Webcomic / Tales From The Spirit Lands

Tales from the Spirit Lands are a series of Disney's The Lion King (1994) fan comics on DeviantArt that showcase the adventures and lives of Kobbzz's Original Character's Kat and Sayde.

Escape to Pride Rock is the first comic and it shows Kat's life in prison after seemingly killing her father and her attempts to survive and escape to Pride Rock.

Run or Learn takes place behind the scenes during The Lion King (1994) and show Kat's and Sayde's new lives and the lives of their cub's, Chumvi and Tojo along with their friends during Scar's reign over the Pride Lands.

Mark of a Prisoner shows how Zira began her Start of Darkness and evolved from a sweet cub to the villain we know her as. It also gives some more depth to the inmates and officers at Saba-Wing and gives more backstory to Kheri and Raz.

My Pride Sister shows Kat's and Sayde's backstory, through Kat's birth and abusive life and it shows how they evolved and became friends during that time.

And The Haunted Wing is the currently (as of December 2014) ongoing comic featuring life in Saba-Wing and introducing more characters and adding more depth to the already existing ones.

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Tropes appearing in Tales from the Spirit Lands:

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General

• Abusive Parent: Mjeuri.
• Arranged Marriage: Most royal marriages between the rulers come down to this.
• Cats Are Mean: Well, this IS a comic series about lions, and there are plenty of unsavory characters that can across as this and worse.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Kat and Sayde. Also, Tojo and Chumvi.
• Original Character: Out the wazoo. Most of the characters are Original Characters, with a few appearances made by the canon or semi-canon characters sprinkled throughout the comics.
• Parental Neglect: Johari and Zira.
• Trauma Conga Line: Most of the characters have shades of this, and you can bet that things don't always stay happy and sweet when it comes along. Kat especially, being the protagonist in plenty of the stories, is littered with plenty of trauma. It's amazing she's still functional.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Zira.

Escape to Pride Rock

• Accidental Murder: Shupaa, one of the prison inmates, is accidentally killed when a prank went very wrong and poison ended up in the food supply. The other lionesses are devastated by her death.
• Art Evolution: Compared to the original comic and when it was posted, the newly made pages that are being showcased have shown a vast amount of improvement. The characters are more distinctive from one another, now more than ever.
• Ax-Crazy: Kheri. When confronted by Majali about Raz's death, he threatens to reveal Majali as Raz's secret lover and Zira's father, and further rants on to tell Majali to keep his mouth shut, or he should consider himself dead. On Page 162, when he sneaks back into the prison during his recovery period, he attacks Kat unprovoked, and when Sayde comes to her rescue, he savagely attacks her as well.
• Big Bad: Kheri. To a lesser extent, Farai could count as such.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Farai, Farai, Farai.
• Bullying a Dragon: The inmates eventually resort to this, taunting Kheri and accusing him of murder after they learn Raz never escaped like they originally believed, especially considering the circumstances regarding her death. It eventually escalates into physical attacks on his being from one of the inmates. Kheri has a mental breakdown as a result and is sent away to recover.
• Driven to Suicide: Poor Zakiya.
• Drunk with Power: Kheri. Holy hell, Kheri. He believes that as a prison guard, he can do whatever he pleases to whomever he pleases—but never in front of his fellow guards. He attacks Kat unprovoked and immediately claims to his fellow guards she tried attacking first. Later on, he follows Raz into the old killing caves when she tries to escape the prison, catches her by surprise and then leaves her to starve to death by trapping her under a boulder she had no chance of moving on her own.
• Dying Alone: Raz. Poor Raz. Kheri trapped her under a boulder when she tried escaping, where she was left to starve to death underground in the old killing caves, where no one could hear her screaming for help. He feigned not knowing where she was when word of her disappearance came up, alleging that she must have escaped if she was nowhere else in the prison.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Kat and Sayde had to fight for Kat's freedom without revealing their relationship when Kat was in prison, or they'd risk being separated for good. After Kat's escape during a prison transfer, they eventually held a protest at the top of Pride Rock, demanding a retrial to prove Kat's innocence.
• False Friend: Farai fits this to a T. She pretends to be weak and innocent, but slowly reveals her true colours to the rest of the inmates. Jira, to a smaller extent, could qualify—except she was only doing it to out Farai for what she was and build a case against her. She never really was a prison inmate to begin with.
• Great Escape: Pretty much all there in the title.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Kheri boasts, after beating the crap out of a recently-escaped-and-found Farai, that he was the one who truly killed Raz and left her to die under the boulder. He is overheard by Prince Afua, Majali, Zira, and Officer Damisi—most of whom he has insisted to and fooled for ages that he was innocent of the accusations, even after being investigated by Detectives for a long time after Raz’s body was discovered.
• I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: Luja and Chakaa feel terrible for Shupaa's death.
• The Infiltration: Jira fits this. She is a Detective Inspector who pretended to be a new inmate while investigating Farai and the allegations of her being a cub-killer. Once Farai trusted her while fearing for her life from the other inmates, she asked Jira to send a cryptic message to her pride. It doesn't end well for Farai when its revealed that Jira had been undercover the whole time, taking hits for her to gain that very trust.
• Quickly-Demoted Woman: Officer Damisi was once the Wing Governor of Saba-Wing, the female prison. Shortly after Jira arrives and reveals her identity, Prince Afua demotes Damisi and Jira becomes the de facto leader.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Jira. While she is tough, she's reasonably fair to the inmates, and a more competent Governor on the block. Prince Afua can qualify as this as well.
• Riches to Rags: Sarabi, Mufasa's betrothed, ends up becoming an inmate. It doesn't last long, and her innocence is proven in the end.
• Sanity Slippage: Kheri has a brief stint after he's attacked by one of the Ans. Kheri has probably repeated his lie so much, insisted upon his innocence so many times, a part of him believes he never really killed Raz.
• Secret Underground Passage: The old killing caves under the staff-only watering hole cave. Kheri tells Sayde how years ago, they'd use the old cave to muffle the sounds of screaming before taking bodies out through the exit of the cave's tunnel.
• Slasher Smile: Kheri is the biggest offender and pulls plenty of these when nobody else is around and he thinks he's gotten away with something.
• Taking the Heat: The whole reason Kat is even in prison is because she's taking the blame for Zakiya murdering their father. Sayde tries to convince Zakiya that she needs to confess to get Kat out of prison. It seems to go well at first, but well...it doesn't.
• Would Hurt a Child: Farai. She claims to not be a cub-killer, and carries on with the act of denying it for a long time. The other inmates, however, claim to have overheard conversations from the Prince in charge of the prison with prison escorts about Farai’s life story, and it boiled down to abusing and killing cubs in her previous pride. Jira, her roommate, outed her after gaining her trust over time and pretending to be an inmate.

Run or Learn

• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Chumvi experiences this when Kat and Kiah are reunited. The look on his face says everything.
• Babies Ever After: Most of the lionesses in Pride Rock have kids. Even Kat ends up having an adorable little guy, and Kiah returns to Pride Rock with a cub of her own.
• Back from the Dead: Sayde. Also Simba.
• Big Bad: Scar, hands down, as this story does take place during the events of The Lion King.
• Death Glare: Page 43. Scar and Kat give each other death glares while dancing around the subject of his newly appointed position.
• Face–Heel Turn: Zira. When she returns with her family, Scar claims only she and her son Nuka would be allowed into the pride. When Kicho and Majali protest, Zira claims she wants none of them in her life anymore.
• Friend to All Living Things: Tojo, Sayde’s son, almost always has birds on his head and in his mane. They seem to grow up with Tojo, as when he is a cub, they are baby birds. When he’s grown into an adult, the birds seem to be fully grown as well. Tojo has even named all of them and knows who is who.
• Malicious Slander: Malka attempts this when trying to drive a wedge between the young males and females, so that he can follow through with Scar's plans and court them all to copulate several heirs. The funny thing is, he doesn't really want to do it. He's just following orders to protect his friends.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Tojo experiences this when he nearly sets fire to Scar while the older male was doing patrols around the Pride Land borders. Scar survives and is saved by Zira and her family but Tojo feels immense guilt crushing him. He wonders how long it’d be before Scar finally realizes the fire wasn’t an accident and was an attempt on his life and that it was Tojo who set the blaze.
• Quickly-Demoted Woman: Queen Sarabi, King Mufasa's mate, is demoted on the hunting party after an incident with a stranger coming into the Pride Lands. Scar chalks it up to her still grieving for losing her mate and son, but being Scar, he has more reasons for doing it.
• Regretful Traitor: When confronted by the other young lions, Malka realizes the error of his ways, and admits he was the one behind the vicious rumours being spread. He goes on to tell the others that he only did it to protect his friends and that he didn’t want to see Chumvi, Mheeta, or Tojo banished or worse, killed.
• Scars Are Forever: Kiah still sports the scars she had when she first met Kat. Also, Prince Taka, aka Scar. It's even more evident when Majali returns to Pride Rock, sporting quite a number of scars all on his face.
• Start of Darkness: Zira. It's evident in her behavior when she returns to Pride Rock and with a cub of her own and two more on the way. Scar decides to use this to his advantage.
• Taking the Heat: Just like his mother did with Zakiya, Chumvi is taking the blame for Tojo’s actions. Sarabi is shocked at the admission and readily believes Chumvi. Kat sees right through it, however.
• Title Drop: On Page 58, when Sayde is giving Kat a pep talk and reassuring her that she isn't a terrible mother to Chumvi.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Scar. The night the pride learns of Mufasa and Simba's deaths, he brings in the hyenas to become permanent residents of the Pride Lands—something that obviously would never occur under Mufasa's rule or the rule of other lion kings before him.

Mark of a Prisoner

• Asshole Victim: Farai, naturally. Kheri as well.
• The Atoner: Raz. It's revealed that she eventually began to regret her life of crime with Theron, especially after seeing the monster Kheri was beginning to grow into. She helped Jair break it off from the crime family, and although she was in prison for conspiring Theron’s murder, she was protective of all the lionesses in Saba-Wing, especially those being abused by Kheri. She was a beloved Top Dog for a reason, even if she wished to leave it all behind in order to be with her daughter, Zira.
• Ax-Crazy: Kheri, all the way. Even those who protested his innocence are starting to find out just how off his rocker he is.
• Big Damn Heroes: Luja and Chakaa are this to Senior Officer Ayo when they find her about to be murdered by Kheri's father after she refuses to break him out of prison.
• Bittersweet Ending: It ends with Zira willingly letting go of the cliff she's holding onto and drowning. She then wakes up in the afterlife and meets with her mother and they go off to find Nuka.
• The Bully: Hyla started off as this, with Kicho and Shupaa at her side.
• Child by Rape: Vitani and Kovu.
• Cool Big Sis: Kicho to Zira.
• Death by Childbirth: What’s suggested to have happened to Kheri and his brother Jair’s mother.
• The Family That Slays Together: Kheri was raised with his brother by his father and Raz as his stepmother into a criminal organization.
• Great Escape: It starts with Luja and Chakaa having just escaped Saba-Wing.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Zira outright reveals to Kheri she knows about all that he's done—from the murder of Raz to the alleged rape and murder of Barada—and even gets him to confess about Haya's murder at his own paws—right in front of Haya's daughters, Spotty and Dotty, and Ayo herself.
• Hostage Situation: Hyla pulls this with Kheri. A second hostage situation occurs, this time with Queen Riley, although nobody really gets hurt this time around. She actually sat down and talked with the inmates.
• I Want My Mommy!: That’s all Zira ever wanted. It crosses into bittersweet and heartwrenching territory towards the end when she allows herself to drown.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: What everyone in Saba-Wing thinks of King Shaha. He did let a murdering rapist go free, despite the evidence—although he claimed there wasn’t enough to go on, and yet convicts others based on even ‘’less evidence’’—and then sets him right up with a lofty promotion as the new Wing Governor of the same place that he’s been accused of murdering and raping the inmates in. What a king.
• Murder Makes You Crazy: Kheri. He outright lies to Ayo, telling her that Haya died in an accident, when he was the one who murdered her shortly before he came to become an officer on Saba-Wing.
• Poor Communication Kills: Kheri believed this of Haya. After he turned in his father Theron, a wanted criminal, Kheri confided in Haya. Haya revealed this to Raz, who promised to stay quiet, even though she was outraged. In the end, Jair told Theron who it was who had turned him in. Kheri initially believed it was Haya and went to confront her, not listening to Jair when he tried to tell Kheri it wasn't Haya, but Jair himself. Kheri ended up killing Haya in blind rage. Naturally, Theron’s anger at being turned in vanished and transformed into pride at Kheri committing a crime—something that Kheri hasn’t be able to do correctly since he was born. Theron made the brothers stay silent to prevent Raz from knowing who killed her best friend.
• Prison Rape: Kheri rapes Zira on Page 215. It's also suggested Kheri raped Barada, a young lioness who was found hung in her cave. Her death was ruled as suicide, but Raz knew better.
• Rape as Drama: Page 215.
• Roaring Rampageof Revenge: Well, Zira. She’s a lion. She roars. She came to Saba-Wing to get answers and ended up on a path that eventually set her down to seeking revenge for her mother’s murder. It was averted in the end, as it wasn’t her who carried out her revenge and killed Kheri.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Jair outright tells Zira this is what happens to Kheri, after he kills Ayo’s daughter, Haya.
• Start of Darkness: Jair reveals this to Zira about Kheri, which began after he murdered Haya.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Kheri. After King Shaha declares he is innocent of the crimes he was accused of, he went and made Kheri Wing Governor. All of the other officers and Prince Afua alike were not happy at all.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Kheri. To a smaller extent, a young Nuka. All he ever wanted was his mother's attention and to play with her.

My Pride Sister

• Abusive Parents: Mjeuri. He beats on and scratches up all the cubs whenever make him look bad or for not following his arbitrary and often strict rules. He was willing to let Kat sit out in the freezing cold rain overnight just to make a point in punishing her.
• Adults Are Useless: Slightly averted in some cases, but right on the mark in others. Most of the adults feel something is off in Kat's family, and while they ask questions and probe around, they don't act out right away without proof. Completely averted in the aspect that they're able to drive off competing predators such as hyenas from their territory.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Bria, Sayde's mother, is somewhat still in love with Utisho, although he doesn't reciprocate the feelings. They had a one-night stand that resulted in Sayde, although he had no idea at the time, as he left shortly after on business. He simply has no interests in being a mate and a father, although he does fulfill his duties and is grooming Sayde as the future leader of the pride.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Although they were born at the same time, Ye, one of Kat's sister, fits this. She tends to annoy Kat more often than Ada, although at times, even Ada gets fed up with Ye's tendencies to repeat everything either of them say. Ye admits to Sayde that she only acts dumb and annoying to get Kat and Ada to stop fighting, although it more often than naught backfires on her.
• Berserk Button: Nikitaruka hits Mjeuri's by calling him a bastard after he attacks her. He rolls right back into the fight after this insult is hurled his way.
• Cassandra Truth: Nobody ever believes Kat when she tells the truth. Everyone, even Sayde at the start, saw her as a born troublemaker and a liar. Kat learned that nobody would believe her, no matter what she said, so she tends to bottle everything up. It doesn't help that she's a young cub being abused and bullied by her parents, and it's usually their word against hers. When she's pitted against her siblings, Ada and Ye usually come out on top, too. It turns out Ada and Ye suffer from this as well, when Mjueri threatened to beat them all if they strayed from the path he expects them to walk. Ada is supposed to be 'the good one' in his eyes and supposed to be the shining example of his brood.
• Cheerful Child: Sayde started out as this, definitely.
• Coming of Age Story: It serves this to an extent, giving more depth to Kat and her sisters and Sayde as well, as they all grew up outside the Pride Lands.
• Domestic Abuse: Mjeuri towards Johari, emotionally and verbally speaking. While she tries to defend her children against his physical abuse, he quickly shuts her down and manipulates her into having another cub with him, after telling her that their current children were too far gone and far too damaged to be repaired in terms of blind obedience to his will. She agrees to do it.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: One could argue this of Mjeuri, although he is a completely possessive jerkass about it. He ultimately gave Johari an ultimatum near the beginning of the comic: she had to choose between him or her family to love and that she couldn't have both. Guess who she chose to go with.
• Faux Affably Evil: Mjeuri. When Niki's brother, Akono, comes to monitor the pride, he overhears the true reasons why he came to visit when Akono speaks to Niki. Mjeuri immediately believes it was Ira, Sayde's grandmother, who told the Royals about it and why the guards are spying on them. He violently attacks her and threatens her life as a result. Up until that point, he has been nothing but curt, polite, and quiet with those outside his family circle, but this attack has finally shown his true colours to someone on the outside. Unfortunately, it appears Mjeuri's attack was too much for her old body and Ira is found dead the next day.
• Manipulative Bastard: Mjueri, all the way. He beats the children and then proceeds to blaim Johari for his actions. He accused her of being a terrible mother, and if she weren’t, he wouldn’t have a need to abuse them at all. It isn’t long before she begins to turn a blind eye to it, especially after he tells her that her family would never accept her back into Pride Rock, not after she ran away from home. He then proceeds to tell her she is incapable of raising the cubs on her own, rolls into his plans of getting rid of Utisho somehow so he could become the new pride leader, and alleges that the only way that can happen is if she gives him a new cub. He sees the other three are beyond repair to bend to his will and therefore an embarrassment. She agrees to have another cub with him. He ultimately manages to get rid of Utisho, through some artful manipulation, claiming that the dynamics of the pride are too off with him being there, and that Akono—Niki’s older brother and a Royal Guard—was there to spy on him (although it’s really because of Mjeuri). Utisho has a falling out with Niki right before he leaves, and she is baffled by this until she figures out that everything wrong that’s happened with the pride was because of Mjeuri. When she calls him out on this, he feigns innocence, right up until she tries to leave and find Utisho. Mjeuri attacks Niki, and she defends herself and breaks his paw in retaliation. In return, Johari—who’s warped sense of love and perhaps even fear of Mjeuri overruled her common sense—claimed Niki attacked first. Later on down the line, when all his daughters threaten to leave the pride, he breaks down and pleads with Johari that she couldn’t leave him alone if she loved him, and he promised to change and get help. When she rushes back to him proclaiming to love him, he gives a smug, triumphant look to his daughters—who immediately see it’s never going to happen. His thinly veiled threats to Kat after this event become his downfall, as Zakiya eventually realizes he'd kill her and make it look like an accident and everyone would believe him if it happened.
• Prince Charmless: Prince Shaha. He has a very stuffy attitude, and only sees pieces of the picture and not the whole thing. There are several examples of this in the short time he's seen in this. He sees Niki leaving the Royal Guard as treason—even if she was supported by her family and older brother, Akono, who is also a part of the Guard. He would have her imprisoned if he were king at the time it happened, and hopes Sayde will kick her out as soon as she’s pride leader. He sat in on a court hearing for two lionesses, who committed and were sentenced for life in prison, and claims to have no sympathy for them not coming to ask for help from the King and Queen—even if they said they had no other choices left, and did all they could for their cubs. He barely listens to Kat when she recounts the abuse and terror she and her siblings have endured under their father Mjeuri, claiming instead she’s only being a bratty liar and has no physical proof of any such allegations. While he is right that Kat has no signs of being hurt, it doesn’t make it any less jerky of him to assume off the bat that she’s lying. Kat calls him out on this. Even his betrothed, Princess Riley, sees the fallacy in his methodology and shortsightedness calls him out on it.
• Sleepyhead: Nikitaruka loves her sleep. She'll take naps whenever and wherever she's able.
• Taking the Heat: Kat takes the blame for Zakiya murdering Mjeuri after she overheard him threatening to kill Kat. Johari goes beserk at the falsehood, but Kat does it to protect her little sister and to keep her from ending up serving life in prison.
• Title Drop: Nikitaruka drops the comic's title and it turns out to be a game she either knew beforehand or seemingly made up on the spot to get Kat and Sayde to stop fighting. It works. Sort of.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Kat has tried this tactic, word-for-word, often enough, but nobody ever believes her when pitted against someone else's word, especially her sister Ada.
• You're Not My Father: A kind of inverted example, as the three cubs aren't without both parents around. Ada is bossy and acts like the mother of the other two cubs. Kat often enough dislikes it when Ada pulls this and even calls her out on it. Ada even admits that Johari, their actual mother, sucks at being a parent, so she feels obligated to step up to the plate and take on the mantle, even though she's still a young cub the same age as her sisters.

The Haunted Wing

• Belief Makes You Stupid: Tawa comes across as this to the inmates who have been at Saba-Wing longer than her. She believes Anina deserves to suffer for allegedly murdering Kheri, and that murder itself is never the answer and that it’s “the Lord’s job to deal with sinners”. The others call her out on this, saying that she wasn’t there while Kheri was murdering and raping his way throughout the prison for years. She also believes that Farai had nothing to do with Mtoto’s trying to sneak in herbs for Refu, and nobody should have the right to judge without evidence.
• The Bully: Farai. She’s trying to steal food from the other inmates, including ex-officer Damisi.
• Does Not Like Men: Satchiko hated all male lions and it’s unclear if the crimes she was sentenced with were against a random rogue male or her own son. She even murdered her own personal officer, which resulted in her becoming the first to die in the killing caves.
• Ghost Story: Luja and Chakaa paint a tale of an inmate named Satchiko, who was sent to Saba-Wing when it was first established. She was the first sentenced to die in the killing caves after murdering her personal officer and supposedly haunts Saba-Wing and refuses to rest until all male lions who worked there suffered the ultimate penalty of death. Predictably, nobody believes in the story.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Niki seems to suffer from some unknown ailment that’s causing her to cough up blood.
• I See Dead People: It seems Kheri's ghost has some unfinished business with Saba-Wing...
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Niki can be a bit of a grump and can come off as cold and uncaring, but generally, she’s a good lioness who legitimately cares about the others on Saba-Wing.
• Mistaken for Murderer: Ex-officer Damisi. It was Anina who killed Kheri with an elephant tusk smuggled into the prison. Damisi just had the rotten luck of finding the body, and the elephant tusk that An hid in the staff watering hole cave was found there, further perpetuating Damisi was the guilty party. It doesn’t help that An had a severe mental breakdown shortly after Kheri’s murder that her testimony would be next to useless in court, thus proving Damisi’s innocence.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Officer Bimbiriza comes across as this. He’s training his son, Mtoto, to become an officer and the first lesson he offers is that the officers are there to help better the inmates, rather than constantly remind them of their past wrongdoings.
• Scars Are Forever: Lysha has scars over and is permanently blind in her right eye. That doesn’t stop her from seeing what she can with her good eye though.