Scar is the hero.

The first reason that Scar was the villain is because he was someone who was consumed by his own lawless desires, that he would do anything to achieve them. With that being said, even though Scar wanted an equal footing for all animals in the Pride Lands including the ousted hyenas, his actions were nothing but out of jealousy and anger. His own lawless desires brought him to the point where he commits murder on a member of his own family, Mufasa, the king of the Pride Lands. Killing his brother guarantees his heir to the throne since Simba, the king's son, is too little to take command. His desire was filled with jealousy and anger since Simba came into the world. In Mufasa's monarchy, Scar cannot inherit the throne because it is supposed to be his eldest son who steps up after his death. But if the eldest son is underage, it is the next brother in line until the son reaches the right age to take the throne. Knowing that, Scar gets little Simba to flee, making him grieve the death of his father and making him think that it was his fault that Mufasa had died. Having accomplished that, Scar knew that he would always be king and no one could challenge him anymore. This leads to the second reason why Scar is the true villain of The Lion King. The second reason why Scar can be seen as the villain is because of his deceitful nature. First and foremost, he misled Simba by making him believe that he killed his own father. Secondly, he was able to convince the hyenas to work with him in order to take over the Pride Lands. He had a deal done with Shenzi to eliminate Mufasa by using Simba as a bait to lead the king to his own demise. Eventually, this leads to an opening for Scar to set his footing on the throne. Scar gets Mufasa killed and then promises that the lions, hyenas, and all other animals will all be equal. When Simba returns, Scar and him have a fight for the throne and we quickly come to learn that Scar was trying to be the king only for his own needs and would not care for anyone else. Furthermore, Scar did not fulfill his promises and it looked like he never was going to anyways. The hyenas overhead his hideous words for blaming all his actions on them which made them realize how selfish and self serving he really was.

I completely agree with you. The lion king leads us to believe that the lions just pass off dominance in the same way as a human monarchy (Mufasa to Simba). However, we need to look more deeply into things and use logical reasons without emotion for why everything is the way it was. To start off, Simba was most likely going to get removed from his position no matter what. This is a really important argument as Simba spent years trying to forget and push away his past. He didn't use it to become a better leader, he was definitely unprepared to take over. Next, Hyenas are SCAVENGERS so it makes no sense to banish them when realistically, they survived on very little food. Therefore, the drought which was blamed on them had to be caused by an outside source. Now if you take a look at the scar's state, you can see that there was always some favouritism between him and Mufasa. It was strength over intelligence when in reality, intelligence is mandatory in order to be a great leader. Scar was indeed manipulative, however, he only cares about what's on his schedule so he uses manipulation based on his opinion in order to reach his goals. In my opinion, a good leader will do whatever it takes to achieve what they think is best for them, even if it takes lives. In addition, Scar wasn't any worse than Mufasa. Mufasa was extremely oppressive and caused way too many deaths. On the other hand, Scar actually did save lives(hyenas) and the movie decided to disregard it. His motives were to decrease the number of animals to allow both species to survive. Yes, animals would die off naturally(both lion and hyenas), but there would be a good balance. If scar truly desired the throne and power over everything, why would he allow himself to suffer for so long and stay in a situation where he would starve?