Why Zazu is an Absolute Hero

“Don’t be too hard on him, sire. I remember a cub, a certain headstrong cub who was always getting into scrapes, and he achieved some prominence, did he not, sire?”

The Lion King (2019)

Zazu is an absolute hero. I accept no dissent.

 

A superb picture of a red-billed hornbill (like Zazu is); credit to Mehmet Karatay under the conditions specified here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red-billed_hornbill.jpg. 

I’m talking specifically about the character of Zazu as portrayed in the recent CGI remake of The Lion King, rather than the 1994 2D-animated original (or the stage musical, or whatever else), just because it happens that I went to see the former at the cinema last week and was too forcibly struck by the above conclusion not to subsequently blog about it.¹ Allow me, if you will, to take you through the particulars; needless to say, spoilers are ahead, though I can confirm that the plot of the remake adheres so closely to that of its model that you probably needn’t worry if you haven’t seen the new one yet.

If you have seen it, though, please tell me you noticed the number of times Zazu willingly risked his life for the sake of protecting the other characters. When Simba and Nala deliberately extricated themselves from his supervision in order to explore the forbidden elephant graveyard, he tracked them down and came to their rescue from Shenzi and her crew; he alerted Mufasa to their whereabouts, of course, but not before confronting the hyenas as best he could himself. Zazu is, of course, a little hornbill – specifically a red-billed hornbill, which apparently grow to be about thirty-five centimetres long and weigh less than two hundred grams² – and yet he stood between two lion cubs and a pack of hungry hyenas. What Simba did was incredibly reckless, in deliberate disobedience of his father and flouting Zazu’s own authority, and Zazu’s choice to intervene could easily have cost him his own life, but afterwards, he counselled clemency towards the young cub: he asked Mufasa not to be too hard on him, despite everything his foolishness might have cost. Mufasa wasn’t too hard on Simba, of course – it was about two seconds of ‘I’m-very-disappointed-in-you’ and they were straight back to being best pals having a laugh, which if you ask me wasn’t really hard enough given the severity of the situation – but still, it’s amazing that Zazu’s concern was still completely for Simba, and not at all for recompense for the insult and injury done to himself. All this, mind you, after Simba and Mufasa together had humiliated Zazu only that morning: they paid no attention to his relation of the Morning Report,³ and instead, Mufasa encouraged Simba to use Zazu for hunting practice. In fact, Mufasa more than once stops listening to Zazu while he’s in the middle of saying something. You’d think that sort of treatment might shake a hornbill’s loyalty a little bit, but not Zazu’s.

Zazu promised to protect Simba and Nala, and he doesn’t ever see that commitment as having expired, even after Mufasa dies and he loses his protection as a member of the royal court. He continues to risk being eaten by hyenas, day after day, in order to bring each new Morning Report of the worsening conditions in the pride lands to Sarabi and the rest of the lions. In this respect he reminds me of some kind of fearless journalist. Mind you, Nala doesn’t seem to appreciate the risks he’s taking, since she chides him for not having got there sooner. Nor does she much appreciate it when she sneaks out to seek help elsewhere and Zazu follows, reiterating his promise to protect her. She retorts rather haughtily that she doesn’t need his protection, but she’s wrong: if Zazu hadn’t been there to distract Scar at just the right moment, Nala would doubtless have been discovered, and borne whatever punishment Scar saw fit as a result.

But thanks to Zazu, Nala makes it out of the pride lands and stumbles across the long-lost heir to the throne, who’s sitting around living the hakuna-matata high life and really doesn’t give two hoots that the community he was brought up to lead – his own people, even his own mother – are living under violent tyranny and on the brink of starvation. I know Simba’s been through some trauma and all, but so have Nala and Sarabi, and they’ve managed to retain their sense of responsibility to their community and homeland. Blame Timon and Pumbaa for teaching Simba their own special brand of hedonistic individualism as a coping mechanism, I suppose. Still, it’s not as if Simba was that concerned with doing his duty to others when they met him. The circle-of-life business had stuck in his mind, sure, but he was hardly what you’d call servant-hearted: just have a skim of the lyrics to ‘I Just Can’t Wait to be King’.⁴ Nala told Simba that he wasn’t the Simba she remembered from when they were cubs, but I disagree. Focussed on living his life however he pleased and facing no consequences for it? That sounds exactly like the Simba Nala knew from before. Just as well Mufasa shows up in that cloud to knock some sense into his wayward son; most of us don’t get the luxury of such dramatic intervention from beyond the grave when we’re faced with major life choices. And then, when Simba caught up with Nala as she trudged back home defeated, he had the nerve to tell her to keep up, as if going back had been his idea all along, rather than something he vehemently refused to do despite her pleading. I really resented that.

 

I know it’s shocking, Simba, but your future self really is that impolite. Thanks to deadshot1161 on newgrounds.com for the very skilled and charming fanart.

Back to Zazu, though, he was totally ready to pledge his service to the young king on his return from exile, and set to work risking his own life again, by actually directly fighting the hyenas this time. I repeat: he’s a thirty-five-centimetre bird with no specialised attack or defence features, and we see him successfully take down at least one hyena single-handed (or single-clawed? single-winged?). The bizarre thing is that Zazu somehow comes across as all Britishly nervous and easily perturbed and a little bit of a coward – your Brainy Smurf or C3PO type figure – when in fact, his actions make it abundantly clear that he’s about as far from cowardly as you can get. In fact, if he is by nature a bit nervous and easily perturbed, doesn’t that make the bravery he nevertheless displays all the more worthy and commendable? He might have a healthy regard for his own personal safety insofar as he invokes the law against eating members of the king’s court when Scar starts eyeing him hungrily, but every ounce of that regard gets flung aside whenever the safety of his friends and allies is at stake. He might be fond of structure and predictability when he can get them, but he won’t ever let unexpected circumstances, however dire they might be, prevent him from keeping his word. He’s loyal to a fault, and always deeply respectful of those to whom his respect is owed, even when they don’t do him the same courtesy. The Morning Report incident I mentioned above is an obvious example of this, but the one that stings worst comes towards the close of the film. Scar is dead; Simba is definitely king; Zazu makes a deep bow and addresses him reverentially as Your Majesty; and Simba doesn’t bother to acknowledge him with so much as a single word. “Thank you for your service, Zazu,” or something along those lines, would have been nice. Or how about a little bow in return, maybe? But nope, nothing. All the fuss is over Simba and how great he is. And pragmatically speaking, yes, he was the only one who could challenge Scar, and so it is because of him that the pride lands are able to be restored – but honestly, I don’t see that that required any extraordinary amount of virtue on his part. The duty he forsook his exile to undertake is literally being king: one might argue that that’s kind of not a bad gig.

Simba is the protagonist, so Simba gets the glory, even if all he did for most of the film was refuse to grow up and take a bit of responsibility. Zazu’s just an auxiliary character, there to smooth the plot along where necessary, provide a bit of comic relief, and contribute to the large-scale epicness of the final battle – so Zazu gets no glory. Zazu gets no glory even though he’s got more courage, more steadfast loyalty, more courtesy and grace, more patience and mercy and selflessness, than any other character in the film. But this, of course, is the real mark of an absolute hero, that he still displays these qualities regardless of whether anyone recognises him for it.

Mufasa disrespects Zazu by turning him into target practice for his son, and he still maintains absolute loyalty to him. Simba disrespects Zazu by giving him the slip and running off to the shadowlands, and he still makes it his business to ensure Simba is dealt with gently for his disobedience, even though he could have cost them both their lives. Nala disrespects him by snapping that she doesn’t need his protection, and he still follows through on his promise to protect her, even though, again, he has to risk his life to do it. Simba disrespects him once more by failing to offer so much as a word of acknowledgement for everything he’s done, and he still treats him with the reverence due a king. And I’m just dealing with the good guys here: most of the bad guys disrespect him to the extent that they try to eat him at one stage or another. In short, Zazu gets no respect from anybody, and he still willingly risks everything to help them.

And it’s not just because it moves my little Gryffindor heart⁵ to admiration that I know this stuff is what being an absolute hero looks like; it’s because this is the pattern that Jesus left us to follow. He said to love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return, and be merciful. He said that the epitome of love is to lay down your life for others. And then he went and laid down his life for those who at the time were his enemies, and prayed for the forgiveness of those who did it to him even as he was dying.⁶

For that, the Lord will ultimately have his glory. The road he calls us to follow him on might be one of humiliation and suffering, but because God is just, the story doesn’t, can’t, end there: if this is what being an absolute hero looks like, then in the end, it’ll gain such reward as befits an absolute hero. Poor Zazu, CGI-animated fictional character that he is, gets no glory for demonstrating love to others, but Jesus, having demonstrated the greatest love, will get the greatest glory – and because he loves us, we who follow where he leads, however imperfectly, are granted to share in that glory.⁷

Zazu is an absolute hero; I accept no dissent. I know he is, because he behaves in the manner taught and modelled by Jesus. And if I’m stirred to worship by having seen that, well, then at least some good has come of the Lion King remake, right?

Footnotes

¹ Trailer, because obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TavVZMewpY.

² That’s according to the Handbook of the Birds of the World: https://www.hbw.com/species/red-billed-hornbill-tockus-erythrorhynchus.

³ The sung version and its many puns were omitted from the film, but made it into the stage musical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsJYQcaYPgw.

⁴ I’ll spare you the trouble of tracking them down: https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/6544247.

⁵ Yup, I’m a Gryffindor. Was disappointed initially, but have come to own it. I’m not so keen on doing daring stuff for the sake of it, but being noble and chivalrous and fighting to the last for a cause are ideas that really take hold of me. Pottermore’s changed a lot since it launched, but you can still do the Sorting Hat quiz if you’ve not got round to it yet: https://my-pottermore.wizardingworld.com/sorting-hat.

⁶ You’re looking at Luke 6, John 15, and Luke 23. Why not start with the first one: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+6&version=ESVUK. There is so much in that chapter and pretty much all of it smacks you over the head with conviction. Thank God that Jesus lived the kind of life he describes here, and gifted us the righteousness entailed in that.

⁷ I’m going to take you to the first chunk of Philippians 2 for this jazz, because why not: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil+2&version=ESVUK.