History YMMV / TheLionKingIISimbasPride

* {{Adorkable}}:
** Kovu certainly has his moments, such as when he's with Kiara or learning new concepts like "some things are just fun." A major one is right after his AccidentalKiss with Kiara, where he is left in utter befuddlement and slight confusion, whereas Kiara, while still embarrassed, realizes what happened.

** The very concept of the Outlander Lions is a hard pill to swallow. [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 The original film]] depicted Scar’s rule as having a ZeroPercentApprovalRating with every non-hyena (and even the hyenas were critical of him) residing at Pride Rock detesting Scar’s rule, but having to accept it on account of nobody being strong enough to defy him. Yet this film reveals Scar had a mate and three adoptive children, none of whom had [[RememberTheNewGuy their existence even hinted at prior to this film]]. Furthermore, no explanation is given as to why Zira, her cubs and the other loyalists weren’t present for the final battle of Pride Rock, or why Scar was willing to condemn the entire lion population to starvation if there were people [[ItsAllAboutMe besides himself he cared about]].

* InformedWrongness: Simba gets this a lot in this movie.
** The film clearly portrays him as a jerk for not trusting Kovu right off the bat despite rescuing Kiara. Yet, Kovu is explicitly there to falsely game the Pridelanders' trust only so that he can kill Simba and put his sadistic mother back in power. That, and knowing Kovu to be an Outsider, he has every right to be suspicious of anyone with a relationship to Zira, who explicitly follows Simba's evil uncle and wanted to kill Simba.
** Simba's prejudice against the Outsiders is treated as wrong and borderline racist by the movie; except for the fact that he has every reason to hate them. They are more or less a borderline evil cult/group who were followers of Scar, who was a sociopathic tyrant who murdered his own brother and attempted to kill his nephew multiple times, then oppressed the Pridelands. Zira, the Outsiders' leader, is a sadistic fanatic and an abusive parent who very clearly wants Simba and his family dead as well, so the Outsiders have no moral argument whatsoever. The racist undertones don't really land either since the Outsiders are not even a species or large group of animals as a whole, but simply a small pride of lions who are more or less evil.
** Simba is portrayed as overprotective of his daughter and yet he hardly goes overboard with his protectiveness. He is fine with her exploring more or less by herself, and even sending someone to watch over her makes sense since Kiara immediately disobeys Simba's order to not go into the Outlands and wanders into danger almost immediately upon doing so; in this case, nearly getting killed by crocodiles. Plus Zira, a crazed fanatic who wants Simba's family dead, lives near the Pridelands and is able to sneak in with ease and in fact does so repeatedly in the film; a good example of this is during the scene where she first confronts Simba and retrieves Kovu. Zira very easily and likely would have killed Kiara in Zira's debut scene had Simba and the others not shown up.

** The very concept of the Outlander Lions is a hard pill to swallow. [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 The original film]] depicted Scar’s rule as having a ZeroPercentApprovalRating with every non-Hyena (and even the Hyenas were critical of him) residing at Pride Rock detesting Scar’s rule, but having to accept it on account of nobody being strong enough to defy him. Yet this film reveals Scar had a mate and three adoptive children, none of whom had [[RememberTheNewGuy their existence even hinted at prior to this film]]. Furthermore, no explanation is given as to why Zira, her cubs and the other loyalists weren’t present for the final battle of Pride Rock, or why Scar was willing to condemn the entire Lion population to starvation if there were people [[ItsAllAboutMe besides himself he cared about]].

* AwardSnub: Many people felt Suzanne Pleshette should have won an Annie Award for her portrayal as Zira. (For what it's worth, she ''was'' nominated.)

** Simba. A sizable number of fans thought that his transformation into an [[ParentsAsPeople overprotective dad]] and awful treatment of Kovu was at least partly justified, considering the trauma that he suffered in the first film and even the circumstances that brought Kovu to them/to the Pride in the first place. Others felt that Simba was being incredibly smothering toward Kiara and saw his treatment of Kovu as excessive {{Jerkass}}ery. His actions at the trial definitely made even his most sympathetic defenders see him as a colossal jerk.
** Timon and Pumbaa. Many think their presence is rather unnecessary in most parts of the plot, and their jokes, especially those that inexplicably refer to human concepts, feel unfunny and quite forced. There's even a FanEdit that ''completely removes them'' from the climatic battle. That being said, others find them as hilarious as always and think their jokes help to make the most emotionally dramatic moments of the film easier to swallow.

* FanNickname: There is one Outsider lioness that fans have latched onto nicknamed Dotty, due to the smalls spots surrounding her eye.

** Scar is not Kovu's father. But is he really the father of Nuka or Vitani?[[note]]Nuka's lament "Scar wasn't even his father" over Kovu being the chosen heir implies Scar was at least Nuka's[[/note]] If not, where is their father? Do the siblings even share a father or not?
** The Outsiders' relationships to the Rock Pride, and why they weren't in the original film.

* GeniusBonus: While not stated outright, as it's intended to be for all ages, people who recognize the symptoms will realize that Simba likely has post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of what he went through in the first film. He clearly has trouble sleeping, can quickly go from kind and nice to aggressive and harsh in one second (though the latter behaviour is mostly for Kovu and the rest of the Outsiders.), and is endlessly fixated on what his father would have done, all clear symptoms of PTSD. However, he gets better in the end--being apparent he's truly learning how to heal from his past (or at least, he's already been making progress since the first film and made a big improvement by the end of the second film), and even before that, he was never someone you would consider as being abusive or unfit to rule and/or be a parent--very clearly being a good if not overprotective father and a good king that turned the Pridelands around from the wasteland it became during Scar's rule.

** Jim Cummings fills in for Scar again during Simba’s nightmare sequence, and once again kills it despite having even less lines as him this time. Cummings lets out some truly bone-chilling evil cackling as he sounds every bit the monstrous figure from Simba’s nightmare and lifelong trauma Scar is played up to be. His single line, "trust me", packs an incredible amount of malice into it, reminding Simba of how his trust in his uncle led to his life being destroyed. All this goes along with Cummings doing a flawless imitation of Jeremy Irons.

** The film clearly portrays him as a jerk for not trusting Kovu right off the bat despite recusing Kiara. Yet he Kovu is explicitly there to falsely game Pridelander's trust only so that he can kill Simba and but it sadistic mother back in power. That and knowing Kovu to be an outsider, he has every right to be suspicious of anyone with a relationship to Zira, who explicitly follows Simba's evil uncle and wanted to kill Simba.
** Simba's prejudice against the Outsiders is treated as wrong and borderline racist by the movie; except for the fact that he has every reason to hate them. They are more or less a borderline evil cult/ group who were followed of Scar, who was a sociopathic tyrant who murdered his own brother and attempted to kill his nephew multiple times, then oppressed the Pridelands. Zira, the Outsiders' leader, is a sadistic fanatic and an abusive parent who very clearly wants Simba and his family dead as well, so the Outsiders have no moral argument whatsoever. The racist undertones don't really land either since the Outsiders are not even a species or large group of animals as a whole, but simply a small pride of lions who are more or less evil.
** Simba is portrayed as overprotective of his daughter and yet he hardly goes overboard with his protectiveness. He is fine with her exploring more or less by herself, and even sending someone to watch over her makes sense since Kiara immediately disobeys Simba's order to not go into the Outlands, and wanders into danger almost immediately upon doing so; in this case, nearly getting killed by crocodiles. Plus Zira, a crazed fanatic who wants Simba's family dead, lives near the Pridelands and is able to sneak in with ease; and in fact does so repeatedly in the film; a good example of this is during the scene where she first confronts Simba and retrieves Kovu. Zira very easily and likely would have killed Kiara who in Zira's debut scene had Simba and the others not shown up.
* MoralEventHorizon: Zira probably crosses this when she threatens to kill her own daughter for refusing to take part in the attack on the pridelanders. This is even an in-universe example, as all of her followers [[HeelFaceTurn defect]] after this.

** Kovu somehow managing to sleep through the entirety of "My Lullaby", with his entire pride chanting of his eventual rise as Simba's killer and the new king of the Pridelands, complete with the lionesses leaping about and roaring around him as he rests.

** Simba telling Kiara to stay on the path he "marked". He likely means a path where he left scratch marks, but anyone with their head in the gutter is going to think he means, a path that he urinated on (as some real animals do when marking their territory).
** [[spoiler: Zira's death]] in the finished film, due to how awkwardly edited it is from the original, deleted [[spoiler: suicide]] version. [[spoiler: Zira's voice screaming in terror]] is unconvincingly dubbed over the unchanged footage of her [[spoiler: grinning triumphantly as she falls from the cliff.]]

* ShipsThatPassInTheNight: Kiara/Vitani is a popular LesYay pairing. However they don’t interact at all, and don’t even meet until Vitani pulls her HeelFaceTurn towards the end. The line “where’s your pretty daughter Nala?” Most likely inspired this pairing.

*** And arguably, his past experiences in the first only made such distrust more reasonable. Case in point, Simba was betrayed in the worst ways by an ''uncle'' whom he very clearly admired and trusted. If he couldn't even trust his own ''family'' then how can he easily trust a supposed defector from a faction that openly despises him--whose leader is ''very'' explicit in her desire for revenge on him?

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: While many people believe the film is not as dark as the original, due to lacking the emotional scenes and genuine nightmares of the original, it is actually quite a fair bit dark; Though not quite, the original is still darker in execution if not plot, displaying a more avid level maturity in its themes, but if nothing else, it's still fairly darker than other Disney movies. GreyAndGrayMorality is portrayed very clearly, the protagonist of the prior film really comes close to becoming an antagonist--or at least is more morally ambiguous than outright heroic, and is very heavily implied to suffer from PTSD, which made him ''very'' overprotective, Zira's VillainSong is an explicit song about turning her son into a killer and conquering an entire kingdom out of petty revenge (though it is on its own quite reminiscent of the ''Be Prepared'', which is about someone planning to assassinate his brother and nephew for the throne), the relationship between Zira and Nuka is obviously an [[AbusiveParents abusive]] one, which, while [[BlackComedy used for comedy]], is depicted as having horrific consequences, and Kiara and Kovu's romance is blocked due to explicit prejudice and discrimination, along with [[spoiler: Nuka and Zira]] dying in fairly horrific ways, the former doing so onscreen (Mufasa and Scar anyone? The former was trampled onscreen and we get to see his corpse for a couple minutes, while the latter was eaten alive by his former lackeys). Overall, while not darker than the first, it ''does'' display similarly mature and darker themes, especially in comparison to other Disney films.
* TheWoobie: Kovu is forced to participate in an assassination plot he wants no part of, he only wants to be with Kiara, wants to show he is not Scar and is mistrusted by Simba because of his status as an Outsider and as Scar's supposed heir, is betrayed by his mother when she sets him as a fall guy, and [[spoiler: loses his brother in said ambush]]. He later gets scarred by his mom, and is banished by Simba for unknowingly participating in his ambush. All Kovu wanted was a friend.

-->'''Kiara:''' Will someone just listen to me?\\

-->'''Mulan:''' (to Mushu) No one will listen.\\

** [[Anime/SpiritedAway This isn't the last time Jason Mardsen would voice a subordinate of a villain voiced by Suzanne Pleshette, only to pull a HeelFaceTurn part way through.]]

-->'''Kovu:''' Kiara, I need to talk to you...\\

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Kiara calls for Simba to let in the Outsiders at the end of the movie. While they do leave Zira after she tries to kill her own daughter, Kiara almost acts like they never did anything wrong and Simba is wrong to hold prejudice against them and instead calls for an end to the bloodshed. Ending the war peacefully certainly makes sense, but the Outsiders were borderline evil for most of the movie. Their entire purpose was to avenge a sociopathic tyrant and they followed a crazed, abusive, sadistic lioness to do so, even attempting to kill Simba personally so that they could install what is intended to be basically a new dictator as king. Moving past the bloodshed and burying the hatchet certainly has merit, but the attempt can come across as pretty naive given Outsiders prior actions; especially after they tried to kill her own father only hours beforehand.

* UnintentionallyUnsympthetic: Kiara calls for Simba to let in the Outsiders at the end of the movie. While they do leave Zira after she tries to kill her own daughter, Kiara almost acts like they never did anything wrong and Simba is wrong to hold prejudice against them and instead calls for an end to the bloodshed. Ending the war peacefully certainly makes sense, but the Outsiders were borderline evil for most of the movie. Their entire purpose was to avenge a sociopathic tyrant and they followed a crazed, abusive, sadistic lioness to do so, even attempting to kill Simba personally so that they could install what is intended to be basically a new dictator as king. Moving past the bloodshed and burying the hatchet certainly has merit, but the attempt can come across as pretty naive given Outsiders prior actions; especially after they tried to kill her own father only hours beforehand.

** Simba is portrayed as overprotective of his daughter and yet hardly goes overboard with his protectiveness. He is fine with her exploring more or less by herself, and even sending someone to watch over her makes sense since Kiara immediately wanders into danger once going into the outlands. Plus Zira, a crazed fanatic who wants Simba's family dead, lives near the Pridelands and is able to sneak in with ease; and in fact does so repeatedly in the film; a good example of this is during the scene where she first confronts Simba and retrieves Kovu. Zira very easily and likely would have killed Kiara who in Zira's debut scene had Simba and the others not shown up.

* InfomredWrongness: Simba gets this a lot in this movie.

** The very concept of the Outlander Lions is a hard pill to swallow. [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 The original film]] depicted Scar’s rule as having a ZeroPercentApprovalRating with every non-Hyena (and even the Hyenas were critical of him) residing at Pride Rock detesting Scar’s rule, but having to accept it on account of nobody being strong enough to defy him. Yet this film reveals Scar had a mate and three adoptive children, none of whom had [[RememberTheNewGuy their existence even hinted at prior to this film]]. Furthermore, no explanation is given as to why Zira and the other loyalist weren’t present for the final battle of Pride Rock, or why Scar was willing to condemn the entire Lion population to starvation if there were people [[ItsAllAboutMe besides himself he cared about]].

** The very concept of the Outlander Lions is a hard pill to swallow. [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 The original film]] depicted Scar’s rule as having a ZeroPercentApprovalRating with every non-Hyena (and even the Hyenas were critical of him) residing at Pride Rock detesting Scar’s rule, but having to accept it on account of nobody being strong enough to defy him. Yet this film reveals Scar had a mate and three adoptive children, neither of which had [[RememberTheNewGuy their existence even hinted at prior to this film]]. Furthermore, no explanation is given as to why Zira and her cubs weren’t present for the final battle of Pride Rock, or why Scar was willing to condemn the entire Lion population to starvation if there were people [[ItsAllAboutMe besides himself he cared about]].

** The very concept of the Outlander Lions is a hard pill to swallow. [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing The original film]] depicted Scar’s rule as having a ZeroPercentApprovalRating with every non-Hyena (and even the Hyenas were critical of him) residing at Pride Rock detesting Scar’s rule, but having to accept it on account of nobody being strong enough to defy him. Yet this film reveals Scar had a mate and three adoptive children, neither of which had [[RememberTheNewGuy their existence even hinted at prior to this film]]. Furthermore, no explanation is given as to why Zira and her cubs weren’t present for the final battle of Pride Rock, or why Scar was willing to condemn the entire Lion population to starvation if there were people [[ItsAllAboutMe besides himself he cared about]].

*** And arguably, his past experiences in the first only made such distrust more reasonable. Case in point, Simba was betrayed in the worst ways by an ''uncle'' that he very clearly admired and trusted. If he couldn't even trust his own ''family'' then how can he easily trust a supposed defector from a faction that openly despises him--whose leader is ''very'' explicit in her desire for revenge on him?

** Simba is portrayed as prejudiced for failing to bury the hatchet with the Outsiders for most of the film, but they don't show any interest in dropping their hatred of him either for most of it (with the exception of Kovu), so it's not really unreasonable for him not to want a group who hate him around him and his family. Not to mention that such a hatred came from unreasonable terms on the Outsiders' end, that is; they hate him because he overthrew his murderous uncle that 1. Killed his father, 2. Tried to kill him too and blamed him for his father's death, and 3. Being a pretty awful king that turned the Pridelands into a wasteland.