Just watched this scene and I feel like, despite the bandwidth limit in the company's usage of internet, I'm gonna replay this scene over and over again. This is probably one of the saddest things that I ever saw on screen. One of the first moments that I actually learned about loss and pain. As a young kid who saw this, I already knew then it hurts. But guess what, years later, a 21 year old me watches this again and this hurts even more.
When I was a kid, when all of us were still the young versions of ourselves, we saw this first and felt bad for Simba. We saw Mufasa's death and how Scar was liable for it. We saw how Mufasa tried to save Simba and if not for Scar, he could have made it alive. Some of us might have been confused back then, we were kids, we're not to blame. We are still too young and innocent to understand betrayal and loss.
But for some of us, some who have been through the early shit in life, we did not only feel bad for Simba, we actually felt empathy. We felt his loss, the feeling of abandonement, of losing the person who cared for you the most, and the worst? Losing that person because we need to be saved. Maybe, as young kids, our understanding did not reach such complexity, however, we knew. We understood. And along with every single person who saw Lion King, we shed tears. Mostly because of Mufasa's death and Simba being left alone. But also because we knew how it is to be alone.
This is the top comment in this YouTube video:
Top comment, yes. Because as much as we don't want to admit it, we can relate to Simba now that we're adults, more than we were kids. Simba's cry for help. We've experienced that already so many times in our lives as a teenager and young adult. How many times have we wanted to shout, at the deepest of our hearts... "Help! Somebody... Anybody... Help..."
The Lion King, especially Mufasa's death and Simba's cry for help isn't a child's game. As kids, it was a preparation for us, a glimpse of the many loss and loneliness waiting in the future. And as kids, we cried and felt sad. Apparently, as adults, we handled it much worse, we bawled and felt our chest tighten up, our mental television plays the stored memories relating to loss and loneliness.
The Lion King, especially Mufasa's death and Simba's cry for help isn't a child's game. As kids, it was a preparation for us, a glimpse of the many loss and loneliness waiting in the future. And as kids, we cried and felt sad. Apparently, as adults, we handled it much worse, we bawled and felt our chest tighten up, our mental television plays the stored memories relating to loss and loneliness.
How many times have we seen The Lion King? How many times did we see Mufasa's death and Simba's cry for help? We always knew what's gonna happen. We've prepared our minds about it. We try not to cry and we fail, most of the time. By the time Simba says "...anybody" it just gets to us, isn't it?
And I'm pretty sure that if we all could, we would give Simba a warm hug. But for now, we should settle for the people around us. Because everyone of them is Simba, who experience loss and loneliness. Who knew how it felt to be alone in the world. Yes, even the ones who appear to be an epitome of Scar has a young Simba inside them.
The point here is this, that no matter how unique we think we are, how different we are from the rest of humanity, there are still things that bind us together and make us one. Simba's never alone. He must keep that in mind. And as much as he might find this hard to believe, there are millions of people that wept along with him, shared his loss and loneliness.
"Help! Somebody... Anybody... Help..."
