My Lion King Forum

I just wanted to dedicate a thread to the one and only Pride Rock. No other Disney movie has a landmark that has quite such awesome power and memory-value. Pride Rock has so many meanings and symbolism in the films, and it can mean something different to each character. I'd like to go through some of these meanings, and if you have any others, or your own reactions to the landmark go ahead and share them =)

In the Circle of Life, and the beginning of TLK Pride Rock is basically the physical representation of everything that is good in the pridelander's rule, and a focal point for all the positive energy.

Then of course, Scar takes over, and Pride Rock takes a dead and evil look. It's like a shipwreck, something beautiful that's been spoiled.

In Simba's Pride there are new and interesting meanings there too. Kiara sees Pride Rock as something she's trying desperately to live up to, and a source of pressure and strain. It's a symbol of tyranny and power gone out of control when Simba sends Kovu away, and it even acts as a prison that Kiara has to escape from!

In closing, if I could visit one place from a disney film, it would be Pride Rock. I wish a landmark like that really existed...

You're absolutely right here. There really isn't something as unique as Pride Rock in other Disney movies. It's just something that gives the movie a deeper meaning. And there wouldn't be a better place than Pride Rock to present the future kings and queens! It's tall, so everyone can see their rulers. I just can't imagine the movie without Pride Rock on it. =)

Well said you guys!
Pride Rock is so grand and regal, so great that it's almost as if it were alive! Pride Rock is the King of rocks!
ROCK ON PRIDE ROCK!!!
Woo! XP

That's really in depth thinking there Mike. Pride rock symbolizes alot, and i think that is just coincidental. Also the elephant graveyard looked pretty scary too during scar's rule >_<

By coincidental you mean you don't think Disney planned for these meanings? I guess that's possible, but usually writers are very conscious of the symbols in their work. Even if they didn't mean for it in the first place I'm sure they made a conscious decision to keep them.

I think in this case it's coincidental with pride rock. They had alot of different symbols in there like all those hyenas marching in unison under scar? -cough- soviets? xD

Also i saw the hidden messages through out the movie. Now those were obviously planned.

True, but that just makes it more likely in my mind that the writers know exactly what they're doing in the case of Pride Rock. If there are all these obscure and suggestive symbols, then surely the biggest and most obvious one wasn't just a coincidence.

Meh we'll never know for sure though xD

Really good article though. I'd like to give disney a lot of kudos for lion king. Like seriously, best movie ever. It made alot of parents angry too with what their kids were watching.

(About death, murder, the dark themes, the soviet like hyenas)

It makes me feel that disney used to be cool XD

Pride Rock is a great watermark for the Pridelands. It represents power, in a good way. It just shows how peaceful the Pridelands are. (well at least before Scar's reign and after Simba's pride =p)

It's like a castle and a throne in one, majestuous and visible from a looooooong distance.