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Name	"Fluffy"
Meaning	None
Gender	Unknown
Species	Lion
Affiliation(s)	Pridelanders
Appearances	The Lion King
Close Relations	Child of Simba and Nala, Grandchild of Mufasa and Sarabi

"Let's just end on the next generation. Here's Fluffy, Simba and Nala's cute little cub. Let's just end on Fluffy."

—The Lion King filmmakers, on the commentary track of the film, about the cub at the end of the movie^[1]

Fluffy is the placeholder name for Simba and Nala's newborn cub.

Contents 1 Appearance 2 Girl or boy? 3 Who is Fluffy, really? 4 In Kingdom Hearts II 5 Trivia 6 References

AppearanceEdit

Fluffy has golden fur, much like his/her father King Simba and looks almost identical to baby Simba at the beginning of The Lion King. The cub also has brown rims on his/her ears.

Girl or boy?Edit

Because the gender of the cub is never officially cited by its creators, the question often arises whether the filmmakers intended Fluffy to be a boy or a girl — but the chances are they did not bother to decide its gender because they indeed didn't announce any such decision on the commentary track and even gave it a unisex nickname. This chance is supported also by how they reveal in the making-of documentaries that they didn't believe in the film's success (calling it a "B-movie" during production), which supports the chance that no sequel was intended and thus they didn't bother to decide a gender for the cub.

Some of Lion King storybooks call Fluffy "prince" or "son," but the most recent ones have been referring to the cub as a female as of late, calling the cub "her," "princess," and "daughter."

Who is Fluffy, really?Edit

After the release of The Lion King in 1994, the cub became very popular object of speculation for the fandom. The film's content itself doesn't say anything about the cub apart from its outside appearance. No true name or gender is given.

In 1994, a few months after the film was released, a book series was published titled The Lion King: Six New Adventures. It became one of the most popular Lion King book series, but it was quite unknown elsewhere outside America, because it was only released in America. In it, King Simba and Queen Nala have a son named Kopa. Those books were not written by any of the film's creators, but rather an outside source that merely got permission from Disney to write a spin-off.

In 1995, the film's creators recorded an audio commentary track for the Laserdisc release of the film, wherein they called the cub "Fluffy" and didn't refer to it as either a 'he' or 'she'. They didn't mention Kopa was the cub in any way, shape, or form, nor was it ever hinted at.

Soon enough, other filmmakers at a satellite Disney studio began production of the official sequel, but the crew was all different from those who created the canon film. A rumor has it that the sequel's creators were planning to write the story with two cubs, a boy and a girl, but the male cub was written out in early production, and developed the story only with the female cub who was later named Kiara. Though one magazine article^[2] states that Chaka was one of Kiara's working names, Tad Stones, who wrote, created and directed numerous Disney Afternoon shows and was a writer for Simba's Pride in its early stages, says that Chaka and Shani were going to be two separate characters.^{[3] [4]}

After the release of the film, questions emerge about its continuity such as: Why they remade the cub's ceremony scene for the actual film or why they redesigned the cub for the actual film. Whatever the motive, the act is retroactive continuity and is very common in fictional film series.

The most obvious and official identity of Fluffy is Kiara. Still, because of the differences in the ceremonies and the cubs and whatever other reasons in the film itself, some fans believe that Fluffy is actually another one of Simba's cubs, notably Kopa.

In Kingdom Hearts IIEdit

In the credits of Kingdom Hearts II, Fluffy can be seen being presented to the animals of the Pride Lands. The cub has no lines.

TriviaEdit

• The cub from the end of the first film is in the sequel's official trailer.^[5]

ReferencesEdit

1. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUW_p8YMq50
2. ↑ http://www.lionking.org/sequels/TLK2/DA-Oz-01.jpg
3. ↑ http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.disney.animation/browse_thread/thread/c5d2f0ebf03255e9/f8e1b0f6ffd6b666?lnk=gst&q=%2Bchaka#
4. ↑ http://akril15.com/Literature/tptnw/tadstones1-21-12b.png
5. ↑ http://homepage.mac.com/maanerud/movies/simbapridetrailer.mov