hyzenthlayroseart - Tumblr blog

hyzenthlayroseart · 29 days

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So I came across these Tumblr posts about TLK 2 yesterday (https://waeirfaahl.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20lion%20king%202%20simba%27s%20pride) and they got me thinking about how even though I doubt I'll ever be able to hate the sequel due to being so deep into the Lion King fandom since childhood, the plot makes no sense the more you think about it. There's no way Zira and her cubs could fit anywhere in the original film's timeline, all the Prideland lionesses shown in the first film were against Scar, there's no reason any of them would be on Scar's side, Scar's a loner and his only allies were the hyenas until they realized he never cared about their hunger and was just using them to gain power…yeah I could go on.

Well just for shits and giggles I decided to try and think of my own plot for a sequel, one that doesn't involve Scar as motivation for the conflict. The drawings here are based on early concept art I found on that blog and on the Lion King Wiki.

So, before the events of this hypothetical movie, Zira was the queen of a different kingdom that was once prosperous but was slowly going through a famine. Zira's husband was a good and benevolent king who tried his best to keep his kingdom flourishing through the hardship, but eventually the once strong king became skin and bones and passed away from hunger. This left only Zira as the ruler, and while her husband was a gentle soul, Zira was cold and strong-willed. She loved her husband but her grief at his death eventually turned into resentment towards him being "soft" and "naive" for thinking he could continue living prosperously in a dying land. This lead to her deciding not to make the same mistakes he did by hoping the famine would pass and instead lead the pride to search for better land.

Before the king died he and Zira had one young cub named Nuka, but it was clear he would be unfit to become the heir to the throne due to being born malnourished from the famine, but Zira still held hope about having an heir due to her being pregnant (obviously meaning she and her husband mated again before he died lol).

Zira and her pride eventually come across the Pridelands and are thrilled to find a land with no famine (at this point it's now right after the events of the first movie and the famine during Scar's reign has passed, Simba is the king and Kiara is a newborn). Over at Pride Rock, Simba is informed via Zazu that a pride of strange lionesses are on their lands, so Simba runs over to investigate wether these strangers are a threat. Once confronted by Simba, Zira tells him that she's the former queen of a dead kingdom, her husband the king is dead and now it's just her, her son and unborn cubs and her subjects. Simba takes pity on the starving pride and concludes that they're not a threat so he invites them to join his pride.

While Zira had successfully played the part of a poor defenseless damsel simply in need of sanctuary, she was secretly hoping this king would take her as his mate so she could become queen once again. To her dismay, she discovered that this kingdom not only already had a queen but an heir. She did her best not to show her anger, as even though becoming queen clearly wouldn't be as easy as she thought, she and her pride were still starving, not to mention she herself was pregnant, and she knew she would be a fool to leave a place teaming with enough food to fill her entire pride.

Eventually Zira gave birth to two cubs, Kovu and Vitani. While her daughter still looked a bit malnourished, it was clear that her son was born strong thanks to her new life in the Pridelands. It was then that she decided this one was to be her heir once she came into power. Unbeknownst to her, her firstborn Nuka had thought this whole time that he was his mother's heir, and when he heard her cooing to his newborn brother about one day being a king, his heart shattered and he was immediately filled with hatred for his new brother.

While Zira, her children and her subjects were all at this point members of Simba's pride, they all mainly kept to themselves, only interacting with Simba's lionesses while hunting. Still, life was peaceful, with the only conflict happening on Zira's pride's first day as Pridelanders when they mistook Timon and Pumbaa for prey and tried hunting them, only to have Simba explain that the meerkat and warthog were members of the pride (much to Zira and her pride's confusion).

Despite the seemingly peaceful co-existence, Zira was secretly plotting how to overthrow Simba and Nala to become queen. One night when the Pridelanders were asleep, Zira and her lionesses took the oppurtunity to attack, including trying to kill baby Kiara. Thankfully the Pridelanders were able to overpower their attackers because even though Zira and her pride had grown slightly stronger due to having a healthy amount of prey, they were still the weaker lions. This was the moment that lead to Simba banishing Zira and her pride to the Outlands, where they were once again living in famine.

So now skip forward to when the "movie" plot begins, and it starts out pretty similar to the actual movie where older cub Kiara wanders off, bumps into Kovu, they get into a situation, they try to play but are separated by their parents and taken back to their respective homes, blah blah blah. Some differences are that now when Zira and Simba come face-to-face once again, Scar is never mentioned since he has nothing to do with her, and also when Kiara returns to Pride Rock we see that she has two newborn sisters, Chani and Aisha (when I was thinking this whole thing up I couldn't decide if I wanted to keep Kiara's name or go with one of her original names, and eventually I thought "What if she had sisters with those names?")

Also like in the movie, the scene of Simba scolding Kiara for being disobedient and putting herself into danger is presented in a loving way with Simba of course being mad at her but also telling her how worried he was for her and turns into a loving lesson, while Zira scolding Kovu is done in such an angry, verbally abusive way that he ends up scared of his mother. And like in the movie she ends up getting her epiphany about how Kovu could be her key to taking over the Pridelands by having him gain Simba's trust by befriending Kiara.

So skip forward again to Kiara and Kovu now as young adults (and as a side-note, Chani and Aisha are now the age Kiara was in the previous paragraphs when Kiara and Kovu met). Kiara goes on her first hunt while Nuka and Vitani create a forest fire, Kovu saves her, is allowed into Pride Rock, you know how it goes.

Now in this version Rafiki still gets told by Mufasa's spirit that Kovu and Kiara should get together, but here it's specifically clarified that Zira is too clouded by hatred and a need for power to be trusted. However, her children and her subjects truly just want a normal life where they can escape famine once and for all. Zira may have successfully trained her children to be deadly assassins, but on the inside they're still children who never knew what it was like to have a loving family.

In order to help the two fall in love, Rafiki recruits Timon and Pumbaa (why'd he do this instead of just telling Simba and Nala what Mufasa told him? Idk. Insert reason here. Mainly I just wanted Timon and Pumbaa to actually have something to do in this version). So Kovu ends up barely having enough time by himself to secretly plot how to kill Simba and Nala because Timon and Pumbaa keep hilariously creating reasons for Kovu and Kiara to be in the same area together, while not so subtly dropping romantic innuendos. Of course this irritates the hell outta Kovu and leads to Kiara getting flustered, but eventually when they spend time together Kovu softens and he's reminded of how it felt when they briefly played together as children, the one time he felt like a normal child, even if for a brief moment. Once he starts purposely spending more bonding time with Kiara, he's also swarmed by her two little sisters who constantly want to play with him. Pretty soon Kovu's plan to overthrow Simba and Nala is basically forgotten as he learns what it's like to be in a loving family, as he not only bonds with Kiara and her little sisters but Nala also treats him with kindness and the type of maternal love he's never felt before.

Meanwhile, Simba still can't let go of the fact that the son of the lioness who wants to overthrow him is living with his pride. Due to this he's mainly been isolating himself in the cave plagued with worry, and when Timon and Pumbaa notice how stressed their adopted son is they encourage him to come out of his isolation and see how much Kovu has changed. When Simba walks out of the cave he's met with the site of Kovu and Kiara playing with Chani and Aisha while Nala watches and laughs, and he comes to realize that Kovu shouldn't be blamed for the sins of his mother and ends up forming a fatherly bond with Kovu.

Unbeknownst to all of them, Zira, Nuka and Vitani have secretly been spying on Kovu. They're outraged that Kovu has become soft and forgotten the plan, so decide to take matters into their own hands. One day Kovu and Simba decide to go on a walk together where Simba tells Kovu that he's noticed that he and Kiara seem to have developed feelings for each other, and while Kovu reacts with shock and embarrassment, Simba assures him that he can now see that Kovu is not his mother and is just a lonely child who longed for a family. The mention of his mother causes Kovu to suddenly become full of guilt over his real reason for coming into the pride, but he's too afraid to confess. Simba starts to continue his speech, intending to reveal to Kovu that he gives him and Kiara his blessing, but is unable to finish as the two of them end up surrounded by Outsiders. Of course like in the movie, Simba assumes Kovu betrayed him and led him into an ambush, a fight breaks out, Simba escapes which leads to Nuka getting killed (I don't know if I want Kovu to still get scarred by Zira in this version, because here the symbolism would make no sense), and in the next scene Kovu is banished.

Kiara ends up sneaking out and reuniting with Kovu who tearfully explains that the wildfire during Kiara's hunt was no accident and was just his mother's plan to get him into Simba's pride so he could overthrow Simba and Nala and take over the kingdom and tells her she needs to stay away from him if she wants to be safe. She assures him that she knows he's changed and he isn't the killer his mother trained him to be, and tells him that she loves him, to which he confesses he loves her too.

Meanwhile, Zira finally comes to her breaking point after the betrayal of one son and the death of another, and decides the time for plotting is over and she and her pride need to go to Pride Rock themselves to kill every last Pridelander. Back at Pride Rock, Simba and Nala panic over Kiara's disappearance and decide to start a search party. Simba initially wants to lead it but Nala, Timon and Pumbaa remind him that he's in no condition to search as he still needs to recover from the ambush attack. It's then decided that Nala will lead the search party with Zazu and several other lionesses while Simba, Timon and Pumbaa remain at Pride Rock to watch over Chani and Aisha. Unfortunately, Zira and her Pride are on their way to Pride Rock.

When the search party finds Kiara and discovers that she's with Kovu, Nala angrily tells him to stay away from her family and threatens to kill him if he doesn't leave. Kiara begs and pleads with her mother and tries to explain that the ambush wasn't his fault, but this conflict is interrupted by none other than Vitani running towards them in clear distress. Nala recognizes her as the daughter of Zira and threatens to kill her too, but Vitani tearfully reveals that not only is Pride Rock under attack, but Chani has been murdered. Nala and Kiara fall to the ground and let out primal screams of agony, while Vitani tearfully tells her shellshocked brother that this conflict has gotten out of hand and she wants to put an end to her mother's tyranny. Kovu suddenly felt that murderous rage that had been trained into him by his mother come back, but this time it wasn't for Simba, it was for his mother. Kovu didn't hesitate to run in the direction of Pride Rock, causing the still-shocked search party as well as Vitani to follow.

Once they arrive, they find Simba, now even more severly injured due to this second ambush, standing over a terrified Aisha while Timon and Pumbaa are behind him guarding Chani's body. Opposite of Simba is Zira, taunting Simba that he might as well surrender now that he's too injured and heartbroken to fight back, as well as telling him that now they're even since Simba lead to one of her children being killed and now she's killed one of his. Simba responds to this by asking "You mean the son you didn't even love?"

This enrages Zira and she lunges to strike a killing blow but is pinned down by none other than Kovu. Simba's shocked to see Kovu attack his own mother and instantly puts the pieces together that Kovu wasn't responsible for the ambush. Zira throws her son off of her and into the cave wall where he's briefly knocked out but before Zira can lunge at Simba again she ends up being overpowered by Nala, Kiara and the other lionesses. Her attention changes form trying to kill Simba to trying to fight off all the lionesses attacking her. While trying to fight them all off she commands her subjects to help, but to her bewilderment they end up not fighting against the Pridelanders but WITH them. Zira's horrified by this betrayal and for the first time in her life, she's scared.

She continues getting attacked left and right, until Simba commands everyone to stop. Everyone turns around to see Simba standing tall despite his injuries while letting the still-dazed Kovu lean against him, while in the back of the cave Timon and Pumbaa are comforting Aisha. Simba declares that while Zira's penalty for her crimes should be the death sentence, he will instead banish her because enough blood has been shed already and, to paraphrase what he once said to his uncle, he's not like her. Zira laughs at him for being too weak to kill her even when she deserves it, calling him soft and weak like her husband was. This leads to Kovu trying to lunge at her despite still being weak, but Simba holds him back. Zira gets up, albeit weakly due to her severe injuries, and pretends to limp away, but at the last minute tries lunging at Kiara to push her over Pride Rock to fall to her death, but ends up getting struck by lightning mid-air which leads to her dying instantly as her limp body falls off the edge. Kovu and Vitani's immediate reaction is grief over their mother's death, which is quickly overpowered by relief at being free.

The next day, Chani is buried and given a funeral, and once the funeral is over, Kovu declares that his family has caused unspeakable grief to Pride Rock and he and his subjects will leave them, but Simba declines, telling Kovu that he and his pride were just being used by his mother and he knows that that isn't who they really are, and he finally tells Kovu and Kiara that he gives them their blessing, followed by Nala declaring the same.

So after the grieving period has passed, Kovu and Kiara are married, Aisha gains a fun new brother-in-law as well as a cousin or two in the future (wink wink), Vitani falls in love with a Pridelander lioness, no one ever goes hungry again and they all live happily ever after. Roll credits.

And yes I know Zira absolutely deserved the death penalty but this is a Disney movie, I wanted to keep up the trope of the hero not killing the villain because they're not like them and all that crap. And I couldn't have her commit suicide either because once again, Disney movie, but also her doing that in the context of the deleted scene from the actual film makes sense because she'd rather remain loyal to Scar even in death than accept help from the daughter of her sworn enemy, but here…who would her loyalty be to? Again, she and Scar being together isn't a thing here. So I thought of lighting being a cool idea since having it storm during the final showdown would be a nice callback to the first film.

Also a small detail I wanna point out because it might be hard to notice is that I gave Zira heterochromia where she has one green eye and one blue eye, because even though Zira has red eyes in the official sequel I wanted to give her eyes to match Vitani but then I gave the red eyes to their father which made me wonder where Kovu's green eyes came from, so I decided to give both blue and green eyes to Zira. And I know that in the official sequel Kovu's green eyes were obviously just to help make him resemble Scar more despite not being his son but even though there's no Scar link in my version I still gave him green eyes cuz I just like him with green eyes.

Damn this ended up long, I'm sorry lol.

#fan art #disney #the lion king #the lion king 2 #the lion king 2: simba's pride #kiara #kovu #nuka #vitani #zira #kovu's father

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