, who go to the same grocery store as you - then you must be living in a different country than I am. Most cities and towns in Israel do not have mixed Jewish-Arab populations. The exceptions to this are: Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Ramle, Lod, and Akko, and even there, the education system is usually different, so the Jewish and Muslim kids will go to separate schools, at least until they go to university. The one exception to this is Neveh-Shalom, a joint-Jewish/Arab community town, which was founded in 1977. There is absolutely no way that Ziva David grew up there. (BTW, these were all the mixed cities I could think of; lemme know if you think of more.)
How do I fanwank it away: I got nothing. I'd say Ziva was trying to make Bakr feel more comfortable with her by showing him that she too was comfortable with Muslims, or perhaps that she was trying to project an image of peaceful harmony to make him more sympathetic towards Israel, out of habit. Except that this bit started with Bakr saying: "I used to take my family to Haifa", so he must know what Israel is like (his accent isn't American, so I conclude that he's originally from Israel, in which case he entire line is condescending.) <--this is one of those times where I put fingers in my ears, chant "lalala I can't hear you" and completely ignore the fact that this was said in canon.
b) “My best friend was a Muslim Arab; he was a young boy. We were very close.”
The chances of this are so, so slim, especially when you take into consideration other facts we know about Ziva: she wears a Star of David, she keeps kosher, and she knows the prayer El Maleh Rahamim, which she sang after Ari died. All of these, along with the fact that both Ziva and her father have dedicated their life to the Mossad, indicate that Ziva comes from a religiously traditional, strongly Zionistic family. There are always exceptions, but in general, it’s very unlikely that she would have been in contact with any Muslims at all growing up. At first I thought she was talking about Ari, but I don’t think he considered himself Muslim, and anyway, he didn’t die at 12 (although she could have been making that up, for some reason?)
How do I fanwank it away: Her aunt - the one she spends her summers with in Haifa - is quite a bit more liberal minded than Ziva’s father. When she was little, her aunt took her to the Science Museum, and in the playground she met a boy. They started playing; her aunt befriended the boy’s parents, who were perhaps an artist and a port laborer. With no school over the summer, Ziva and the boy developed a close friendship, the kind you can cut off in September and resume ten months later as if you hadn’t parted at all. He wasn’t her day-to-day best friend; frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ziva had never had a normal kind of best friend - her father probably raised her to be so aloof. But in Haifa, in the summer, she had her boy.
c) “He was killed, when I was 12. By an Israeli missile strike, in a hotel.”
I don’t want to be the girl who defensively says “my country’s army is ethical and wouldn’t bomb a hotel” and everybody rolls their eyes and flips the channel to Al Jazeera. But. Seriously. Israel does not bomb hotels.
Now, okay, if you really don’t believe me, there’s probably no way I can convince you. I tried searching online for cases in which Israel bombed hotels, and couldn’t find any. On the other hand, it makes sense that info would be more scarce, since we’re not talking about the past few years, but about - if I take Cote De Pablo’s age as Ziva’s - 1991. So this is in the middle of the Gulf War, in which all of Israel basically hid in shelters with gas masks and waited. Or it could be considered during the very end of the Intifada, where there was actually conflict against the Palestinians. Either way, a missile would have been fired from a fighter plane, and their purpose is assassinations, not killing civilians, so no, they wouldn’t have targeted a hotel. (If Ziva had said “on the street” even, then fine, but why, why a hotel?) Here is the most comprehensive list I could find of Israeli “hits” on terrorists, including air strikes. You can check it out. There are casualties, especially in the past 7 years, during the second Intifada.
In addition, the fact that Ziva’s Muslim friend was killed by the IDF means that he was staying in a hotel in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon. Which makes sense, but fits even less with Ziva’s friendship, unless we agree about my previous fanwank about them being friends in Haifa.
Anyway, “when I was 12” + “by an Israeli missile strike” + “in a hotel” = big NO. The year, the method and the place don't add up.
Possible fanwank: They were indeed summer friends in Haifa. His family took him on a vacation to Gaza or Ramallah maybe, and a terrorist was hiding somewhere in the vicinity of the hotel. The boy was out front, by the main entrance, when the missile hit the terrorist’s car further up the street. The boy was hit with shrapnel and died.
d) “There has been too much death.” “I agree.”
It’s not that I don’t agree with this, or don’t think that Ziva would say this. It’s just that the entire tone of the conversation makes it seem like Ziva is a poor peace-seeker caught in a land of war, and personally, I don’t think that’s her attitude. NCIS, while being very pro-military, is quite obviously anti-war, and it seems like they’re trying to force the same dovish perspective on Ziva, which simply doesn’t fit her character.
I’m trying to figure out where she stands politically. The fact that her best friend was a Muslim who occasionally visited the West Bank/Gaza, and her occasional complaints about the situation in Israel, seem to imply that she is Israeli-left wing. However, the maybe-religious Zionism I mentioned in 6b suggests that she leans towards the right-wing end of the spectrum. Ziva is a trained Mossad assassin, and quite obviously not a pacifist. Her sister died, and she chose not to renounce violence, but to embrace it. She is Zionistic, which means, in this case, patriotic - and frankly, I don’t even get why she was assigned to NCIS, of all places, in the first place, but I’ll leave that alone. It feels like the show is trying to make a dove out of a hawk.
How I can fanwank this away: I can’t, really. I feel like the show needs to make up its mind about her character.
One possibility is that NCIS really is changing her. Ziva moved to NCIS because she was disillusioned about Mossad, about her father, about her country, even, for letting her reach that place where she had to kill her own brother. So Mossad and Jenny pulled some strings and loaned her to NCIS, so she wouldn’t have a breakdown when she returned back home, so she’d get a break from being undercover and alone. Something Ziva begged them for, even if they didn’t know the real reason was that she’d killed Ari herself. And now she’s working with a team again; it’s been a long time since she’s done that, not since her first assignments in the Mossad. Then she lost someone, and after that, after losing both them and her sister, she decided she preferred to work alone, dedicated to doing whatever it took to keep her country safe; to keep all the people living in her country from losing loved ones, even if it was already too late for her.
But now she’s close to people again, and she’s remembering what it’s like to have fun, to live life without a heavy burden of war and pain and loss and duty sitting on her shoulders. To joke around; to have a crush. NCIS is making Ziva younger, and maybe causing her to realize that yes, some things are worth sacrificing for, but maybe she’s been sacrificing the wrong things. She's having a mini-crisis of faith that's making her reconsider things, so that when she says, "there has been too much death; I agree", she isn't saying "there has been too much, and sadly, there will likely be more"; she is saying, "there has been too much, and I just want it to stop".
(Note: in trying to figure out where she stands politically, I made some sweeping generalizations about both Israeli Jews and Israeli Muslims, which are not necessarily true for Ziva or her friend. Those are the boxes they fit. But if you told me Ziva acted the way she does for other reasons, or had other political opinions, they'd be valid too. Politics can't really be put into neat little boxes. Especially when your country has over 30 political parties.)
IN CONCLUSION:
1. Ziva David has a sense of humor, and likes to mess with the team's heads.
2. Ziva's identity is complex and full of contradictions, and I haven't been able to figure out how all the pieces fit together. This would be wonderful if I thought they were all intentional but unfortunately, I don't. I would feel much happier if I knew Ziva keeping kosher was a deliberate choice made by the writers about her character, instead of an assumption made because she is Jewish and Israeli.
2. If you are writing about something you have not experienced yourself, keep in mind that you will always have readers who have. Don't slack off on research, unless you really don't care. The only thing I agree to suspend my disbelief about is Ziva's accent. Anything other than that, and I blame the writer's laziness.
Comments, questions, opinions, or more examples - I am here :-) (well, I'm going to sleep soon. but I'll be here tomorrow.)
Or: The One Where I Fuck Your Brains Out* All About Ziva
*”fuck brains out” = Israeli idiom for bullshit.
Oh, Ziva. You are awesome, you really are. Your banter is good. The boys respect you. You're a kickass Israeli chick, plus, I really like your clothes. But it appears that much like Heroes’ Hana Gitelman’s backstory, NCIS writers prefer their imagination over research, prefer melodrama over hiring one of LA’s 200,000 Israeli or former-Israeli residents as an advisor. Every time you butcher another innocent English phrase, every time you mention another fantastical detail from your backstory, I wince.
Of course, none of the Ziva factoids are strictly wrong, in the same sense that if we suddenly discovered that James Wilson had once been a woman, it couldn’t be said to be strictly wrong. Just... highly unlikely.
But, because I like Ziva, I have attempted to rationalize all the little logical fallacies she tosses out on an episodic basis. 'Attempted' being the key word. All the rest, I can just sigh and nod, sigh and nod. Luckily I enjoy this show enough not to care about the details, just fanwank about them as I am about to do here:
11 Israeli facts about Ziva David, Why They Are Wrong, and How Do I Fanwank Them Away
(Spoilers from Season 3 to episode 5x11, but only regarding Ziva's Israeli-isms and behavior, nothing more.)
1. Ziva’s name is Ziva
Why this is wrong: Because Ziva would have been a perfectly normal name for a girl in the ‘40s, but in the late ‘70s, not so much. It should be on the “old fashioned names to avoid” list, along with the English equivalents of Bertha, Gertrude, Mildred and Zelda. There’s even a song which goes:
Ziva, I’m not the same person anymore
Ziva, our generation is old fashioned
Ziva, you’re so unusual
Ziva, your name makes me nauseous.
What’s more, while the word Zee-va as pronounced on NCIS does indeed mean ‘brilliance’ and is a theoretically charming name for a girl, if you pronounce it Zi-vuh, it means ‘gonorrhea’. Not the author’s intent, I am sure.
How do I fanwank it away: Ziva’s parents were either very old fashioned, or cruelly decided to name her after someone dear to them, however uncommon that practice is in Israel. Ziva suffered from kids teasing her at school all her life, and she likes living abroad, because at least there her name sounds exotic.
(ETA: I just remembered that in addition to everything, Ziva is also the name of a specific phyllo dough U-shaped pastry. Couldn't find any good pictures online, but it's mentioned here and here. So basically, every single connotation of her name is weird.
2. In the army, Ziva rappelled down a cliff without safety ropes and swam three miles in freezing water at night.
Why this is wrong: Uh, what army? Are they talking about the one I served in, or the IDF Ninja Turtle Squad?
I don’t presume know every single secret training program that goes on in the army, but whenever something is as impressive as swimming three miles in freezing water at night, rumors spread so that “come on, everybody knows” about it, even while not officially knowing anything. Therefore I feel pretty confident in saying that soldiers in the IDF neither rappel without safety ropes nor do they swim for three miles in freezing water at night. If they did, it would be the members of one of the elite combat units, none of which have any female members, not now and especially not in the 90s, when Ziva would have been doing her military service.
How do I fanwank it away: Option A: On a weekend on leave or with some idiot friends, Ziva rappelled down cliffs with no safety because they forgot the equipment at home or at the base. Later, they went skinny dipping in a freezing spring, and caught pneumonia and never did it again.
Option B: Ziva likes to mess with the team’s mind.
3. “At Mossad, we started the day at 05:00.”
Why this is wrong: I admittedly don’t know the inner workings of Mossad, but come on.
My fanwank: Ziva likes messing with the team’s mind.
4.Ziva is used to Apple computers, not PCs.
Why this is wrong: Because I don’t know how common Macs are abroad, but I know how very uncommon they are here - and no public workplace, least of all one run by the government, would be using Macs, I guarantee it. I don't know anyone who has a Mac.
How do I fanwank it away: She either bought herself a Mac because she was seduced by the pretty design, had a boyfriend who used a Mac, or got used to them during her assignment in the UK and forgot everything she’d ever learned about using a PC.
5. “I'm Israeli. This is not my first blown-up ambulance.”
Why this is wrong: Because her nonchalant remark makes it seem like Israel is the world capital of exploding ambulances, where ambulances explode every Tuesday and we have grown weary and used to them. I actually looked this up to see if I could find any statistics. Well, I couldn’t find any cases of Magen David Adom (Israeli) Ambulances exploding at all, and this is what I could find about the use of Red Crescent Ambulances by Palestinian terrorists. Of the 12 cases specified, only in one does an ambulance actually explode (and it was in Jenin in the West Bank, a place hardly anyone would be referring to when saying ‘I’m Israeli’.)
How do I fanwank it away: Option A, which I don’t like: Ziva is a sympathy-seeking drama queen.
Option B: In the NCIS world, there actually were some exploding ambulances in Israel, and Ziva witnessed one in person/knew someone who died in the explosion, and it rattled her deeply.
Option C: Ziva likes cultivating her killer image and messing with the team’s minds, except sometimes she does it with bad taste.
6. Ziva knows nothing about even the most trivial US film/pop-culture references. (“Lions and spiders and bears, oh my”? "Johnny Depp is a pirate?")
Why this is wrong: Because Ziva is supposedly a multi-talented, extremely capable, bordering on being a Mary Sue. She’s been watching American TV and movies all her life because that's what we show here, she’s mastered six languages at least, she’s been on undercover missions that have lasted for months, and manages to pass by. We’re supposed to believe that she’s actually so ignorant about film history that she doesn’t recognize quotes and names of the most famous Hollywood movies and stars?
What I don't like about this is that it gives the impression that if Ziva doesn’t know movies/pop culture, then Israelis probably don’t know movies/pop culture, third world country that we are. I mean, not recognizing quotes from Dick Van Dyke or the Mary Tyler Moore show, fine. But Israel aired The Brady Bunch here in the ‘70s, just like everywhere else, and James Bond movies every Friday night. And stuff. And you don’t even have to watch movies to know references! Hell, I never saw The Godfather until last week, but I knew about the “offer you can’t refuse”, the Brando impressions, the various quotes.
How do I fanwank it away: Ziva grew up without a TV. Or no one ever took her to the movies as a kid. Or she simply doesn’t like movies (which was, ha, verified last episode). Basically, whatever explanations you can think up for an average American not to recognize the references Tony regularly makes on the show. It’s a quirk that has nothing to do with her not growing up in the US, is what I’m saying. Ziva's a book girl.
7. Ziva misuses so many American idioms.
Why this is wrong: Okay, misusing American idioms makes sense. Mostly. It happens to me too, except if I’m not sure about something, I’ll generally pause and think before blurting it our wrong, but fine, let’s say Ziva doesn’t do that. And Ziva’s amazing capacity for languages aside, let’s just fanwank that she’s quick to pick up grammar and slow to pick up the language. As an undercover spy, I imagine this would make it hard to blend in, but we can say that she’s never had to blend in in America, or that if she did, she still disguised herself as a foreigner, so that’s fine.
It’s just that sometimes the idioms she mixes up really are difficult, but sometimes? They’re so stupid, it drives me crazy. “Porcuswine. Porcupig. No, that’s not it.” Head-desk, head-desk, head-desk.
How do I fanwank it away: In the beginning, Ziva might have had a bigger issue with the language, and her mix-ups were real. As time went by, though, her English became a lot better than she let on, and only occasionally still makes an honest mistake, which is more often not understanding a phrase someone else uses than misusing a phrase herself. She continues deliberately mixing up her words because she likes it when they correct her, when they roll their eyes at her, likes feeling that this is her Thing, her part on the team, or at least one of them. She’s grown used to it, and it doesn’t harm anybody, and it makes her appear slightly less perfect, less intimidating, and she needs that with the people she loves.
8. Ziva doesn’t mistranslate Israeli idioms:
Why this is wrong: We know Ziva has language-adaptation skills, so it’s kind of weird that she never unintentionally translates Hebrew idioms into English. I know it happens to me all the time, and I assume it does to anyone who speaks two languages. I realize this kind of research would be a lot to request of the writers, though, although I think it’d be amusing. Therefore:
How do I fanwank it away: It does happen, except it’s never shown onscreen. In real NCIS life, Ziva sometimes says, “Do me a favor” when she means “Gimme a break.” She says “In fun” when she means “Sure,” and “in the small” when she means “it’s no big deal.” She says “stop fucking my brains out” when she means “stop bullshitting me”, but okay, that one was on purpose, just to see the look on Tony’s face, as was “that interests my grandmother’s left ball”, when she meant “I don’t give a shit.” And there are so, so many more she plays with, on purpose and not.
9. see: 6, except for: “My father used to tell me: Esh ketana sorefet arbe tiraz.” (A small fire burns a lot of corn.)
Why this is wrong: Completely ignoring her mispronunciation of the words, this saying simply does not exist. (Or, as Ziva might say: “it’s sucked from the finger.”)
How do I fanwank it away: This one, I am certain, is all Ziva messing with their heads. Tough as she might seem, she has a great sense of humor, and she totally made this up just because it’s so effing weird. If Tony ever asked her how to say “Hello, it’s an honor meeting you” in Hebrew, she’d tell him yesh li mesiba bamichnasaim vekulchem muzmanim, ie, “There’s a party in my pants and you’re all invited.” She’s, apparently, that kind of girl.
(Either that, or: her father was a nutjob. Which is kind of canon, really, when you think about it.)
10. Ziva spent her summers in Haifa.
Why this is wrong: Not wrong per se, just uncommon. The concept of “spending the summer” in places, let alone in Haifa, isn’t very Israeli. Israelis spend a week in Eilat, and maybe a week abroad, or both. If they have relatives in the kibbutz, I guess kids might spend a month there - that makes sense. But as a general rule, families don’t own more than one house, and houses aren’t built for more occupants than the immediate family. It would be awkward to crash at your aunt’s place for the entire summer, especially considering that it’s probably no more than an hour’s drive from home.
How do I fanwank it away: Ziva was a very special snowflake. Her parents were either very rich and had two houses, one in the Center and a big villa in Haifa (on the Carmel, maybe), which seems unlikely. Or, my preferred version: she had a single old aunt who lived in a small apartment in Haifa, and Ziva and Tali were sent there over the summers to keep her company, and also so Ziva’s dad could secretly spend some time with Ari, or at least Ari's mom. FOr some reason, I'm pretty sure Ziva's mother is dead. Anyway, Ziva didn’t like it much, but she listened to the old woman’s stories and went to the beach and to the port and the Science Museum.
11. Conversation from the latest episode, 5x11 ("Tribes"):
Bakr: Do you like Muslims?
Ziva: Yes.
Bakr: May I ask why? I don’t mean to offend, but… I’m curious.
Ziva: When you grow up in Israel, most of your neighbors are Muslim. My best friend was a Muslim Arab; he was a young boy. We were very close.
Bakr: Are you still close?
Ziva: No. He was killed, when I was 12. By an Israeli missile strike, in a hotel.
Bakr: There has been too much death.
Ziva: I agree.
Why this is so, so, so wrong:
I’ll tackle this one by parts:
a) “When you grow up in Israel, most of your neighbors are Muslim.”
Um, WHAT. If you mean it like, “When you grow up in the US, most of your neighbors are Canadian,” which has nothing to do with the question he asked (why she likes Muslims), then fine. If you meant it as actual neighbors, ie people who live in your neighborhood, who your kids go to school with, who go to the same grocery store as you - then you must be living in a different country than I am. Most cities and towns in Israel do not have mixed Jewish-Arab populations. The exceptions to this are: Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Ramle, Lod, and Akko, and even there, the education system is usually different, so the Jewish and Muslim kids will go to separate schools, at least until they go to university. The one exception to this is Neveh-Shalom, a joint-Jewish/Arab community town, which was founded in 1977. There is absolutely no way that Ziva David grew up there. (BTW, these were all the mixed cities I could think of; lemme know if you think of more.)
How do I fanwank it away: I got nothing. I'd say Ziva was trying to make Bakr feel more comfortable with her by showing him that she too was comfortable with Muslims, or perhaps that she was trying to project an image of peaceful harmony to make him more sympathetic towards Israel, out of habit. Except that this bit started with Bakr saying: "I used to take my family to Haifa", so he must know what Israel is like (his accent isn't American, so I conclude that he's originally from Israel, in which case he entire line is condescending.) <--this is one of those times where I put fingers in my ears, chant "lalala I can't hear you" and completely ignore the fact that this was said in canon.
b) “My best friend was a Muslim Arab; he was a young boy. We were very close.”
The chances of this are so, so slim, especially when you take into consideration other facts we know about Ziva: she wears a Star of David, she keeps kosher, and she knows the prayer El Maleh Rahamim, which she sang after Ari died. All of these, along with the fact that both Ziva and her father have dedicated their life to the Mossad, indicate that Ziva comes from a religiously traditional, strongly Zionistic family. There are always exceptions, but in general, it’s very unlikely that she would have been in contact with any Muslims at all growing up. At first I thought she was talking about Ari, but I don’t think he considered himself Muslim, and anyway, he didn’t die at 12 (although she could have been making that up, for some reason?)
How do I fanwank it away: Her aunt - the one she spends her summers with in Haifa - is quite a bit more liberal minded than Ziva’s father. When she was little, her aunt took her to the Science Museum, and in the playground she met a boy. They started playing; her aunt befriended the boy’s parents, who were perhaps an artist and a port laborer. With no school over the summer, Ziva and the boy developed a close friendship, the kind you can cut off in September and resume ten months later as if you hadn’t parted at all. He wasn’t her day-to-day best friend; frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ziva had never had a normal kind of best friend - her father probably raised her to be so aloof. But in Haifa, in the summer, she had her boy.
c) “He was killed, when I was 12. By an Israeli missile strike, in a hotel.”
I don’t want to be the girl who defensively says “my country’s army is ethical and wouldn’t bomb a hotel” and everybody rolls their eyes and flips the channel to Al Jazeera. But. Seriously. Israel does not bomb hotels.
Now, okay, if you really don’t believe me, there’s probably no way I can convince you. I tried searching online for cases in which Israel bombed hotels, and couldn’t find any. On the other hand, it makes sense that info would be more scarce, since we’re not talking about the past few years, but about - if I take Cote De Pablo’s age as Ziva’s - 1991. So this is in the middle of the Gulf War, in which all of Israel basically hid in shelters with gas masks and waited. Or it could be considered during the very end of the Intifada, where there was actually conflict against the Palestinians. Either way, a missile would have been fired from a fighter plane, and their purpose is assassinations, not killing civilians, so no, they wouldn’t have targeted a hotel. (If Ziva had said “on the street” even, then fine, but why, why a hotel?) Here is the most comprehensive list I could find of Israeli “hits” on terrorists, including air strikes. You can check it out. There are casualties, especially in the past 7 years, during the second Intifada.
In addition, the fact that Ziva’s Muslim friend was killed by the IDF means that he was staying in a hotel in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon. Which makes sense, but fits even less with Ziva’s friendship, unless we agree about my previous fanwank about them being friends in Haifa.
Anyway, “when I was 12” + “by an Israeli missile strike” + “in a hotel” = big NO. The year, the method and the place don't add up.
Possible fanwank: They were indeed summer friends in Haifa. His family took him on a vacation to Gaza or Ramallah maybe, and a terrorist was hiding somewhere in the vicinity of the hotel. The boy was out front, by the main entrance, when the missile hit the terrorist’s car further up the street. The boy was hit with shrapnel and died.
d) “There has been too much death.” “I agree.”
It’s not that I don’t agree with this, or don’t think that Ziva would say this. It’s just that the entire tone of the conversation makes it seem like Ziva is a poor peace-seeker caught in a land of war, and personally, I don’t think that’s her attitude. NCIS, while being very pro-military, is quite obviously anti-war, and it seems like they’re trying to force the same dovish perspective on Ziva, which simply doesn’t fit her character.
I’m trying to figure out where she stands politically. The fact that her best friend was a Muslim who occasionally visited the West Bank/Gaza, and her occasional complaints about the situation in Israel, seem to imply that she is Israeli-left wing. However, the maybe-religious Zionism I mentioned in 6b suggests that she leans towards the right-wing end of the spectrum. Ziva is a trained Mossad assassin, and quite obviously not a pacifist. Her sister died, and she chose not to renounce violence, but to embrace it. She is Zionistic, which means, in this case, patriotic - and frankly, I don’t even get why she was assigned to NCIS, of all places, in the first place, but I’ll leave that alone. It feels like the show is trying to make a dove out of a hawk.
How I can fanwank this away: I can’t, really. I feel like the show needs to make up its mind about her character.
One possibility is that NCIS really is changing her. Ziva moved to NCIS because she was disillusioned about Mossad, about her father, about her country, even, for letting her reach that place where she had to kill her own brother. So Mossad and Jenny pulled some strings and loaned her to NCIS, so she wouldn’t have a breakdown when she returned back home, so she’d get a break from being undercover and alone. Something Ziva begged them for, even if they didn’t know the real reason was that she’d killed Ari herself. And now she’s working with a team again; it’s been a long time since she’s done that, not since her first assignments in the Mossad. Then she lost someone, and after that, after losing both them and her sister, she decided she preferred to work alone, dedicated to doing whatever it took to keep her country safe; to keep all the people living in her country from losing loved ones, even if it was already too late for her.
But now she’s close to people again, and she’s remembering what it’s like to have fun, to live life without a heavy burden of war and pain and loss and duty sitting on her shoulders. To joke around; to have a crush. NCIS is making Ziva younger, and maybe causing her to realize that yes, some things are worth sacrificing for, but maybe she’s been sacrificing the wrong things. She's having a mini-crisis of faith that's making her reconsider things, so that when she says, "there has been too much death; I agree", she isn't saying "there has been too much, and sadly, there will likely be more"; she is saying, "there has been too much, and I just want it to stop".
(Note: in trying to figure out where she stands politically, I made some sweeping generalizations about both Israeli Jews and Israeli Muslims, which are not necessarily true for Ziva or her friend. Those are the boxes they fit. But if you told me Ziva acted the way she does for other reasons, or had other political opinions, they'd be valid too. Politics can't really be put into neat little boxes. Especially when your country has over 30 political parties.)
IN CONCLUSION:
1. Ziva David has a sense of humor, and likes to mess with the team's heads.
2. Ziva's identity is complex and full of contradictions, and I haven't been able to figure out how all the pieces fit together. This would be wonderful if I thought they were all intentional but unfortunately, I don't. I would feel much happier if I knew Ziva keeping kosher was a deliberate choice made by the writers about her character, instead of an assumption made because she is Jewish and Israeli.
2. If you are writing about something you have not experienced yourself, keep in mind that you will always have readers who have. Don't slack off on research, unless you really don't care. The only thing I agree to suspend my disbelief about is Ziva's accent. Anything other than that, and I blame the writer's laziness.
Comments, questions, opinions, or more examples - I am here :-) (well, I'm going to sleep soon. but I'll be here tomorrow.)