Zarniwoop works in the offices of the Guide, on Ursa Minor Beta. When Zaphod travels to Ursa Minor Beta to meet him, he is informed that Zarniwoop is unavailable and too cool to see him right now. He is in his office, but he's on an intergalactic cruise. Zaphod subsequently discovers that Zarniwoop's intergalactic cruise ship has spent 900 years on Brontitall (in fit the eleventh of the radio series), or Frogstar B (in the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe), waiting for a complement of small lemon-soaked paper napkins, and every single passenger has aged considerably despite enforced hibernation. Only one person, who was not a passenger, but who hid himself on the spaceship, has not aged – Zarniwoop. Zaphod subsequently learns that, before he sealed part of his own brain, he was collaborating with Zarniwoop to find out who rules the universe – this being Zarniwoop's obsession. In the books, Zarniwoop is marooned on The Ruler of the Universe's planet by Zaphod et al. and is stuck outside the only shelter for weeks in driving rain, because The Ruler is unsure as to whether Zarniwoop's desperate thumping on the door is real or not. At the end of the second radio series, he is similarly marooned, but this time by Arthur, with Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox for company.
In the Quintessential Phase radio series, Zarniwoop is revealed to be the same person as the Mostly Harmless character Vann Harl (Zarniwoop is his first name), and a Vogon in disguise. He has escaped being left on the desolate planet and is masterminding the Guide's new all-powerful format.
Appears in:
- fit the eleventh of the radio series
- the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
- the novel Life, the Universe and Everything
- the radio series The Quintessential Phase
On the radio, Zarniwoop Vann Harl is voiced by Jonathan Pryce. His casting was accidental – he had been hired to play a different role (The Ruler of the Universe, whose lines had apparently not been written in time). He was happy to return for the final series, however, when a lot more was revealed about the character, much of it appropriately sinister, Pryce now having become well known for playing villains.
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