The Lion King 1½ under the hyenas. However, the last few get stuck, prompting Timon to dive underground and break them himself. The cave-in commences, and the hyenas are ejected through the tunnels. Immediately afterwards, Scar is defeated by Simba. Simba accepts his place as king of the Pride Lands, thanking Timon and Pumbaa for helping him. Timon takes Ma, Uncle Max, and the meerkat colony to live in the predator-free jungle to complete his "Hakuna Matata"; and he is praised as their hero. Once Timon finishes his backstory, Ma, Uncle Max, Simba, Rafiki, and eventually many other Disney characters join him and Pumbaa
Nala (The Lion King) felt that "Nala is really the agent of change in "The Lion King"", dismissing Simba as a "rich, lazy boyfriend." Leab observed that "The Lion King"'s male characters tend to "take the center stage" while "female characters take a backseat to the action." Lenka Křivánková of Masaryk University wrote in her thesis "1990s Hollywood Break-Away Hits: A Feminist Perspective" that she was not particularly surprised by the film's lack of strong roles for women because of its Shakespearean source material, dubbing the film "an old traditional fairy tale with all its traditional features", including patriarchy and monarchism. Writing for the