Zeetha, Daughter of Chump

Zeetha, daughter of Chump
No, not for the teeth. We think.
Name:	Zeetha
Occupation:	Wandering warrior
Residence:	Skifander, in principle
Debut:	In the background of the ✣ traveling show (but not for long).
Relations
Parents:	Warrior Queen of Skifander, Chump
Relatives:	Brother: Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, Cousin?: Unnamed
Marital Status:	unmarried, but friendly with Yeti at introduction; currently in relationship with Higgs

"And I am Zeetha, Daughter of Chump."'

"'Chump?'"

"A great warrior. And yes, I know what it means in your language. Amusing, yes?"

Zeetha and Gil

Zeetha, daughter of Chump, lost royal princess guardian of the lost city of Skifander is Agatha's traveling companion and has the unique relationship to her of "Kolee-dok-Zumil." She's easy to pick out in a crowd, with her waist-length green hair, gold-tinged skin, two unusual swords, and an occasional glimpse of what some readers call "the navel of death," not without reason. Her canine teeth are almost long enough to be properly called fangs.

Backstory

As explained ✣ by Madame Olga to Agatha, an expedition discovered/relocated the Warrior Queen's Hidden Jewel a few years ago. (Much much later, it's revealed ✣ that the expedition was financed by the English noblewoman Ariadne Steelgarter and headed up by one Professor Consolmagno, late of Italy.) The city's ruler Queen Zantabraxus decided ✣ to send her daughter Zeetha with the expedition when it returned to Europa. (Olga says that she did this "to see what the rest of the world was getting up to," but see below...) It didn't go well. Zeetha developed a raging fever on the trip and remembered nothing but the hallucinations - so she had no idea even how much time had passed. By the time she recovered, the airship had been taken by pirates, commanded by the infamous pirate queen Bangladesh DuPree (though DuPree was evidently not personally present at the time.) The pirates killed the crew and were planning to sell the exotic Zeetha. This turned out to be a mistake ✣ . After she recovered from her illness, Zeetha killed her captors, shot down the remainder of the pirate fleet, and wiped out their home fortress. Only then did it occur to her that she'd killed everyone who might possibly know how to get her home. Ah well, when a girl's having that much fun, it's hard to know when to stop.

After that, she wandered Europa for three years ✣ looking for someone she hadn't killed who could point her in the direction of Skifander, (or even prove that it ever existed in the first place). At the time our heroine meets her, she has traveled ✣ for two years with Master Payne's Circus of Adventure.

Relationships

Kolee-dok-Zumil

Zeetha explaining kolee-dok-zumil to Agatha When Agatha Clay confirms that Skifander isn't just a fever dream (Uncle Barry had told her stories about 'The Warrior Queen's Hidden Jewel'), Zeetha shows her gratitude by making Agatha her zumil. The Kolee-dok-Zumil relationship is hard to describe concisely, so go read the article. What starts out as useful survival skills for a girl on the run ✣ develops into an invaluable practical education for the next claimant to the Heterodyne legacy. ✣ Zeetha is the first person (other than Punch and Judy) who really exerts herself to keep Agatha alive and well. Zeetha takes learning the true scope of Agatha's quest in stride and becomes more big sister than grindstone, going so far as to babysit Agatha's boyfriend ✣ for her.

To House Wulfenbach

Zeetha's father is Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, who spent several years exiled in Skifander, known solely as "Chump" and having adventures ✣ and a marriage-type relationship with Zantabraxus before fleeing back to Europa with his son and Zeetha's brother Gilgamesh when the siblings were both infants. Klaus did this to save Gil's life; why people in the city wanted Gil dead has not yet been revealed in-comic. (However, Word of God has noted elsewhere that the matriarchal Skifandrian culture frowns on twins. )

Despite having at least one powerfully Sparky parent, Zeetha has shown no signs of being one herself.

This relationship was not explicitly revealed in the comic for a very long time, but various hints have been dropped over the years, including Professora Foglio's comment in Paris that a brash Europan adventurer meeting an intrigued barbarian queen is an old, old story. ✣ During the Battle of Sturmhalten is the first time in-comic that Klaus and Zeetha meet. He evidently recognizes ✣ Zeetha as being from Skifander, and they have a brief conversation in Skiff. Zeetha never gets a chance to explore how much Klaus knows about Skifander besides its language, because he gets wasped by Lu-in-Agatha, and then tries to kill her Zumil and then they must fight ✣ . Klaus ends up badly injured and Zeetha flees the scene with Agatha. A recuperating Klaus later warns Gil about the green-haired girl, resulting in a classic piece of ✣ Girl Genius dialogue.

Despite Klaus's warning, when they do meet, Gil and Zeetha become ✣ fast friends in record time during a series ✣ of situations ✣ that could easily ✣ have fostered ✣ mistrust. Neither mistrust nor (unsurprisingly) romance ✣ blooms between them, however. At some point in all this Zeetha deduces ✣ that Klaus is probably Chump and Gil is her targeted brother. (She does tell Gil at one point ✣ she won't kill hm, or at least "not yet, anyway. Agatha wouldn't like it.")

And so, when Zeetha and Klaus (and Gil) eventually finally end up in the same room together (on Castle Wulfenbach, above Mechanicsburg) Zeetha again speaks ✣ to a (rather distracted) Klaus in the Skifanderian language and calls him as "Chump" provoking a confirming response; when Klaus is momentarily incapacitated she quickly shares all this with Gil, saying Klaus is her father and he's her brother. After reporting in turn that Klaus never said anything about Skifander, Zantabraxus, or Zeetha herself, Gil hugs her and she cries. She then also (re-)confirms that, yes, she really was sent out to kill him like Klaus feared, but she's not going to do it. Then, as always, events roll on, forcing them to postpone further discussion on this subject.

Romance

Zeetha is something of an expert at being on the prowl ✣ . The Girl Genius Complete List of Absolutely Everybody! describes the large Yeti as her "boyfriend for a while," until she left the circus to take care of her Zumil. (He's the one who carries her after she damages her ankle fighting the Monster Horse Beastie.) Later, during the bar fight at Mamma Gkika's, The Unstoppable Higgs says those words every girl longs to hear -- " Miss, you look so... ✣ " -- sparking her interest ✣ . They kiss ✣ during the Siege of Mechanicsburg, and following the Timeskip are still a romantic item, though they apparently ✣ don't get to spend much time together; they are reunited when both of them eventually make their way to England. During their stay in that kingdom, Higgs tells Zeetha who and what he really is, and she is present when he finally tells Agatha as well. The pair also gets a chance to dance together at Queen Albia's grand soiree.

As noted below, they have a very limited two-way sparky device that lets them sort-of communicate, but most importantly know that each other is all right.

Battles

While she is a formidable fighter, it is something of a running theme that Zeetha tends to end up on the short end of the stick when engaging in actual armed combat. She almost gets eaten by the Monster Horse Beastie which the Circus encounters, despite chopping off its head. (Sprouting a new mouth and all those tentacles is just not fair!) She ends up pinned down with Klaus's knife at her throat when they meet, but fortunately he is reluctant to actually kill her, and distractions arise. When in Castle Heterodyne, she is run through with one of her own swords by Zola (and patched back together by Violetta and Mamma Gkika.) Later in Paris she suffers a non-fatal but bruising defeat in unarmed combat against Shurdlu the Geisterdamen, who also recognizes her as being from Skifander, and then in England she almost dies at the hands of a Lucrezia-inhabited battle-clank. (Or rather "hand", as she at least manages to chop one of them off first..)

And she sometimes attacks things ✣ or blurts out ✣ information at tactically inappropriate moments. As the gal herself says, she is "not good with the subtle."

During the England arc, we get another rather momentous reveal, this one involving that aforementioned patching by Gkikka: it turns out the only way to save Zeetha was to give her a dose of Jägerdraught. It worked like a treat in the short term, but the longer range fallout from this decision remains very much to be seen.

And speaking of formidable fighters and battles, Bangladesh DuPree is in town as well, learns from former pirate Ulysses Bonny that it was Zeetha who wiped out her fortress, and gleefully makes plans to fight the other woman to the death. (The two have heard about each other through certain mutual acquaintances, and briefly cross paths in the Corbettite Depot Fortress of St. Szpac.) However, when they do finally meet again, Agatha cuts in and issues a very unsubtle and highly credible threat to Bang. An oblivious Zeetha immediately proposes they do some sparring as everyone visits the Royal Observatory; Bang of course accepts, but realizes that she is being watched by Da Boyz and Higgs, and so has to be doubly restrained. At least by her standards. The battle nevertheless disrupts one of the Observatory's displays, and Zeetha gets dragged away by Princess Neena when she mentions in passing that she can read one of the displaced plaques. ✣ This leads Our Heroes to visiting a certain nearby island, where Zeetha helps battle some Horrible Rats, and discovers a long-sealed "Skifander room", which contains among other things the long-lost twin of the Brek'kah Stone. When the local Queen's Mirror is activated using said Stone, she even gets to see her homeland. Sadly, everything goes to pieces, the Stone is lost again, and the connection gets terminally severed with only Lady Steelgarter and Higgs on the other side...

Equipment

I love you.

As is only right for a warrior princess, Zeetha originally wields two quata'ara (known IRL as Pata) known as the "Twin Blades of Destruction". The two blades are held by horizontal hafts, and are "punched" towards the opponent. The right-hand blade is a traditional double-edged sword blade, while the left-hand blade is a forked blade that is used as a sword-breaker, with the idea being to catch the opponent's sword between the two tines and twist the sword out of their hands. During the Siege of Mechanicsburg, Higgs stores the blades somewhere in the city so that she can't use them while she recuperates from the injuries Zola inflicts.

Consequently, she switches to a matched pair ✣ of shorter blades, but loses those while in Paris and acquires a new pair in England. She doesn't think much of them, and Albia obliges by summoning up a new set of Skifanderian-style Quata'ara, complete with British flag adornments.

Another oft-remarked piece of Zeetha's equipment is her headband, which features a circular face ornament complementing the two on her sword harness. The face on the headband changes expression to match Zeetha's own, even when she's not wearing it ✣ ; since this is now part of the canon, it can be assumed to be some sort of sparky technology (and not just an artist's running joke, as was originally suspected). It is currently in the possession of Higgs.

The fact that she's lost almost all of her original Skifandrian gear actually becomes a plot-point while in England- Lady Steelgarter unsuccessfully schemes ✣ to covertly obtain some of said gear and use its "material harmonics" to (evidently) locate Skifander.

Zeetha has carried some additional equipment outside of canon. In the Girl Genius Radio Theatre play "Minor Heroes," she uses a pair of Skifanderian dueling hammers (one ball-peen, one claw) to go woman-a-mano with Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, much to his pummelment. In the interlude "Revenge of the Weasel Queen," she gets good Lapinemoth-kicking use out of a shovel ✣ , but that's not part of her usual arsenal. Probably.

The Future

If the "Mechanicsburg Solstice" flash-forward story is indeed 100% canon, it has been confirmed that Zeetha will survive the Other War and continue to adventure with Agatha as the latter woman takes up her duties as ruler of a freed Mechanicsburg.

The Novels

The comic proper never explicitly lists her official duties with the Circus, but the print novel Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess notes that during performances she puts on displays of fancy sword-play, and when not on stage, she watches out for things and/or people that prove to need killing; she bluntly notes she is engaging in the latter duty when she first talks to Agatha. The novel also makes a point of more clearly detailing her state of grubby despair during this scene.

Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle offers a few additional details about Chump, including that he was a visitor to Skifander who offered little information about his background beyond claiming he came from someplace called "Europa". Zeetha says an additional reason she came back with the expedition is that she wanted to find him, as he "ran away" from Skifander when she was only a month old. Though it is not made clear if this desire is part of her official assigned mission, or more personal in nature. It is also not indicated if she has ever been told by her family why Chump might have run off.

The Works

The Works includes a card for Zeetha who is described as Hero and Princess. Zeetha's crossed swords are depicted as identical pistol-handled rapiers.