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I'm gonna stop posting,if I continue to post on this topic,it might be considered to be spam,so I'll stop.

Honestly... I doubt this is going to happen. We're properly discussing something, and this topic is kind of refreshing to me... the argumentation was alright until now.

Well, going back to the original topic of "Why does Kovu look like Scar?", this is my opinion of it:

It seems that since Kovu resembles Scar in looks, I suppose the animators of TLK2 wanted him to look this way to bring back old, bad memories of Simba's past, which was destroyed by Scar (the death of his father on the ledge - in the form of a nightmare during the film). This allowed Simba to mainly judge Kovu by his looks and background (which he supposed Kovu was Zira's son, the one that she said was chosen to follow Scar's pawprints and become the next king), while Kiara, who seemed to know little about who Scar really was (except she did mention him in the stargazing scene: "My father said there was a . . . a darkness in Scar that he couldn't escape." - so maybe she knew the basics of her great-uncle, but I suppose Simba kept the rest of Scar's story hidden from her.), seemed to accept him as a friend, not only in childhood (before they were separated by their feuding parental leaders), but also when he saved her life. Of course their friendship leads to a quickly budding romance (which Mufasa wanted), which Simba starts to notice (Nala notices this first - I suppose it's like mother, like daughter in this sort of situation; they did like the fact of Kovu joining their pride after he saved Kiara from the fire in the Pridelands). He begins to accept Kovu's change until the "surprise" attack of Zira and the other Outlanders (who made Kovu the evil one, just like Simba had originally believed him to be).

I could go on and on on this, but I think you understand the look part of Kovu by now, right?

Now, as many previous posters have mentioned, Kovu is NOT the son of Scar, yet he looks like him. True, Zira says that she was Scar's mate, but it seems that (to me) only her eldest son, Nuka, is the only son of Scar (it works out time-wise, if you think Kiara was the cub from the ending of TLK). Vitani . . . I'm not sure really. It's possible that she could be Scar's daughter, but meh. It's Kovu's father we're trying to figure out. Perhaps the story writers of TLK2 originally wanted Kovu to be Scar's son (he would have obivously inherited his "father's" looks), but with the thoughts of incest that would have been hinted (Kiara and Kovu being related - Kiara's father's uncle is Kovu's father), this is scrapped (because Disney thinks incest is baaad XD), but it is still possible that they are still related somehow (because you don't know the other bloodlines out there in the Pridelands).

Here's my thoughts:

- Perhaps Kovu is an abandoned cub that Zira takes in as her own, due to the fact that he looks like her lover, Scar. (she gives him the scar herself) His father could be a rogue male that roams the Pridelands/Outlands (since there should be a few others besides Simba and Nuka . . . *cough*Kopa*cough*), while his mother was an Outlander. This, in my opinion, makes sense . . . almost like Zira felt it was fate for her to raise Scar's heir - a child that looks like him.

I have even written a fanfic about Kovu's past and who his father (IMO) is, so I don't need to describe it here (I think most of you have read it - take a look on TLK Source under "Fanfiction").

I prefer to think about these things "story-wise" (if you haven't noticed), but I agree with some of the ideas "reality-wise" about how lions really act. Well stated!

- Juuchan17

Because he's successor at the beginning.


Fieto

Those things happen all the time with animals. And Disney already made cousins become mates (Bambi and Faline). Remember, animals aren't humans, so it isn't an 'EEWWW' for them, it's nature.

THAT'S something you don't know. You can't know it, as nobody ever made a statement about how "unhealthy" they are. Additionally, "inbreeding" itself would take some generations in a lion pride, as the genetic material is always mixed with "new" one of different lionesses.


Yes, it's not "completely" true to reality... but it doesn't point to that fact. We simply have a gap there, as we don't see any other cubs. It primarily points to the fact that the producers didn't really want to answer such questions.


From the movie there's no tangible basis for such an assumption. As "humans" we know that from our kingdoms - but does that mean Mufasa's kingdom works the same way? I highly doubt that.


As humans we'd do so, yes. But I've seen lionesses killing their own offspring, so - let's say - if Scar found his litter to be inattractive, it would be logical for him to restart a reproductivity cycle


Since when are the cubs of an accepted male the same as yours? In lion world, a coalition means to share certain powers and/or privilegues - that doesn't automatically make them the best friends. Scar's and Mufasa's relationship makes a lion-coalition logical, primarily because they are brothers (which is the most common reason for a coalition). What's also congruent with reality, that's that one male actually leads the pride, while the other simply seems to accompany it... so... why is a manipulative "CoRuler Scar" so odd to believe in? That's just what happens in reality.


Actually, I think it's exactly the other way around: nature makes TLK so special and great. It's the intensive work into detail that made it one of the most successful animated movies ever. The human characteristics simply serve us to understand it - as we aren't really familiar with natural lifestyle.


NOW... I don't know if you've already heard of Rob Minkoff's statement regarding the entire issue, but Brian Tiemann (the TLK WWW Archive) once asked the directors about it and got an interesting answer:

anyone there?

Frankie,this is a topic area for why Kovu looks like Scar.

As I said: it's the conflict between human and lion lifestyle. For a human it's a monarchy-tradition that goes over generations, for a lion it's the replacement of the alpha male. We don't know at all what happened before Mufasa's father, same as Zazu mostlikely doesn't know it.


-> it's an unanswered question... and that was Minkoff's intention in it.


Indeed, but it can be denied. Because lion prides very rarely have more than two adult males. Considering the fact how much detail went into the movie, we can pretty much accept that as a fact. (And as you know, Minkoff also accepted it as a fact.)


As far as I know, Zazu only talks about "tradition". He doesn't ever say Mufasa and Sarabi wanted it to happen that way.


Yes, because the producers never wanted to touch that topic. They knew how complicated it would get to explain that - as "it's a detail nobody would really take notice of", they just left it at it.


Yeah, but it happens. And that not rarely... the males are about the most manipulative representants of their kind.


Oh, they don't need to know them. All they do is killing them when taking over a pride. Lions have a relatively short life (males about 10 years, females between 15 and 18 years) and have to invest a lot of their time in rearing cubs. It takes between 2 and 3 years until they can care for themselves, and gestation itself takes about 110 days. So, to them it makes sense to get rid of inattractive litters, or litters that (eventually) weren't fathered by the corresponding male - as they'd "waste" 3 years of their short life on cubs they don't want to have.


Yes... as I said... the human character helps us to understand it. It attracts humans to see it.


Oh, I highly doubt that it's an "uncreative" answer - it simply shows that they are aware of the conflict, and how true to reality it was intended to be, after all. In my opinion, Minkoff's statement is worth a lot regarding the entire issue.

thats wrong,theres no evidence to show nala is simbas cousin,nalas father could be a lion that was in another pride...

Actually... lions don't do that. The fact that Nala grew up with Simba shows that they belong to the same pride, hence she has to have a father of Mufasa's pride. Since Scar and Mufasa seem to be the only males there, they have to be something like "cousins". Even if it was a completely foreign father, they'd still be related, as Sarafina is in Mufasa's pride as well.

I suggest you to read the entire topic, there are a few interesting points for and against Mufasa or Scar paternity.

but dont you think that if nala was scars daughter she would be darker?she hasnt got a dark fur like scar and nalas mother could join mufasas pride after nala was born