# The Lion King: A Philosophical Movie?



## TheGryffindorLioness (Jun 23, 2014)

I personally have been IN LOVE with The Lion King ever since I was a little girl.

Why?

Excellent question!

I never saw it as JUST a Disney movie about lions.

I saw the movie has an outstanding allegorical tale.

They were literally animals, but the animals all symbolized something.

For centuries, the lions have been called "The King of Animals" or "King of Beasts."

Monarchs would consistently use the lion as a symbol.

Hell, JESUS WAS CALLED THE LION OF JUDAH!!!!!!!

If you've read/seen Narnia, it's pretty clear they call Jesus a lion.



I am personally a deist (I used to be an atheist).

I believe nature is God.

While undoubtedly animals aren't intelligent the way that we are, that doesn't mean they aren't smart.

They may not write, read, talk, or think scientifically.

But they do have souls. 

Listen very closely to these songs in the movie:

The Circle of Life

King of Pride Rock

The music played during the scene where Mufasa dies (sorry. I forget the name of it)

Can You Feel Love Tonight (Elton John version), OR listen to the instrumental (even better!)


Note: I hate it when so many people call every song about love a ROMANTIC love song. Who says a love song has to be romantic?

True love is much more than just romance. It's family, friendship, wisdom, and true calling in life.

I believe that is the message of the song.

In other words, don't you feel such great emotion when you listen to all of these songs?





Yes, this story has inspirations from Hamlet, but that doesn’t mean it’s ENTIRELY based off of Hamlet. Can’t you see? Not ENTIRELY.

I love this movie to death like a Christian loves Jesus because its use of animals as allegories for spiritual messages that we should all listen to.

1. Lions have always been known as the “kings of the animals.”

Monarchs would consistently use the lion as a symbol.

Hell, JESUS WAS CALLED THE LION OF JUDAH!!!!!!!

If you've read/seen Narnia, it's pretty clear they call Jesus a lion.

This means that lions (that is, if they aren't Scar or Zira) have been figure names for people who are the best fit for a leader.

God and Jesus are represented by lions (Aslan, anyone?) GET THE PICTURE?!

In other words, GOOD lions are the BEST of prophets.

No, I am an atheist. That is, if the “Heaven Is for Real” story isn’t true. If it is, I would be a deist. If you don’t know what it means, look it up.

I have created my own religion where you don’t have to believe there is a God or Gods to be religious or spiritual; it is where we always consider possiblites, no matter how crazy, use both rational thinking and empathetic feeling- as we can’t live with just our heart or just our head. 

Anyway, back the allegorical meanings of lions.

Obviously, not ALL lions are good. Like Scar, the evil ones’ are Satan’s devils. Why? Because THEY ARE EVIL!

So, allegorically, lions are the ultimate prophets of spirituality, the highest ranking messagers sent from above or whatever to lead the world, whether from above is good or bad.

THINK ABOUT IT. ASLAN/JESUS?! RING A BELL?!

So in other words, IF God and Satan existed, Simba and Mufasa would be the next Jesuses and Scar would be Satan’s next devil.

Let me explain. Plenty of you atheists say, “Oh my God” and “Go to hell.”

Those are religious phrases, right?

So when I say “God’s prophets” or “Satan’s devils” I don’t LITERALLY mean they are GOD’s or SATAN’s. They are figures of speeches for spirituality. 

So PLEASE DON’T TAKE IT LITERALLY. 

So in The Lion King, the animal world is ruled by lions, because lions are the ultimate prophets, whether good or evil. Mufasa is king, and in a way, he is like Jesus for his wisdom and beliefs in the “Circle of Life.”

Simba is also like Jesus, as he learns that he DOES matter-that without him, everyone would die. He knows that he UNINTENTIONALLY killed Mufasa (even though he didn’t kill him at all), but was still scared to go back because of the guilt. But he did. 

Scar was the ultimate evil, using power over the world for his own personal gain and was evil in every way. And so were the hyenas-just not dictators.

Rafiki is the allegory for a wise shaman that keeps spirituality and justice in our hearts-pretty much the interpreter of spirituality.

Nala would be the Virgin Mary. I KNOW, the Virgin Mary is his mom, but obviously Nala is not Simba’s mother. I mean in personality, not in relations. Just like Mufasa. He’s like Jesus, but there isn’t two Jesuses.

Timon and Pumbaa are allegories for people who just don’t care anymore after everyone threw them out and treated them poorly, so they live life to the fullest. They teach us the meaning of enjoying life despite pain. Hey, they didn’t know Simba was the future king. If they did, they would send him back. 

And Zazu, well…is just a allegorical servant for the king. That’s all I can say.

Kiara and Kovu? Simple. Even though in Romeo and Juliet, we never know why the Capulets and Montagues were fighting in the first place, in TLK 2 WE DID. And even this movie taught us that not to judge someone you don’t know very well or don’t know at all. In other words, it teaches us:

1. Don’t jump to conclusions. Consider the possibilities and then search for the truth.

Kovu was judged for being an Outsider, and yet no one knew him. Later on it is revealed that he changed and that he is not bad. 

We don’t know the other outsiders’ stories, but we can suspect that they were naive to see that Scar was evil. 

They must have not known Scar tried to kill Simba as a cub in spite of being innocent, like all cubs are.

And I have come to the conclusion why there were no other males in the movies.

Scar killed them all after Mufasa died.

Before his death, we couldn’t have time to meet everyone in the pride. So we couldn’t meet all of the males.

Scar is an asshole, right? So wouldn’t be do things the biggest assholes would do? Scheme to get all of the males killed somehow and trick the lionesses into thinking they were accidents and would have no choice but to mate with him to repopulate.

Mufasa, of course, would NEVER EVER do that!

IT’S DISNEY, PEOPLE! JUST BECAUSE IT’S NEVER SHOWN OR MENTIONED, IT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT TRUE!

Kovu was supposed to be Scar’s son until they realized that he would be related to Kiara. So WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY HAVE NALA AND SIMBA BE RELATED?!

I’m not saying there was no incest. Just no incest among the heroes. Only incest from Scar.

Think about it: wouldn’t be as weird as hell if Kovu and Kiara were related, even if it wouldn’t be Kovu’s fault that Scar fathered him?

It’s pretty obvious they didn’t think they had to be the biological children of the leaders to be the star-crossed lovers.

IT’S A FREAKING RATED G MOVIE! IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT INCEST! AND THERE WOULD ESPECIALLY BE NO INCEST AMONG THE HEROES!

2. We need to learn to forgive. 

Zira must have not known what Scar almost did to Simba.

Not all polygamists are bad people.

In other words, we shouldn’t condemn them to hell just for the action of polygamy itself. We have to know WHY and HOW.

So Zira could be forgiven.

She clearly waited for Kiara to become a teenager to try and kill her, so she wouldn’t kill her as a cub.

"Pound of flesh?" Zira wasn’t TRYING to get Kovu killed by Simba. She was trying to show him that if he was a good king, he wouldn’t commit the same act that made Scar evil for revenge. She was just messing with his brain. It didn’t mean she wanted him to die. Just like in Red Dragon. At the end of the movie, where the protagonist yells at his son like he’s a shithead when, of course, he’s not. He clearly didn’t mean what he saying. It was just an act. Just a way to get Lecter pissed. That’s exactly what Zira did.

And the MUSIC. I believe that the good music writes itself, and that you shouldn’t hate it for being used in a bad movie if it’s really good music.

Hitler said, Mankind has grown strong in eternal struggles and it will only perish through eternal peace.

Hitler said, “Mankind has suffered from eternal struggles and must thrive through eternal peace” (I know that’s not the exact quote, but just a summary of what he said). Yes, he may have had the wrong idea of peace. But isn’t it true? We need peace? There are sayings that authors are unknwon but people live by them because of the context the author.

So as I was saying, sayings write themselves, not the authors. Or else why would we listen to them when they have no known authors? Exactly. It’s the logos and pathos, not the ethos.

So that’s way we should consider The Lion King to be an allegorical spiritual movie-one of the best (alongside Les Miserables). 

It may be Disney. But as I said, quotes write themselves. So does and so should music, movies, and books. 

I swear, if you didn’t at least like the music from his movie and ESPECIALLY didn’t like Elton John’s version of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” (ESPECIALLY the instrumental version) than you MUST have no heart.

I can live with you hating Beethoven.

I can live with you hating Mozart.

But disliking one of the most beautiful music ever? Listen to the soundtrack again, just feeling, not thinking, and see what I mean. Feel the music in your bones, heart and soul. They are prayers you don’t need to say. 

Same for Les Miserables. You can dislike the plot for being too depressing. But dislike it because you don’t care about the characters or it’s unrealistic? Get your head out of your ass. LES MISERABLES IS ONE OF THE BEST-ALONGSIDE THE LION KING.

So please, people, look past that they are animals-they are ALLEGORIES-LOOK UP THE WORD-THEY ARE SYMBOLS. 

Keep this movie in your heart always.

Peace, truth, and love


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## Fievel (Jul 9, 2013)

Well @_TheGryffindorLioness_, this has certainly been an interesting read. It's often fun to ponder the deeper esoteric themes found in childhood stories, and I certain have done my fair share - as you can read. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. 

I'd like to share some thoughts of my own. I don't know if I could agree with your argument that Mufasa and/or Simba represent Jesus or necessarily are Christ-like figures. I get the point you're trying to make, but a battle between good and evil need not necessarily involve God and Satan literally - even as symbols. Going by your invoking of the prophet figure, a prophet is a spokesman for God, not God himself. Even by the concept of Divine Right, monarchs ruled by the grace of God and even on the behalf of God. Divine grace is shown upon Mufasa, and seems to only return when the rightful king Simba is on the throne. When Scar rules, the Divine grace is withdrawn. This corresponds almost to the Chinese concept of the "Mandate of Heaven". 

Nevertheless a good monarch needs a certain sense of nobility in spirit, which means he governs for the common good of his kingdom and not for his personal gains. This nobility in spirit is referred to as the virtue of magnimanity or even _noblesse oblige_. Mufasa definitely manifests this virtue to a great extent, and as any good monarch(or parent in general) seeks to pass such virtue down to his son.

Scar by contrast, is rather petty and out for his own personal gain, even if that means killing his brother and nephew to obtain power; and even starve his kingdom to death to maintain such power. Scar's philosophy is "I'm king, I can do whatever I want!"; Mufasa's philosophy is "I'm king, therefore I must rule wisely!" There's a possible allegorical struggle here between two different attitudes of leadership here: that of the wise leader who governs for the benefit of all, or the tyrant who governs for his own gain. 

The question becomes then which path does Simba seek to go down, and how he goes about it. Both paths are viable to him, but in choosing one or the other requires something different from him. Simba in his early days seems prone to the path Scar is on, as demonstrated with "I can't wait to be king!" where he declares how he'll do things _his_ way. This is further confirmed when he adopts the "Hakuna Matata" approach to life, which is a more plebeian version of what Scar adheres to. 

When Simba does realize his true obligations to be the rightful king, he still has to confront certain personal weaknesses(including his past, at least as he perceives it) and obtain that sense of _noblee oblige_/magnanimity that his father tried to instill in him. That's where Rafiki comes in. 

A few thoughts on how I would interpret some of the allegories found in the Lion King. Feel free to share feedback. Thanks again for such an interesting topic.


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## Rafiki (Mar 11, 2012)




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## Euclid (Mar 20, 2014)




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