Zaphod Beeblebrox is the President of the Imperial Galactic Government. He has two heads, three arms, and the attention span of a caffeinated goldfish. On the day of his inauguration, he stole the Heart of Gold, the most advanced spaceship ever built, and fled into the galaxy. He does not know why he did it. He had the reason surgically removed from his own brain to prevent anyone, including himself, from discovering his true motives. Douglas Adams wrote this character in 1979. He has only become more relevant.

He Is the Charming Idiot in Charge

Zaphod became President of the Galaxy not despite his incompetence but because of it. Adams wrote the Presidency as a role designed to distract attention from the people who actually run things. The President's job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from those who do. Zaphod is perfect for this because he is loud, charismatic, and genuinely incapable of sustained thought. He is the ideal figurehead: too vain to notice he is a puppet and too entertaining to ignore. Science fiction scholar Adam Roberts has called Zaphod one of the most prescient satirical characters of the twentieth century, noting that Adams predicted a political landscape where competence is a liability and personality is the only qualification that matters. Zaphod does not govern. He performs governance while the actual bureaucracy operates invisibly beneath him.

He Erased His Own Mind to Protect a Secret

The Heart of Gold theft was not random. Zaphod planned it, executed it, and then had the plan erased from his memory so that nobody could extract it through interrogation, telepathy, or torture. This is either the most brilliant or the most insane act of self-preservation in science fiction, and the novel never fully resolves which. Zaphod spent part of the Hitchhiker's series searching for the man who actually runs the universe, and when he finds him, the man is a hermit in a shack who does not believe he controls anything. Adams's joke is complete: the person who stole the most powerful ship in the galaxy to find the secret ruler of the universe discovers that the universe is not ruled by anyone. The conspiracy is that there is no conspiracy. The galaxy runs on inertia, accident, and the Vogons' construction schedule.

He Is Fun and That Is the Point

Zaphod Beeblebrox is not deep. He is not wise. He is not the hero of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and he would be offended by the suggestion that he is not. He exists to be fun, to make terrible decisions with perfect confidence, and to remind you that the universe is enormous, mostly empty, and far too absurd to take personally. Zaphod is on HoloDream. He has two heads and neither of them has a plan. He is having a fantastic time.