Kopa
| Kopa | |
|---|---|
 Kopa
| |
| Meaning | Heart shape |
| Species | Lion |
| Close Relations | Great-Great-Grandson To Mohatu, Great-Grandson To Ahadi And Uru, and only in the books grandson to Mufasa and Sarabi and son To Simba and Nala. |
| Information | |
| Appearances | The Lion King: Six New Adventures |
- "Great uncle Scar was a real creep!"
- —Kopa, after hearing Rafiki's story, A Tale of Two Brothers
Kopa is the son of Simba and Nala in a series of books in the book universe.
Physical Attributes
Kopa is very similar to his father in appearance when he was a child. Kopa has a few differences, like slightly darker golden-colored fur and a brownish-red tuft of hair on his head. Other than that, he looks almost identical to his dad from his cubhood, even with the same reddish-brown eye color.
Info
Kopa is a lion character in Disney's The Lion King universe. According to the set of books titled The Lion King: Six New Adventures he is the son of Simba and Nala, but he didn't appear in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride - instead, Simba and Nala have a daughter named Kiara, and Kopa's existence was never mentioned. Disney has confirmed that the cub seen at the end of the first Lion King film is not Kopa; as even though Kopa already existed in the books, the film makers of The Lion King said on the film's commentary track from 1995 Laserdisc and 2003 DVD releases, that the cub in the end does not have a real name or gender. They called it "Fluffy" and didn't give it a gender. Then the other film makers from Disney decided it to be a girl and named her Kiara. As the sequel film doesn't make references to any siblings for Kiara, the cub in the end of the first film turns into Kiara, or remains "Fluffy" without a gender.
Many fans like to think that regardless of what the cub's creators have said, the seuquel's makers would've meant Kopa to be in the backstory of their film. But in fact, the sequel's makers made it impossible to be Kopa: Kovu's time of birth was before Simba returned to fight Scar, while Kovu's age in the cub scenes appears the same as Kopa's in the books. Kopa could not have been born back then because Simba and Nala hadn't even reunited yet. And there was too many months between Kovu's and Fluffy's births for them to look the same age. Also, if Kopa still somehow miraculously existed in the sequel film's story, he would've had to show in the film as according to the books' fact that he was the same age as Kovu, he would've been alive and with his family between Kiara's ceremony and the day she met Kovu. But even so, his existence would be contradicting because the books don't even mention Kopa to have a sister. All those facts make the timeline so that it's simply impossible for the cub at the end of the first film to be Kopa and for Kopa to exist at all in the film's story. Thus, if anyone wants to imagine the cub at the end of the first film to be Kopa despite of what its creators have said, they have to completely ignore the sequel film in order to make sense at all.
Kopa wasn't even created, written or developed by Disney at all, which is likely the reason why the cub in the end never was Kopa and why he wasn't taken into the movie universe even later. The first book in the series, A Tale of Two Brothers wherein Kopa first appears, is an original story created and written by the writer Alex Simmons, who isn't part of The Walt Disney Company. Alex Simmons' personal web site, provides that information.
The word kopa has multiple meanings in Swahili: "heart shape" as a noun, and "borrow" as a verb.
The Lion King: Six New Adventures
In the book series, much of the time Kopa is listening to a story by various people like Zazu or Rafiki, but he probably appeared most prominently in Vulture Shock. He also had a few minor roles in some of the other books in the set of six. According to the illustrations, he looked almost exactly like Simba as a cub, except for a small tuft of brown fur on his head. He is described as loving to hear stories, but is also curious and playful, like his father was.
During Vulture Shock, Kopa wanted to find his family tree, which he thought was an actual tree with fruit and leaves. After being embarrassed by Mega, Leo, and the other lions, the cub asks Simba to take him to it, but his father was too busy dealing with a greedy hippo, so Kopa decided he would find his family tree by himself. Finding a lizard and chasing it, trying to eat the lizard, Kopa ended up wandering too far off and was in a dry, barren land; lost and afraid that he would never find his way back to Pride Rock, he curled up and fell asleep. In the morning he was found by two vultures, and realizing that the cub was the Lion King's son, the vultures knew Simba would trade anything for him, including a feast so large they would never go hungry again. They kept him prisoner high up in a tree so he couldn't escape, where Kopa was later found by the Buzzard Boyz, a group of rapping vultures who sang horribly. They befriended Kopa after the tiny cub said he liked their singing, and the gang brought Simba and Nala to him. Kopa was then rescued, and his captors were forced to listen to the Buzzard Boyz concert.
In A Tale of Two Brothers, Rafiki tells the back story of Mufasa and Scar to Kopa, and teaches him that we shouldn't be jealous of others.
In How True, Zazu?, Zazu tells Kopa about his life when he was young and how he became the King's majordomo.
