My Lion King Forum

Much like Nala in SP, in the first film Sarafina's pawtoes changed colors from scene to scene and other such minor changes. All of the background lionesses go through this phenomenon, and therefore it's likely that if Sarabi is one of them in SP, she would have experienced the same.

Ah okay. True that could be a thing

I think that her voice actor isn't a problem there. After all Simba, Nala, Rafiki and Zazu get different voice actors too, right She was just unecessary for the story. Including every single character just for the sake of appearing would be too confusing.

Anyway, I like Sarabi a lot, even though her role was so small. She's a pretty lioness and a caring mother.

I'm not sure if this was ever mention before I just saw a interview with Lorraine Toussaint and to me her voice sounds close to madge sinclair. If they had kept Sarabi
I think Lorraine would have been a great fill in.

I love Sarabi. She's incredibly strong and not afraid to stand up for what she believes in. I hope she gets at least a mention in TLG; I'd appreciate a canon answer as to what happened to her.

[quote="Squeely"]I love Sarabi. She's incredibly strong and not afraid to stand up for what she believes in. I hope she gets at least a mention in TLG; I'd appreciate a canon answer as to what happened to her.[/quote]

That would be awesome

Sarabi is probably the strongest female character in the franchise. Perhaps not physically, but emotionally. She's still the leader in all of the lionesses' eyes and would be expected to retain composure, despite losing her husband, son and her kingdom in the same day. That's a lot for someone to take... and then the subsequent starvation and mistreatment. It's hard to imagine how she coped. By the time Simba returned, she was on her last legs. It could be assumed that maybe it was too much for her to cope and perhaps she passed shortly after the events of the first film.

I still think an answer should've been given in Simba's Pride. Even just one line to hint that she's no longer there and reunited with Mufasa. It's horrible thinking she was just retired with no consideration for what the fans would think. Then again, SP had a habit of not answering questions straight forwardly - i.e Kovu's father.

I would love to have her mentioned in TLG. I'd expect she'd be a great role-model for the girls, especially Kiara. Sarabi's the ultimate Queen.

With all the British accents going around in TLK someone had to keep a stiff upper lip and Sarabi did that quite gracefully and fittingly.

Regarding her absence in SP, I think it could be a mix of losing the voice actor and the overall messyness of a plot that only took the memorable characters from TLK instead of picking up some of the side characters from TLK and developing them further. Given how much of the movie is about war and 'issues of state' it would seem pretty sensible to go ask Sarabi a question or two after all she knew Mufasa pretty well.

Instead we get Rafiki parsing Mufasa's tea leaves, which brings a very deux ex machinima feel to it all and leaves more skeptical viewers like myself unconvinced of the whole premise. I don't think there was a driving need to reunite the prides, seeing half of a 'conversation' between Mufasa and Rafiki about it just wasn't all that convincing. I suppose this allowed more fleshing out of Mufasa's character in a way but I'm not sure filling in more about a dead character's character is the best use of screen time, having grandlionesses, Nala and Simba all talk about it would have given more color to actually alive characters.

^Yeah, or perhaps have Sarabi and Rafiki discuss uniting the prides, but the rest of Simba's pride is too stubborn to do so. I don't know, maybe that wouldn't have worked as well as the Rafiki/Mufasa thing, but it would have given Sarabi a role.