âSheâŠshe didnât make it.â
Is actually so chilling. Everything Pawbert says to Nick is deeply terrifying.
âBut with snake bites youâŠgo fast. Youâll see.â
âSheâs gone Nick, just get it over with.â
âYouâre done. Know when to quit.â
âLeave it! Youâre gonna kill us both. Itâs not worth dying for.â
The ONLY thing Nick does through this narration is fight. The ONLY words he says are âWhere is she?â âJUDY!â and âAgree to disagree.â That is the entirety of everything Nick had to say to Pawbert. At no point does he try to converse, talk him out of anything, question, trick, bargain, rationalize, nothing. And all Pawbert knows Nick as is That Fox Whose Entire Reason For Living Is Judy Hopps.
Itâs chilling because Pawbert knows that telling Nick that Judy is dead is going to destroy him, and he believes that itâs enough to let him cave and give into death entirely. He sincerely believes that Nickâs entire purpose for self-preservation is to keep Judy alive and if sheâs gone, he might as well be, too. And heâs not even entirely wrong. Pawbertâs final plea, the complete 180° turn, âitâs not worth dying for,â isnât âkeeping her alive isnât worth dying for,â itâs âYOU CANNOT SAVE HER, STOP FIGHTING, YOU HAVE NO REASON TO LIVE, SHE IS DEAD.â
But Nick saw her lifeless body. He heard she was dead and he SAW she was gone. And all he could think was, âIf thereâs even a fraction of a chance sheâll be okay, I can die knowing I did everything I possibly could to protect her.â The pure desperation in his eyes as he fights for that pen, not even sure if itâll work, but fighting to do EVERYTHING he POSSIBLY can to save her. Even if heâs already SEEN that sheâs dead. Which he has.
And then suddenly heâs looking her in the eyes and crying.
The slow-mo and pacing make it hard to grasp how fast it all happened, but he saw her, DEAD, and within sixty seconds he thought he was dead too, and then suddenly he was staring her in the eyes and panting. And all he could hear in his head was
âShe didnât make it.â
âSheâs gone, Nick.â
But sheâs right there. Alive.
âItâs not worth dying for.â
As a matter of fact, she is.