My Lion King Forum

Yes, I think he was. Sure he slipped up in the end, but he did hatch a very clever scheme and managed to keep up a clever facade for the lionesses after what he had done.

[quote="Todd23"]"...he [Scar] seems to lack common sense a lot of the time...letting the same hyenas who botched killing Simba the last time kill him again"[/quote]

I feel the strange compulsion to point out that it actually wasn't a mistake for Scar to choose the same three hyenas who had failed in their first attempt to kill Simba to execute the task in a second attempt, because Mufasa was the reason for their failure in the first attempt, and he was dead in the second attempt.

[quote="DGFone"]"I have to give credit to Scar: Not only is he a Disney villain with a lot of talk, but he is also a Disney villain who walks the walk...he then ruled the Pride Lands...well enough that no one came to suspect that he was the source of their problems in more ways than one."[/quote]

Now there's a reason they call it the "cat walk." Scar was a felid. He had them so convinced that Sarabi actually might have believed it when Scar accused Simba of being a murderer: "Tell me it's not true!"

I attribute Scar's rash decisions to impulsivity, not lack of intelligence (DGFone knows I made a post about that *evil Scar-style wink* Thank you DGFone.)

The fact he kills his own brother says about him that he's not that smart. If he would be smarter, he would had thinked about the revenge of Mufasa's pride and make sure that Simba was dead when he wasn't.

Smart? Yes. Lazy? Very much so.

He expected everyone else to do what he wanted for him, and could effectively manipulate others into doing those things.

I think he was very smart in the first half but then they had to make him dumb for plot conveniance imo

Scar was not dumb, he just was not as smart as he believed himself to be.

First off He thought he was a better King than Mufasa, clearly with The Pride Lands coming to ruin the way they did. He was nowhere near the kind of King he thought he was.

His telling Simba the truth was not a case of plot induced stupidity, but rather a demonstration of his arrogance.

His attempt to blame the hyenas for his crimes was not born out of stupidity, but was instead was an act of desperation.

i meant him not being able to reign evectively (i.e. food shortages and divisions between the lions and hyenas)

I totally agree with you about the ending part SG

I think Scar was smart, but also very lazy. He conjured up some pretty good plans, but all the time, the hyenas were left to do all the dirty work. Although I suppose one could easily argue that was part of his plan, too - so even if someone did witness the events, he could easily blame the hyenas, and no one would suspect a thing.

[quote="it means no worries"]i meant him not being able to reign evectively (i.e. food shortages and divisions between the lions and hyenas)[/quote]

Oh I misunderstood the point you were trying to make. Sorry about that.

I think Scar was a good manipulator more than anything. There isn't just one kind of smart, and, at least to me, it's hard to define what smart even is even though we all generally have a basic idea of it. Scar was very smart in terms of manipulation and flying under the radar after committing murder, completely unsuspected by the lionesses even though he had quite the motive.

Scar was able to recruit actual legions of hyenas, even though it's made very clear that they detest lions with every fiber of their being. If Scar wasn't a master at twisting the minds of others to help him carry out his own agenda, it's possible the hyenas wouldn't have ever sided with him, seeing as Scar wasn't just any lion either. He was part of the Royal Family.

What Scar wasn't good at was managing a Kingdom and keeping his promises. Once he got what he wanted, he saw no point in making sure everything didn't fall apart. It was easy for him to carry out a plan, but he was awful at making sure it didn't backfire on him in the future.