Two-part classroom lecture of Jordon Peterson narrates Jungian archetypes in the characters and the theme in the movie the  Lion King.

Peterson is a personality psychologist from Toronto university, Canada. His expertise is in CG Jung, Nietzsche and mythology. He is a great public intellectual and has mentored many lives.

Many classics we see, follow the Jungian archetypal themes with archetypal characters. so is the movie LION KING.

The movie, Lion King opens with sunrise.

Sun is an archetype of the Hero or the king. Sun and its path stand for the king and his the birth, rise and death. Lion King is the story of the king and the son of the king and their travel in life. The rest of the story is to evoke suspense, interest and to create a drama, but the essential parts of it are the archetypes which are deep-seated in all of us  as parts of the collective unconscious

The first scene is of the congregation of all the animals and the family of the king along with Rafiki, the big ape, shaman, or the sage is holding the newborn prince to the sun.

The rock on which they stand is high with the rays of the sun falling on it. It is the pride rock

The pride rock is similar to the cathedral,  at centre of the territory, or the big tree  similar to the balcony of Buckingham palace from where the royalty shows up to the plebians on significant occasions. Peak also represents the ego or superego. It is Ego, as different from ID which  is represented by the animals or the common mass of audience who are supposed to be working with their basic instincts for basic needs.

Zazu is the eyes and higher consciousness or the aerial view of the King.

The king  Mufasa is high on serotonin which is akin to being fulfilled and high on serotonin with the chest gone up and commanding the space. He integrates the shadow into
himself and is the transformed one. He combines the cruel and the innocent by  incorporating aggression into his persona and becomes complete.

Simba is a child who is also vulnerable. He could not understand the malevolent nature of his uncle Scar . When he travels into the unknown,  while he comes of his age, he integrates the adult into himself to become revivified.

The Scar is Mufasa’s evil brother. He has a tyrannical element of the state. State which could not reinvent itself to the changed context and time will become dated, and the realm goes out of sync and slips out.  It becomes tyrannical to maintain the grip on it. It applies to the families, societies and interpersonal relationships. The Scar is at the lower end of the gene pool. The hyper-rational in him makes him fall in love with his production. He won’t let it go. The left hemisphere focusses on the rationality and details with hyper rationality, and the right brain has to contextualise it, updates it, to make it relevant and complete. Right brain details That is the absent faculty in him.

Simba’s wrestling with Nola is symbolic of meeting the Anima and becoming one, and the wrestling is symbolic of it. Anima is the female in the male and animus is vice-versa.

Here the exploration of the unknown begins, and they together stray into the land of death of elephants. They can’t stay away from death and that is the dark side
and the unconscious.

 The trickster or the fool is the one who is close to the truth. Trickster is truth and precursor to the saviour. The trickster is the one who tricks, and you have to be infallible to be progressive. Should be ready to be tricked or tempted. The night sky is symbolic of the unknown. The shaman takes the Simba and Nola to the netherworld where he faces the stampede and survives but loses his father.   The stampede is the meeting the shadow and coming off age. Taking the duties up to and finishing off Scar is the completion.