Spotlight: The Lion Guard – Vitani

It has been a long, long time since this author mentioned The Lion Guard. So long, in fact, that the show concluded in its third season and this blogger didn’t make a peep about it! While no one knows exactly why the program was shuttered, it appears that Disney decided to end the series in order to give precedence to the CGI remake of The Lion King. And before anyone asks, no, I did not go to see that movie. Why would I mess with perfection? 😉

The fact that they ended The Lion Guard so early is a disappointment on a number of levels, not least because there was a great deal about the characters and the world left to explore. Fans were most unhappy to see the series end and, while the marketing strategy (if there was one) might make sense, the net result is a group of displeased customers. Normally companies would wish to avoid this, but that doesn’t appear to be the case anywhere these days, sadly…..

It is also unfortunate that the finale for the series has received some backlash. In a show that had previously given boys their well-deserved due, the writers suddenly (Spoiler Alert!) gave command of the Pride Lands’ new Lion Guard to Vitani, Kovu’s older sister, and four lionesses who were her friends. This caused quite a stir in the fan base as many felt it was motivated solely by the writers’ desire to pander to the usual politically correct crowd. While that may have been the case it appears that the man in charge of the series – one Ford Riley – did his best to make the transfer a sensible one.

For those who did not follow The Lion King franchise and/or haven’t seen the movies in a while, Vitani is the older sister of Kovu, the cub chosen by Scar to be his heir. Exiled with her mother Zira, her brothers Nuka and Kovu, as well as the lionesses under Zira’s command, Vitani became her mother’s right…paw in the desert Outlands. As a young adult during The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, Vitani is almost never apart from her mother. If she does separate from her it is only to carry out of one Zira’s commands because the crazed lioness trusts only her daughter to do the job properly.

But by the end of the film, Vitani finally stop’s being her mother’s shadow. She follows her younger brother Kovu in joining Simba’s pride, abandoning Zira and her cause. The last we see of Vitani in the film is when she, along with the rest of the pride, witnesses Kovu and Kiara’s marriage, followed by Simba’s declaration that they are his and Nala’s heirs to the throne. No more is known about what befalls Vitani after the credits role.

This is where The Lion Guard comes in. From the beginning of the series certain fans were critical of the show for introducing a character that had not been present in the original sequel to The Lion Guard. A number of fans disliked Kion, claiming that the series was “not canon” simply due to his existence. “Where were he and his friends when Zira attacked the Pride Lands in Simba’s Pride if he was supposed to be leader of the Lion Guard?” they asked.

Season three of the series answers this question, something this blogger and others knew it would. In large part, the series writers answered the question of Kion’s absence satisfactorily. The exception for many is the point where Vitani takes over the Guard after Kion leaves the Pride Lands to marry a queen and become king in a different part of the world. Due to the political correctness rampant thoughout fiction these days most viewers immediately jumped on this change, believing it to be more of the same.

Again, while this may be true, I doubt it was the only reason for the change in command structure. I suspected Kion would find a wife near the end of the series, and one of the more likely candidates for this position was Vitani herself. However, that pairing never felt quite right to me for a number of reasons – reasons which, conversely, make Vitani and her all-female Lion Guard fit within the universe quite well. So let’s take on this transfer of power by considering the Kion/Vitani romance idea first, shall we?

Matching Kion and Vitani romantically would not be easy or doable in the three seasons permitted for The Lion Guard for a number of reasons. The most important of these would be the fact that Vitani was taught to be the dominant member of any relationship in which she took part, especially with a male lion and/or any other male animal. Throughout the latter half of Simba’s Pride, Vitani orders around her much older brother, Nuka, with absolute impunity as her mother’s most trusted subordinate. Earlier in the story, when Vitani is still a cub, she attempted to assert herself over Nuka but failed due to her smaller size and lesser age.

She does not rule over Kovu because he is “the chosen one,” Scar’s heir and her future king. Where Zira teaches her to abuse lesser lions such as her older brother, at the same time she instills in Vitani an extreme loyalty to her younger brother and future king – something that may have helped lead to her change of heart at the end of The Lion King II. Dedicated to Kovu’s well-being and determined to protect him, Vitani’s relationship with her baby brother is probably the healthiest connection she has had in her entire life up to this point.

Due to the tendency toward control that her mother fostered in her, giving Vitani a love interest right out of the gate in The Lion Guard did not make any sense at all. The one time she met Kion, they were enemies and her loyalty to her mother was still paramount. Following the events of Simba’s Pride, she would probably continue to be dictatorial, making it difficult for her to bond easily with a male lion and eventually become his mate. Thanks to her mother she sees all male lions that are not naturally above her by birthright (i.e. Simba, Kovu, and eventually Kion), as inferiors she should command, not equals and/or partners she should respect as fellow individuals.

This is why giving her a Lion Guard made up of lionesses – all of whom she grew up with, judging by their fur coloring – makes sense. She was taught to see females as the stronger, better, smarter sex, with only a few exceptions being worthy of her respect. Nuka’s juvenile behavior would have furthered this view, making a love match between Vitani and a male lion impossible until her experiences caught up with reality.

It is no wonder, therefore, that when she was deputized to lead the Guard in Kion’s absence, she chose a cadre of lionesses rather than a group of lions to support her. She does not recognize (yet) the inherent value of the average male lion as an equal or even competent subordinate. It will take some time before experience rubs this “hard edge” off of her personality, allowing her to see what males not above her by birthright are truly capable of accomplishing.

Mr. Riley and the other writers of the series had no time to give her the requisite reality checks necessary to change her character in a believable and timely manner during the series finale. It is also more than likely true that their employers at Disney wanted an all-female Lion Guard and pushed for this outcome from the get-go of the final season. Thus the authors of the series gave them what they wanted – but not quite as they intended.

By the end of The Lion Guard, Kion has won Vitani’s respect and shown her that not all males are naturally inferior to females. This is likely the first of many incidents which will soften her character, eventually making her less aggressive and condescending toward males. Although she will never be quite as feminine as Nala or Kiara, someday Vitani will be marriage material. But since her story has nothing to do with that told in the series, viewers are only be given a glimpse of this gradual process rather than the entire tale.

I hope you enjoyed this Spotlight! post, readers. More will be forthcoming in the future (I hope!), as I still owe you several pieces before the year is out. But for now, ‘til the Pride Lands end –

Lion Guard defend!

The Mithril Guardian

Spotlight: The Lion Guard – Kion

Yes, I watch Disney’s The Lion Guard. So what? I am not as big a fan of it as some are, but with my other choices being The Walking Dead or Beavis and Butthead, I have made do with what I have. (For those of you wondering how I can skip out on such a compelling show as The Walking Dead, please remember that I have stated that I do not like horror stories, the genre which includes zombies.) I will take talking lions and cheetahs and baboons – oh, my! – over the undead and stupid caricatures at every opportunity.

The Lion Guard focuses on Simba’s heretofore unknown son, Kion. The second born cub of Simba and Nala, and Kiara’s younger brother, Kion is given the responsibility of protecting the Pridelands and the “Circle of Life” by leading a team known as the Lion Guard. Their mission is to defend the Pridelands from invasion, as well as the imbalance due to the greed of the creatures that live in and around the territory controlled by Simba and his pride.

Other than his royal heritage, what gives Kion this right and responsibility? He has inherited the power of the “Roar of the Elders.” When Kion roars, the great lions of the Pridelands’ past roar with him. This gives his own roar quite a big boost, allowing him to knock down and scatter the enemies that continue to trouble the Pridelands and threaten the Circle of Life. Turns out, Scar had this roar, too, when he was a cub. But he got to like wielding it too much and thought he could use it to get Mufasa out of the way and make himself king.

Well, when he asked or demanded that his Lion Guard – made up of lions from the pride – help him overthrow Mufasa, they refused. Enraged, Scar used the roar on his own Lion Guard. This presumably killed them, and the fact that Scar used the roar for evil cost him his ability to use it. It also made him the skinny, unhealthy looking lion we saw in the first Lion King film.

Now there has been a big to-do over Kion’s Lion Guard. This Guard is supposed to show “diversity” in that the only lion in the Guard is Kion. The rest of the animals in the Guard are Bunga, a honey badger; Ono, an egret; Beshte, a hippopotamous, and Fuli, a cheetah.

It is more than slightly laughable to think that this mixed bag of animals is a good representation of “diversity” for children. Eventually, the children will grow up to learn that animals in the wild do not mix like this. Egrets, honey badgers, and hippos all do their own things, while cheetahs will get up and leave a kill when a lion starts walking toward it and them. Because lions are bigger than cheetahs, the smaller cats have very, very little to do with them, mostly because they do not want to be the lion’s side dish at the dinner table.

You can see that I give the “diversity” aim of The Lion Guard the respect it deserves. Why, then, do I continue to watch the show – even to avoid a series like Beavis and Butthead? I watch the show because the lead character and his male friends are actually allowed to be smart, chivalrous boys.

Allow me to explain: if you watch Sofia the First or Elena of Avalor with your daughters/nieces/sisters/whichever, you have seen the girls lead the boys in everything. They are braver, smarter, more compassionate, and completely better in every way than the men in their lives. Although the main male characters in these shows might not be bumbling, fumbling fools ninety percent of the time, the side male characters often are.

Now, admittedly, The Lion Guard has a character that falls into this category ninety percent of the time. This would be the honey badger, Bunga, Kion’s best friend and the adopted nephew of Timon and Pumba. Bunga’s position in the Guard is the bravest – he is so brave he “[borders] on stupid,” to quote Kiara. Most fans find him annoying and want him dead.

I think that last part is a little harsh. I agree that Bunga is irritating, but this is a children’s show, people. And Bunga’s voice actor should get a chance to pay for his college education, too, so I do not want his character dead. If he could be a little less stupid and a little more observant, I would not say no to that; dead, I will not accept.

Bunga is the only member of the team to act in a consistently dense manner. The other two male members of the Guard – Beshte and Ono – are far from unintelligent. Beshte is the hippo and the strongest in the Pridelands. He is therefore the quintessential gentle giant, and there is nothing wrong with that. Andre the Giant was a gentle giant; gentle giants are good characters. And Beshte also has a temper that will flare up occasionally, so he has a little spice mixed in with the sweetness.

Ono leans toward the studious know-it-all trope. The keenest of sight in the Pridelands, Ono acts as the Guard’s eyes, looking for trouble and yelling it out to the Guard. While Ono has many of the nose-in-a-book stereotypical trappings, the difference is that he will fight without too much hesitation. He has mixed it up with vultures, hawks, and land animals, no mean feat for a bird that is not a raptor. It usually makes up for his skittish or know-it-all failings.

Kion is, by far, the one who breaks the mold of the modern formulaic boy. He is polite, friendly, calm, fierce, and quick-thinking. Even Avengers Assemble struggled with portraying the male heroes in this fashion, as you will find if you read the posts about the series here on my blog. The male Avengers – especially Hawkeye – were portrayed as fools in most of the episodes at the series’ start. This is due to the fact that the writers began telling the story of Assemble through a liberal-ified lens in the first season and kept it going through the second (and they seem to be reverting to that form with a vengeance for season four).

If you drop by the Disney channels, even for the advertisements alone, you will find them to be mostly girl-centered. This is not just with shows like Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, and Elena of Avalor. Disney has a whole series of ads called “Dream Big, Princess” to inspire girls to be anything they want to be. They also have advertisements for Lab Rats, Descendants, and other shows which make boys look like brainless idiots and girls look like uber women in training.

This is not only unrealistic and disheartening, it is dangerous. What is your son/nephew/brother or the boy next door supposed to achieve with these caricatures as his models? Disney has no “Dream Big, Prince” television ads encouraging boys to be great men like Prince Phillip, Prince Eric, or even Kristoff in their last big film, Frozen. Instead they push the popular narrative that boys are mini-barbarians or mini-buffoons in training who will someday grow up to be Big Barbarians or Big Buffoons.

If I had to bet, this is one of the reasons why The Lion Guard has taken off. Throughout the series so far, Kion has rarely failed to be a good little boy. In the first episode of the series, Kion ends up in the Outlands after chasing some marauding hyenas out of the Pridelands. While on the other side of the border, he bumps into a female hyena named Jasiri.

At first, Kion is suspicious of Jasiri, referring to her as “hyena” and being snappish when he speaks to her. But when Jasiri proves to be totally unlike the other hyenas, Kion starts treating her better. He proves that his earlier conduct toward her was a lapse in judgement and a jump to a conclusion when he comes back to defend Jasiri from the same marauding hyenas at the end of the episode. Though Jasiri proves to be a capable fighter, there is never a hint that Kion should apologize for coming to help her or defer to her as some fighting goddess he should worship.

In fact, at one point during the battle, he thrusts Jasiri to the ground in order to headbutt a hyena she has not seen coming. Not only does the move show fast thinking, it proves that Kion’s earlier behavior was a mistake he has since recognized and corrected.

And so far in the series, when fighting alongside a girl, Kion does not leave his manly concern for her at the edge of the battlefield but keeps it with him at all times. Jasiri even thanks Kion for his help in this show, a rare thing in modern media. (Just look up Avengers Assemble’s “Captain Marvel” episode from season three to see why I say this.)

This is not the last time that Kion behaves in a chivalrous manner toward a girl, either. Although they have the regular spats any pair of siblings would, Kion treats Kiara with a respect that is the exact opposite of simpering worship. It also has overtones of a greater reverence than most boys in modern media show their sisters. It is an esteem which comes from a healthy dose of – *gasp* – chivalry!

Yes, I just said that the lead character in The Lion Guard possesses chivalry. Kiara is still a poor fighter in the series; this is to presrve the timeline for the story. We saw Kovu point out twice in The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride that Kiara’s fighting tactics were less than stellar, and the television show did not change this fact. In The Lion Guard, Kion had to come to his sister’s direct defense in “Can’t Wait to Be Queen.” He also showed a fair bit of attachment to, and concern for, her in “The Rise of Scar.” Kion also demonstrates a chivalrous deference and love for his mother, Nala, in the episode “Never Roar Again.”

But the best episode to show Kion’s sense of chivalry so far was “The Search for Utamu” because it was his most obvious display of the virtue. It also added a healthy dose of chilvalry to the other Guard members’ characters as well.

In this episode the lone female member of the Guard, Fuli the cheetah, overexerts herself while she is supposed to be resting. Cheetahs can only keep their amazing speed going for a few minutes. After that, it can take them up to half an hour to get their breath back. Once a cheetah makes a kill, it has to sit beside the animal for at least that long to get its breath and then it can eat.

This is why it will get up and walk away when it sees a lion coming to check out the kill. Not only is the cheetah smaller and weaker than the lion but, when out of breath, it cannot outpace the lion.

Fuli is still a cub, and as of this episode she did not believe that she had any limits. Her inevitable exhaustion after her lone escapade leaves Fuli vulnerable to an attack from a group of vultures. When the male Guard members learn about her danger, they all rush to their female friend’s defense. Kion especially shows anger at the vultures when he blasts them into the distance with the Roar of the Elders (which is probably why we did not see them for some time after this episode).

So while Fuli and Jasiri are both female characters who can manage their own affairs – and who often say they can look after themselves without interference from “foolish males” – they have both landed in situations where they needed Kion and the other boys’ aid. And while Kion respects the abilities and competence of his two female friends, he also treats them with the special regard that they deserve as girls.

This does not diminish the girls’ fighting and survival abilities and, amazingly, it does not make the boys’ desire to protect them when they cannot defend themselves appear silly. This showing of chivalry is a great thing, as it spotlights a virtue which male characters have been denied in similar series – created by Disney and other companies – for far too long.

Another way our male lead demonstrates his chivalry is by his dealings with Kiara’s airheaded “friends,” the lioness cubs Tiifu and Zuri. While the Guard has Bunga, the typical “boys drool” character, Kiara is saddled with two lioness cubs who are more concerned with their looks and social status than with anything even vaguely important.

Kion treats both these fluff-brained characters in general with a respect they have never earned, only rolling his eyes once when talking to them in “The Rise of Scar” and telling them off, rightly, when they allowed Kiara to go to a meeting with a known enemy on her own in “Can’t Wait to Be Queen.” The only explanation for his willingness to consider these two girls as anything remotely resembling “family” is the fact that they are girls – and oh, yeah, they happen to hang out with his sister.

As I have already mentioned, Kion continually shows quick-thinking during the series. Unlike Star Trek: The Next Generation’s unending roundtable discussions in the midst of calm and battle, most of the Guard’s tactics and strategies are actually made by Kion, either on the spur of the moment or through hours of training between patrols. The other members of the Guard follow his orders and decisions, though not always without question or input. In comparison to other male leads (in the modern Disney brand and other franchises), Kion is far more intelligent than the talking heads would have children believe boys can be.

It is also refreshing to see that, even when Kion must trust his friends to come up with a plan, he does not effusively kowtow to them after this. He accepts their advice and praises his friends’ plans without being a sycophant, congratulating them on their quick-thinking before turning back to the task at hand. Or paw, in his case.

Something else to note about The Lion Guard is Kion’s fighting prowess. The four leading male characters in the show are good fighters, but Kion is the best of the bunch. Where the girl often comes to the boy’s rescue in current children’s television shows, Kion is rarely in need of such a save. And when he does need the help of a female character, such as in “Never Judge a Hyena by Its’ Spots,” Kion shows by his dialogue that he thinks just as deeply and quickly in such situations as those where he is supposedly “in control” of the circumstances.

Thus far, The Lion Guard has proven to be a better series than I had anticipated. It is a show with a male protagonist who is chivalrous, competent, and smart. Though I take issue with some of the show’s themes, one thing which I really appreciate and cheer on is Kion’s quiet, unabashed, and completely proper masculinity.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a trend. Shows which focus on female leads are wonderful inspirations for girls, certainly. But boys need television shows with male characters who are not only unafraid to be boys, but who have a sense of chivalry, along with smarts and fighting ability. They have been denied this for a long time, readers, and The Lion Guard is a more than welcome anticipation of a change in the fads. From what I have seen so far, we need more shows like this one. So, ‘til the Pridelands end –

Lion Guard defend!