Sabor (Tarzan)

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Sabor is a generic name for lionesses (originally tigers) in Mangani, the fictional language of the great apes in the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In Burroughs' works innumerable lionesses appear under the name of Sabor. In the Walt Disney animated movie Tarzan, Sabor is a term for leopards, more specifically the leopard that kills Tarzan's parents.

[edit] Evolution of the term

In the initial magazine publication of the original Tarzan novel Tarzan of the Apes, Sabor meant "tiger". Burroughs subsequently altered the meaning to "lioness" for book publication after being informed that there are no tigers in Africa. He substituted "lioness" rather than "lion" because there was an existing Mangani term for lions in the story, Numa. Lions thus attained the distinction of being the only creatures with separate terms in Mangani for the male and female. An ex post facto explanation rationalizing the distinction has been found in the fact that male lions are maned and female lions are not, providing a marked visual distinction between the two.

[edit] Disney

In the Walt Disney produced animated movie Tarzan, the meaning of the word was changed yet again, to "leopard", despite the prior existence of a different and quite serviceable Mangani term for leopard (Sheeta). The alteration appears to have been made for two reasons. The first was for factual accuracy; lions are in fact creatures of the veldt, not the jungle as portrayed in Burroughs's tales. The second was more aesthetic; Sabor, they felt, is simply a more evocative and interesting word than Sheeta. The specific Sabor appearing in the film is the leopard that kills Tarzan's parents and Kala and Kerchak's child and is later killed by him in turn. Sabor's battle with Tarzan was brief and brutal, Disney fortunately, kept the violence to a minimum, and Sabor had her leg slashed, and Tarzan had his chest slashed, this was actually the most violent scene in the movie. Sabor attempted to kill Tarzan by pouncing on him into a pit, Tarzan, using the shattered spear head, mangaged to kill the leopard. He then marked the famous ape man cry, holding up the leopards crippled body.

Sheeta, The discarded original Burroughs designation, was later used in The Legend of Tarzan show as the name for one of two black panthers that attack together (the name of the other was Noru).

[edit] Role in Kingdom Hearts

The Sabor from the 1999 Tarzan film reappears in the video game Kingdom Hearts as a minor antagonist. After the game's protagonist Sora gets lost from his friends Donald and Goofy he lands in the house made by Tarzan's parents, where he is attacked by Sabor. Luckily Tarzan saves his life, and near the end of the level's story Sabor is finally killed by Sora, Tarzan, Donald and Goofy.