Lion Guard I was wrong you belong here

[Hatari05]

This has been a while coming as this has been a very eventful year for me one of me realizing much and understanding things I thought were flaws and imperfections were actually just part of a whole I couldn't see. Lion Guard is one of them it's no secret that I have been one of Lion Guard's biggest critics I haven't been here for a while but when I was my opinion of the show was very clear. Much like another franchise I had a deep disdain for this has changed. My issues with LG was that it couldn't really do anything with the audience it was aimed at never mind the cringey humor, apparently I was blinded by my own hatred as LG gave me something none of the other movies did.

LG gave me the most in depth exploration of the pride lands I have ever seen each animal was given it's own unique culture and life style. Crocodiles operate on strength the strongest is the one who leads and they operate on a strong sense of what is almost warrior pride. Zebra's are rather slow constantly moving but not knowing what's really going on as they do not live in anything but the current moment so they can't keep up. Janga's hyenas are basically extreme anarchist and aethists they don't believe in any spiritual belief nor do they follow one they have no sense of spirituality and believe in simply doing whatever one wants, this makes Janga's summoning of Scar a massive betrayal to his beliefs.

We also get to explore just how the kingdom functions each animal is given their own territory where they reside and when it becomes overpopulated or requires cleaning a predator reduces it best shown with the hippos and the crocodiles. If even one animal doesn't do their part the whole kingdom descends into chaos as when Makku took the spring forcing the hippos out it resulted in every other animal's turf being imbalanced. We also see that while Simba is the king he does not openly command the leader of the other animal groups and has to respect them to maintain some kind of peace as the lion King alone can't control the entire pride. LG despite it's target audience delves very deeply into the politics and structure of the kingdom.

This goes even further once Scar is introduced as this is during the dry season which we glimpsed during Scar's reign but now truly see in action and how they survive it. Scar's war on the pride lands while not too physically violent is a shockingly realistic war as Scar's war strategy is not defeating the guard but rather simply destroying sections of the pride lands to disrupt the balance of the kingdom forcing more animals to be in the same area until it can't contain them. Scar's war plan is causing the pride lands to have an ecological collapse, which is a threat Kion and the guard cannot stop.

Kion and the guard are often called overpowered but on closer inspection their power is completely irrelevant as the biggest threat of The Lion Guard is keeping the pride lands economy intact not defeating the villain. While Kion wins physically all the time he and the guard have lost in their actual mission as the pride lands have completely fallen apart on an ecological level. The crocodiles have split in 2, many animals of the pride lands have joined the outlands, a dark spirit has risen from the inferno throwing the cosmic scales completely out of balance, and despite driving off attack after attack 3 sections of the pride lands have been destroyed leaving the kingdom on the verge of collapsing to the point nearly every animal was about to abandon the pride lands. Kion and the guard can't preserve the pride lands even with the roar they had to militarise the entire kingdom and lie about why to keep them from running and the kingdom is still on the verge of collapsing.

This is really heavy material and a strong showcase of the limits of power even more importantly without the roar they wouldn't be in this mess as Scar wouldn't have ever returned without it, this raises numerous philosophical implications about the question of if such power should even exist. While Kion has won many battles with the roar a lot of these battles were fought because of the roars very existence. Lions of the outlands, never roar again, rise of Scar and the war with Scar in general. Should Kion even have the roar should anyone Kion himself questions and fears this power and for very good reason.

LG has a lot hidden under some of the more kid appeal material and while not as explicitly violent and lacking actual onscreen death it's not in anyway dumbed down from the rest of the franchise, even the humor isn't too off when you compare the comic relief characters to the same comic relief from the movies being a show some episodes will be light but the actual story and character arcs of the Lion Guard across it's actual narrative match the same level of drama and intensity as the movies especially Kion and carry many of the same themes and ideas. There's a lot more that I could say but I will leave it here for now.

As the title of my thread implies I once told Lion Guard as Simba did Kovu you don't belong here and I exiled it from my view of the franchise yet there was so much I didn't see so much the show shared with the movies and now having seen it myself I can only smile with happiness as I say this because it means my love for The Lion King franchise only grows and another scar and regret fades.

So I say this with pride and joy, Lion Guard I was wrong you belong here.

[TTB-Kun]

The lion guard is a treasure of lore regarding the lion king, it’s answering so much question regard the lion king universe. Last but not least how scar got his scar

[Simba_Lion]

If it had a 'like' button, I would hit it. Very nice summary.