My Lion King Forum

Okay, you know how when the new male lion takes over he kills the cubs and mates with the lionesses? Ever wonder why there were no new cubs under Scar's reign? How did you rationalize that? Granted this is a Disney movie but I am interested in hearing people's opinions about this. Some theories I have had over the years:

1) Scar was more interested in power than sex. This shows that for all his meticulous planning, Scar could be short sighted on some things. This could serve to enhance that scene in the Broadway production where he realizes that he needed cubs. In the movie verse (where I primarily focus on), Scar was more about control and exercising that right.

2) Scar knew he was unpopular and the lionesses did not like him either. In a sense it was like an open secret that he would not mate with any one of them hence why no cubs were produced. I don't think he would even go as far as 'forcing' himself on one. Maybe he and Zira had a little something something back there but I don't think he sired cubs with her. He is not a family guy like his brother and nephew.

I am on the fence of him forcing himself on any lioness in spite of what happened in the Broadway production which is an AU (female Rafiki, anyone?).

Let's try to keep this as PG as possible. I'd rather not have to lock this thread.

Now, that being said, I'm going to kinda go on a whim here and say it's because Scar either couldn't produce offspring, or simply didn't want to.

I'd guess the former to be more likely. Think about it: why else would he have chosen a heir that wasn't related to him?

Also, if Scar had cubs, then Simba would have to kill them at the end, and that would make him the bad guy. That would be a rather awful, depressing story.

Well, we don't know he didn't have cubs, it's just that they never appeared in the first movie. Nuka and Vitani have the potential of being his cubs, but we don't really know for sure. I don't think that none of the females 'liking' him would be a strong possibility, as the lions exiled to the Outlands supported Scar.

I don't think Scar would have WANTED cubs, it would have meant willingly concedeing a fraction of the power and position and attention he obsessed over to someone else, even if only on his deathbed. And I honestly don't think Scar would or psychologically could do that. If he ever did sire cubs he would resent them, for they would replace Mufasa as his competition--and inevitably win.

That and I don't think Scar ever viewed the lionesses as anything other than bald-faced problems right from the start, hence the extra police force built right into his plan, rather than spoils. I see a lot of really great fan-works that employ the device of children of Scar as bids to consolidate and solidify his power--and psychological games ARE ever Scar's strong suit--but it just never felt right to me, I just don't see Scar ever being hands-on in his methods. I really don't think Scar, finally in his high place as exalted king, elevated above all, nor the lionesses in their raft of grief, ever assumed anything but a yawning distance in their associations. And Scar would probably have felt that that was the proper state of things, having a court, not mates.


....And if any of that sounds chaotic, I had a better typed post then hit something going back & forth from the keyboard that erased it, this is the "cliff notes from memory" incarnation DX

Is it a cheap cop out to say that it didn't happen because it would be wildly inappropriate to even touch those themes in a kid's movie?

[quote="Azdgari"]Is it a cheap cop out to say that it didn't happen because it would be wildly inappropriate to even touch those themes in a kid's movie?[/quote]

Considering...

[quote="TheBlackCatCrossing"]Granted this is a Disney movie but I am interested in hearing people's opinions about this.[/quote]

Yeah, kinda.

Although, I have to say, I think CGW hit the nail on the head with that post.

[quote="Azdgari"]Is it a cheap cop out to say that it didn't happen because it would be wildly inappropriate to even touch those themes in a kid's movie?[/quote]


So we should only have safe topics because 'Oh noes!! The children!!!'

I just think it's amusing that it's okay for Simba and Nala to have a cub, but for Scar it's "inappropriate."

What, aren't evil lions allowed to have their own offspring too?

[quote="Azdgari"]Is it a cheap cop out to say that it didn't happen because it would be wildly inappropriate to even touch those themes in a kid's movie?[/quote]

Boooo, boring....

In all seriousness though, we've all been choosing our words well, I know there's a PG policy on this board that's a little more active than elsewhere in the fandom, but I don't think it's inappropriate to discuss. If the same younger audience were to drift over to Deviant Art, the same themes are glanced on in every second fan-comic there in considerably darker atmospheric fanart.


...And that all being said about Scar being a hands-off manipulator, I don't think its beyond him to arrange for already existing cubs to disappear out of developing paranoia, either, though, if one really wants to dovetail subcanon in there for the purpose of fanworks. I just don't think he'd have anything to do with the actual dispatching himself in a million years the way some fanartists depict, and don't believe it would be a reproductive motivation.

Nah, I didn't mean inappropriate for the board! Anything goes on the mean streets of MLK...

Inappropriate for the movie. Considering the fact that it's very unlikely any of the lionesses would willingly mate with Scar, I think that for the movie to get into the themes of *ahem* "involuntary encounters" would be completely out of bounds. Or is there thought that some of the lionesses were willing? I certainly don't see it. :3

That always struck me as why the Scar / Nala stuff was kept out of the movie as well. Too risky, or risqué perhaps, for that audience.