by Carl » June 20th, 2015, 5:43 am
^ Many people theorize that that lioness is Sarafina.
As for Sarabi, I always liked to think that she is in fact alive, just not necessarily out and about. Maybe she suffered a wound in the battle with Scar and doesn't walk around much? Maybe she stays at the top of Pride Rock, where Mufasa showed Simba the kingdom. Maybe she perches on that cliff Scar liked.
Or perhaps... maybe she came from a different pride and married Mufasa, maybe for some reason, she went back to them? Not very likely, since her son had returned, but meh, it's something I just thought of.
Most likely, she's one of the background lionesses, they just didn't bother to keep her on model and point her out. I mean, if you saw, in the first movie Sarafina changes appearance several times, so it's not surprising that Sarabi and herself would be unrecognizable in the sequel, especially considering the drastic design changes to Simba and Nala.