Talk:Mayor Leodore Lionheart

Neither reformed nor "turned to the Dark Side"
Two categories that were recently added to Lionheart's page were "Reformed" and "Heroes turned to the Dark Side". In his case, neither one applies and here's why.


 * Reformed

In order to reform, you have to be shown new information that makes you stop and think about what you're doing. You then decide that continuing to do bad things is not a good idea and you deliberately stop doing them.

But more than that, in order to actually reform, you have to change your behavior and try not to do those things in the future. Going along with that, we have to see what the character does in the future so we have the proof that they reformed. Without seeing what they do in the future, it's an assumption on our part that the character reforms. Without seeing them be confronted with the new info that causes them to deliberately change their behavior, all we know is they temporarily stopped doing bad things. Stopping doing bad things is not the same as reforming.

Here's what happens in Zootopia:

Animals start turning feral. Lionheart doesn't know why, so he figures the best way to deal with the situation is to have them secretly captured so the doctor can study them and develop a way to cure them. After being told it's just predators that are going feral, he also has reason to protect his political career by keeping this quiet: he doesn't want the citizens to panic and jump to the conclusion, "Predators are turning feral, Lionheart's a predator, that must mean he'll turn feral also", or get him kicked out of office.

Through the actions of Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, we learn that it is Dawn Bellwether who created the situation as a means of changing the balance of power in the city. She doesn't like that there is an overwhelmingly-large number of preditors in positions of authority as compared to prey species. After leading her confessing, she is arrested.

During an interview afterward, Lionheart explained that he was just trying to do what he thought was best at the time. His actions weren't great, but he was trying to do it for the "right reasons". Later, he is seen in his jail cell reading a magazine and talking with someone off-screen.

Result: Lionheart received new information as to why the situation was happening regarding animals turning feral. He seemed happy to be serving his jail sentence.

But that's all that we see. We do not see what he does in the future. We do not see another case where he says, "Last time something unknown happened that no one had an answer for, it was deliberately created by another person, so I better get more details before I take action this time." We do not see him say, "Last time, my actions were politically-motivated to protect myself. I'm not going to behave that way any more. I'm going to do what's right, even if it costs me personally or politically."

We do not see anything where we can say he actually reformed. We can't even say that he stopped doing bad things. There was simply no need for him to continue doing the bad things because the situation was resolved by other people. He didn't have to make a choice about his behavior. The decision was made for him.


 * Heroes turned to the Dark Side

This has a lot of overlap with trying to say Lionheart reformed. Lionheart did what he did because he thought it was the best way to handle the situation.

He wasn't "turned" to do bad things. We do not see anyone come to him and say, "If you covered this up, it would be better for everyone." We do not see him say, "I gotta keep this quiet, and you know, this is a pretty good way of dealing with things. I think I'll keep doing that in the future."

What we do see is that he started doing bad things to deal with a specific situation, but his reason for doing so was to protect the citizens. Later, he was informed that it was just predators that were going feral, so then he had a personal and political reason to continue on the same course of action. However, had the doctor been able to cure the animals that turned feral, the situation would have been resolved and there wouldn't be a need for Lionheart to continue doing bad things.

If you're "turned to the Dark Side", you stay on the Dark Side. The closest Lionheart gets to it is temporarily doing bad things for what he thought were the right reasons. We do not see any of his future actions that show he decided to keep doing bad things.

As for being a hero, not really. He's a person that has done good things for his city. He started the Mammal Inclusion Initiative. He has a street named after him. He was well-liked and was serving his fourth term as Mayor. That's more of a case of doing his job well and being rewarded for it, not performing heroic actions.


 * Summary

Lionheart did not reform because we did not see all of the pieces that would be needed to say he reformed. He was also not "turned to the Dark Side" because he was dealing with a temporary situation and there was no indication he would continue along that path once that situation was resolved. He is a good person but not necessarily a hero. —RRabbit42 ( leave a message ) 15:36, April 16, 2017 (UTC)