My Lion King Forum

Okay so everyone knows the scene where Zazu sez the two are going to be married, it's a tradition going back generations, simba and nala react with disgust, a musical number happens and you know the rest...

I've been questioning the validity of this claim. I can't remember at any other point in this franchise such a tradition ever being real. It's never mentioned again, was never mentioned by mufasa/sarabi/sarafina... never mentioned by simba and nala later on in the movie... or by them at any point later on in the franchise...

I know not everyone here likes the lion guard but in it Simba seems to take royal traditions very seriously. But um wait, if that is so why aren't Kiara or Kion betrothed to anyone? According to Simba in rotr there were plenty of lions in pride rock, even if they never show them outside of tiifu and zuri.

or maybe i am overthinking this gosh.

The tradition wasn't continued in TLKSP because Simba was convinced Kovu was only marrying his daughter in order to get into a position to murder him.

I suppose TLG is a young kid movie so they deliberately avoid any romantic mentions. Maybe Kion will be bethrothed to some cub, maybe not. We will never see it ot hear any talks about it.

Kovu wasn't marrying his daughter. Heck, Simba didn't even know Kovu loved Kiara until the end of the film.

Besides, betrothal, assuming it does exist, seems to happen at a young age.

As far as I understand it, betrothal is the same thing as an arranged marriage. With The parents of the Bride and Groom to be, deciding that their son and daughter will be married. Sometimes this happens when the Bride and Groom are adults with their parents informing them that now that they are of marring age their parents will or have selected a spouse for them. Other times as in the case of Simba And Nala. The Betrothal is agreed upon by the parents of each cub, (I'm guessing) shortly after the cubs were born. Being that Simba And Nala were unaware of their betrothal until Zazu told them leads me to believe Simba And Nala would not have been informed of their betrothal until they were old enough to be married. I suspect that this was done in order to give a romance between Simba And Nala a chance to develop on it's own naturally. Rather than telling them that they are to be married by royal decree. (Way to go Mufasa, Sarabi, Nala's Father (assuming you were alive to alive to be involved in the arrangement), and Sarafina).

I believe that Mufasa And Sarabi were an arranged marriage and I think it is very likely that Nala's Father was also betrothed to Sarafina. It is obvious that Mufasa And Sarabi loved each other very much. I would like to believe that the same was true for Nala's Father And Sarafina.

Now when Simba was believed to be dead, it would have nullified the betrothal between Nala and he. This would have left Nala free to seek another suitor if she had chosen to do so. Now when Simba returned and claimed Pride Rock, I think the first thing he did as King (If only in his mind at that moment) is repeal the law of arranged marriages. Because given how much Simba loves Nala I can't see him demanding that Nala be his Queen rather than asking her to be his Queen. I also believe for both Simba and Nala knowing that the other married them out of love rather than duty meant a great deal to them. Because of that I believe Simba And Nala would not want their cubs to marry someone for anything less than love. Therefore neither Kiara or Kion are betrothed to anyone.

Quote cub Simba: "When I'm king, that'll be the first thing to go." He may very well have made good on his words all those years later and done away with it.

Alternatively, Simba may not have considered any suitor worthy enough for Kiara, or may have decided she wouldn't have one. Over-protectiveness and all. Same could apply to Kion, though another explanation with regards to Kion could be that cubs aren't usually told till they're older. Which would explain why Mufasa had not yet mentioned it to Simba when he was young.

[quote="SimbasGuard"]Now when Simba returned and claimed Pride Rock, I think the first thing he did as King (If only in his mind at that moment) is repeal the law of arranged marriages. Because given how much Simba loves Nala I can't see him demanding that Nala be his Queen rather than asking her to be his Queen. I also believe for both Simba and Nala knowing that the other married them out of love rather than duty meant a great deal to them. Because of that I believe Simba And Nala would not want their cubs to marry someone for anything less than love. Therefore neither Kiara or Kion are betrothed to anyone.[/quote]

I'm not all that sure that Simba's experience would have convinced him that betrothal is all that bad, the parents turned out to be more then right about encouraging their friendship as cubs with the intention that they'd marry in spite of some pretty serious problems introduced by Simba's absence and such.

Beyond that there's also the issue of opportunity for Kiara at least, without ( that I know of, I haven't seen TLG ) available male lions within the pride betrothal becomes a bit of a mute point. Kion is a bit more of a case given there are ostensibly lionesses available for such but given the age this could just be a question of him not being told yet.

Finally beyond what we can directly see there's the matter of how lion prides tend to be structured and how betrothal is supposed to be handled. If Disney accepts the idea of the pride male(s) being the fathers for cubs from all the lionesses and presuming they don't want to suggest that Simba/Nala have an incestual relationship ( pretty safe bet! ) there'd have to be some sort of method to betrothal beyond what we've seen. One theory I've seen suggested is that Sarafina came from another pride and thus Nala's father is someone other then Mufasa. It could well be that there's some sort of meet-up between friendly prides where brides are exchanged but Mufasa's early death kept him from telling Simba. Certainly I think it would be interesting as a way of broadening TLK's world beyond 1.5 prides and showing how prides might interact with one and other.

When Zazu said betrothal was tradition, he didn't say that it was tradition to start it when both parties were cubs. So maybe Kiara/Kion just hadn't been betrothed to anyone yet in TLKSP/TLG?

I'm not entirely sure if Simba really got rid of that law because on one hand you have "When I'm king, that'll be the first thing to go." (TLK), but on the other hand you also have "My father's law will prevail." (TLK2). However considering how respectful Simba is of the Circle of Life I figured he'd be the same with the already established laws, so I see it more probable the tradition is still a thing. If this is the case though, you'd think that in the second half of TLK2 Kiara would have mentioned to Kovu at least once of her betrothal, something along the lines of "not only are you and Outlander but I'm already betrothed". I'm pretty sure if this happened the ending of the movie would also include Simba getting rid of the tradition so future generations could marry whoever they wanted but I'm getting out of track.

So considering TLK2 never addresses this issue, and supposing the law still goes, then I'm gonna go ahead and bet that the law applies only to male cubs. It would make sense because there are far more female candidates than male if Simba wanted to search one for Kiara. I doubt that we'll ever see this subject addressed in TLG, but there's always that headcanon if anyone likes the idea. Personally I'm not really invested in shipping Kion with anyone at the moment, but if the show implied anything with Tiifu or Zuri I wouldn't mind.

[quote="AnonLion"]I'm not entirely sure if Simba really got rid of that law because on one hand you have "When I'm king, that'll be the first thing to go." (TLK), but on the other hand you also have "My father's law will prevail." (TLK2). However considering how respectful Simba is of the Circle of Life I figured he'd be the same with the already established laws, so I see it more probable the tradition is still a thing. If this is the case though, you'd think that in the second half of TLK2 Kiara would have mentioned to Kovu at least once of her betrothal, something along the lines of "not only are you and Outlander but I'm already betrothed". I'm pretty sure if this happened the ending of the movie would also include Simba getting rid of the tradition so future generations could marry whoever they wanted but I'm getting out of track[/quote]

Very good points. However I think Simba loves Nala too much too enforce their betrothal rather than ask her to be his Queen. Also no matter how much he believes in tradition, I think Simba would still change a law he truly felt was wrong. (Besides allowing his cubs to marry for love rather than duty would be much more beneficial to The Circle of Life )

As for Kiara being betrothed I think Simba And Nala would want Their cubs to find the same love with their mates that they themselves have. Also as has been suggested in this thread I doubt Simba would have found anyone worthy of being betrothed to Kiara.

[quote="AnonLion"]ISo considering TLK2 never addresses this issue, and supposing the law still goes, then I'm gonna go ahead and bet that the law applies only to male cubs. It would make sense because there are far more female candidates than male if Simba wanted to search one for Kiara. I doubt that we'll ever see this subject addressed in TLG, but there's always that headcanon if anyone likes the idea. Personally I'm not really invested in shipping Kion with anyone at the moment, but if the show implied anything with Tiifu or Zuri I wouldn't mind.[/quote]

As for Kion being betrothed I doubt that would be the case, because one sibling being allowed to marry for love and one having their mate chosen for them would cause them would cause a very big conflict between the siblings. I am quite certain that Simba And Nala would want to take as many precaution against that as possible.