Did Scar dis-attach himself from Mufasa?

[DGFone]

I just noticed this when I posted in the "line by line" topic:

When Scar informed Simba that Mufasa is dead, he didn't call his brother by name. He only said "the king is dead."

Yes, Scar hated Mufasa enough to kill him in order to get the throne, but if he's going to tell Simba that Mufasa is dead, as the brother, won't he at least call the dead king by his actual name instead of just "king"? This made me think that with the act of murder, Scar finally pushed away all the final resemblance of family to Mufasa in his mind, and redefined Mufasa not as a hated brother, but as a hated king. Scar decided that he hates Mufasa enough to not even call him by his name, but only by his title.

Just that, at least to Simba, I would assume that Scar would call Mufasa by his proper name just one more time. After all, won't it be more of a fright for Scar to tell Simba that "Mufasa is dead", meaning Simba's father, rather than "the king is dead", the job title on Mufasa's proverbial business card.

But it appears that Scar hates Mufasa enough to not even care enough for this.

What do you guys think? Do I have a point...
...or am I just suffering from spending the last five hours writing physics lab reports?

[Regulus]

Mufasa wasn't much of a brother to Scar, so it does make sense. Not only that, but Scar was jealous of his brother's job title, so that's basically what he was thinking about anyway.

[TheBlackCatCrossing]

When he is tallkingto the lionesses, he says`Mufasa'.

I ike this theory,DGFone.

[DGFone]

[quote="TheBlackCatCrossing"]When he is tallkingto the lionesses, he says`Mufasa'.
[/quote]

Yes he did, but perhaps it's because he had enough time to calm down after the murder. But then again:

he did make it illegal to say Mufasa's name. Was it because of fear or because of jealousy, or what?

[Regulus]

^ Probably because everyone wouldn't stop talking about him. Even when his brother was dead, Scar couldn't match his level of influence.

[SimbasGuard]

Very interesting observation DGFone. I never thought of that.

[Ninaroja]

Maybe by saying "the King" instead of "Mufasa"/"my brother"/"your father" he was trying to make the situation more severe i.e. make Simba feel even guiltier by making it seem like he had deprived the whole kingdom?

[DGFone]

I would think that if Scar wanted to hurt Simba more, he would have said "Mufasa" and not "the king". After all, Simba might be too young to understand politics, but he knows what a family is.

And what greater damage to his family can he do than murdering his own father?

[Tora]

I think Scar hated Mufasa so much that he didn't care what he called him. He probably just said what ever came to his mind. I think the reason he outlawed the saying of Mufasa's name was because he knew he was no where near the King Mufasa was. He knew he was a greedy, selfish, and careless king, but he didn't care.

[cleargreenwater]

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some disassociation mechanism in place for Scar to do what he did, and probably going back for far longer than the time of Mufasa's murder, because disassociation over time from a young age is thought to be what causes split personalities** if one accepts "the madness of King Scar". I never noticed that with the names in the stampede scene though, it was always just something I assumed on a gut level--really neat catch!

As for speaking Mufasa's name after Scar becomes king...I guess it depends what particular credence you want to give the episode or if you prefer the purely canon interpretation of Scar just being a selfish narcissist who can't book criticism, how you interpret that. It's one of the most fundamental questions faced with viewers, how much a fan wants to attribute remorse or responsibility to Scar after Mufasa's death if at all, and the ways they choose to do that.

Regardless of what you decide, there's certainly a huge difference between Scar before he was king, before his brother was dead, when he let the hyenas go on & on MUFASA-ing and it rolling off of him as sheer stupidity with just an eye-roll & a shrug, and after.



** (Scar's "madness" doesn't qualify as actual, legitimate "disassociative identity disorder", because if it did it wouldn't always be Scar hearing everyone say Mufasa, it would be a whole other conciousness/identity with no knowledge of *any* investment in the name, either of guilt OR insecurity/failure. But the mechanism of disassociation would still build into a chronic subconcious machine over time--not everyone with a disassociative break uses other personalities to do so.)