Valido

Valido is an original character who appears in Savu0211's Lion King based comic, The Relatives of the King. He is the leader of the north pride who pretends to be a rogue lion and one of the two main antagonists in The Relatives Of The King Part 3: Scar's Reign. He is the mate of Shentani, the former mate to Azra (temporarily), and the father to Kosa and Kovu. He is also the grandfather to Giza, daughter of Kosa and Baridi.

Story[]

Valido enters the story as a rogue lion wandering the Pride Lands while Azra is on patrol. Upon meeting Azra he is polite, as well as seductive, insinuating they should "get to know each other better", to which he earns a strike to the face. After a duel of words and a failed pounce on Valido's part, the princess allows the rogue passage in the lands so long as he remains out of sight. Valido meets with Azra more often and eventually, he works his charm on her, telling her of his life before discovering the Pride Lands. He comes from the north where he lived ever since he was a cub. But in his parent's pride, it's a tradition that young lions leave there home-pride for searching their own ones. When his mane started to grow, he left his parents home together with his "sister" Shentani. After a short while, they meet a group of lionesses, who followed them.

His meetings with Azra are soon discovered by her triplet sisters: Hila, Hasira, and Faida. The three are more than happy to report to their father that there is a rogue male in the Pride Lands and that Azra had been secretly meeting with him. Scar is beyond furious and forbids his daughter from meeting Valido ever again, grounding her to Pride Rock until Valido leaves. Azra begs her father to let her see him since she had something important to tell him (it is later revealed that she was pregnant with his cub), but this doesn't sway her father. Sometime later, Scar informs his daughter that Valido left without even attempting to visit her.

When the triplets attempt to steal their prey back from Valido's pride, Azra arrives just when they were spotted by the pride lionesses. The triplets flee, but Azra is confronted by Valido's pride members who gleefully inform her that he was never interested in her but rather overthrowing her father and then assuming power over the Pride Lands. To add insult to injury, Valido already had a mate, Shentani (whom he lied to Azra as being her sister), who had just given birth to his cub, later revealed to be Kovu.

Valido appears on the scene and feigns innocence before Azra tells him his pride members already told her everything. The two argue and Valido sternly reminds her she is in his lands. Scar arrives with his hyenas and accepts Valido's challenge to battle for the throne, having the hyenas stick around to referee so Valido will fight fairly. Scar runs off from Valido and the hyenas and the rogue pride. Valido, believing he has won, taunts Scar saying that "now would be a good time to beg for mercy". Zira then pounces Valido, scarring his left eye, nearly blinding him. This can be seen as a foreshadowing since she later scars Kovu in the same fashion years later. Scar then taunts Valido after the rogue had questioned his methods on wanting a fair fight. The dark king explains that he wanted to ensure Valido fought fairly and that to fight fair was not his style. After mentioning that Valido is also too far from his lionesses to get help, the rogue male runs off. His wounds are too great and he collapses just as he hears one of his attackers approaching. It was Azra. He begs her to stop her parents from attacking him, even adding that he didn't mean to hurt her. Instead, she coldly tells him that she belongs to her pride and takes his life, saddened that it wasn't just her he betrayed but also the unborn child he had sired from her.

Even though Valido was killed, he still leaves an impact on Azra's life as she warns her sisters about males who will stab them in the back. The irony is that Hasira's, Faida's, and Hila's mates do betray them, but unlike Valido; they did it with good intentions instead of bad ones. It is also because of Valido that Azra shows deep hatred towards Kovu, Valido's and Shentani's son.

Trivia[]

Valido is similar to Prince Hans from Disney's Frozen. They both fooled Azra/Anna into thinking they can be trusted and were to become married. However, they both betray them and revealed that they were only using them to take over a kingdom. The difference is that Valido has a real mate Shentani while Hans does not have a girlfriend or wife at all. The other difference is that while Prince Hans survived at the end of the film, Valido was killed off in the comic.
Alongside Riku and Baridi, Valido is one of the most hated characters in the comics because of his bad treatment and betrayal towards Azra.
Valido and Shentani are surprisingly the only antagonists who are not shown as dark spirits in Savu0211's short stories.
Though both Valido and Shentani are the villains in Part 3, Valido serves as the bigger bad of the two as he is much more villainous and has bigger plans than his mate.