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#Lionking #Disney #filmtheory

1994’s The Lion king, is without question one of the best films ever made.

Thats probably why Congress decided to preserve it in 2016 by putting it in the national film registry.

Without question, the value of the film as something worthy of preservation is the the films unique hero and villain dynamics.

The heroes, simba and mufasa ride a questionable moral line during many parts of the film.

While the villain, scar, is an obvious victim of abuse and that is faced with unwinnable situations.


I am jim Huss and this is the case for Scar

The lion king centers around scar’s relationships with his brother and nephew.

Our first introduction to these characters is scar’s brother, mufasa, assembling the entire animal kingdom to show off his son, simba, in a manner that is reminiscent of a soviet era military parade.

And from then on, we are fed this false narrative that Mufasa is some sort of righteous king.

For a righteous and level headed king, mufasa has quite the unnecessary temper...and more of a temper.

He maintains a very sizable harem exclusively to himself...which will be discussed later

And can’t even step up to be full time father to his one son.

He also subscribes to a theory called the circle of life

Even though he hypocritically forbids entire native species, like the hyenas, from taking part in this very same circle of life.

Now scar on the other hand is a character that has suffered years of abuse.

He has clearly been tormented by his older brother...think about it.

Scar is a lion. An Apex predatory. How can an animal at the top of the food chain get such a large scar on his face. The answer is simple from an even larger apex predator...MUFASA!

That is just a theory though, and there is no evidence to back it up. (brother is aggressive)...never mind.

While an uncle is no substitute for a father. Scar fills the gap of mufasa’s part time parenting but being a mentor towards simba by making sure he stays safe.(promise not to go there)

But Like all characters of questionable morals, simba breaks promise.


This further shows mufasa’s failure as a father. It only takes a little bit of time to teach the value of honesty.


Quick side tangent about mufasa. He is clearly paranoid about his bloodline and this is evidenced by his harem.
Let me explain,

a pride of lions usually consists of many females with one to three males. In mufasa’s pride, the two males are scar and mufasa. mufasa has the burden of mating with all the female lions. Because Scar very clearly indicates that he is unable to mate with the females (bad back).

So while simba may be his only son. Simba is not his only child.

This means that when simba and nala find out they are predetermined to be married. They are destined to marry their sibling.

So while i am all for the spreading of american values across the world. I would prefer if it was the values of the 48 states that are not alabama and arkansas. Now back to the story.

Scar if anything is an anti-hero. He isn’t necessarily a villain and in many ways is a reluctant hero that is just trying to do the right thing for the greater good.

Mufasa, the supposed moral compass, does marginalize the hyenas and creates a two tiered society aka seperate but equal aka jim crowe style society..

The hyenas live in a persistent state of near starvation in an elephant graveyard and mufasa won’t allow them in his kingdom.

But mufasa can enter their territory on a whim and attack them for taking part in the very sacred circle of life, in their territory, that he endorses.

Once again, if he has a halfway decent father, this would have never happened.

Scar on the other hand wants to help the hyenas. Scar wants to create a world where they will never go hungry.

And after suffering years of violence at the hands of mufasa, maybe scar has a justifiable reason to want to get rid of mufasa.

It may be a bit extreme to sacrifice Simba for the sake of the hyenas, but then again, simba would have been dead had it not been for mufasa illegally entering the hyena’s territory.

Maybe scar sees simba as on borrowed time.

Maybe after years of abuse, scar’s perception of reality is so twisted that he sees the lives of one or two lions as a fair price to pay for the prosperity of an entire species.

So scar is in a weird place, like all great leaders that have to make tough decisions. he isn’t right but he also isn’t wrong.

But when scar executes his plan to liberate the hyenas from their oppression.

scar shows his true character. He shows compassion.


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