Ever look at successful empires throughout history and wonder how they were able to prosper for so long? In Professor Zissos’ lecture on October 17, he discussed 3 aspects of successful empires. First is “respect their adversaries”. Next is “integrate subject peoples” and last “rely more on consent than compulsion” (Zissos). According to Zissos, these aspects are what allowed famous civilizations such as the Roman Empire to flourish and thrive. By looking at Disney’s film The Lion King, specifically when Scar takes over Pride Rock as the new King, we can compare these aspects to his reign and see why his empire was not successful.
Starting with the first aspect,“respect their adversaries”, Zissos argued that in order for an empire to prosper, they must respect their enemies so that they will be more willing to join the empire. In the film, Scar, despite being the brother to King Mufasa, is overwhelmingly power-hungry, and is willing to murder his brother in order to get the crown. “When Simba is born, Scar loses his position in line to inherit the throne from Mufasa; so owing to a pact he had made in his youth with the three Hyenas, he develops a plot to kill his brother and nephew and seize the kingship by force” (Character Profiles). His disrespect to the King resulted in the kingdom not conforming to his taking over the throne. With this, his reign was not successful and he had several rebellions from the lionesses and other animals of the kingdom.
Scar also failed to “integrate subject peoples” in a fair and just way so that his empire can be successful. When Mufasa was king, there were other species of animals participating in the empire, keeping the balance of nature in peace. However, when Scar takes over, there is a depletion of food sources that takes a toll on the lions and hyenas. What also contributed was that some of the lionesses, who would do the hunting, refused to because they did not support Scar taking over the throne. Since he did not properly integrate his subject peoples, Scar’s empire was basically starving to death and coming up on a mass rebellion.
Lastly, Scar failed to take over Pride Rock by “relying more on consent than compulsion”. When Mufasa was killed and Simba presumed dead, Scar forced his way as King despite the animals’ protests to look for Simba. This also ties with the the aspect of “respect their adversaries” because without being on good terms with the subjects you want to control, there’s always a possibility of rebellion, as seen in the film.
I think that Professor Zissos’ argument on the three aspects that make a successful Empire are credible. It helped tremendously to test out the aspects in a situation, like The Lion King, where not using these aspects resulted in an unsuccessful empire. By looking at the dynamics of Empire and what is necessary to create a thriving one, our societies today can be improved and more successful.
Works Cited
Zissos, Andrew. “Empire and its Ruins.” Humanites Core, Irvine CA. [17 October 2017].
“Character Profiles.” The Lion King WWW Archive: Character Profiles, http://www.lionking.org/characters/.
My Empire Ruined 