I could have sworn there was a topic about the characters' ages already but I can't find one. So, there's something I've been thinking about that I thought I'd bring up here as there's been a lot of debate about the age of the characters—especially now that The Lion Guard has been announced.
As we all know, real lions only live to be a few years old, compared to humans, with an average lifespan of somewhere from 10 to 15 years old in the wild.
Now some ages people have debated in TLK: how old was Simba when he returned to Pride Rock (i.e. how long did he stay in the jungle)?
What was the age difference between Mufasa and Scar?
How old is Rafiki, exactly?
And one that's come up recently; was Simba too old to have another cub after Kiara (Kion)?
Etc...
We can never have a true answer for questions like these, but I've noticed some things that are interesting to discuss on this topic at any rate.
There's a fanfic writer, who I will not name because she left the fandom and removed her works, who gave the TLK characters the lifespans that humans today have. It certainly didn't detract from her work, in fact it improved it and made everything more complex and in depth. However, it always seemed to feel a little off to me because real lions just don't live that long.
But recently I've been thinking, in "Be Prepared," Scar has that line, doesn't he: "decades of denial"? This implies that he was denied the position of king for at least 20 years, which is longer already than most lions live. We already know the characters are anthropomorphic (they can talk and rationalize like humans, as well as scheming and using their paws as hands, etc.) so is it that far-fetched to assume that perhaps, as a part of their anthropomorphism they have a lifespan the length of a humans? This would mean that Simba would have been in the jungle for longer than many people guestimate (4-5 years), but it would also mean that length of time would be a smaller percentage of the characters' lives.
Following this theory, it makes sense for Scar and Mufasa to look as old as they do at the beginning and for Scar to still be alive by the time Simba is grown. Considering that TLK lions are also shown to have only one cub at a time (another human trait) it could also imply that Mufasa is a few years older than Scar, perhaps one or two or even up to 10, which would much better explain Mufasa being chosen as the next king than the "they were born in the same litter but Mufasa was a few seconds before" theory. It also makes sense that Rafiki looks old at the beginning but is still around at the end of SP (the average lifespan of a mandrill is 20, potentially twice that of lions), and explains how Simba looks older in SP, but still not really old. If Simba was 20ish at the end of TLK that would make him around 40ish at the end of SP (the typical converted age fans apply) and would leave him young enough to reproduce again. So it occurred to me that maybe that fic writer was on the right track—maybe they do live to be as old as we do. I mean we know they aren't realistic lions, so it's not all that far-fetched I don't think. We also know that canonically there are no humans in TLK (not that there can't be in fics or what-have-you) so that also makes this more likely to be true (the main species in works without humans tend to have human lifespans and traits) as the lions seem to be replacing humans in this universe.
Or maybe this all sounds crazy to all of you and I'm just a lunatic.
But I'm interested to know what you guys think of this idea.