by Carl » July 13th, 2014, 8:12 am
Those moments were used for laughs, but I think their relationships with him were a bit of both really. I mean, any good parent will be an authority figure and a friend. Now, to transfer that to the TLK universe--I think that while Simba was still a cub, Timon and Pumbaa took on parental roles. They raised him, after all. They obviously taught him which bugs to eat and which ones not to eat, they passed on their lifestyle to him, and as shown in this film, they took care of him in the ways parents would in the cases of his nightmare and things of this nature. In the earlier days, it would have been hard for him to survive had they not taken on parental roles. However, they would not have been strict "parents," obviously, considering as that wouldn't fit in with the Hakuna Matata lifestyle.
As Simba grew older and needed less and less "parental guidance," shall we say, they would have begun taking less and less responsibility for him, thus losing the parental aspects of themselves and retaining only the friendship. This transition would have been somewhat slow, but would have begun as Simba entered his teen years and became more independent. It would have been a natural transition, easy, and hardly noticeable due to the duo's already laidback lifestyle and lax rules. So, by the time Simba is an adult, Timon and Pumbaa are simply his buddies.
That's how I've always viewed it, at least.