I think something I realized with The Lion Guard is that it isn’t the lack of realism I care about. For me, once you’ve established a setting where animals can talk and some can use magical abilities, realism is the least of my worries. What bothered me more was the lack of complex gray morality, and also what felt like racist and xenophobic implications behind lots of moments in the series.
As for predators and them needing to eat, for me it has less to do with realism and more to do with motivation. Like, “Yeah, of course they have to eat, that’s what they do as predators.” A lot of the antagonist predators in the series are simply territorial or unaware of the Pride Land rules or they want to hunt in their own ways. At first I thought the hyena clan were villains because they were greedy and had no boundaries, until I noticed some things my friend (@bandanafox) pointed out, like how you can literally see Cheezi’s ribs. No wonder the hyenas are so damn vicious. And it’s not really their fault that they’re so aggressive, their ancestors were kicked out of the Pride Lands and all of them were deemed evil, and the only “good” hyenas are the ones who side with The Lion Guard (against, racist and xenophobic implications).
So I realized for me, I don’t really care about the “realism” of the series that a lot of other people seem to. It’s more about what the show seems to be implying through how it presents its situations and characters and morals.
