History Headscratchers / TheLionKingIISimbasPride

* Close, but no banana. First, he wasn't brainwashed "all his life" -- we see him as a free-roaming, regular lion cub interacting with Kiara before Zira comes up with the "assassinate Simba" scheme. That would mean there was some semblance of normalcy underneath the cold, relentless persona that he gradually came to adopt, and as such, his afternoon spent with Kiara as an adult isn't him being introduced to something he's never experienced before, but rather him remembering life from before his training. And secondly, Simba explaining Scar's backstory is important because it gives Kovu a deeper incentive and a better reason to defect from the Outsiders. "I realize that Scar was an evil person and don't want to follow in his footsteps anymore" is guaranteed to sound a lot better to Simba than "I was raised to assassinate you, but now I love your daughter, so just trust me when I say that I changed my mind and don't want to do it anymore."

[[WMG:Mufasa and Rafiki's Secret Matchmaking]]

[[WMG:When there's the stand-off between Zira and Simba and the lionesses after Kovu and Kiara first meet, Zira gets pretty close to Simba and Kiara.]]
Even with as fast as everyone could move, she could have done something to at least cripple Kiara, if not kill her or injure Simba, so why is there no threatening growls or orders of "Get back!"?

* But how could they keep her out of real danger? I mean, they obviously couldn't catch up to her if she just took off, and they can't really fight (except for Pumbaa's special ability), so what would happen if, say, an Outlander was trespassing, saw her, and decided to attack or something?
** Excuse me, in the first movie Pumbaa lays out a couple of hyenas, and that's without his stench, he can fight if he has to.

* Meta answer: the audience knew Timon and Pumbaa, so the filmmakers decided to allow them more screentime in this manner as opposed to using a background character.

During the confrontation after Kovu and Kiara meet, Zira says Kovu was hand-chosen by Scar AND the last kitten to be born before her group was banished. Now, this implies that they left after Scar was killed. Kovu is obviously the same age as Kiara, within a few months, since he's the same size and cats - lions - grow at a fairly different rate after the first few months, depending on gender. I'm guessing Simba took a few months to get the Pride Lands back to normal before he could focus on taking care of any possible treachery within the pride - this is assuming that at the end of the first movie, the Pride Lands going back to being green takes a few months after he becomes king, and the fade is just a time-skip shown in one shot. So, how could Scar have hand-picked Kovu to be his heir when he (assumedly) wasn't born until after Scar had died?

* Maybe Nala and Simba really did Feel the Love that Night and Nala was already pregnant by the time they got back. Kovu could have either been just born or Zira was nearly due (in which case Scar had told her that this baby would be heir). Either one is a good reason why we didn't see her in the fight; in the former she couldn't risk leaving Kovu alone, in the latter she couldn't risk the baby getting hurt.

** As I heard, it's since been revealed that everything this movie tells us about Kovu's history is a lie. He's not related to Scar, he's not Scar's "chosen successor", and it turns out he's not even related to Zira. He's apparently just a random orphaned cub she took in, and was probably chosen as Scar's ''unofficial'' successor because he was the youngest of the Outsiders, and thus a fresh start when it comes to creating an effective assassin, as opposed to Nuka, who's already fully grown by the time Kovu and Kiara are developed cubs.

** Termites have a bite like you wouldn't believe, too.

Okay, so... There's no male cubs shown in the Rock Pride during the second movie. Ever. Not even in the background. So... who would ensure more cubs if Simba died?
* Well, that was a lucky break then, wasn't it?
* Well, another thing I just realized. There's no other cubs shown at all. It's no wonder she's so {{rebellious| princess}} - she never really had any friends besides Timon and Pumbaa, who were more her babysitters than anything.

* I always imagined mature male lions who weren't in line for the crown would go off to find new prides in this very situation. Or, if they were too old for the queen-to-be, they'd mate with one of the other lionesses and the first son to be produced would marry the queen.

* Definitely a mistake. ''Simba's Pride'' had some notable differences in coloring compared to the original -- Timon, for example, looks like he's spent too much time in the sun and gotten an impressive tan after the original movie.

*** Much of the color palette of LK2 is pinkish. Not a change of which this troper is fond.

* Even in the first movie, sometimes it looks like Nala's eyes are blue instead of green. Maybe it was just a mistake at first, but then the animators decided to just go with it for the second movie.
** Eyes can look different colours depending on what light they're in; for example, a light blue eye can look almost white if in the right lighting. Considering Nala's eyes are already a aquamarine-ish shade, under the right lighting it's reasonable to assume that they could end up looking more green or more blue. Doesn't exactly explain the sudden art shift in ''Simba's Pride'', but that was likely due to differences in animators and modelers.

* I guess she would if Kovu was trained to the point he could have just jumped and snapped Simba's neck in a second before the lionesses would even have known, but judging by how ridiculously easy he got defeated when trying to defend Simba from Zira's pride, it doesn't sound very likely.
** Even if he could have killed Simba instantly, which is unlikely no matter how skilled he is, Kovu would have almost no prayer of getting away alive. As Zira's plan, as far as I understood it, involved Kovu becoming king after a successful assassination, doing something suicidal would put Zira's followers in a very precarious position. Nuka, the only adult male in the group besides Kovu, is not exactly a model lion. He'd be an easy kill for a rogue. Should Zira and her followers drive off the rogue or kill him, they would then be without a king, more or less dooming the pride. In short, Vitani was not thinking very clearly at all.
*** Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that too...Vitani jumped the gun bigtime there, methinks. Kovu couldn't possibly have killed Simba before the lionesses heard the commotion and came out to attack him, if he could beat Simba one-on-one at all...after all, her lionesses were all trained killers too, just like Kovu (though he probably had special training) and all of them couldn't take him down in one go.
** Maybe Vitani expected that Kovu could kill Simba quickly, which would leave the members of his pride leaderless and give the Outlanders a massive advantage, since they now have a deadly and capable adult male lion to fight with them, whereas the Pridelanders do not. Maybe the other Outlanders were always mobilized to jump in and help Kovu if he couldn’t get away safely after offing Simba, or they trusted that he would hold his own long enough to be able to escape himself, if it came to that.

How could Simba think that Kovu set him up for an ambush? They were at a place that Simba led them to, having a talk that Simba instigated. Kovu hadn't planned on being alone with him at all, at this moment.
* Simple, Simba's paranoid. Think about it, he's alone in the wilds with a younger and probably fitter lion who he knows has been trained practically from birth to assassinate him and take his place then suddenly, from out of nowhere, they're surrounded by this lion's pride who are out for his blood because he banished them for supporting his tyrant of an uncle. It wouldn't be that difficult for Simba to jump to the conclusion that Kovu could have sent word to a pride member of his progress within the pride and had arranged for the rest of the pride to be on standby should he ever corner Simba alone. I mean, Kovu is shown to sleep outside alone while the rest of the pride are sleeping soundly inside the cave, it wouldn't have been that difficult for him to sneak off in the middle of the night, meet Vitani or another lioness, update them of his progress and tell them to have the pride waiting then sneak back to Pride Rock before the sun rose and everyone woke up again.
* Already in the first film, he never figured out the stampede was Scar's trap, for years. We probably have to admit that Simba is not especially clever.
* It's hard to tell, but the exile does not seem to be a punishment specifically for the ambush, but for the fact Kovu was a spy, as revealed by Zira's (incorrect) congratulations. So, Simba is punishing Kovu's whole duplicity, because of how long he took to admit his double-dealing at the beginning and now that the facts revealed it instead of his words, Simba can't trust Kovu any more (so in the end, Kovu loses on both sides). You have also the impression that Kovu is exiled because now that he has the exact same scar than his adoptive father, he looks like he probably walks on his path, plotting evil things while acting friendly to others. That's a paradox, because this was indeed a material evidence he was no more supported by the Outlanders who hurt him (except you imagine it is again a subterfuge).

[[WMG: Why didn't Zira send Kovu challenge Simba in a straight fight?]]
According to the first film (and what we know from true feral lions), this is the way to contest leadership of the current boss of the Pride. So, why not dethrone Simba on the fair side ?
Of course, this is more hazardous than assassination, but take a look at the arguments. On one hand, Kovu is one generation younger than Simba, he is well-built (if not better) and has been trained his whole life to fight. On the other hand, Simba barely fought at all until there, and it is even reminded that Nala, his wife, has no difficulty to pin him down casually, and she presumably never trained him. So, the odds are clearly on Kovu's side in a square fight.
* It's possible that despite despising Simba so much, Zira does not want to take such a risk to lose Scar's only valuable heir (she probably doesn't expect Nuka to take over if Kovu lost). In parallel, she is convinced that Simba assassinated Scar, and did not defeat him in a square fight himself, so she sees her plan as a more karmic retribution to punish Simba's alleged treachery.
** Also, Simba challenging Scar was the rightful king returning to take his place on the throne, not some random lion popping in to try and seize power. Kovu isn't Scar's son, and even if he was, he wouldn't have a rightful claim to power until both Simba ''and'' Kiara are incapacitated.
[[WMG: Why did not Zira scheme that Kovu becomes king by marrying Kiara?]]
The plan in the film is Kovu infiltrates the Pride, assassinates Simba, and claims the throne. Accessorily, Zira would relish the blood of the royal family (strangling herself the daughter). But didn't they never think Kovu became the Prince consort by marrying Kiara (who was still not betrothed), and later, when Simba would be too old or dead, overthrew Kiara to claim her title?
* Zira didn't want mere power, she wanted ''revenge.'' Sure, she wanted Kovu to rule, but first and foremost she wanted Simba dead, now or sooner. She didn't want to wait years and years for that, letting Simba live a long and happy life while she would probably pass away before to see her enemy's death.
* Even without a single lion remaining in Africa, Simba would probably never willingly consider marrying his daughter with the heir of his evil uncle. Kovu only gained acceptance by saving the princess' life, explicitly stating he had run away from the Outlands. The only plausible way it would have been brought up is as a clause of a peace plan between the two prides (the heirs from each side forming together a royal couple). However, even so, Zira is not the kind of reliable person with who he could live under the same roof.
* She says as much during her VillainSong: she ''could'' come up with a more amicable plan to seize power, she's just so bloodthirsty that she doesn't want to. She ''wants'' to take revenge on Simba's pride and to see him and Kiara dead. It's the same reason why she couldn't bring herself to make a HeelFaceTurn in the end.

* The above has it more or less right. Remember, Kiara, at this point, is characterized somewhat by a fear of bowing to destiny and losing her own individuality in the process. While Simba is trying to reassure her, she sees his face in profile with Pride Rock looming large behind him. Remember that Pride Rock is much more than just the lions' home. It's a symbol, like a palace or a throne, or even the White House. Kind of an oppressive reminder of what fate had in store for her down the road. Simba sees her looking rather distressed at something, turns, sees Pride Rock and, with surprising insight, gleans what she saw and tries to reassure her again, even if he probably chose the exact wrong thing to say.

* Well, you could chalk appearances up to being malnourished. I've never heard this fan theory before. Most of the ones I've heard of involved Kopa and Kiara being twins. In that case Vitani should be older than Kopa.

* I know that the trilogy has never been concerned with scientific accuracy, but still... A male lion teaching a lioness to hunt. How does that work? (Maybe Kovu was trained to hunt because the Outlands were so lacking in prey, but he still wouldn't know how to catch big game. For example, Nuka " caught some field mice for [Zira's] dinner.")
** The concepts used to catch small prey (stealth, speed, accuracy of attack) are the same as for catching larger prey. Most of Kiara's problems with hunting aren't things Kovu can't already do better. He also said he could do better than her so she's daring him to prove it. She's also learning how to hunt alone, which Kovu would naturally be better at explaining than one of the lionesses, who almost always work in a group.

* Why would Kiara and Kovu trying to talk through the issues between the Pridelanders and Outsiders have worked, given the circumstances? One of the things that was common to the story of ''Romeo and Juliet'' is that the two families didn't actually know what they were fighting over or how it got started, which is why the tragedy of losing their respective children could drive them to forgive each other. In this story, though, the Outsiders specifically opposed Simba because they were supporters of the "House of Scar" (Zira and Kovu) and saw it as the rightful ruling family - I could see Vitani choosing to switch sides since she probably didn't experience Scar's reign personally, but not all of them would've given up their ideology just from Kiara giving a generic "We are the same" speech. They ''wanted'' to fight to take back the Pridelands.
** Note that the reconciliation is Kiara's (naive) idea in the first place. Kovu wanted more reasonably to start a new pride somewhere else (much to his "pleasure") to get away from the senseless feuding. Just to be clear, the opposition between the two prides is never clearly explained. It is just implied that followers of Zira don’t acknowledge Simba's right to the crown. So, one can suppose that they were exiled for this lone reason. As soon as any of them accepts him as the rightful king, (s)he can go back to the Pride Lands. Conversely, we suppose that any Pridelander can join the Outsiders if she swears allegiance to Scar's dynasty (purely hypothetical). However, when Kiara convinces her father to stop fighting, she simply says they are not different. Again, the justification of the war is not lampshaded, but there is a vague impression that it is more a kind of FantasticRacism between the prides because the lionesses had a [[EvilMakesYouUgly different design according to their side]]. Eventually, everybody joins up with Simba with no questions, just because they suddenly decided it was “enough”. The ending scene clearly shows that only the Outsiders were wrong and evil, as their design gets "Pridelandized", looking more light-sided. Their pride is more "annexed" than reunified into a third different nation, after all (granted Kovu as the prince consort looks like a concession to the Outsiders, but he was a defector at this point, not their representative). Problem is, the scenarists didn't bother to expose some big collective agreement about Scar's misdemeanor, and we never know if Outsidders were following him in full knowledge of the cause.
** You have to remember that Zira's people realized how crazy their chief was when she said that she would kill her own child. We don't know how strongly they believed in her ideology, but maybe the group was holding more by the herd instinct than anything. Vitani's defection started the pride's disintegration, just like unraveling a ball of wool.

** Put simply, the entire conflict ''is'' negotiable and likely always has been, except for the singular problem that Zira's been trying to make this into [[Theatre/{{Macbeth}} Macbeth]] with lions. Kiara sees the former point, because she knows what it would take for the Outsiders to be accepted into Simba's Pride. Kovu sees the latter, and so knows negotiation is impossible as long as Zira's around, and if he's even considering the option, he'd know that getting rid of Zira would only make it even more impossible.

Why did Kovu change sides so quickly (basically within ONE day)? Has he not been brainwashed and trained his whole life to hate Simba's pride with every shred of his being, and to consider Simba's death as the sole purpose of his life? Was good so deeply-embedded in his soul that it took only one afternoon of fun for him to reject Scar's legacy? After that, the reason of his reluctance to tell the truth is not loyalty to his family, but the fear that he will lose Kiara once she learns about the whole machination. Simba's whole exposition of Scar's real backstory is then totally pointless because he had already defected at this point, he simply lacked the time to confess everything himself.
* Close, but no cigar. First, he wasn't brainwashed "all his life" -- we see him as a free-roaming, regular lion cub interacting with Kiara before Zira comes up with the "assassinate Simba" scheme. That would mean there was some semblance of normalcy underneath the cold, relentless persona that he gradually came to adopt, and as such, his afternoon spent with Kiara as an adult isn't him being introduced to something he's never experienced before, but rather him remembering life from before his training. And secondly, Simba explaining Scar's backstory is important because it gives Kovu a deeper incentive and a better reason to defect from the Outsiders. "I realize that Scar was an evil person and don't want to follow in his footsteps anymore" is guaranteed to sound a lot better to Simba than "I was raised to assassinate you, but now I love your daughter, so just trust me when I say that I changed my mind and don't want to do it anymore."
** The training presumably took years, and represents a large part of Kovu's life after the time skip. Even so, arguing the short period of freedom he had before as a lawless cub in the Outlands is not much different than saying he was just born naturally good. Secondly, if the exposition of Scar's real life is certainly instructive for a lion raised by someone glorifying such a tyrant, once again, it is totally useless at this point, since Kovu had utterly turned light-side after the "Upendi" song, and had no intention to fulfill his mission anymore, as he tried to confess openly. The Outsiders already considered him as a traitor at the ambush scene, as evidenced by Zira faking congratulations just to mislead Simba. But if you follow his evolution closely, you will notice "Upendi" is not even the real turning point. Just before that scene, when they are looking at the stars, he mentions his fear to share the same darkness than Scar, like if it was a bad thing, when you would expect him at this point to mistakenly defend the memory of his "father", or even to call himself on his evilness. It just looks like he had suddenly transformed into a nice guy because of the friendship/love of Kiara, and disavows his father’s legacy.
*** First off, Scar isn't his father. Both Kovu and Nuka say this during the film. Apart from that, it's suggested above that the Outisders are largely holding together out of loyalty to each other than to any actual worship of Scar -- they ''all'' switch sides at the end just because Zira condemned Vitani for her defection. If we assume Kovu was the same way, he probably secretly disagreed with the ruthless ideals Zira tried to teach him, but pretended to go along with them because he didn't want to disobey her. And even if we go by what you said -- that Kovu wanted to shed Scar's legacy from the get-go -- then the talk Simba has with him is still important to that goal. Simba doesn't just talk about how evil his uncle was; he also explains that after a dark time, new life has the potential to rise up and become something better than what came before it. He's saying that just because Kovu was an Outsider, and was chosen as Scar's successor, what he grows up to become is of his own choosing.

I was just rewatching the movie recently and then something occurred to me: We know that Nuka is the counterpart to [[Theatre/RomeoandJuliet Tybalt]] (He is very impulsive and isn't very fond of Kovu/Romeo that much), but it wouldn't be also possible that he could have some of Mercutio's traits as well, like the fact that he also has some mental issues and is from the rival house (Granted, Mercutio wasn't a Montague, but still)? Anyway, that's just a theory.

Not counting elements introduced in ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard'', it was established that Scar wanted to be king because he felt he was owed the title after spending years languishing in Mufasa's shadow. And when he became king, it was shown that he was a terrible ruler because he didn't care for the responsibilities being king demanded, only caring about the perks and privileges his title provided. So, that raises the question: how did Scar manage to get so many lionesses to be loyal to him, even years after his death? Zira still being loyal to him makes sense, her being his mate and all, meaning she still clearly loves and mourns him, but what about the other lionesses Simba had to banish? Do they not remember how bad things were when Scar was king?
* It's important to remember that, while Zira was obviously the most fanatically loyal to Scar, it's not like she or anyone else had the idea of restoring him to the throne or anything...since he was already dead. My headcanon is that most of the Outsiders had become disillusioned with Simba's rule at some point, and so Zira managed to convince them that Kovu, once grown, would make for a better, more suitable king than Simba, and so that (along with "pride" mentality) is what they were all rallying behind the entire time.

Okay, so... There's no male cubs shown in the Pride Lands pride during the second movie. Ever. Not even in the background. So... who would ensure more cubs if Simba died?

** As I heard, it's since been revealed that everything this movie tells us about Kovu's history is a lie. He's not related to Scar, he's not Scar's "chosen successor", and it turns out he's not even related to Zira. He's apparently just a random orphaned cub she took in, and was probably chosen as Scar's ''unofficial'' successor because he was the youngest of the Outlanders, and thus a fresh start when it comes to creating an effective assassin, as opposed to Nuka, who's already fully grown by the time Kovu and Kiara are developed cubs.

** Termites have a bite like you wouldn't believe too.

* I always imagined matured male lions who weren't in line for the kingship would go off to find prides in this very situation. Or, if they were too old for the queen-to-be, they'd mate with one of the other lionesses and the first son to be produced would marry the queen.

** As far as Simba and Nala "[[UnusualEuphemism feeling the love that night]]" goes, it [[WesternAnimation/LadyAndTheTramp wouldn't be the first time]] [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar Disney implied something like that]].

[[WMG:Where did the Hyenas go?]]
It's vaguely mentioned that they ran away after Scars fall from power, but where did they go? Presumably such a massive population cant just dissapear into the wilderness.

* During the battle from pride rock, a large group is seen fleeing so those are the Hyenas that ran off. Bunzai, Sheenzi, and Ed however perished in the fire with the ones that remained after killing Scar. Come on, you don't honestly think Disney would allow them too live after [[spoiler:being instrumental in Mufasa's death and oh I don't know....EATING HIS CORPSE AFTERWARDS?]]

*** Mix-ups aside (since, well, they did eat SCAR), they probably DID consume Mufasa's remains after Banzai recovered from his tumble into the bramble patch. That's a perfectly good dead lion laying RIGHT THERE. The hyenas, gluttons such as they are, aren't gonna let that go to waste. That's an awesome snack after a job well done, and Scar most likely deemed it a suitable reward (both to let the hyenas feast, and to ''watch'' them eat his dead brother. He seems like the sort of sick son of a bitch).

** It's unlikely the hyenas were killed in the fire given that it started raining only moments afterward and the fires were extinguished very quickly. Sure they might have gotten singed a bit, but there's no evidence that they all died. And yes, Disney commonly does allow the lesser villains to live.

[[WMG: Did Vitani really expect Kovu to attack Simba right on the Pride Rock, in front of the cave where all the dozens of his pride's lionesses were?]]

** Even if he could have killed Simba instantly, which is unlikely no matter how skilled he is, Kovu would have almost no prayer of getting away alive. As Zira's plan, as far as I understood it, involved Kovu becoming king after a successful assassination, doing something suicidal would put Zira's followers in a very precarious position. Nuka, the only adult male in the group, besides Kovu, that we know of is not exactly a model lion. He'd be an easy kill for a rogue. Should Zira and her followers drive off the rogue or kill him, they would then be without a king, more or less dooming the pride. In short, Vitani was not thinking very clearly at all.

* Simple, Simba's paranoid. Think about it, he's alone in the wilds with a younger and probably fitter lion who he knows has been trained practically from birth to assassinate him and take his place then suddenly, from out of nowhere, they're surrounded by this lion's pride who are out for his blood because he banished them for supporting his tyrant of an uncle. It wouldn't be that difficult for Simba to jump to the conclusion that Kovu could have sent word to a pride member of his progress within the pride and had arranged for the rest of the pride to be on standby should he ever corner Simba alone. I mean, Kovu is shown to sleep outside alone while the rest of the pride are sleeping soundly inside the cave, it wouldn't have been that difficult for him to sneak off in the middle of the night, meet Vitani or another lioness, update them of his progress and tell them to have the pride waiting then sneak back to Priderock before the sun rose and everyone woke up again.

Here's a random one: At the end of "We Are One" in Simba's Pride, Kiara has a really intense stare at... something. Simba notices, follows her gaze, and has an expression that's all, "Oh. Heh." But no matter how many times I've looked for anything up there at the edge of Pride Rock, I see absolutely nothing. What caught her attention, and if it's nothing, why in the WORLD did they animate it that way?
* This is just guesswork, but they were looking up at Pride Rock itself. The whole song is about how Kiara and Simba are one because of their relation, thus their royalty, but Kiara is rebellious against ruling the pride Lands when Simba dies because in her words prior to the song, she doesn't even want to be Queen because it's not fun. Simba was looking up at Pride Rock, and she looked upset because it was all set in stone according to him. I honestly think that 'Oh. Heh.' expression was because he understood what she looked upset about and tried to reassure her that it was who she was positively (which she doesn't really want since she told Timon and Pumbaa, quite annoyed, that a princess was only half of who she was and can't think of an answer when asked what's the other half). Again, just guessing but I saw the movie recently for a bit of nostalgia and wondered that myself.
* The above has it more or less right. Remember, Kiara at this point is characterized somewhat by a fear of bowing to destiny and losing her own individuality in the process. While Simba is trying to reassure her, she sees his face in profile with Pride Rock looming large behind him. Remember that Pride Rock is much more than just the lions' home. It's a symbol, like a palace or a throne, or even the White House. Kind of an oppressive reminder of what fate had in store for her down the road. Simba sees her looking rather distressed at something, turns, sees Pride Rock and, with surprising insight, gleans what she saw and tries to reassure her again, even if he probably chose the exact wrong thing to say.

* I know that the trilogy has never been concerned with being accurate, but still... A male lion teaching a lioness to hunt. How does that work? (Maybe Kovu was trained to hunt because the Outlands were so prey-scarce, but he still wouldn't know how to catch big prey. "Mother, I caught some fieldmice for your dinner.")

* Why would Kiara and Kovu trying to talk through the issues between the Pridelanders and Outlanders have worked, given the circumstances? One of the things that was common to the story of ''Romeo and Juliet'' is that the two families didn't actually know what they were fighting over or how it got started, which is why the tragedy of losing their respective children could drive them to forgive each other. In this story, though, the Outlanders specifically opposed Simba because they were supporters of the "House of Scar" (Zira and Kovu) and saw it as the rightful ruling family - I could see Vitani choosing to switch sides since she probably didn't experience Scar's reign personally, but not all of them would've given up their ideology just from Kiara giving a generic "We are the same" speech. They ''wanted'' to fight to take back the Pridelands.
** Note that the reconciliation is Kiara's (naive) idea in a first time. Kovu wanted more reasonably to start a new Pride all over (much to his "pleasure") to get rid of all of these old clannish messes. Just to be clear, the opposition between the two prides is never clearly explained. It is just implied that followers of Zira don’t acknowledge the rights of Simba on the crown. So, one can suppose that they were exiled for this lone reason. As soon as anyone of them accepts him as the rightful king, (s)he can go back to the Pride Lands. Conversely, we suppose that any Pridelander can join the Outland if she swears allegiance to Scar's dynasty (purely hypothetic). However, when Kiara convinces her father to stop fighting, she simply says they are not different. Again, the justification of the war is not lampshaded, but there is a vague impression that it is more a kind of FantasticRacism between the Prides because the lionesses had a [[EvilMakesYouUgly different design according to their side]]. Eventually, everybody joins up to Simba without more questions, just because they suddenly decided it was “enough”. The ending scene clearly shows that only the Outlanders were wrong and evil, as their design gets "Pridelandized", looking more light-sided. Their Pride is more "annexed" than reunified into a third different nation, after all (granted Kovu as the Prince consort looks like a concession to the Outlanders, but he was a defector at this point, not their representative). Problem is the scenarists didn't bother to expose some big collective agreement about Scar's misdemeanor, and we never know if Outlanders were following him in full knowledge of the cause.
** You have to remember that Zira's people realized how crazy their chief was when she ordered them to kill her own child. We don't know how strongly they believed in some "scarish" ideology, but maybe the group was holding more by the herd instinct than anything. Vitani's defection started the Pride's disintegration, just like unfolding a ball of wool.
** Also consider that it wasn't too long ago that the Outlanders and the Pridelanders were both part of the same pride. In ''Romeo and Juliet'' the feud had been going on between two separate families for some time, whereas here it was between two halves of a single family for hardly a single generation. They'd probably be more inclined to reassimilate with that in mind.

Why did Kovu change of side so fast (basically within ONE day)? Has he not been brainwashed and trained his whole life to hate Pridelanders with all his strength, and to consider Simba's death as the sole purpose of his life? Was good so embedded in his soul that it took only one afternoon of fun to reject Scar's legacy? After that, the reason of his reluctance at telling the truth is not loyalty to Outlanders, but the fear to lose Kiara once she learns about the whole machination. The whole exposition of Scar's real backstory by Simba is then totally pointless because he had already defected at this point, he simply lacked of time to confess everything himself.
* Close, mon amie, but no cigar. First, he wasn't brainwashed "all his life" -- we see him as a free-roaming, regular lion cub interacting with Kiara before Zira comes up with the "assassinate Simba" scheme. That would mean there was some semblance of normalcy underneath the cold, relentless persona that he gradually came to adopt, and as such, his afternoon spent with Kiara as an adult isn't him being introduced to something he's never experienced before, but rather him remembering life from before his training. And second, Simba expositing Scar's backstory is important because it gives Kovu a deeper incentive and a better reason to defect from the Outlanders. "I realize that Scar was an evil person and don't want to follow in his footsteps anymore" is guaranteed to sound a lot better to Simba than "I was raised to assassinate you, but now I love your daughter, so just trust me when I say that I changed my mind and don't want to do it anymore."
** The training presumably took years, and represents the major part of Kovu's life after the time skip. Even so, arguing the short period of freedom he had before as a lawless cub in the wild Outland is not much different that saying he is just born naturally good. Secondly, if the exposition of Scar's real life by Simba is certainly instructive for a lion raised in a mythology glorifying such a tyrant, once again, it is totally useless at this point, since Kovu had utterly turned light-side after the Upendi song, and had no more intention to fulfill his mission, as he tried to confess openly. The Outlander already considered him as a traitor at the ambush scene; Zira faking congratulations just to mislead Simba. But if you follow closely his evolution, you will notice Upendi is not even the real turning point. Just before that scene, when they are looking at the stars, he mentions his fear to share the same darkness than Scar, like if it was a bad thing, when you would expect him at this point to defend mistakenly the memory of his father, or even to call himself on his evilness. It just looks like he had suddenly transformed into a nice guy because of the friendship/love of Kiara, and disavows his father’s legacy.
*** First off, Scar isn't his father. I'm pretty sure Kovu says this during the film. Apart from that, it's suggested above that the Outlanders are largely holding together out of loyalty to each other than to any actual worship of Scar -- they ''all'' switch sides at the end just because Zira condemned Vitani for her defection. If we assume Kovu was the same way, he probably secretly disagreed with the ruthless ideals Zira tried to teach him but pretended to go along with them because he didn't want to disobey her. And even if we go by what you said -- that Kovu wanted to shed Scar's legacy from the get-go -- then the talk Simba has with him is still important to that goal. Simba doesn't just talk about how evil his uncle was; he also explains that after a dark time, new life has the potential to rise up and become something better than what came before it. He's saying that just because Kovu was an Outlander, and was chosen as Scar's successor, what he grows up to become is of his own chosing.

I was just rewatching the movie recently and then something bit me: We know that Nuka is closest in counterpart to [[Theatre/RomeoandJuliet Tybalt]] (He is very impulsive and isn't very fond of Kovu/Romeo that much), but it wouldn't be also possible that he could have some of Mercutio's traits as well, like the fact that he also has some mental issues and is from the rival house (Granted, Mercutio wasn't a Montague, but still)? Anyway, that's just a theory.

* Important to remember is that while Zira was obviously the most fanatically loyal to Scar, it's not like she or anyone else had the idea of restoring him to the throne or anything...since he was dead already, obviously. My headcanon is that most of the Outlanders had become disillusioned with Simba's rule at some point, and so Zira managed to convince them that Kovu, once grown, would make for a better, more suitable king than Simba, and so that (along with "pride" mentality) is what they were all rallying behind the entire time.