[0774] A Strip For Peace And Tolerance
└ posted on Monday, 4 April 2016, by Novil
- Banner: Zootopia – A Message of Peace
- Woo: … And if Zootopia has taught us one thing, it is that predator and prey can leave their old differences behind and live in harmony with each other!
- Sprint: Very well said!
- Hammond Hoppiton: Peace! Frieden! Paix!
- Woo: So let us then join hands to herald the start of a new age of peace and tolerance!
- Shadow: Mister Hoppiton…
- Shadow: It’s called a hustle, sweetheart.
- Shadow: I love these Disney movies.
- Sprint: We all do.
S&W in German/auf Deutsch
![[0774] A Strip For Peace And Tolerance](/comics/2016-04-04-0774-a-strip-for-peace-and-tolerance.png "[0774] A Strip For Peace And Tolerance")
I kinda hate myself for asking this, but did anyone else start hearing “The Circle of Life” playing in their heads?
When you think about it, the “peace treaty” depends entirely on whether or not the predators feel like abstaining from consuming the prey; if they really wanted it to work, the prey and predators would have to be on equal standing or someone would cave and rabbits would go…missing.
Obviously, though, that is not the goal here.
Man, if only the prey listened to Stu Hopps…
@ Tunaro:
I actually was going to mention something along the lines of that, but you beat me to the punch. I mean, it worked for the Lion Pride, didn’t it?
@ Seraph77:
And indeed, many of humans’ successful peace treaties seem to arise from instances not of ‘simple’ predation but of potential intraguild predation (or MAD). I guess the prey here haven’t learned that yet.
Is Ruth here eating the predators as well?
I can think of one “herbivore” who would be happy with this outcome…
Ruth: Morally, this makes things much more simple for me! *opens up with M60* Die, you treacherous curs! Ahahahahahahaaaaa!
>:=)>
That has got to be the most sinister use of that line ever, of all time.
@ Mystik:
The were smart enough to not invite her
Ah, peace. As a character in Laumer’s novel Retief’s War (1966) put it, “Ain’t nobody as peaceful as a dead trouble-maker.”
Shall we democratically vote on who’s lunch today?
Man novil never disappoints anyone with the quality of the strips
because they’re so damn good!
Here in the states we have a group of politicians who would act this way. I won’t say who they are, but their favorite state color is red (kinda like the color of blood).
Man. Named a character just to kill him off. And yet, no significant character development.
Doesn’t that violate the redshirt rule or something?
firedome wrote:
I’d argue their favorite state color is, well, whatever the state color is today. Hello <enter state name or state resident nickname here>!
@ SeanR:
How can you tell a politician is lying? He has his, (or her) mouth open.
It actually might be possible to get the predators to agree if you do the full ‘Laws for all animals of Hakkebakkeskogen’ set
I’m translating them here, since they’re from a Scandinavian play.
1) …Actually, we’re ignoring law 1 (‘All the animals of the forest have to be friends’): This forest isn’t as optimistic.
So, actual Law 1) ‘No one is allowed to eat another’
2) ‘Those who are lazy and can’t find food themselves, are not allowed to take food from others’
I mean, yeah, there’d be some trouble getting them to agree with Law 1 (and there was in the play as well; A big plot point is a certain fox being unwilling to obey it)
But Law 2 means that if the predators CAN feed themselves without preying on anyone, but just like the taste of fresh meat, then enforcing the laws would let them keep their foodstocks secure.
It saves a lot of effort if they can just let their food be out in the open and trust that mice and birds and whatever won’t touch it.
Heck, given Law 1 hurts only predators and helps only prey and Law 2 hurts prey more than predators (but it still hurts some predators), if you could find a Law 3 that is also biased in favor of predators you might have an easier time.
Maybe everyone’s required to gather some (presumably rather small) portion of their own weight in food for the predators – it’d only help the predators, but since even predators would have to gather it I feel it’d make the combined three laws about even.
You’d still have trouble convincing animals though; You WOULD need a charismatic leader AND some Just ‘Enforcers’
If the Enforcers stop being Just, or the leader loses favor, before the laws become tradition, then things fall apart.
But animals that grow up with the Laws would be likely to be able to follow them even with less than total confidence in the leaders.
@ Mystik:
She’s probably still intoxicated/hungover, but even if not, I highly doubt the predators are stupid enough to pull a stunt like this if there’s any chance she might be watching.
@ Tunaro:
LMAO! I did! I did!
Hahahahahaha. Classic Sandra and Woo, forever breaking the genre by reminding us what real predators would do.
Sometimes this website shows that animals have little morality, but then it turns around and says the opposite in some cases, like Ruth… Perhaps they just have a radically different morality code from ours, one that varies widely by position on the food chain.
Animal god of peace is going to be pissed!
Honestly, I don’t know whether to be horrified, disappointed or impressed.
Another dark Disney story for the next Top 10.
That’s terrible.
@ Mudsaur:
Who?
Am I the only one to notice he said sweatheart instead of sweetheart
CooKi wrote:
You’re not the only one. I noticed that error right away.
@ CooKi:
Yes, yes you are.
… and Sid just sat there and watch in horror
This comic has already featured serial killers and cannibals, this wouldn’t surprise me.
I, uh… I think Shadow and Woo just crossed the Moral Event Horizon…
Yeah,’so’ peaceful.
@ aerion:
I… I don’t get it, where do meat-eaters get their food? Some animals can sort of live without meat for some time, but some rely on it for their main source of nutrition.
My condolences for Mr Hoppiton…..
Jake wrote:
Don’t judge. It’s hard to apply anti-perspirant to the heart!
@ Tucci:
I loved that when it originally came out. Retief was so much fun.
someboddy wrote:
Or made sure she was beside a predator they disliked.
“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
“Mine is and evil laugh!”
Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen!
I think I’m going to pretend this strip doesn’t exist in my head. I really didn’t need something this gory on Monday morning. Plus I’m a little tired of the zootopia references in the last few strips.
Sorry Novil, this will probably be the first strip I can say I do not like at all in all the 774 strips you’ve done to date. To me, it’s an unnecessarily making the strip grimdark.
I sincerely hope you’re done with zootopia stuff and can move on.
SteelRaven wrote:
Mystik wrote:
Notice both she and Sid are conspicuously absent and judging from that strip a few pages back I’ll leave you to surmise why,
@ Tunaro:
“Rules of Nature”, here.
Is the badger going to be a new character in the strips?
I for one did not find this strip funny. At all. Oh well, carry on.
So, who fired the arrow?
Of course….genius~
@ mortar:
Be the first and last of those 3 at once.
Zahariel wrote:
True, but most herbivores aren’t set up to process meat at all, and Ruth has turned predator. It would seem that in the alternate universe of Sandra and Woo, animals have more choices in diet than in our world.
Then again, any animal that devours an entire plant before it dies on its own will eventually have to answer to the Ents, I suppose. Really, only carrion eaters are in the clear (loosely including dead plants as “carrion”). Zootopia was mammal-specific for a reason.
(I choose to eat as low on the food chain as possible, since otherwise I feel responsible not only for what I eat, but for whatever my food had to eat. That’s a personal choice I’m lucky enough to be able to make, and I’m well aware of that.)
Dark humor at its finest. Well done.
Ruth could turn “pred”, ’cause squirrels are omnivorous. You just don’t normally see them hunt down large prey. Usually, they’ll go for something easy, like bird eggs or small toads if they’re really hungry.
Me: They broke bread and met in a neutral space. This is a clear violation of their most sacred laws.
Response: “The predators send their regards.”