Today I will be talking about one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. The Lion King.
Nanta Ingonyama
Okay now that that is out of my system, lets talk about the hero of the story….. Nala.
Nala is a strong independent character from the beginning of the movie and has many qualities of a leader. She shows us this from the very first moment we meet her. We are first introduced to her when Simba runs up to her and her mother and tells her that he needs to show her something cool and she needs to come immediately. She replies with:
“Cant you see, I’m in the middle of a bath?” and then warns him that, “It better not be dumb.”
Right away, we see that she is business. She has a routine, responsibilities, and Simba is not going to break that routine without a good reason. Granted, she is a cub and doesn’t really have too much on her plate, but I think it is safe to say that in “lion world” bathing is likely one of her chores. Now I did some research on the success rate of children who have chores versus children who do not, and multiple sources say that chores teach work ethic and motivation, etc etc. TL;DR She is mature for her age.
She is not a pushover. She definitely stands up for what she believes in and knows when she works hard. When Simba and Nala are on their way to “the watering hole” they have to find a way to ditch Zazu, which they do. Simba tries to take all the credit but Nala pipes up saying that it was her idea. When he dismisses her with, “I pulled it off” she scoffs saying “Yeah with me.“ She is not easily dismissed and standing up for yourself is a sign of leadership.
She is also pretty strong for a lion cub as well. I only have numbers for adult male and female lions but male lions weigh about 420 lbs, and females 280 lbs. Safety assuming, that male cubs are larger than females and that Simba and Nala are the same age, she is one tough cub. Nala and Simba end up in a playful fight and she beats him in a strength test twice declaring, “Pinned yeah!”
After ditching Zazu, the pair go about their way to their true destination, the Elephant Graveyard.
Simba and Nala are snuck up on by Shenzi, Banzi, and Ed. When the three of them appear laughing and passive aggressively threatening the pair Simba jumps and hides behind Nala and she remains where she is. A leader stands firm when facing enemies. She is the first to start walking away from the trio before they snarl at the lion cubs and show that they are full out going to cause them harm. Again, assuming she is twice as small as Simba, she is leading the pair as they run away and keeps up with Simba, a larger and stronger cub. Granted, when they are climbing the bone pile in the graveyard she does slide back and is almost snatched by one of the hyenas but… No one is perfect. And she is a cub for crying out loud.
Spoiler alert. Musfasa shows up and saves the day. Simba approaches his father and Nala approaches seemingly unafraid. While they return to the Pride Lands she even whispers, “I thought you were very brave.” I know, I know. “Why should Nala be afraid of Mufasa? Its not her dad that caught them in trouble.” (Again blah blah lion statistics. Mufasa might be her dad as well.. because lions.) Regardless if it is her dad or not, he is still the boss of this monarchy.
Fast Forward.
Mufasa dies. Simba runs away. Nala thinks he is dead.
Here is a quick lion fun fact.
“Male lions do kill cubs when they take over a pride, but it is not as prevalent as some would have us think. Females already pregnant when the new males come in can easily “disguise” their cubs as belonging to the new males, and even females with newly born cubs can hide them, mate with the new males, and bring their cubs out later. Females are clever, and males subsequently end up with offspring not theirs.”
Now, obviously, Scar is familiar with Simba. Duh. But it is not shown whether he has knowledge of the other cubs or not. Honestly, I don’t think there are any other cubs there; Nala is the only cub we see when Scar breaks the news to the pride. So Nala must either have hid until she was older (Its possible he ddnt see her then. I’m sure he was busy being a jerk and Nala is standing under her mother.. I dunno maybe he is nearsighted..) or she passed herself off as Scars cub. Gross. But proving that she is a survivor. I mean yeah, Scar is kinda wimpy, but he could take a cub in a fight. I mean, come one, he could sit on her. Or hire hyenas to do the dirty work. Wouldnt be the first time!
“Although only one out of four hunting events is successful, dominant males always eat first, lionesses next, and cubs scramble for scraps and leftovers.”
Going back to the whole she is super tough thing, she was probably starved growing up. I mean, when we see the Pride Lands for the second time obviously everyone is starving and doesn’t have food. Its amazing she was even able to grow up.
Okay, so this next part, is highly speculative. We only see a flash forward of Simba growing up and we see nothing of Nala’s life at all. I would like to think that during that time she was not only surviving but standing up and fighting back. When she talks back to Simba when they are little, I am sure some of that sass transferred over to older Nala. When she convinces Simba to come back later on, he tells her to rally the lionesses and they do really quickly. I would like to think that Nala would fight back and train with the other lionesses while the shit is hitting the fan. I could see her leading a secret group of lionesses training in secret and waiting for the opportune moment to overthrow Scar.
Scar: “It’s the lionesses job to hunt.”
Banzi: “Yeah, but they wont go hunt.”
“They wont go hunt” because they are rebelling. Nala is the one telling Simba that he better not be taking her somewhere dumb as cubs. She isn’t putting up with nonsense then or now. She escapes, not likely an easy feat, but also escapes undetected.
Females tend to stay with their maternal groups for life. Those females that do choose to leave the maternal group are rarely accepted by another unrelated pride.
Nala thought Simba was dead. She flat out tells him, “Its like your back from the dead you don’t know what this means to everyone” She wasn’t escaping to find Simba. She thought Simba was dead. “I left to find help and I found you.”
Who was she hoping to get help from? Another pride. Nala was showing leadership to the lionesses, and bravery, by going to seek help from another pride, and hope to not get killed along the way, or even at her destination. It would not have been out of the ordinary for another pride to reject her and chase her off or kill her. She left her pride knowing that she could die trying to save them. She was no coward. She could have left at any point in her life, but she stayed, stayed and continued to fight for her family. And that is why I think she is the hero of the story.
Without her, Simba would have never returned. She convinced him to come back, and even if he didn’t, I strongly believe she would have returned to Pride Rock and lead the rebellion to kill Scar.
Simba: It’s my home. If I don’t fight for it who will?”
Nala: “I will.”
Damn right, she will.
She has the strength to fight and defeat Scar. As an adult she pins Simba. Simba overpowers Scar and he is killed. Nala overpowers Simba.
Nala could overpower Scar, easy, especially because he never would have saw it coming from a lioness. She is flippin fierce. She also has the stamina and endurance to fight Scar. Simba had a full night and day head start leaving the jungle to the Pride Lands, after the monkey smacked him in the head with his staff, and she manages to get there shortly after Simba!
Do you really think Simba was like.. “Oh yeah, I’m here.. Better wait for back up before I do something stupid.” No way! If he thought things out and planned to have Nala fight with him he would have waited for her or was like, “Hey man.. So I am going to go and jack shit up back home. Could really use you, because you know, you have been eating not bugs growing up despite the fact you have probably been starved.. So yeah, lets go kill my uncle.” Heck no! He just left like a lunatic in the middle of the night, going off by himself.
Anyway, when Simba tells her to “rally the lionesses” she goes off and then when the smack talk happens between Simba and Scar she boldly shows up and talks smack to Scar. “Simba is the rightful king.”
That girl has fire in her soul and is not afreared of anything. I beat she would have slapped the green out of Scars eyes if she didn’t have respect for the fact that Simba needed to do this thing. Hell, when Scar finally admits, “I killed Mufasa.” She is the first to run into battle. She is also the first one to get to Simba and start throwing hyenas off of the fallen Simba. There are two lionesses at the front of Pride Rock and judging by the coloring one of them looks like it could be Nala. I would be willing to bet money that those two lionesses are Nala and Sarabi, Simba’s mother.
Without Nala, Pride Rock would be Scar Rock, and Simba would be old man on the back porch chasing monkys out of his yard, sucking down bug smoothies with his teethless mouth.
Sorry to be harsh. This was written for fun. Lion King is my favorite and this argument mostly spawned up as a joke topic when I was battling Devon about whether or not Gaston is the hero of Beauty and the Beast. That topic has been written and talked about a lot so I wont get into that. If you’d like to see more Disney topics. Let me know this was pretty fun haha
-HKay :3
Love you Simba ❤
Kay Squared 