White
White is a rabbit and a ZSI special operative in We Can Fix Pawbert. He served as the sniper for Charlie Sierra One, a ZSI rabbit special operations team that conducted covert intelligence gathering in hostile territories. White is killed by an RPG during a mission in Vladifrostok in "Golden Age", already dead when the episode opens. His loss forces his partners Perkins and Botasky to flee without cover, and both are shot down minutes later.
Background
White was Charlie Sierra One's designated sniper and overwatch specialist. While Perkins and Botasky operated on the ground, White provided cover from elevated positions — in the Vladifrostok mission, a maintenance catwalk two floors above his partners. He was described as having "a steady paw on a rifle" and never missing, keeping his teammates alive through a dozen operations over their fifteen-year partnership.
Like all Charlie Sierra One operatives, White's effectiveness came partly from being underestimated. A rabbit with a rifle was not what most hostiles expected, and that element of surprise served the team well until their final mission.
Series History
Season 5
White does not appear on screen in "Golden Age" — he is already dead when the episode opens. His death is described through Perkins' recollection as Perkins and Botasky flee through the Vladifrostok facility.
White had been covering their extraction from a maintenance catwalk two floors up, calling out hostile positions over comms. Then an RPG found him. One moment he was on comms, calling out positions; the next, "static and smoke and hollow silence where a voice should have been."
Perkins and Botasky were forced to leave White's body behind. Botasky wanted to go back for him, pulling at Perkins' arm and insisting they couldn't abandon their teammate. Perkins had to grab Botasky's shoulders and deliver the brutal truth: "He's gone. He's gone. There's nothing we can do."
White's death left the remaining two operatives without overwatch during their escape. Without his rifle calling out positions and eliminating threats from above, Perkins and Botasky were forced into close-quarters combat against enemies who outnumbered and outsized them. Both would be down within minutes.
W-Series
In "Souls on Board", White's partners are found alive in a mothballed climate station on the Vladifrostok coast, and White is not with them. Perkins tells Luther that White was on a second-floor catwalk in the pump house when the RPG hit, that the net went silent, and that he made Botasky leave him; Luther tells him that Reacher's team went through the pump house twice and that nothing came out of it. White's name is cut into the memorial wall at the rebuilt ZSI Headquarters, near the bottom of its third column, directly above the two names that are now coming off. Perkins asks that it stay exactly where it is, with the gap where his partners were around it, and with no plaque and no line of its own, because White hated that kind of thing. Standing at the wall ten days after the ditching, Perkins puts his fingers on the name and tells Luther that White had been two rotations from leaving the service, with a house in Bunnyburrow whose roof he meant to fix himself, and that the last thing they ever spoke about on the net was that roof.
Legacy
White is remembered by Perkins in what Perkins takes for his final moments. As Perkins lies dying beside Botasky, he thinks of White — "a voice on comms and a steady paw on a rifle. The sniper who kept them alive through a dozen operations, who never missed, who died in a maintenance catwalk half a world from home because he was covering their retreat."
White's death, and the loss of Perkins and Botasky in the same facility, leaves ZSI completely blind to the Vladifrostok threat. The intelligence they gathered never reaches Zootopia. White's body is never recovered.
Key Relationships
Perkins and Botasky
White served alongside Perkins and Botasky as part of Charlie Sierra One, providing overwatch while they operated on the ground. The bond between the three operatives is evident in Botasky's desperate insistence on going back for White's body, in Perkins' memories during what he takes for his final moments, and in Perkins' later request that White's name be left standing where it is.
Trivia
- "Charlie Sierra One" is a reference to the manga/anime Cat Shit One (also known as Apocalypse Meow), which features rabbit soldiers conducting military operations. In the original manga, the main characters are named Perkins, Botasky, and White — the same names used for the ZSI team.