My Lion King Forum

So, Rafiki's lion in Paintings and Predictions:

RAFIKI: That is not Kion. It's Nala's father, Kion's grandfather, when he was a cub.


Obviously it doesn't specify if it Nala's side grandfather, so one could take that in context as meaning his grandfather Mufasa, not the other (if he even has an other)… And we clearly can see the painting has red mane and tail tuft.






And honestly, so far he's the only other canon lion with red mane…
(as obviously, it can't be Simba or Kion )

I wonder if TLG will ever address the topic of Nala's father again. would love some explanation of who he was, where he was from, and where he went. seriously hoping we get some 'flashback' type episodes eventually....

Part of me is of the opinion that the cub in the painting was designed that way more as a lazy plot device than anything else. Then again, the other part of me is thinking This was such a random episode without a real lesson to it; the only explanation is that they were intentionally going to screw with longtime fans of the series by building an entire episode around that one little plot point and then obfuscating the identity...

I don't think they're ever going to come back to it, but my guess is that it's probably just another lion who shall remain forever unnamed. (Although the semi-canon character Tanglemane has come up in a few discussions on other forums I've seen as the possible identity.) Clearly the lions in this universe come in a much wider variety of colors than in the real world, so I'm willing to bet that Mufasa's lineage isn't the only one in the world with such a pelt.

I get the feeling that the line confirms that Nala's father isn't Mufasa. Else why not say Mufasa?

Mufasa's hair was red for sure, but has a duller, browner look to it vs Kion's hair. The cub in the painting has pretty bright red hair, leading me to believe that Kion inherited his hair from Nala's side of the family.

I thought it was incredibly obvious that the cub in the painting wasn't Mufasa...

If it was Mufasa, Rafiki would have called him Mufasa. If there were a bunch of other males in the pride, logically we can say that Nala's father could have been someone other than Mufasa.

Plus, his mane/tail are closer to Kion than Mufasa. Mufasa is a bit more brown-ish while the painting was a bit more red.

If you take the brown nose bridge and white, not tan, muzzle literally, those are notable differences from Mufasa.

Mufasa can't be Nalas Father . That'll mean Simba would be Nalas older brother and you can't marry your brother

uh no, come one seriously? , Rafiki would have said his name, so no Mufasa is not Nalas father, and Disney would not allow kids to be shown about incest, I mean REALLY? they keep this stuff clean.

[quote="gothprincesskiara"]uh no, come one seriously? , Rafiki would have said his name, so no Mufasa is not Nalas father, and Disney would not allow kids to be shown about incest, I mean REALLY? they keep this stuff clean.[/quote]


If they are admitting to it, this seems to be as far as they are going to go with their lions. And those paintings colors aren't 100% accurate anyhow:



Kion's muzzle in the painting, compared to the emoji is white, compared to his belly color in the painting.

ZIRA: "Scar and I were close, very close"
And we see in the Lions of the Outlands, Zira does lie, even to her own children. Zira lied saying Kion chose the Hyena over them, when he chose The Circle of Life.
So, she could have simply lied to both Kovu and Nuka about their father(s).


Anyways, Rafiki still says "Kion's Grandfather" either way.

---

Anyhow, I remember when Disney was afraid to show it's "Dark Side"

Mufasa is not Nala's father, the line clearly implies it is not Simba's father by specifying that it is Nala's. And if Zira had lied to her cubs about their parentage, it would have been to tell them Scar was their father, not the other way around. TLG has straight up denounced all of the TLK incest rumors at this point.

I wish people would give it a rest. This fandom's obsession with incest is somewhat disturbing.