My Lion King Forum

Now, there are two options:
Zira. (duh)
and Simba...

Simba kept Kiara from her dreams, lied to her, and was far too overprotective. He banished her boyfriend, and fought against the Outlanders, when he could have asked for peace.

So, think again. Who's the antagonist?

Simba didn't exactly lie to Kiara: He simply told her what he believed she could understand. As for being overprotective: with the Outsiders being a very real threat (Zira), it is only safer to be overprotective than not be protective enough.

With SP, the real antagonist is the obvious one: Zira. She is the only one who actively wanted to murder Simba and other Pridelanders.

In order to be a antagonist you have to be actively evil against one or more of the main characters. Simba is a main character, and Simba is not aiming to be directly evil to anyone. So the antagonist is Zira.

[quote="WildSimba"]In order to be a antagonist you have to be actively evil against one or more of the main characters. Simba is a main character, and Simba is not aiming to be directly evil to anyone. So the antagonist is Zira.[/quote]

I oviously agree by far 100%. Simba cannot be an antagonist at all. With Simba, he exiled Kovu because he thought that he was the one who started the ambush. He also exiled him because of his dark motives from the start of saving Kiara. For his overprotectiveness of Kiara, she's his only cub and he doesn't want to lose her. He loves her very much, unlike Zira and Kovu's family relationship. Zira was clearly just using Kovu to get what she wants: Simba dead. For those "lies" Simba told Kiara, we know that he promised her that she could hunt alone, he just paniced because he didn't want anything bad happening to her (he especially gets the panic after seeing the fire smoke from the far distance). Also, Simba taught "We Are One" to Kiara well. It does look like that Simba forgot about "We Are One" during most of the movie but more problems were developing for him. At the end, his previous knowledge he taught Kiara was brought back up. Zira mistreated all of the Outsiders and made it so not like home for their kind. At least that Simba then allowed to Outsiders to join his pride and everyone was in peace, except for Zira. She did not want that and still held her pure evilness from within, even with the treat of killing her own daughter if switching sides. Simba would never have the idea of killing Kiara.

One other thing to remember is that Zazu informed Simba that The Outlanders were coming to the Pride Lands for war, an enemy kingdom does not usually bring their army to peace negotiations. Also remember that Simba did give The Outlanders the option of going home, he only took his pride to war when Zira made it clear that there was no other way of resolving the situation. Also after Kovu and Kiara's intervention, Simba did indeed ask for peace.

"An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or an institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend."

I would say they're both antagonists. The movie spends just as much time on Kiara's conflict with her father and her need for freedom than it does on Zira's evil plot. By halfway through the movie the two problems are completely intermingled. But the movie would have had a much earlier happy ending if Simba hadn't exiled Kovu, opposing Kiara and Kovu (the main characters) by separating them. Simba is directly responsible for one of the movie's conflicts and goes against the main characters, therefor, he is an antagonist. An antagonist doesn't have to want to kill anybody; he/she just has to be opposing the main characters. My two cents. :3

Azdgari got it right. Antagonists don't need to be bad, they just need to conflict with the protagonist.

Simba didn't really lie to Kiara. He just didn't tell her stuff ;P Perhaps you could say that at first, Kovu would consider Simba an antagonist XD This is pretty interesting. Simba did cause some problems unintentionally. Zira did it on purpose though. Soo...I think Zira is the only antagonist ^^