Humans in The Lion King Universe. Updated theory.

[Carambulesco]

Months ago I've formulated a theory that inputs the homo sapiens species in the universe of The Lion King's franchise, but that theory have presented some mistakes and some lack of informations that I'll show now in this... "update".
And again, The Lion King can happen in any time of history, EXCEPT after the years that I introduce. I'm only trying to to fit humans on The Lion King's universe or at least prove that it is not a impossible thing to happen.

Let's start on the supposed year that The Pridelands was founded:

The founder of the kingdom was Mohatu as we already know, but how can we measure the year Mohatu founded The Pridelands?

To have some idea of the decade of Mohatu's reign, 'cause no one knows how long exactly each king of The Pridelands reigned, I took an average of how long each lion lives and put it on the line of lion kings of the kingdom. The Pridelands, if we count that Kovu will be a king for sure, has 6 kings: Mohatu, Ahadi, Mufasa, Scar, Simba and Kovu.

But now I have to explain why The Lion King can't takes place in 1889 onward:

This is the political map in Africa in 1888.



I named Arusha and Kajiado regions for easier understanding.




Arusha, which is nothing more or less then the region of half Pridelands territory. The other half is the province of Kajiado. In the 1888 map of Africa, region did not have any human activity (no activity that The Lion King 2 have to show, even in the end of the movie).

On year later the brits estibilishes a protectorate on Kajiado, problably finishing The Pridelands because all lions will be dead at this point. So, 1889 is the year The Lion King ends, basically. Nine years after the germans takes Arusha, but it doesn't matter anymore.





Explained, I can very well suppose that Kovu was the last king, and I can suppose that his reign lasted only two years (1887-1889) for two personal reasons: I wanna make Kovu's reign being massively interrupted by humans in the african colonial race. The other reason is... why not?
So let's start with the age of the Pridelands Kingdom. As I said before, I took an average of how long each lion lives which is 12 years.

Then:
Kovu's reign: two years (1887-1889);
Simba's reign: twelve years (1875-1887);
Scar's reign: two years, counting the years Simba took to grow up, (1873-1875);
Mufasa's reign: ten years (1863-1873);
Ahadi's reign: twelve years (1851-1863);
And finally Mohatu's reign: eleven years, one year removed 'cause he was too... "adventurous" (1840-1851).

47 Years of Pridelands. That's a good way to tell a history.

Some evidences of "humanity" in The Lion King

A dam?!

-I don't know if it have a ultra giant beaver living in around the Pridelands making dams in rivers, but that is a thing humans will make to supply more eficiently water for his colonies at the coast.
In the Lion King 2, after the battle scene, Zira pulls Kiara to a "canyon" when a tall dam of old boles collapses (by Mufasa, maybe?) and throws tons of water to kill Zira drowned, or... maybe she survived? Not sure. Is there any chance to natural phenomena make this large wall made of trunks?

"Ah! egyptian cobra!"

-That might be goofy, but simple act to say "egyptian" makes the humanty, even if it has been extinguished centuries later, a true event that marks the Prideland's vocabulary. Even because Ono could have said "Naja" instead of "egyptian cobra".

The Discrepancy

The Maasai people

That's a simple way to destroy this theory 'cause the Maasai lives for thousands of years in the border of Tanzania and Kenya. These people should have appeard in the at least once in Lion King franchise, but it didn't happen. My hyphotesys is the Pridelanders are the Maasai people adapted to wild life habits, but still doesn't explain why Mohatu makes his leadership into a monarchy, but I guess that it was only to make the title movie looks pretty.

About the "The Lost Gorillas" episode, the mountain can be any mountain 2 miles around the Pridelands. Nothing of Congo lands or something.

Bibliographic References

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzKejJIwieE
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxkvNsuHK1g&t (this video is in brazilian portuguese)
- The Lion King 2
- The Lion Guard
- Theory made by: Me.

[TheLionPrince]

[quote="Carambulesco"]Let's start on the supposed year that The Pridelands was founded:

The founder of the kingdom was Mohatu as we already know, but how can we measure the year Mohatu founded The Pridelands?[/quote]

It was never stated in the book The Brightest Star that Mohatu was the founding king of the Pride Lands. The story started with him with a drought occurring his reign.

[quote="Carambulesco"]To have some idea of the decade of Mohatu's reign, 'cause no one knows how long exactly each king of The Pridelands reigned, I took an average of how long each lion lives and put it on the line of lion kings of the kingdom. The Pridelands, if we count that Kovu will be a king for sure, has 6 kings: Mohatu, Ahadi, Mufasa, Scar, Simba and Kovu.[/quote]

Based on my understanding of how the monarchy operates in the Lion King universe, the oldest heir gets the throne regardless of gender. So, technically, Kovu would be king consort, not king regnant as Mufasa, Scar, and Simba were. Kiara will be the queen with the overruling power.

[quote="Carambulesco"]
-I don't know if it have a ultra giant beaver living in around the Pridelands making dams in rivers, but that is a thing humans will make to supply more eficiently water for his colonies at the coast.
In the Lion King 2, after the battle scene, Zira pulls Kiara to a "canyon" when a tall dam of old boles collapses (by Mufasa, maybe?) and throws tons of water to kill Zira drowned, or... maybe she survived? Not sure. Is there any chance to natural phenomena make this large wall made of trunks?[/quote]

You raise a good point at the dam in the gorge. I can't come up with a naturalistic theory in how they got there other than after knocking down the trees they eat for food, the elephants throw the trunks in the gorge and it accumulated into a dam-like structure.

Here's a good shot of how constructed it is:

[Panpardus]

Potential things to chew on regarding your theory:
[quote="Carambulesco"]
Let's start on the supposed year that The Pridelands was founded:

The founder of the kingdom was Mohatu as we already know, but how can we measure the year Mohatu founded The Pridelands?

To have some idea of the decade of Mohatu's reign, 'cause no one knows how long exactly each king of The Pridelands reigned, I took an average of how long each lion lives and put it on the line of lion kings of the kingdom. The Pridelands, if we count that Kovu will be a king for sure, has 6 kings: Mohatu, Ahadi, Mufasa, Scar, Simba and Kovu. [/quote]

So if we're taking cues from The Lion Guard, I think the first thing to point out is that presumably the tradition of the Guard goes back at least as far as that of the monarchy, and if that's the case then you're missing a few generations of pre-Mufasa monarchs given that between these two images we can see at least seven different guards (not counting Scar's and Kion's and assuming the one shown saving Nala's father in "Paintings and Predictions" is one of the ones seen here too) which would imply at least 7 different monarchs before Mufasa and Scar took power in their respective roles, assuming normal uninterrupted succession between both roles per generation:


[quote="Carambulesco"]
So let's start with the age of the Pridelands Kingdom. As I said before, I took an average of how long each lion lives which is 12 years.

Then:
Kovu's reign: two years (1887-1889);
Simba's reign: twelve years (1875-1887);
Scar's reign: two years, counting the years Simba took to grow up, (1873-1875);
Mufasa's reign: ten years (1863-1873);
Ahadi's reign: twelve years (1851-1863);
And finally Mohatu's reign: eleven years, one year removed 'cause he was too... "adventurous" (1840-1851).

47 Years of Pridelands. That's a good way to tell a history.
[/quote]

We'd also have to make some tweaks to the average rule of each king/queen, since you used a 12-year average lifespan even though the lions wouldn't be king/queen from the moment they're born. Keeping the 12 year average but subtracting 4 years from it (4 years being the average age of mature adulthood in lions) would mean each monarch had an average 8-year rule. Those seven earlier monarchs, plus Mufasa's assumed 3-year rule (assuming he died in his prime, which is about 7 years for lions) and Scar's 3-year rule (Simba's about 3 when he comes back) means that pre-Simba's rule, the Pride Lands as a kingdom existed for at least 62 years, ~71 if you apply average lifespan to Simba and count his time as king.

Next thing to point out is that I think you're underestimating the size of everything. Typical lion territory is about 100 sq. miles, but the whole of the Serengeti (counting both the Kenyan and Tanzanian areas as they exist today) is some 12,000 sq. miles, so the Pride Lands is definitely not the whole of the Serengeti and is but a small patch of land in this particular region of the continent. This means that activities in cities and outposts like Arusha and Kajiado probably wouldn't have much impact on the Pride Lands just because there's likely too much distance between them for human activity to do much. As far as European colonial impact is concerned, just because a country claimed a territory doesn't mean that they actually inhabited or even ventured into every locale in the space they claimed, they just said "Here's where we want/have major outposts, we'll take the entire area around it." Given this, the Pride Lands may not have had European contact until at least well into the mid-twentieth century, and most of those exploits would've been either mining or railroad construction operations, or safaris/hunting trips, so 1889 doesn't have to be the cutoff point for the Pride Lands' existence. Heck, it could actually possibly exist today, now located well within a region of Kenya's national parks or land that hasn't seen human activity. Again, given how large the Serengeti itself is, it's entirely possible.

Regarding native African ethnic groups, while there may not have been large kingdoms and empires in the region (although the video from which you got the images of Africa doesn't necessarily show every African civilization or their range) we know there were plenty of villages throughout the period, and it wasn't just the Maasai inhabiting or passing through the region. (Many groups being nomadic.) That said, I don't know if you want to consider this as evidence of human existence since it's not actually in the movie/TV show, but (and I mentioned this before) there are paintings of Maasai-style houses and cattle in the cave painting that we're assuming is the Lair of the Lion Guard (and narrated by Rafiki in the present tense while Kion is still a cub): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cinX1ciNFI

If you want to be more specific as to when the main story (onscreen stuff) takes place based on languages, the fact that we're hearing Swahili is a result of that language being a/the national language of several East African countries (including both Tanzania and Kenya) but it didn't actually become so widespread until sometime post-1928, which was when an inter-territorial conference decided to standardize the language by virtue of the fact that it had so many speakers and was a useful trade language with some of the Arab states (since Swahili itself came about as a result of Arab and Persian traders coming to the east coast of what is now Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique during the 9th or 10th centuries and the cultural exchanges that took place between them and the Africans who lived on the coast) thus allowing for more uniformity (which is great if you're a colonizing entity trying to rule the entire world). On top of that, some of the phrases like "hevi kabisa" are much more contemporary; 'slang' Swahili almost, of the kind that annoys older, more traditional speakers according to Sarah Mirza, the show's language consultant: https://ohmy.disney.com/news/2015/11/22 ... rah-mirza/

Last thing, this time regarding the dam; if there had been a storm, mudslide, or even an incident regarding the Roar that was powerful enough to destroy a field's worth of trees, it's possible that such a dam could've occurred more or less naturally and without human intervention.

[Carambulesco]

Very well.

[quote]It was never stated in the book The Brightest Star that Mohatu was the founding king of the Pride Lands. The story started with him with a drought occurring his reign.[/quote]

This is a simple point that I thought, and that I let it pass of because of an unproven allegation that Mohatu was the first and most wise king of The Pridelands, according to this fantastic YouTube channel. But where did you get that Kiara is older than Kovu?

[quote]So if we're taking cues from The Lion Guard, I think the first thing to point out is that presumably the tradition of the Guard goes back at least as far as that of the monarchy, and if that's the case then you're missing a few generations of pre-Mufasa monarchs given that between these two images we can see at least seven different guards (not counting Scar's and Kion's and assuming the one shown saving Nala's father in "Paintings and Predictions" is one of the ones seen here too) which would imply at least 7 different monarchs before Mufasa and Scar took power in their respective roles, assuming normal uninterrupted succession between both roles per generation:[/quote]

This mess that The Lion Guard writers did, have only one explanation: "It was never stated in the book The Brightest Star that Mohatu was the founding king of the Pride Lands. The story started with him with a drought occurring his reign.", that is, it's actually possible that it had more reigns before Mohatu's.
Also explain the crazy Mufasa history about the kings of the past. But... personally I think this is just madness.


[quote]We'd also have to make some tweaks to the average rule of each king/queen, since you used a 12-year average lifespan even though the lions wouldn't be king/queen from the moment they're born. [/quote]

Yes, I forget that. Good point.
And... lions takes 2 years to be capable to be independent. There is no average to this (of course in not exactly 2 years, but 4? No way). But in case of Scar it's really 3 years of "lifespan".
About the Prideland's claim, it is impossible to measure the size of The Pridelands territory, and I never even quoted that Pridelands have all Arusha's/Kajiado's borders. I presume the territory is sort of 10-12km^2 maximum.

[quote]As far as European colonial impact is concerned, just because a country claimed a territory doesn't mean that they actually inhabited or even ventured into every locale in the space they claimed, they just said "Here's where we want/have major outposts, we'll take the entire area around it."[/quote]

That logic does not apply to African Neocolonialism, saddly.
About the nomadism, there is no problem to have nomadic groups passing trough The Pridelands. No concern to the franchise makers to show the Maasai because they don't need to do it. And the paintings I could not remember this evidence anymore after the months passed. This pratically proves the exitence of humans, and maybe can prove the Europeans have not arrived yet.
About the languages the Swahili the news story shows that "Mirza has come up with several “Lion Guard-isms” that are unique to the show. “It’s what we call Swinglish. Half English and half Swahili.”" maybe she's talking about merge American English (American production, American English), but in fact the in the History the British colonizers presented tons of new words and concepts the Maasai people, that is, Swahili native speakers, didn't know before. I hope she is not making us to believe the Red Capes has already arrived and chewed the Swahili to Swinglish, that's makes Simba's reign takes place 1900s onward.
Your explanation about the dam's formation, it is blatantly impossible to storms, mudslides and Roars of the Elders has formed this kind of construction, this dam is a kind punch to the Circle of Life for barring water to the Pridelands, and a good move to the civilized humans to have more potable water coming in West to the coast.

[Panpardus]

[quote="Carambulesco"]

[quote="Panpardus"]So if we're taking cues from The Lion Guard, I think the first thing to point out is that presumably the tradition of the Guard goes back at least as far as that of the monarchy, and if that's the case then you're missing a few generations of pre-Mufasa monarchs given that between these two images we can see at least seven different guards (not counting Scar's and Kion's and assuming the one shown saving Nala's father in "Paintings and Predictions" is one of the ones seen here too) which would imply at least 7 different monarchs before Mufasa and Scar took power in their respective roles, assuming normal uninterrupted succession between both roles per generation:[/quote]

This mess that The Lion Guard writers did, have only one explanation: "It was never stated in the book The Brightest Star that Mohatu was the founding king of the Pride Lands. The story started with him with a drought occurring his reign.", that is, it's actually possible that it had more reigns before Mohatu's.
Also explain the crazy Mufasa history about the kings of the past. But... personally I think this is just madness.[/quote]

I personally don't count the books as canon to the films, but yeah, it's possible that the Mohatu figure wasn't the first Pride Lands king.

[quote="Carambulesco"]
[quote="Panpardus"]We'd also have to make some tweaks to the average rule of each king/queen, since you used a 12-year average lifespan even though the lions wouldn't be king/queen from the moment they're born. [/quote]

Yes, I forget that. Good point.
And... lions takes 2 years to be capable to be independent. There is no average to this (of course in not exactly 2 years, but 4? No way). But in case of Scar it's really 3 years of "lifespan".
About the Prideland's claim, it is impossible to measure the size of The Pridelands territory, and I never even quoted that Pridelands have all Arusha's/Kajiado's borders. I presume the territory is sort of 10-12km^2 maximum.[/quote]

Two years is when lions typically become independent, but that's essentially their teenage stage. They don't reach full adulthood until they're about 4 years old. (3 years old is roughly their late teens/early twenties stage, which is about where Simba is as an adult in The Lion King.) This is all more or less based off of info provided by the Mara Predator Project, which just so happens to be in the region that The Lion King is set anyway: http://livingwithlions.org/mara/how-to/age-lions/

As for the size of the Pride Lands, I'm just basing that on the average territory size of a large lion pride, which is roughly 100 miles ^2, or ~260 km^2. I'm not saying every territory is this large (many are smaller, though some have been recorded as larger) but it seems like a reasonable estimate for the Pride Lands.

[quote="Carambulesco"]

[quote="Panpardus"]As far as European colonial impact is concerned, just because a country claimed a territory doesn't mean that they actually inhabited or even ventured into every locale in the space they claimed, they just said "Here's where we want/have major outposts, we'll take the entire area around it."[/quote]

That logic does not apply to African Neocolonialism, saddly. [/quote]

Not necessarily; I mean, don't get me wrong, Europeans definitely did a number on Africa during the late 19th through mid-20th century alone, but as what tends to happen in Western colonialism at least, they didn't actually explore every square mile of land they claimed. They just carved up the continent based on the locations of resources and outposts they had posted at the time and decided borders based on that, but like in North and South America, they laid claim to huge swaths of space that they ended up never actually inhabiting themselves. Even today there are large areas of land that have been virtually uninhabited by at least Europeans, including parts of the Serengeti that are now protected regions of national parks.

[quote="Carambulesco"]
About the nomadism, there is no problem to have nomadic groups passing trough The Pridelands. No concern to the franchise makers to show the Maasai because they don't need to do it. And the paintings I could not remember this evidence anymore after the months passed. This pratically proves the exitence of humans, and maybe can prove the Europeans have not arrived yet.
About the languages the Swahili the news story shows that "Mirza has come up with several “Lion Guard-isms” that are unique to the show. “It’s what we call Swinglish. Half English and half Swahili.”" maybe she's talking about merge American English (American production, American English), but in fact the in the History the British colonizers presented tons of new words and concepts the Maasai people, that is, Swahili native speakers, didn't know before. I hope she is not making us to believe the Red Capes has already arrived and chewed the Swahili to Swinglish, that's makes Simba's reign takes place 1900s onward.[/quote]

The thing about that is that firstly, the Maasai are not native Swahili speakers; their language, Maa, is not even in the same linguistic family as Swahili. Before the British occupation, Swahili was a language that was pretty much restricted to the East Coast of Southern Africa (in an area that spans across Kenya, Mozambique, and Tanzania); it didn't become a language that would've been introduced to the Maasai and their region of the continent until sometime in the mid-20th century, when the British made it and English both national languages across their many Sub-Saharan African territories. Judging by just that, the whole of The Lion King's story would have to take place at earliest during the 1930s-'50s for the characters to have been exposed to both English and Swahili via British introduction.

[quote="Carambulesco"]
Your explanation about the dam's formation, it is blatantly impossible to storms, mudslides and Roars of the Elders has formed this kind of construction, this dam is a kind punch to the Circle of Life for barring water to the Pridelands, and a good move to the civilized humans to have more potable water coming in West to the coast.[/quote]

The river doesn't seem to be the one that provides water to the Pride Lands; there are plenty of other rivers and lakes that run through the area. Plus, it's not uncommon or unlikely for powerful rivers to drag away trees such that they accumulate in a central chokepoint; it's pretty much the nature of debris caught in a current.

[TheLionPrince]

[quote="Carambulesco"]Very well.

[quote]It was never stated in the book The Brightest Star that Mohatu was the founding king of the Pride Lands. The story started with him with a drought occurring his reign.[/quote]

This is a simple point that I thought, and that I let it pass of because of an unproven allegation that Mohatu was the first and most wise king of The Pridelands, according to this fantastic YouTube channel. But where did you get that Kiara is older than Kovu?[/quote]

I wasn't implying that Kiara was older than Kovu. I was stating that because Kiara is next in line to the throne, she will be the reigning monarch with the dominant power. I believe the monarchy in The Lion King film universe operates under the succession law of absolute primogeniture where the oldest heir inherits the throne regardless of sex. I don't believe Kovu will be Simba's successor as regnant king.

[Squeely]

Very well-researched points in this thread! I had never given the dam much thought but now that it's been brought up, it really is odd. Seems perhaps a bit too orderly to be naturally-occurring, and the fact that there appears to be not much in the way of non-log debris seems further unnatural still. My guess is either humans, or a diplomatic agreement between another animal ruler or something, that lead to the animals of the Pridelands damming it (elephants likely being the best contributors to its construction).

Here's a little theory I have: some of the animals have been around humans. Shenzi has heard humans talk about club sandwiches, and Timon and Pumbaa are familiar with things such as beepers, potpourri, luaus, and have heard the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens. Otherwise, the jokes they make make little sense. Why would they make the jokes they do if such things don't exist yet? Of course, this brings up a rather interesting question of canon - if we write their jokes off as merely, well, non-canon jokes meant to make the audience laugh, that's fine I suppose. But then, they did say/do these things. I personally find it fun to think they're mocking humans by repeating things they've heard from them. The reference to beepers, though, would place Kiara's older teenhood/early adulthood in at least the 1980s, if not 90s.

[Elton John]

The writers probably never gave those references much thought, they're there to spice up the movie a bit.

I like to think of the pridelands as this mystical place either before humanity or where humans never existed period.

[SimbasGuard]

[quote="Elton John"]I like to think of the pridelands as this mystical place either before humanity or where humans never existed period.[/quote]

I am of a similar mindset I prefer to think of The Pride Lands as being somehow somewhere safe and shielded from the touch of humanity.

Also if one of the arguments for establishing a timeline for when these movies happen is based on how the characters talk and what they say. Then keep in mind in Lion King 2 Timon suggest that someone get a beeper for Kiara. That makes the franchise very modern if you look at it that way.

Also whether the stories are set in the past or in modern times. If Humans do exist in the world of The Lion King, that does not mean that Humans came to The Pride Lands and destroyed it. Just because The Lion Guard (The Show) uses the phrase Till The Pride Lands End does not mean that the Pride Lands are doomed to be destroyed. There could be a Pride Lands for as long as there is an Earth. Just because all we know of the future of The Pride Land's Monarchy is that Kovu will be the next King (If only in name not ruling authority) after Simba. It does not mean that Kovu will be the last King that The Pride Lands ever has.

[SimbaSam]

Hmmm now I have like some closure and a far better perspective on whether or not humans are in the tlkverse...I'd like to think there is a peaceful knowledge of humans on our characters side loooool This was some awesome stuff to read though you guys are building real theories with scientific evidence right here on this sight!!!