- “Do not be wishing for this tiger, Sahib. He's the Devil!”
- ―Buldeo to Boone.[src]
Shere Khan is a character in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. In the film, Shere Khan is presented as a more sympathetic character. He appears rarely and instead serves as a major antagonist turned anti-hero of the film while an arrogant British captain named William Boone serves as the main antagonist of the film.
He is based on the character of the same name from the original stories by Rudyard Kipling.
Role in the film[]
At the beginning of the movie, he sees two British guards and a hunter named Buldeo shooting animals for fun, and becomes enraged at this. He roars in his fury, letting the soldiers know he's returned and proceeds to follow the column of soldiers that the guards and Buldeo are part of. That night, he attacks the humans' camp in revenge for the animals' death, killing the two guards before turning on Buldeo. But before Khan can kill Buldeo, Nathoo (Mowgli's father and the soldiers' guide) shields the hunter. Although Nathoo tells Buldeo to shoot Khan, the ungrateful hunter runs away and abandons Mowgli's father to be killed. Khan's attack is also what led Mowgli to being separated from civilization and living in the jungle. Although he was heard growling when Bagheera found Mowgli, the tiger made no attempts to attack Mowgli at any point over the years (probably because Mowgli hasn't broken the jungle law).
Shere Khan is not seen again until the second half of the movie. By this time, Mowgli has fallen in love with his childhood friend Katherine Brydon and made an enemy in Captain Boone, who has his henchmen kidnap Kitty and her father to force Mowgli to take them to a treasure. Like before, Khan roars to announce his return, though why he started stalking the group is not revealed (it was possible to avenge Baloo's earlier shooting by Boone and Wilkins). Boone plans to kill Shere Khan for his skin, though Buldeo tries to convince him otherwise, knowing how dangerous the tiger is. Two of Boone's henchmen die before Khan catches up to the group, where he scares the villains into splitting up. Once separated, Shere Khan kills Lt. John Wilkins, a henchman of Captain Boone, while Buldeo is buried alive while trying to shoot Mowgli.
After the climactic battle between Mowgli and Boone (ending with Boone being killed by Kaa), Khan and Mowgli meet face to face for the first time. Khan is obviously distrusting of Mowgli (and all humans in general) and attempts to scare him away by roaring in his face, but Mowgli stubbornly roars back and stares Khan down. Seeing Mowgli's courage, Khan develops a newfound respect for him, and begins to see him as a fellow "creature of the jungle". Because of this and the fact that neither broke the jungle law, Shere Khan spares Mowgli and allows him and Kitty to leave peacefully; he even chuffed and moaned to Mowgli as a sincere apology for killing Nathoo, assuring that it was nothing personal against him.
Trivia[]
- Unlike his animated counterpart, Khan does not kill for sport, and his sole goal is to protect the jungle from those who break its "laws", namely humans who kill animals for fun instead of food.
- He is described by the narrator of the film as "the jungle's royal keeper", and by Buldeo as the "king of tigers".
See also[]
- Shere Khan
- Shere Khan (TaleSpin)
- Shere Khan (The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story)
- Shere Khan (The Jungle Book 2016)
