Dawn Bellwether

"Dawn: Gosh, think of the headlines: hero cop killed by savage fox."

"Judy: So that's it? Prey fears predator, and you stay in power?!"

"Dawn: Yeah, pretty much."

"Judy: It won't WORK!"

"Dawn: Fear always works! And I'll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way! (chuckles) Bye-bye, bunny."

Dawn Bellwether is the hidden main antagonist of Disney's 55th full length animated feature film, Zootopia (Zootropolis in Europe).

She is voiced by Jenny Slate who also portrayed Zoe in Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.

Official Description
Assistant Mayor Bellwether is a sweet sheep with a little voice and a lot of wool, who constantly finds herself under foot of the larger-than-life Mayor Lionheart.

Personality
"We're on the same team, Judy! Underestimated, unappreciated. Aren't you sick of it? Predators—they may be strong and loud, but prey outnumber predators ten to one. Think about it; 90% of the population, united against a common enemy. We'll be unstoppable."

- Bellwether revealing her true colors

At first glance, she appears as a meek, shy, kind, energetic and eager sheep. She sympathizes with Judy, as she feels the two are both under-appreciated and underestimated and claimed herself as Judy's friend in City Hall. She is eager to help and excited she could be of use since she feels her job as assistant mayor is more of a glorified secretary job. It is obvious throughout the film that she mostly does paperwork and menial jobs while Lionheart is a glory hound who shoves the work on her and gets the glory.

However, this is merely a facade to hide her true nature: a deceptive,and cunningly diabolical mastermind. Bellwether is very racist against predators because, as she puts it, they are only 10% of the population and she seems to view them as dangerous and unintelligent in comparison to the prey. She is power-hungry and willing to let prey get injured or even killed by the predators she turns savage in order to maintain power and turn the populace against the predator minority (showing that despite claiming she cares for prey, she ultimately thinks nothing of sacrificing a few for her cause). She is proven to be a sadistic and merciless sociopath, perfectly willing to kill anyone who gets in her way or simply refuses to agree with her beliefs. She is also highly intelligent and manipulative, as she managed to expose Lionheart's illegal imprisonment of the infected predators in order to take over as the Mayor and staging everything to look as if predators have gone savage through their biology.

However, she does prove to be a show off once her true colors were revealed, arrogantly bragging about her plan before trying to finish off Judy and Nick, which proved to be her downfall.

Role in film
Bellwether is first seen during Judy's induction into the Zootopia Police Department, where she stands alongside Lionheart, and is tasked with badging Hopps. Bellwether shows great pride in Zootopia's first rabbit officer, proclaiming that it is a momentous day for "little guys", referring to prey. Before her words can run further, Lionheart rudely removed Bellwether from Judy, and subsequently blocked her from the flashing cameras of the press.

Following Judy's first day as an officer, Emmitt Otterton goes missing, forcing his distraught wife to seek help. Bellwether is present when Judy volunteers to find Emmitt against Chief Bogo's orders. Just before Chief Bogo could fire Judy for her insubordination, Bellwether sends Lionheart a knowing text to congratulate him on the growing success of the Mammal Inclusion Initiative, referring to Judy's newfound role as a detective to a major case. Realizing that he would be in big trouble if Lionheart learns about Judy being taken off the case, Bogo reluctantly allows Judy 48 hours to solve the case, on the condition that she will resign if she fails. Bellwether then speaks to Judy, telling her that she always has an ally at City Hall, should she need any important favors.

Later on, Bellwether returns to City Hall, where she is seen struggling for Lionheart's attention, needing him to discuss various matters regarding the city. Lionheart, seeming more aggressive than usual, coldly asks Bellwether to take care of the matters herself, and to cancel his afternoon, as he needs to run out for confidential matters. Feeling defeated and exhausted, Bellwether sadly gathers the paperwork to begin her assignments, before receiving a surprise visit from Judy and her accomplice, Nick Wilde. Judy explains that she needs access to the city's traffic cameras, which Bellwether obliges to in her "office", which is really the boiler room. While doing so, Bellwether laments to Judy and Nick, expressing her excitement in doing something of importance, to which Judy replies with confusion, as she believes the title of "assistance mayor" to be rather major. Bellwether merely sees it as being a "glorified secretary", and notes her suspicion that Lionheart may have selected her for the sake of winning the sheep vote. Just then, Lionheart pages Bellwether, scolding her for failing to cancel his afternoon. Bellwether hurriedly rushes to finish this assignment, leaving Judy and Nick with her computer.

Using the traffic cameras, Judy and Nick are able to find an asylum where 15 predator mammals (including Emmitt himself) are imprisoned, all of which have mysteriously gone savage. The imprisonment was at the hands of Mayor Lionheart and the asylum's staff, who are desperately searching for the cause behind the mysterious outbreak and a cure for it to no avail, keeping it confidential to prevent citywide panic, and by extension, the loss of Lionheart's position. With this evidence recorded through her phone, Judy alerts Chief Bogo, and Lionheart and the staff are arrested for falsely detaining the savaged predators. With Lionheart finally removed from office, Bellwether becomes the new Mayor of Zootopia (much to her delight), but the savage predators remain detained, as no one has figured about the cause behind their strange behavior.

Judy, meanwhile, is hailed a hero, and a press conference on the savage predators is held at the ZPD. Bellwether is present in the conference, and to her advantage, Judy accidentally calls out predators as naturally savage, with potential to revert to their original, bloodthirsty natures; disturbing the press and causing a citywide panic. This event also caused a disgusted Nick (being a predator himself) to leave Judy, declining to join the ZPD. Following these events, Bellwether summons Judy to her office and, alongside Chief Bogo, offers her to be the public face of the Zootopia Police Department, as prey mammals look to her as a hero for uncovering the truth about predators. However, Judy denies, feeling she's failed the city by tearing it apart instead of making it a better place, and officially resigns from the ZPD.

Some time afterwards, Judy discovers that unique flowers known as night howlers are the cause of the strange behavior infecting predators—not natural instinct—and rushes back to the city to reveal the truth. After reconciling with Nick, Judy interrogates Duke Weaselton, who admits that he stole a bunch of night howlers to a sheep chemist named Doug, who is using the flowers to create a serum that turns animals savage when injected. With this information, Judy and Nick infiltrate Doug's laboratory, and a battle ensues, with Doug being accompanied by a number of additional ram minions. Nick successfully retrieves the evidence, but before he and Judy can make it to the ZPD, Bellwether arrives to the scene.

She asks for the case containing the evidence, presenting herself as being proud of Judy's success, but when a suspicious Judy questions how Bellwether knew of their whereabouts, the ploy is broken, and Bellwether reveals her true colors by sending her rams to capture the two. Judy is injured while trying to escape, and she and Nick are eventually thrown into a pit at the Zootopia Natural History Museum. Though Bellwether made an attempt to have Judy join her side, she instead shoots Nick with the serum to turn him savage so that he would kill Judy, and calls the ZPD over to the scene to make it look like another savage outbreak demonizing predators so that the entire prey population will take control of Zootopia and Bellwether will remain in power. However, the entire 'savage fox' act was just a ruse planned by both Judy and Nick, who both revealed that they replaced the serum darts with blueberries in order to trick Bellwether into revealing her plan. Despite being dumbfounded by this turn of events, Bellwether angrily threatens to frame both Nick and Judy for her crimes just like she did to Lionheart, claiming that it's "her word against theirs". However, Judy reveals that she used her voice recorder to record Bellwether's confession, and played the tape just as Chief Bogo and the ZPD officers arrive to hear the confession, much to Bellwether and her accomplices' shock.

With her plot now exposed, Bellwether and her accomplices are arrested and sent to prison for their crimes. However, despite Lionheart's innocence being proven following Bellwether's arrest, Lionheart still remains in prison because of his false imprisonment of the savage predators, to which he fully confesses on live television as he wanted to prevent citywide panic. An antidote was then made to nullify the serum's effects to turn the savage predators back to their normal states. During the credits, Bellwether is last seen angrily watching a live stream of Gazelle's concert performance while her inmates actually enjoy the performance, much to her annoyance.

Trivia

 * The term "bellwether" refers to a sheep that leads a herd. This sheep is typically marked through the use of a bell, hencing the "bell" in Bellwether.