The dark story of Scar from The Lion King

Before Scar’s debut in 1994, there was a disturbing precedent for male Disney villains to be predatory towards heroines who wanted nothing to do with them. In 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast,” Gaston spends the length of the film trying to force Belle to marry him, and in 1992’s “Aladdin,” Jafar wishes Genie would force Jasmine into him against her will falling in love.

In a deleted scene from The Lion King, Scar would have followed suit by demanding a sexual partnership with a rather unexpected person: Nala. The scene would have occurred just before Nala left the Pride Lands to seek help during Scar’s reign. At this point in the story, Scar surmises that although he has achieved his goal of becoming King of Pride Rock, he now wants to be a father and that Nala is the mother of his boys.

The sequence was cut from the film but later made into the Broadway musical, where it lives on as the song “The Madness of King Scar” written by Elton John and Tim Rice. During the song, Scar thinks aloud, “What am I without a queen? A dead end, no line, no offspring, no future. With a queen I will have cubs! Immortality will be mine!” As Nala enters the scene, Scar continues eerily, “Ah, Nala… your timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Nala, of course, refuses his demand and goes to save Pride Rock.