Zeus the Sea Dragon is an animatronic sea dragon at Freddy's Fantasy Water park. It's featured in the park's main attraction, Freddy's Sea Life Mechaquarium, and plays a major role in the Tales from the Pizzaplex story, Submechanophobia, the first story in the book of the same name. Zeus is depicted in the background of both of the original front cover designs for the book, as well as the final one that was chosen to be published.
Physical Appearance[]
Zeus is a huge, green sea dragon and is the largest of the underwater animatronics of the Mechaquarium. It has a reptilian body, metal spikes for spines along its back and tail, and is described as being the scariest of the animatronics. Zeus has wings on the sides of its body, with small, clawed hands and feet, a large jaw and sharp teeth. Some of its teeth have broken off, and oil has built up around its mouth over the years, giving the appearance of dried blood. It has the longest tail and a scaled snout, with its green paint looking like its been rubbed off over time in some places on and around its head. Like all of the underwater animatronics of the water park, Zeus is described as old and rundown, with chipped paint, spots of rust and with broken pieces you wouldn't notice at a distance.
In the first and second iterations of the front cover for Tales from the Pizzaplex 4: Submechanophobia, Zeus is primarily a dark green in colour, with a lighter, more faded colouring to the underside of its lined neck. Its face is rather chunky with rounded edges, a thick nose bridge and is shaped like a cone, being larger at the neck and narrowing down the snout. The snout has two small, black nostrils at the end and it's lower jaw is dropped, seemingly hanging open, but not appearing to be broken. The inside of the lower jaw is coloured faded pinks and greys, with four whiskers on the end of its chin, off-white, sharp teeth and a hole where a tooth is missing. Its eyes are white, with the iris and pupils being so faded they can barely be seen. One is set in Zeus' face, while the other appears to have somewhat popped out of its socket, with both of them aimed in slightly different directions. The popped out eye on the far side of the face is either leaking oil, or the metal of the face has broken away around the underside of it. There's large, torn fins at the back of its upper jaw on either side of its face, with a much larger and more broken fin partway down the back of its neck. They're an off-white kind of grey, with a sandy brown, material to create the webbed effect of fins. The joint where the back of the head meets the long, serpentine neck is open and exposed, showing two round, metal discs on a single metal rod. While the dark green of its body is textured, it does not appear scaled like the story describes, and instead, appears as a mostly flat and worn metal surface. This image of Zeus is much closer to the foreground in the first iteration of the front cover than the second, where it's been flipped to face the left instead of the right.
In the final version of the front cover, Zeus appears much less mechanical, more animated and more vibrant in design. It's a darker shade of green, with a paler green underside, a scaled texture across the whole body, and with a few of those scales being white, light green, and pinkish red. The spines down its back are white with faded pink for the webbing effect of the fins, except the dark red fin that arches from over the top of the eye and the back of its head to form an ear-like appearance. The eye is a dark yellow, with a black, slit pupil, and the metal supports holding it in place are visible at the back of the eye as the casing has a large, rounded gap there. Some wires are waving around through this gap on the outside of the casing, one of which does not loop back to behind the eye and is instead left unconnected. Zeus' cheeks are rounded and its snout is much sharper, with a mouth that's chipped around the edges, coloured pink on the inside and held open by a thin, metal rod. Its mouth is full of sharp teeth of varying sizes and there's another wire flying loose like a tongue from the back of its throat. Finally, it's much longer than the previous versions, coiling around the entire background of the image, with a face shape more akin to an alligator's and there aren't many visible gaps in the casing to indicate joints.
Personality[]
Zeus does not have much of a described personality of its own. In the story, it tries to get Caden the protagonist's attention and does not attempt to harm him in any way, but instead, gives him the first piece of the story's puzzle. Zeus notably prevents Caden from dying, indicating it has some level of care towards him. However, given how heavily implied it is that it's possessed by a small child, this could be more telling of the child's feelings than the animatronic's. It can be assumed that it swims at a generally slow pace under normal circumstances, just like all other underwater animatronics are described as doing.
History[]
Like almost all of the other animatronics of the Mechaquarium, Zeus was named by water park employee Roy, and the reason behind the name chosen is not given. Zeus and the others were left mostly uncared for during the water park's several year closure, and no money was spent on their renovation when the park reopened to the public.
Zeus is the first animatronic to be seen moving on its own with the power shut off, and does so during and after Caden repairs Hank the Hammer. It gets as close to Caden as possible, and follows as he moves away from it until he's pressed against a wall and can't go any further. Zeus stays with its snout directly in front of his face until Caden pulls the child's shoe out of its mouth.
In Caden's nightmare, Zeus appears alongside all of the other underwater animatronics, swimming much faster than usual and attacking the children that jump into the Mechaquarium water. Zeus in particular, is described as darting between the sharks and serpents to bite a child's leg.
In the climax of the story, Zeus is the first animatronic to move and encircles Caden and Martin, who was disquised as Frank the Diver. It coils its tail around Martin's leg, pulls him off of Caden and holds him in place while he struggles until he eventually drowns. It only releases his body once the other animatronics have moved away.
Trivia[]
- Zeus is possibly named after the Greek mythological god of the same name.
- It is heavily implied that Zeus (along with all of the other animatronics but to a larger extent) was possessed by Jason Butterfield, a child that drowned in the Mechaquarium over twenty years ago.
- Following from the above, Zeus' actions appear to be trying to help Caden discover the truth of what's happened at the park, giving him the shoe to start him on the right track.
- Zeus is referred to with a gendered pronoun only once in the entire story, when Caden wonders when he got so close to him. This is likely to have been an understandably overlooked writing error.
Gallery[]
