Author's Notes:
This started with me trying to write about my surprise at learning somewhere online that according to the novelization or some other official but secondary source, Lionheart is reelected mayor after Bellwether's arrest. How in the world is that possible?!
Based on Bellwether succeeding Lionheart as mayor in the film, I assume that in Zootopia, the assistant mayor automatically assumes the role of mayor when the mayor can no longer perform his duties.
The film also shows that counterparts of all fiction from our world exist in this world, although I share Timmy Turner's disdain for excessive puns.
According to some Blu-ray extras, the villain of the film was a pig at some point. That's the change I'm gladdest they made – George Orwell called dibs on casting the villains as pigs in a political allegory using sapient animals decades ago.
"There's a holdup in South Canyon,
Downtown's broken out in fights,
There's a traffic jam on Ficus
That's backed up to Jackal Heights,
There's a scout troop short a child,
The prosecution calls Nick Wilde...
Car 240, where are you?"
"Ha-ha, brilliant!" Judy laughed. "When did you come up with that?"
"On the way home from Coon's," said the grinning rabbit on her phone screen.
"And now I'm gonna have that tune stuck in my head for a week," Judy groaned.
The other bunny said, "Why do you think I came up with that? It wouldn't leave me alone!", causing Judy to lean back in her desk chair and resume laughing again.
Judy couldn't remember a time when Phyllis hadn't been her favorite cousin. Her parents (Judy's mother's sister Susan and her husband Mark... UNCLE Mark, who took his nieces and nephews omitting the "uncle" as a personal insult no matter how old they got) owned an orchard one county over from Bunnyburrow. Instead of carrots, pumpkins, berries, and the Hopps' other crops of choice that grew near the ground, they'd grown apples, pears, and other tree-born treats – not unheard of for rabbits but rare, which was partially why Judy had loved visiting them as a kid; it was no Zootopia, but it was different. She and her siblings and cousins had climbed every tree on the place (they'd kept a chart), and Judy held the sixth place record for climbing the most (it would have been fourth at least if she hadn't sprained her ankle that one summer!).
Growing up, Judy had looked up to Phyllis, who was six years her senior. They were drawn together by something no one else in their family seemed to understand: their desire for more than the provincial life they'd always known. Judy's parents reacted with horror whenever she talked about her dream of patrolling the streets of Zootopia in her police car. Her grandparents had always responded with the equivalent of a pat on the head and a "That's nice, dear," not discouraging her but thinking it would never happen. Her older siblings kept telling her to grow up and get realistic, and the younger ones usually just laughed.
Phyllis was different. She alone knew how it felt to want to see the world and learn how to make it a better place. For Judy, being a cop had seemed the best way to do that; for Phyllis, it was being a doctor. The two had spent their childhoods supporting each other and listening to the other's plans when no one else wanted to hear them. Everyone else either didn't believe or didn't want to believe they could be anything they wanted, but the two of them were always there to encourage each other and cheer the other on.
The two cousins had kept in touch after Phyllis got accepted to ZYU in the Zoonited States when she was 18. She'd planned to go to med school but ended up going for her degree in Psychology, which she'd received two years after marrying Lex, a law student she'd met at the university (Judy had wished they could have had the wedding in Mammalia, since there had been no way she could afford to go to Zoo York at the time, but between classes, studying, and work, they hadn't had the time to make the trip).
At first, Judy had been jealous of all the time Lex got to spend with her favorite cousin whom she'd barely seen over the past several years (not to mention angry that he'd made her break her promise of never getting married), but seeing how happy he made Phyllis had caused Judy to warm up to him. Phyllis had once jokingly told Judy she was just gaining experience for when Judy came to her for advice on matters of the heart someday (which Judy had consistently laughed at until a year ago...).
"So how fare things in the big city of Zootopia anyway, Officer Hopps?" Phyllis asked her.
"Getting better. At least it was. Tension's picking up with the election coming up."
"No surprise there after what happened last year." Normally, a race for mayor wouldn't be much to write home about, but there was nothing like seeing two of your last three mayors go to prison to make electing the right mayor seem like the most important choice your city could ever make.
"Yeah, I don't blame Oxford for not running again," said Judy. The bull had clearly never anticipated that accepting Bellwether's nomination to be her assistant mayor would ever lead to him taking her place, let alone a mere three months later. He'd spent the majority of his time in office trying to do as little as possible so as to anger as few mammals as little as possible until the term Lionheart had begun finally expired. The election that determined who succeeded Oxford in a term of their own was now two weeks away, and the only thing more shocking to Judy than hearing Leodore Lionheart announce his intention to run for it a mere few weeks after being released from prison was the fact that he'd managed to remain one of the top two contenders until the very end.
It would be the first election Judy got to vote in in her new home. Registering to vote in Zootopia had been on her top list of priorities when she'd moved here, just as it had been one of the things she'd looked forward to doing the most when she'd turned 18 (since she didn't smoke and had no interest in the lottery, it had pretty much been the only milestone she'd had to look forward to on entering official adulthood). She doubted it would have felt like such a weighty responsibility if it hadn't been for everything Bellwether had put them through last year.
Judy knew the mayor's powers were extremely limited; everyone did. The anxiety about making the right choice wasn't so much about what the winner could do to you as it was about giving someone a reward they didn't deserve – no one ever wanted to again learn that they'd given any power or prestige or money (however little), let alone their trust and confidence, to someone who turned out to be pure evil.
"Who are the favorites?" Phyllis asked.
"Lionheart and Boarham," Judy said without enthusiasm.
"Bellwether's fan?" Phyllis said in surprise.
"Bellwether's successor, if she has her way," Judy said bitterly.
"How could she have lasted this long?"
"She keeps promising prey she'll keep them safe, that she can protect them from the predators who want to take them back to the days of primitive savagery when they were free to eat them."
"And they buy that even though they know the whole savage thing was a frame-up?" Phyllis asked in disbelief.
Judy sighed. "Prey are more afraid of predators than ever. Just instead of fearing them going savage and biting their head off, they're afraid of them taking revenge or something, that the next predator who's elected will strip all prey of their rights to protect predators from any more attacks like Bellwether's. This sow's got them believing that electing any predator ever again will lead to prey being enslaved and forced to wear shock collars to keep them in line or something."
"That's insane."
"Tell me about it." Judy sighed again. "I don't know what I expected – that as soon as they knew night howlers were responsible, all prey would instantly stop fearing all predators and all predators would instantly forget how prey have treated them for centuries?"
"Centuries of conflict can't be resolved in one day... except in the all-time worst episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender."
That succeeded in getting Judy to laugh a little. "I know. I knew things wouldn't be perfect, but I did think they'd get better."
"The city will never go back to the way it was before," Phyllis said gently. "Exposing a lie doesn't turn back the clock or erase memories."
"The way Nick tells it, things weren't all that great before, but yeah, I know it'll never be the same, but why can't it get better than before?"
"It will eventually. You beat Bellwether, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but so many prey wish we hadn't. They believe predators need to be stopped By Any Means Necessary – some even use that as a slogan. If they don't believe predators deserve what she did to them, they believe that even if they weren't dangerous before, they will be now."
"Hence Boarham's success."
"Fear always works," Judy groaned.
"Maybe not. The election's not over yet."
"How could Lionheart possibly win after what he did?" Judy asked hopelessly.
"What did he do? He didn't hurt anybody."
"You believe he was honestly trying to do the right thing?"
"He stopped afflicted predators from hurting anyone else," Phyllis explained. "Judging by the facility he set up and how hard he was working to find an answer, he was sincerely trying to help them. He was 100% right about the panic that would set in and threaten to destroy Zootopia if word got out. Yes, I honestly think he was trying to do the best he could in an impossible situation."
"Tell that to Mrs. Otterton and the other families who spent weeks not even knowing if their loved ones were still alive."
"I know how terrible that must've been," Phyllis admitted, "but Bellwether is responsible for that, not Lionheart. What else could he have done?"
Judy thought about it for a minute before conceding, "I don't know. But did he do it because he cared about the city or to stop himself from looking bad?"
"You mean looking bad because something so horrible happened under his watch, or looking bad because he's a predator and didn't want everyone fearing he could go savage, too?"
When Phyllis didn't say anything else, a confused Judy said, "Uh, you're supposed to answer the question now."
"That would be cheating," Phyllis said with a smug grin.
Judy grinned back at her. "Okay, I guess I can't blame him for being scared of that. Still, I don't know if I can trust him."
"Trust him to keep Boarham out of office."
"There are other choices."
"But if none of them have a chance of winning..."
"I know, I know," Judy assured her cousin. "We all know the dangers of splitting the vote. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"It's just a question of which matters more to you: making a statement, or making sure the wrong mammal doesn't win."
"You would know," Judy said with a knowing smirk. You didn't have to live in the Z.S. to know about the Great Voting War of 2016. Remembering that made her think of something: "Hey, how did you decide who to vote for last year?"
"You pick a party and vote for whoever runs for your party because they're saying they value the same things you do."
"How did you pick a party?" Judy asked seriously. She knew which party her cousin had joined, but they'd never really discussed why before.
There was a pause as Phyllis obviously planned the best way to frame her answer. "Well, actually, I thought I found a pretty good way to describe it in... you ever read The Handmaid's Tale?"
"Tried. Read the first few chapters but never finished it."
"What? Why not?"
Judy was able to answer that instantly: "It pushes the willing suspension of disbelief too far. The setting made no sense." This coming from a rabbit who'd read The Giver, The Hunger Games trilogy, 1984, Brave New World, We, Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and Facial Justice without finding any of those settings too hard to believe.
"Well!" Phyllis exclaimed in mock indignation. "Then I guess you didn't read the part where the handmaids' instructor tells them there are two kinds of freedom in the world – 'Freedom From' and 'Freedom To'?"
"No, I remember that part," Judy said truthfully. "I did like that wording, actually."
"Me, too," said Phyllis. "And I thought, she's absolutely right. Those two theories of freedom are always at war with each other, especially in the Z.S. Here, the Donkey Party believes in Freedom From, and the Elephant Party believes in Freedom To."
Judy smiled as she remembered hearing those names as a little kid and thinking for years that only two species lived in the Zoonited States. She still remembered how confused she'd been when her dad realized what she thought and explained that those were just what mammals over there called two groups they belonged to, that many different species lived there just like in Mammalia. "Really?" she asked.
"No joke. Just like the handmaids were told, the Republic of Gilead believes in Freedom From – keeping fragile females free from danger, free from responsibility, free from the burdens of independent life. They're slaves, and while slaves aren't free to do anything, they're free from everything non-slave mammals have to do or worry about because their owners or masters have to take care of them. A master is obligated to feed, clothe, shelter, protect, and generally provide a slave with everything necessary to maintain their life, just like the handmaids. They're free from worrying about their safety and where their food and shelter is going to come from in exchange for having no Freedom To."
"Like that song 'Free' says in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," Judy observed.
"Exactly! 'I'm just a slave, and everything's free... If I were free, then nothing would be free.' Well, just like the Republic of Gilead, the Donkey Party in the Z.S. thinks Freedom From is best. They want all mammals to be free from poverty, free from bills, free from obesity, free from being offended, free from danger, free from pollution, free from fear of the unknown, free from competition, free from choices, free from jealousy, free from all burdens whatsoever. So they find ways to take care of everything so you don't have to. They'll pay your bills, control how much sugar and calories you eat, outlaw speaking or writing anything they judge ought to be considered offensive, outlaw anything that might be dangerous from guns to treehouses to sidewalk lemonade stands to sledding to letting your kids walk home alone, punish anyone who generates the heat and electricity you use or makes things you need in their factories, punish anyone who disrupts the economy with new ideas like ridesharing, make sure everyone's situation is as close to equal as possible... They promise to take all your burdens and provide all the free bread and circuses you could want."
Judy sensed where this was heading: "The catch being the price for getting Freedom From is giving up Freedom To."
"Correct," Phyllis said with an emphatic nod. "The more someone provides you, the more they take care of you, the more they do for you, then the more they own you. Half the Z.S. is okay with that. They want to be free from the burdens and responsibilities that make life so hard, and they vote for mammals who promise to take care of them and protect them from being hurt or offended. That's cool, to each their own. It's just not for me."
"That's why you became an Elephant?"
"I didn't word this way at the time, but yes," Phyllis confirmed. "The Elephant Party prefers Freedom To. It started over 150 years ago for one purpose and one purpose only: to abolish slavery. Remember, it's not predator vs. prey here – it's about which continent your ancestors came from. Mammals native to Africa used to be slaves, until the first Elephant Party President was elected."
"I remember."
Phyllis went on: "But it wasn't just in the beginning. They still push for freedom to speak and write whatever you want (since everyone's free not to listen or read it). To raise your kids however you want as long as you don't hurt them (leaving them free to open a lemonade stand or climb trees or walk home alone doesn't count). To practice whatever religion you want. To eat whatever you want. To earn as much money as you want as long as it's honest. To spend it however you want. To open whatever business you want as long as it's honest and run it however you want and hire whoever you want as long as you don't hurt anybody. Free to do all the potentially dangerous things like visit laundromats the handmaids were told they were lucky to be protected from having to do anymore."
Judy braised her eyebrow in suspicion. "Is it really like that?"
Phyllis didn't hesitate at all before she answered, "No, there's one area that's the exception – sex. Sex is the ultimate proverbial circus, so the Donkey Party says you're free to do it whenever you want. The Elephant Party, not so much; they don't believe in forbidding sex for pleasure completely like in The Giver or 1984, but they don't believe the Brave New World-style free-for-all is ideal, either, or that there's anything evil or unreasonable about fidelity or self-restraint. That's not Freedom From anything, but it's definitely not Freedom To."
"That's... weird," Judy said, not quite sure that was the most accurate adjective.
"Not really," Phyllis said with a shrug. "I've always thought it was overcompensation. On one side, you're free to do anything except have sex anytime you want with anyone you want. On the other side, you're not free to do anything except have sex anytime you want with anyone you want."
Judy laughed again. "How did that happen?"
"Religion on one side, bread and circuses on the other," was Phyllis' short explanation.
"But Gilead definitely didn't believe in free love."
"Nope," Phyllis agreed. "Gilead's the worst of both worlds – no Freedom To have unlimited sex, and no Freedom To do anything else. In my country, it all comes down to which Freedom To is more important."
"You don't want to know which one I would guess most mammals would choose."
"I already know. Why do you think Lex and I were the only Elephants in school and he's the only Elephant at the office?"
"But you still prefer the Freedom To Do Everything But Have Unlimited Sex side, huh?"
Phyllis nodded proudly. "Absolutely. You and I were both raised on a farm, Judy, brainwashed to believe in responsibility and hard work. Ironically, that's why we were willing to work so hard to make our dreams to leave the farm come true. We could never be happy if we weren't free to choose and work for our own dreams. I want everyone to have that freedom. That's why I vote for an Elephant every year. I vote for freedom. Or, as The Handmaid's Tale specifies, Freedom To."
"Wish that was all I had to choose from here," Judy said with a sigh. "That would be easy for me."
"But you do. Bellwether's side believes in keeping prey Free From being bothered by the loathsome presence of those hated, evil predators they're so afraid of. Lionheart's side believes in leaving predators and prey equally Free To live their lives as long as they don't hurt anyone."
"You sure about that? Lionheart launched the Mammal Inclusion Initiative, you know."
"But did mammals live in fear of the irrational, detrimental restraint it put on their lives?"
Confused by the question, Judy answered, "Of course not."
"Remember what you told me Clawhauser said to you on your first day?"
"The 'cute' thing? You remember that?" Judy wondered aloud.
"I remember it," Phyllis explained, "because I thought how that could never happen here."
"A cheetah calling a bunny 'cute'?"
"No, what happened next. What did you do when he said that?"
Still confused, Judy told her, "Just... told him, since he must not have known, that 'cute' was an insult to bunnies."
"And what happened next?"
"He apologized."
"After that?"
"Nothing. I went to roll call."
"The result?"
Not sure what she meant by "result," Judy guessed the answer was, "Uh... we became friends."
Phyllis sighed deeply and shook her head. "There was no reason to tell you this when you told me, Judy, but if a cheetah ever accidentally called a bunny 'cute' in the Z.S., that's not what would happen. The bunny would file a complaint with HR, there would be an investigation, a media storm, one public apology after another from one supervisor after another increasing in rank, sensitivity training not just for the cheetah but for everyone in the precinct if not the entire force. The cheetah would be extremely lucky to keep his job. Whatever the result might be, the one thing it would not lead to was the two parties getting along and becoming friends in a workplace that was no less peaceful or enjoyable than it was before."
Once she was done reeling from that description, Judy shook her head and said, "Guess your mammal inclusion programs are different from ours."
"Extremely. It's one thing I miss about Mammalia. Protecting mammals' Freedom From Being Offended isn't nearly as out of control as it is here."
"Not for Bellwether's lack of trying," Judy pointed out. By the time she was brought down, predators were afraid of so much as looking at prey wrong.
"Guess fear doesn't always work," Phyllis said optimistically. "Dawn Bellwether made prey see predators as vicious, bloodthirsty, evil monsters they needed her to protect them from, but she was stopped. She's always reminded me of Hera Macbeth; she tried to make everyone over here see Elephants as vicious, bloodthirsty, evil monsters they needed her to protect them from, but she failed, too."
"So why isn't it over yet?"
"Because too many believed their lies. They each chose one group to attack as the enemy and one group to defend as the victim. They didn't want us to be equal; they wanted to divide us. And they did. It's gonna take some time to put us back together again."
Judy thought about that for a moment. "I don't see how that'll happen even if Lionheart gets elected. So many prey won't stand for a predator in charge again."
She expected Phyllis to contradict this, but she said, "That's true, unless he submits to every demand prey make and accepts and promotes their opinions on virtue, right, and wrong as absolute."
"Speaking from personal experience?" Judy asked with a half-smile. Phyllis didn't answer because she didn't need to. Judy decided to ask her something she'd been wondering for a few months but had never felt comfortable asking until now: "Do you regret voting for Perry White?"
"Not at all."
"Was it hard to vote for him?"
"I admit, when I found out he was the nominee, I thought it would be, at first. First, I thought I might end up voting for a third party for the first time, but I knew I wouldn't because splitting the vote only helps your opponent. Then I thought I'd have to 'hold my nose' when I voted. But as the day got closer, I realized I was looking forward to it. When the day came, I woke up hours before my alarm went off, so even though I always vote after work, I couldn't wait this year, so I got up, got ready, and got to the church before the polls even opened. It was the first time I ever got up early to vote before work. I'd never felt so excited about voting before, and that was before I expected to win."
"And now?"
"Now I'm still proud to say I did. Whatever he hasn't delivered yet isn't from lack of trying. Too many mammals have an instinct to blame the victim," Phyllis explained further. "When I was in middle school, I had a friend whose father abused her mother, but she blamed her mother for marrying him because it was pointless to be angry at her father – it couldn't hurt him. That's what his opponents are going for – stop him from keeping his promises because the voters will blame him no matter how hard he tries, not the Senators actually responsible; and constantly say and write horrible things about him and his family and staff and supporters and insult him and his family and his staff and supporters nonstop because, just like my friend, mammals will blame him, the main recipient, instead of his attackers. I don't know about everyone else, but when I see someone persevering under a relentless onslaught of opposition with no basis in reality or morality, I don't blame him or regret supporting him; I admire him."
Unable to resist, Judy began singing, " 'I won't give up and I won't give in...' "
Phyllis joined her: " 'Til I reach the end, then I'll start again!' "
Judy waited until they were both done laughing before asking, "Is that what these big First 100 Days I've heard about have all been like?"
"After he was elected, the running joke was he did more before taking office than his predecessor did in 8 years. But seriously, the Supreme Court would be reason enough to celebrate. And he's signed plenty of orders I like, like the pipelines and deregulation goals, but that's not what impresses me the most. I know he's faced more unjust opposition against more vicious opponents and withstood more attacks than any President I've ever seen, purely because of who he is and the name of his party. Which means he's had to fight a harder fight than any President I've seen. In my book, that makes him one of the strongest President we've ever had. They've made him prove that. Besides, the biggest change in Z.S. history may have happened when the first Elephant President ended slavery in his first term, but not in 100 days."
Judy grinned and said, "I get it. 'You've done enough, take a deep breath...' "
Phyllis sang the next line: " 'Don't beat yourself up...' "
Judy took over again: " 'No need to run so fast...' " She was interrupted by a text from Nick that he was almost there; she was stunned when she noticed what time it was.
"Nick?" Phyllis immediately guessed.
"No, the Pope; tonight's our dinner and a movie night. I know he'll enjoy your song."
"No! Why did you mention that?!" Phyllis groaned. "Now it's stuck in my head! I JUST forgot it!"
"Write one for your city," Judy suggested. "Get it out of your system."
"I did," Phyllis said flatly, pouting. "Didn't work." As if compelled by some force stronger than her, she began singing:
"There's a holdup in the South Side,
Downtown's broken out in fights,
There's a traffic jam in Millvale
That's backed up onto McKnight,
There's a scout troop short a child,
A microburst hit Idlewild..."
Judy laughed until she heard Nick's signature shave-and-a-haircut knock on her door. "Good night, Lissie," she said, using her childhood nickname ("Phil" was reserved by her siblings still under the age of 18 for the use of tormenting her).
"Night, J," her cousin said as they signed off.
Nick greeted her by asking, "Running up your phone bill, Carrots?"
"That's what happens when two mammals on different continents both manage to live in exciting times," Judy said as they walked down the hall.
Deducing from that whom she'd been talking to, Nick asked, "Yeah, how are things in the good old Z.S. of A.?"
"Still standing, despite many predictions."
"Maybe that's where we should go when we save up those vacation days."
"I don't know... would be a lot like staying here..."
The truth of that statement was affirmed two weeks later when Judy found herself joining Nick in eagerly casting her vote for Lionheart, followed by the astonishment of finding out he won the next morning. The shock wore off quickly, though – after all, far more impossible things had happened...