Fluffy
| Fluffy | |
|---|---|
 Fluffy
| |
| Species | Lion |
| Close Relations | Father Simba, Mother Nala, Uncle Scar, Grandfather Mufasa and grandmother Sarabi. |
| Information | |
| Appearances | The Lion King (film), The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, and in numerous books. |
- "Let's just end on the next generation. Here's Fluffy, Simba and Nala's new little cub. Let's just end on Fluffy."
- —The Lion King film makers, on the 1995 commentary track of the film, refering to the cub at the end.
Fluffy is what the cub at the end of The Lion King was officially called.
Contents
Appearance
Fluffy looks a lot like its father Simba did as a baby. It has very similar facial features, golden brown fur, pale toes, and big black pupils without irises. But there is one big noticable difference: it has black ear rings whereas Simba didn't.
Information
After The Lion King
After the release of the film in June 1994, the cub became very popular object of speculation as for who it is. The film's content itself doesn't say anything about the cub apart from its outside appearence. No name or gender is given.
In 1994, few months after the film, was published the book series The Lion King: Six New Adventures, which became the most popular but remained quite unknown as it was released only in USA. In it, Simba and Nala have a son named Kopa. In 1995 the film's creators released a commentary track for the Laserdisc release of the film, wherein they called the cub "Fluffy" and didn't refer to it as either a 'he' or 'she' - him.
Soon enough Disney's film makers started to create an official sequel film, but the crew was all different from those who created the canon film. A rumour has it that the sequel's creators were planning to write two cubs, a boy named Chaka and a girl who had several name options, but cut the boy out in early production and developed the story only with the girl. This girl was one of the primary characters in the film, her name was Kiara.
After The Lion King II: Simba's Pride
They used the cub from the end of the first film in the sequel's official trailer[1] (using Fluffy for baby Kiara, making it official: Kiara and Fluffy are the same cub in essence). But even so, because in the actual film its design and the ceremony are obviously different from the first film's version, it has caused confusion among fans - especially those who know about Kopa in the books. There are a few fan theories to connect Kopa into the story, of which the most popular is that Zira killed Kopa before the film's beginning.
So, as far as the cold hard facts from the movie makers go, in the official movie universe the cub is either genderless Fluffy, or Kiara, but because of the design differences in the actual movies, for fanfiction it can of course be anyone you want.
Why they remade the cub's ceremony scene is unknown. Why they redesigned the cub is also unknown. Whatever the motive, the act is retroactive continuity that is very common in works of fictional series.
One essential thing remains common between Fluffy and Kiara and the ceremony scenes: neither have the fruit juice paint on them when Rafiki holds them up for the kingdom to see. Kiara gets the paint after Rafiki takes her down. Thus, the continuity doesn't completely lack and Kiara and Fluffy blend into one on a practical level also in the actual movie.
