Kopa

[KopsTheTerminator]

[quote="lionkingfreak"]Seriously, I don't understand how is it confusing?

1.) The cub's creators called it Fluffy and didn't give it a gender, so it's not Kopa! They did so in 1995 after Kopa already existed in the books. As in, if they meant it to be Kopa, they would've said so. But they didn't. So it's certainly not Kopa. Couldn't be more simple!

2.) As Fluffy isn't an identity and we are talking about who the cub is, and SP is an official sequel, the answer becomes: the cub in the end of the first film is Kiara. Again, very simple.

3.) Kopa wasn't even created, written or developed by Disney at all, which is likely the reason why the cub in the end never was Kopa and why he wasn't taken into the movie universe even later. The first book in the series, 'A Tale of Two Brothers' wherein Kopa first appears, is an original story created and written by the writer Alex Simmons, who isn't part of The Walt Disney Company. Alex Simmons' personal web site, provides that information.

PS. And I don't see how do Simba and Nala look older in SP than in the end of TLK? And even if they did, the most likely reason for it would be the combination of the fact that the animators were not the same as the first film's and the whole style of the animation had obviously changed.KOPA IS OFFICIAL ONLY TO THE BOOK UNIVERSE:

Alex Simmons, the author of the first book in the "Disney's The Lion King: Six New Adventures" series ("A Tale of Two Brothers" wherein Kopa first appears) does not work at the Walt Disney Company. ALEX SIMMONS' PERSONAL WEB SITE: [link] also makes clear that that novel is his original story based on the hit film.

But even if we ignore the fact that Kopa wasn't created by Disney...

THE LION KING PRODUCTION DENIES KOPA:

Year 1995: The end's cub's creators publish a commentary track of the film and refer to the cub as "Fluffy" and don't confirm its gender. No mention of Kopa whatsoever even though he does exist in the book universe. It wasn't confirmed as Kiara because Kiara didn't exist at the time.

Results in: the cub at the end is not Kopa in the film.

"They could all behind the scenes refer to him as Kopa, where's your proof that they don't or didn't?"

Here: The canon identity would be validly suspectable only if the creators didn't talk about the cub at all in a public and official situation. But they did. And the key words are 'public' and 'official situation'. It would be silly to doubt that they wouldn't say what they mean--especially in this case: The confirmation on the cub being Fluffy with no gender was made in 1995 before anyone else but Kopa existed in the official TLK universe. As in saying it's Kopa wouldn't have done any harm. It wouldn't have contradicted anything. And if they didn't know about Kopa, it only proves more that they didn't care about book universe chaaracters whatsoever.

SIMBA'S PRIDE OFFICIAL TRAILER uses Fluffy as Kiara's presentation, instead of their redesigned version. They needed to connect Fluffy into an official SP material but in the actual film they wanted to redesign it, so the solution was to make the point in the trailer. And yes, even if the trailer was made by the marketting people, The Walt Disney Company does see this trailer as official as it has the word "Disney's" on it and it was released on an official Disney VHS.

Fluffy = Kiara and no other.

SIMBA'S PRIDE MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO BE KOPA:

1.) Kovu's time of birth was before Simba returned to fight Scar, while Kovu's age in the cub scenes appears the same as Kopa's in the books. Kopa could not have been born back then because Simba and Nala hadn't even reunited yet and if he had, then he certainly wouldn't be Fluffy. Judging by the fact that Pride Lands' nature had already recovered so well and widely and all the herds had returned by the time of Fluffy's birth, there has to be in the least numerous months - likely about a year between Kovu's and Fluffy's births. Way too much age difference for Kovu and Fluffy to look the same age.

2.) If Kopa still somehow miraculously existed in the sequel film's story, he would've had to show in the film as according to the books' fact that he was the same age as Kovu, he would've been alive and with his family between Kiara's ceremony and the day she met Kovu. But even so, his existence would be contradicting because the books don't even mention Kopa to have a sister.

Thus, Kopa and Kiara couldn't be litter mates and Kopa couldn't have died or disappeared before the SP movie's time.

3.) Kovu's head tuft makes him around 2 years old which around the age male's mane starts to grow, a lion cub's tail tuft is fully formed around 7 months of age and thus Kiara had to be at least that old when she met Kovu. This would make Kovu some 13+ months older than Kiara, which fits the timeline between Kovu's and Fluffy's birth quite well. And don't forget the three to four months a mother carries her unborn cub and that lioness' don't have new cubs until the current are at least six months olds. Thus, SP's timeline doesn't leave room for any older siblings to Kiara, the very least for Kopa.

Results in: Fluffy can not be Kopa but it can be Kiara. And it is Kiara. And there is no way Kopa could logically exist in Simba's Pride's story at all.Kopa is unofficial to the movies. Fluffy is a movie character and Kopa is not whereas Kiara is = Fluffy is officially either genderless or a girl.
Kopa is not real for the movies because no movie maker ever called the cub Kopa while they did call it Fluffy and then Kiara. (They do use that cub in the official trailer of Simba's pride, use it for baby Kiara.)
Kiara wasn't intented by the original creators, that is very true, but she is real for the movies because of how she was made.

Fact: The original creators didn't believe anyone would care about the film in the first place. They say that on the commentary track or in the bonus feature documentaries, can't remember in which. The cub is a character that appears on the screen for five seconds at the end of a story that evidently was not intented to be continued.

Natural result: The character's identity was not important at all and thus it wasn't decided but left as genderless Fluffy.

Fact: The book universe's books contradict each others, thus Kopa is not the only son Simba and Nala have in the book universe while all the books in it are equally official.

Natural result: Kopa can not be claimed to be real for the films any more validly than any other version of the cub in the other books.

Fact: Kopa was not created by any of Disney's film makers or anyone at Disney at all.

Fact: The cub was still called Fluffy even after Kopa and all the other sons existed in the books--meaning the original creators didn't accept Kopa nor the gender from the book universe.

Fact: Disney's movie studios decided to make a movie sequel after all and thus Fluffy needed a real identity. Hence, the keyword: real.

Fact: Both movies are Disney's official movies made by Disney's movie creators and thus the sequel becomes a valid part of the official story that is the movie universe (minus the TLK1½ which ic evidently meant as a parody.)

Fact: In the sequel's official trailer, Kiara was literally pointed out as the cub from the first film, as in Kiara became officially its real identity. Because it can't have two identities in one story.

The official identity could be debatable only if the original creators hadn't refered to the cub as anything and if the sequel's creators hadn't put the same cub into their official trailer. But they all did all that.

Result: Kopa, Kiara and Fluffy are all real in the general TLK Universe, but only Fluffy and Kiara exist in the movie universe. But then again as Fluffy isn't an actual identity for a character, it is down to only Kiara existing in the movie universe. As in you have genderless Fluffy only if you ignore the sequel completely.

To me there's nothing uncertain or confusing. And in my opinion there shouldn't be--not if you care enough to look at the big picture:

1.) 1994: Kopa first appeared into only a few books, all written by non-Disney people. As in, Disney didn't even care to write him themselves if they even had anything to do with him.
2.) 1995: TLK's makers chose to call the film's cub Fluffy with no gender given, even when they already had Kopa in their copyrights and could've turned the cub into hin if they wanted to. Apparently, they didn't want to.
3.) 1998: SP's makers didn't tie Kopa into their film in any way whatsoever either, even though Kopa was still in their copyrights and had even gained some popularity in the fandom. They've never even talked about him in any way.
4.) 2004: 10 years of Kopa in the books! TLK1½ is released. If they wanted to, they could've made a sequel with Kopa. They didn't.
5.) 2011: 16 years of Kopa in the books! Not a single soul at The Walt Disney Company has ever talked about Kopa--at least not for any story means. For all I know, not even at all.
6.) Disney doesn't even have him on their official web site in any way. (At least I can't find anything with their search tool.)
7.) They even stopped selling those books long ago while they never sold them outside USA.

As in: The Walt Disney Company--the very least the film makers--are utterly NOT interested in Kopa what-so-ever. Because if they were, they'd at least talked about him at some point.

Resulting in: I'm 110% certain they did not make up a story for Kopa at all, and even more certain that they didn't hide him into SP, Kopa never existed in the movies. Because they haven't even shown interest in him, not half a word. In my logic, you don't make up stories for something you don't care about.

Kopa doesn't officially exist outside his books. Yet. Maybe he never will--but who knows, perhaps some new generation of The Walt Disney Company actually gets interested in him. But I wouldn't hold my breath: Disney has never made a film out of characters other than the film makers' own creative teams creations, or of characters from old epic tales. Plus, the fact that currently the chief guy there is very much anti-sequel.Originally in the film? In those terms we would be talking about the literal content in the film.
Wherein it was just a cub with no name and gender because the film's content doesn't confirm any name or gender. Just because it looks like a boy, doesn't mean it actually is a boy.

Then a boy Kopa appeared in the books after the film had been released but wasn't drawn nor written by any of the film makers, and the film cub's creators didn't call it Kopa or even a boy. As in, the cub in the film's story still remained a cub without official name or gender.

As for the nickname... I'd bet my ass it was not a joke, but just a way to refer to an unnamed and unidentified character. Because it didn't need to have a neme or gender as it appears in the film only for ten seconds and no movie sequel was in plans. It being a nickname as a joke, I acknowledge does make sense to some degree. But if the film's cub had a real, official identity and thus the nickname was "Fluffy" only as a joke, don't you think they would've also mentioned the real identity Especially as Kopa was known only in USA and hardly even there as the books were quite new. As in, if it was just a joke and Kopa was it's official identity in the film, they would've said so.The book universe is not evidence of anything about the film because not a single book was written by the films' makers. Whereas the fact that even after all those books were released, the film's makers themselves did not refer to the cub as a boy in their commentary of the film--resulting in evidence of how no matter what the books say, the cub was not supposed to be a male in the film itself. (I've also thrown in a point that if the film's makers had decided it would be a boy to the degree that they let it out into a profit, public books, it would've been final and they would've confirmed it a boy also for the film. But they didn't, so it is highly unlikely they had anything to do with it turning into a boy in the books, apart from having drawn it look a lot like a boy.)And this still remains a mystery to me. Where is the original source of this information? The only source I've found is The Unofficial The Lion King Character Encyclopedia. Hence, the word 'unofficial'--as in not exactly trustworthy for what really happened. I'm not saying that couldn't have been the case in the production, I'm just saying that I don't know of any official source saying that it did and thus I can't consider it a fact.Some say there is no way that the cub in the end of The Lion King is a female. I must disgree.

1.) The black marks behind the ears have nothing to do with a gender;

Baby Simba - a boy - didn't have them but they appeared later.
Baby Kiara - a girl - didn't have them and they didn't appear later.
Baby Fluffy had them but its gender hasn't been verified by its creators. But judging by Simba, Kiara, Sarabi, Mufasa and Scar, it could be either.

Adult Nala doesn't have them.
But adult Sarabi has them.
Adult Mufasa has them.
But adult Scar doesn't have them. And Mufasa and Scar are even brothers.

SUMMARY; It's not about gender, it's about if the cub happens to inherit the marks or not and if it does, they may or may not have them as a baby. Hence, Simba eventually had them because both of his parents had them. It's not about gender.

2.) The whiskars are about gender, it is even said on the commentary track. But it is also implied that it's so only because they had to draw each whiskar on a seperate blank paper, which must have been ridiculously frustrating. But notice how none of the babies we see has any whiskars, thus we can not tell which gender they are.

3.) The fur colour is usually golden brown or dark brown with males while females are some shade of sandy brown. But since there are various fur colours going around, the colour is not a 100% certain identification way.

So there is no way to identify for sure, the gender of a lion baby in the films. Is there?

The only way to identify the baby's gender would be the genitals which of course has been ditched from the animation views but I'm sure the characters still see them, which is hhow they're the only ones who can know which gender a baby is. Oh, and to them there must also be a certain kind of scent, I'd suppose.

I also don't think Fluffy (the cun in the end) ever had a gender in its creator's view. There was likely no sequel in plans until the popularity of the film, so the cub was there simply to show us that the circle of life starts anew with a new generation. This seems to be the case even in 2003 as they still called it just Fluffy and didn't verify its gender. Leaving Kiara, the daughter from the sequel movie to be its final identity as it's all in the movie universe.Yeah, it's great that in the canon it's left up to the fans who it is if ignored the official sequel.

I personally don't believe Disney will officially turn the cub into anyone but Kiara, as in give Kiara any siblings. As they didn't refer to any in Kiara's film and it's been almost 13 years since Kiara's creation while all they cared about even some five years afterwards was a parody of the first film. And on the official site they even state that TLK2 is the final volume of The Lion King. Disney seems to have lost its interest in developing the TLK movie universe.

Though, of course come new generations they could change their mind, but seeing to the not so great feedback on TLK2 and TLK1½ I doubt the interest is likely to come back. Or if it is, unless the Company's generation's attitude drastically changes, they won't use any fan made characters (like Kopa) but create all the characters themselves. And if they're wise they'd come up with something completely new instead of yet another story about a new cub. I personally think they'd been wise to create their official vision of Scar and Mufasa's youth if anything. But I hope that happens only if the first film's makers were the ones. I'm only interested in the canon vision of those two characters and that we won't have without the first film's makers being the production team.Yeah, it's great that in the canon it's left up to the fans who it is if ignored the official sequel.

I personally don't believe Disney will officially turn the cub into anyone but Kiara, as in give Kiara any siblings. As they didn't refer to any in Kiara's film and it's been almost 13 years since Kiara's creation while all they cared about even some five years afterwards was a parody of the first film. And on the official site they even state that TLK2 is the final volume of The Lion King. Disney seems to have lost its interest in developing the TLK movie universe.

Though, of course come new generations they could change their mind, but seeing to the not so great feedback on TLK2 and TLK1½ I doubt the interest is likely to come back. Or if it is, unless the Company's generation's attitude drastically changes, they won't use any fan made characters (like Kopa) but create all the characters themselves. And if they're wise they'd come up with something completely new instead of yet another story about a new cub. I personally think they'd been wise to create their official vision of Scar and Mufasa's youth if anything. But I hope that happens only if the first film's makers were the ones. I'm only interested in the canon vision of those two characters and that we won't have without the first film's makers being the production team.Yeah, it's great that in the canon it's left up to the fans who it is if ignored the official sequel.

I personally don't believe Disney will officially turn the cub into anyone but Kiara, as in give Kiara any siblings. As they didn't refer to any in Kiara's film and it's been almost 13 years since Kiara's creation while all they cared about even some five years afterwards was a parody of the first film. And on the official site they even state that TLK2 is the final volume of The Lion King. Disney seems to have lost its interest in developing the TLK movie universe.

Though, of course come new generations they could change their mind, but seeing to the not so great feedback on TLK2 and TLK1½ I doubt the interest is likely to come back. Or if it is, unless the Company's generation's attitude drastically changes, they won't use any fan made characters (like Kopa) but create all the characters themselves. And if they're wise they'd come up with something completely new instead of yet another story about a new cub. I personally think they'd been wise to create their official vision of Scar and Mufasa's youth if anything. But I hope that happens only if the first film's makers were the ones. I'm only interested in the canon vision of those two characters and that we won't have without the first film's makers being the production team.[/quote]

tl;dr I don't think you even wrote that. It looks like SBS' rants.

Yay, we reached 100 pages on the Kopa topic! =D I like putting him in my theories myself, but I don't like mixing him up with the movie universe. I prefer him much more than Kiara.. Kiara irritates me. A lot. >.<

[FlipMode]

I have always wandered why there is so much "debate" over Kopa being cannon / official or not, when he is not the only character to appear in 6NA but not the films, so how come all the others do not have 100+ pages of repeated theories?

[KopsTheTerminator]

Probably because Kopa the most popular one. Blah, sometimes I wish these books were never made in the first place.. It's just so pointless to fight over them.

[AdAstrα]

[quote="Kopalover"]@lionkingfreak
You repeated yourself plenty of times.
Some believe in Kopa,
other like you don't.
It means nothing to the believers if you put 76432985634987 words on a sheet and hand it to them to read. It was to long, I didn't even read it.
You could have just said, "I Don't believe in him." Then give 3 reasons why.
Not trying to be a troll, but you repeated yourself and you made it to long.
but look at it, Kiara is the ugly colour of orange. And Kopa in the original looks good and not like a friut cake.
I'm sorry, but that was to much.[/quote]
I AGREE. Sure, hate Kopa if you like, but PLEASE don't spam the entire forum with anti-Kopa messages, that's just really immature IMO. Respect other people's opinions even if you don't agree with them. K? =/

[Annie]

[quote="FlipMode"]I have always wandered why there is so much "debate" over Kopa being cannon / official or not, when he is not the only character to appear in 6NA but not the films, so how come all the others do not have 100+ pages of repeated theories?[/quote]


Agreed! Why don't Tama, Malka and the others have millions of theories and stuff? I think we've established that some like Kopa, some don't. Some think "Fluffy" is Kopa, others don't.
Fact is, Kopa does exsist, maybe not in the Movie world, but because he's been written about and drawn, he does exsist to some extent, just like my characters exsist. So anyone claiming he doesn't exsist is wrong. You may not like him, but that doesn't mean he isn't there. I don't like spiders, but I must face facts that they're there.
But really, he's cute. I like him!
You know, this thread has been much crazier than the "Do you belive in God" thread.

[SummerSnowLeopard]

[quote="FlipMode"]I have always wandered why there is so much "debate" over Kopa being cannon / official or not, when he is not the only character to appear in 6NA but not the films, so how come all the others do not have 100+ pages of repeated theories?[/quote]
I wish I knew xD

I like to make Kopa theories. Like, what he was like and what happened to him. I support the theory of Kopa being born after Kiara. And TLK6NA could be a future thing. I can't see anything wrong with that? Can you? :]

@Annie: I totally agree with you 110% We should just end this silly debate already. Stop the Madness!! XD
And yeah, I hate spiders :3

[Annie]

@QueenSummer: Oooh, I love making theories! I also have one where he's after Kiara!
It gets mad when people start saying theories are wrong wrong wrong! That's just silly

[SummerSnowLeopard]

I know! I get so frustrated. It's a theory. Not a fact. Seriously, using anti-character icons is just rude and offensive. Kopa is real. So, lionkingfreak, if you say you're "This close to proving that Kopa isn't real" then that's wrong. I know it's your beleif, but you're trying to crush our beleifs. So, I will return your dream crushing. Kopa does exist.

Sorry if I seem like a jerk :3

[Kopalover]

[quote="QueenSummer"]I know! I get so frustrated. It's a theory. Not a fact. Seriously, using anti-character icons is just rude and offensive. Kopa is real. So, lionkingfreak, if you say you're "This close to proving that Kopa isn't real" then that's wrong. I know it's your beleif, but you're trying to crush our beleifs. So, I will return your dream crushing. Kopa does exist.[/quote]


^ This.
I agree 1046524765% with you QueenSummer.

[Pixie]

[quote="QueenSummer"] Kopa is real. Kopa does exist.[/quote]

LOL

You seem to think that he is an actual lion. And this is why I think that there is an unhealthy, almost religious following for a cartoon book character.

I think it's quite hilarious.