Why does Zoom keep thinking he and Barry are same?

Question

In The Flash Season 2 Zoom is the villain to take on Barry and he is actually Hunter Zolomon but acts as a friend named Jay Garrick. He had a similar tragic back-story like Barry with his mom dying and he thinks he and Barry are the same.

Zoom: We're not so different, you know. What happened to us when we were kids. You could have just as easily become me.

Barry: No. I'd never become like you.

Zoom: 'Cause here's the thing. I know you. I know you, I know what's holding you back. You and me... we're really just the same person.

Barry: [scoffs] Yeah, you keep saying that, but it's not gonna make it true.

Zoom: You'll see. We are. Same tragic background. Same reason for running. Same desire to be the fastest, to be the best. The difference? You think your anger is dirty somehow. You want to be seen as pure, the hero. Doesn't it get exhausting? Doesn't it get exhausting, Barry! It was exhausting playing Jay, believe me.

Barry: I'm not pretending.

Why does Zoom keep thinking he and Barry are same ?

Answer 1

It is a very common trope in fiction, especially science fiction, for the villain to accuse the hero of being "just like him". This is part of the motivation for the villains -- they always believe, in their own mind, that they are the good guys and the world itself is the bad guys.

Zoom's backstory and Barry's backstory have some superficial similarities, with their mother dying and their father being blamed. In Zolomon's case, his father actually did it, while Barry's did not, but both still grew up effectively an orphan.

Zolomon believes that it was his childhood experiences that made him the way he is. He doesn't consider his actions evil, he considers them the inevitable outcome of what happened to him as a child. He doesn't see any way he could have made "better choices" and turned out differently. So, in his mind, Barry should be exactly the same. He believes that, deep down, Barry has the same resentment and rage and disdain for others that drives Zoom. Zoom thinks that the hero person Barry puts on is all an act, hiding his true feelings.

So, Zoom is constantly trying to convince Barry to embrace this "dark side" that Zoom believes Barry is hiding. At the same time, he's trying to justify his own actions to Barry by claiming that, in his shoes, Barry would have done the same thing.

Ultimately, Zoom hopes that he can convince Barry to stop trying to fight him, and instead help him achieve his goals, by convincing Barry that Zoom's goals are 1) perfectly justified, and 2) the same as Barry's "real, deep-down" goals for himself.