justice 4 clover

In season 1 Julien was still so innocent and forgiving of his uncle and I feel like in Man in the Iron Booty that was when he finally saw his uncle's cruelty directly. The other two schemes were more passive. He seemed to easily forgive his uncle for abdicating expecting Julien to be eaten in his place likely because he saw it as his uncle saving himself but didn't think he was specifically wishing harm on Julien.

Then in Return of the Uncle King, he was tricked by his uncle to go into fossa territory (since he still trusted him then) and it was a surprise to him when he found out it was a trick but he still wanted to give his uncle "a chance at a new life". It probably helped that in this case his uncle did nothing sinister seeming directly in front of him. But Man in the Iron Booty had his uncle fully trying to torture and break him and after that point whenever he sees his uncle he is much angrier like in Jungle Games for example when he calls his uncle "the worst person in the world". So that was the vibe I was going for with this video. But also, I have a lot of thoughts on Uncle King Julien's perception of Julien and what his mindset raising him might have been that factored into why I made this AMV.

I have so much speculation on Julien's childhood and how his uncle raised him. So, we don't know much about how UKJ became king but since I tend to think he immediately followed King Julien the Terrible that gives us an interesting possibility for why he's paranoid about being overthrown. Because we know that King Julien the Terrible was overthrown and it's interesting to think that at that point UKJ might have been the heir and was then got the throne but possibly in a very unstable state where another revolution could take that from him and lock him away too. So maybe that's why he's so sneaky about the ways he rules with fear before the events of the show. He uses the fear of fossa to control the people and covers up the worst of his own actions (sacrificing lemurs to try to appease the prophecy for example!) So that's my interpretation of how UKJ got like that. He saw King Julien the Terrible's leadership style through fear as an example so that's what he thinks is how leadership works but since King Julien the Terrible got overthrown, he tries to do it in a way that makes himself not seen as clearly as evil as King Julien the Terrible was viewed. So instead, he says the fossa are the threat he is protecting them from with his strict rules and behind the scenes he's doing messed up stuff like the Footstool Program with the assassins that he ended up killing most of and the sacrifices mentioned in the first episode. And of course, the people are scared of him directly as well that's still part of how he controls them but he blames the worst of his actions on the fossa (who are a real threat too of course) and that helps prevent them from revolting since they still see him as in some way looking out for their best interests and protecting them from the fossa.

So, if the kingdom overthrowing him is a possibility, Julien's reputation and popularity is directly correlated to how likely that is. So, I think UKJ would not want Julien getting along with the ordinary lemurs. Julien is necessary because the kingdom needs an heir to have a future, but his existence could lead to what happened to King Julien the Terrible happening to UKJ. So, I think he would have raised Julien very intentionally to try to prevent that. We know that he had the Footstool Program with Pancho trained to potentially assassinate Julien if needed but that seems like a backup plan if everything else goes wrong. In my head I like to call his plan raising Julien as "Headrest Program" because it matches Footstool and it has to do with messing with Julien's head, so I think it fits really well lol

So, I think that plan would have to have something to do with managing both Julien's behavior and Julien's reputation among the kingdom and keeping him separate from them for the most part and interfering by trying to control who he interacts with and how they interact with him would be a huge part of that. So that's why all the stuff in Revenge of the Prom would have happened. UKJ manipulating things to make the other lemurs in school resentful of Julien for being spoiled and getting everything he didn't earn like prom king and "winning debate" and all that other stuff. So, Julien never has to work hard and learn how to persevere through challenges. And that makes Julien planning an uprising very unlikely since that would be hard and it's easier to just enjoy being a prince for now and wait to inherit eventually. Plus, Julien thinks the people love him and his ego gets crazy big while they are secretly annoyed about it and less likely to support him over UKJ. We also know from Viva Mort that Uncle King Julien taught Julien to never apologize and that he was still trying to follow his uncle's example in that episode since it's still season 1 and it's before Man in the Iron Booty. That episode is such a good example of Uncle King Julien's influence and the process of Julien moving away from it over time.

And what I find really compelling is that Julien when away from the influence of his uncle grows so much! He is so much more capable as a leader by the end of the show (Exiled shows his growth the best I think) And I really love the ending of Man in the Iron Booty because I feel like his uncle was really shocked by him standing up to him and it's really satisfying.