What was Zira hoping to achieve by killing Simba?

[FriendlyHyena]

Scar made the effort to knock off both Mufasa and Simba. However, it seems that Zira only was mostly concerned with killing Simba. Had Kiara not been there when Kovu was planning to attack Simba, the most Kovu could have gotten away with before getting discovered was killing Simba. And he might have paid with his own life for doing that.


Had Simba died, I highly doubt the Pridelanders would have just given up and made Kovu king. They likely would have made Nala (because her children weren't of age and there was no known male lion old enough to rule), Kiara (as the firstborn), or Kion (because he is male) the new leader. Then Zira would have to do it all over again, and, since the first attack did succeed in getting someone killed (unlike Scar's first attempt, which failed), the new leader would be heavily guarded and very hard to assassinate.

[Azdgari]

My take on this is generally that Zira was insane, and her prime directive in life was to kill Simba as revenge for Scar's death. I don't think she had major ambitions of ruling the pridelands after Simba was gone. Admittedly, I haven't watched the movie or read the script in a while, so if there's material that proves me wrong then... I'm wrong.

[TheLionPrince]

^I think Zira did ambitions to rule the Pride Lands with Kovu as king. Before she sings "My Lullaby", she says, "I can now see the path to our glorious return to power."

Like Azgardi noted, Zira was hoping to kill Simba as revenge for Scar's death and in her mind, have Kovu take his rightful place as Scar's heir. True, the Pridelanders would not have easily surrender to Kovu. However, Zira had herself, Nuka, and Vitani scout in order to observe Kovu's progress. I can see one of them giving the message to the Outsider pride that Simba had been killed and they can invade and fight the Pridelanders for supremacy of the Pride Lands.

I'm not sure what happens to Kion during the second half of Simba's Pride since The Lion Guard has yet to explain his whereabouts when Kiara and Kovu have grown up. He may have left and started his own pride.

[Hatari05]

Considering how strategic Zira was she likely had plans for multiple endgame scenarios. If Kovu is able to make Simba's death seem like an accident maybe even get injured himself in the process than it leaves an emotionally vulnerable Kiara taking the throne which Kovu can influence after a certain amount of time. Another possibility is that Kovu was meant to kill the entire family, after killing Simba Kiara serves no purpose and he gets rid of her while arranging a death of for Nala.

Zira's song implies she intended to kill the whole family at best the entire pride at worst.

[SimbasGuard]

@TheLionPrince and Hatari05:

Excellent points. You covered angles that I had not thought of.

I always thought Zira had intended for Kovu to hopefully injure Simba enough (even if Kovu died in battle) so that she herself might kill him. I thought she might have just intend to rule The Pride Lands as Queen the way she ruled The Outlands. She had Vitani as an heir so not having a king would not have been a problem until Vitani needed to produce an heir.

[Outsider218]

Zira wanted revenge on Simba because she believed that Scar was next to be "The True King," not Simba. Scar was supposed to be next in-line to be the King before Simba was born, but when Simba was born, Scar was no longer set to be King. So Zira hated Simba for that & wanted revenge because Simba killed Scar.