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Lion Autocracy

2021-02-10 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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Lion Autocracy
Votey panel for Lion Autocracy
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

The Joke

A lion sits majestically on a rock overlooking the savanna with his cub, declaring: "Some day my boy, this will all be yours." The cub responds hopefully: "Or maybe we'll have a parliament! Maybe it will be for all the animals!" In the final two panels, shown in silhouette, the lion kicks the cub off the rock.

The comic references the famous scene from Disney's "The Lion King" where Mufasa shows young Simba the Pride Lands and tells him it will one day be his kingdom. But here, the cub subverts the expected response by suggesting democracy instead of hereditary monarchy. The lion father, who benefits from the current autocratic system, responds by violently disposing of the cub who dared to suggest power-sharing -- mirroring Scar's treachery in the film but for political rather than personal reasons.

The Humor

The joke works on several levels. It is a parody of The Lion King that points out the uncomfortable truth that the film's heartwarming father-son moment is essentially an autocrat grooming his heir. The cub's innocent suggestion of parliamentary democracy is treated as a far greater threat to the lion than any external enemy would be. The silhouette panels evoke the tragic wildebeest stampede scene from the movie, but here the father himself does the pushing -- suggesting that proposing democracy to an absolute monarch is more dangerous than any villain's plot.

References

The comic is a direct parody of "The Lion King" (1994), specifically the iconic "Everything the light touches" scene between Mufasa and Simba. The visual of the cub being pushed off the rock mirrors the scene where Scar throws Mufasa into the stampede.

View History (1) Original Comic