Tarzan

**Tarzan:** (*grunts*) Tar-zan. TAR-zan

**Jane:** Oh, I see

―Tarzan to Jane

**Tarzan** is the main protagonist of the of the 1999 Disney's animated Tarzan movie. Also known as, the **Ape Man** or **The Savage Wild Man**, Tarzan was rescued by the ape, Kala, when his parents were killed by the feared leopard, Sabor.

Raised from infancy by gorillas, Tarzan would one day grow up to be the protector of the apes and the jungle, with the help of his best friends, Terk and Tantor. But Tarzan would never know the outside world.

## Background

### Physical Appearance

Tarzan has long brown hair which is styled in dreadlocks. He almost wears nothing, except for a piece of tattered loincloth around his waist, and is barefoot. His eyes are blue-green and he has a tanned muscular body from living in the African jungle all of his life.

Tarzan wears his father's clothing once in the movie, when he was going to go to England with Jane, Jane's father, and Clayton. While in the Legend of Tarzan, Tarzan wears his deceased father's suit to prepare for the party that his wife, Jane, hosted to welcome her friends.

### Personality

Tarzan is a brave and honorable character who cares deeply about his gorilla family and is willing to do anything to prove that he is one of them. Tarzan is also willing to rescue his enemies, and does not wish death upon them. Just like when Clayton was about to die in the vines, Tarzan tried to save Clayton, though unsuccessful.

During his childhood, Tarzan was playful and thought of himself as an outcast. That was, until Jane and her father, Archimedes Q. Porter, along with Clayton, arrived at the jungle to study gorillas,

As Tarzan grew, he became more curious of the world, which led to him meeting his future wife, Jane.

In the Legend of Tarzan, Tarzan was shown to be the new leader of the gorillas. His personality is the same as the movie, but there are some things that are deeper explained in the series.

Just as how Tarzan was not a showy leader and was a humble person and did not want to show off. Tarzan also has a hate for leopards, as seen when Jane tried to persuade Tarzan to keep the baby leopard she saw, Tarzan was against it, because of Sabor the leopard, who killed Tarzan's biological parents when he was still a baby.

Tarzan is also shown to be deeply romantic to Jane, when he takes her on a picnic in "The Challenge" which then led to Tarzan's leadership being questioned by one of the gorillas, as Tarzan was a human being with a human wife, as said. Tarzan would also often give Jane flowers that he picked from the jungle, and declare her as the most beautiful woman there is.

He would also go to great lengths just to give Jane what he wants, just like in Tarzan and Jane, where Jane was day-dreaming of a diamond ring, and Tarzan agreed to go to the volcano with the so-called volcanologists, who turned out to be crooks wanting to keep the diamonds for themselves and try to kill Tarzan.

Tarzan's mutual enemy in the series is Tublat, a caged animal Tarzan saved because he knew that it was the right thing to do, instead of handing him off to the poachers.

### Abilities

As Tarzan lived in the African jungle his whole life, Tarzan was able to achieve various abilities that normal people would not be able to do. Such as swinging through vines, having an extraordinary use of his feet, surfing through the trees, and he has a very good sense of hearing and smell. Tarzan was also an incredible fighter as he was able to fight of wild animals like hyenas, leopards, crocodiles, gorillas, hippos, baboons, rhinoceroses, snakes, jackals, and elephants,

One of his greatest achievements in the jungle was when he was able to kill the bloodthirsty leopard, Sabor, to protect his family. Tarzan would often fight his enemies with a spear, but at times he would use his own bare hands, He is incredibly strong, just as when he was able to hold down Kerchak to help Jane, Archimedes, and Clayton escape before Kerchak was about to kill them. Holding down a gorilla as big as Kerchak is about as heavy as two full grown humans.

Tarzan was also very clever. As a young child, Tarzan would make his own tools and weapons, spears, slings, and lassos, which other children could only make with the supervision of a parent or guardian. Tarzan also made a hammock for Zugor, and he set a booby trap in Tarzan II.

As he knew no other humans while growing up, Tarzan taught himself through trial and error.

Tarzan was also known to speak gorilla, rhino, and hummingbird, as he lived in the jungle since he was a baby. Tarzan also quoted that he could speak eagle, but it was quite rusty.

## Appearances

### Tarzan 1999

In the beginning of the original movie, in Tarzan 1999, Tarzan was a baby who escaped a shipwreck, along with his human parents and ended up settling in the jungle of Africa. Tarzan's parents built a treehouse as a happy family. However, one day, the feared leopard, Sabor, killed Tarzan's biological parents. Luckily, baby Tarzan was able to survive and was rescued by the gorilla called Kala, who would take Tarzan as her own son, despite Kerchak not seing that, and saying that Tarzan could stay, but he would never be his own son.

A few years later, Tarzan evolves into a lad and enjoys to follow his bestl friend, Terk, and additional gorillas. One day, while tagging near, Terk humorously speaks Tarzan to get the hair of an elephant to join Terk and the other gorillas, while Terk is active accompanying additional gorillas believing to maintain him continuously, at which point Tarzan takes critically and, unluckily, jumps into the water and swims until he sees the elephant and tries to grab the tail, which caused the elephants to panic and let loose and rush through the gorillas' region. When Kerchak sees this, he scowls at Tarzan, the one who made the panic, and befriended Tantor, and literally got the elephant hair, but he was just told that he will never be like the apes. Disappointed and hurt by this, Tarzan runs just before the edge of the water and puts clay everywhere himself to better appear an ape and as Kala exposes in dark, Tarzan is heartened by Kala that he's "not that different" by any means.

During his teenage years, he evolved up accompanying constant struggles to match the gorillas; operating miscellaneous monkey-like conduct and added animal conduct to a degree picking fruit, trying to learn other animal languages, and scaring the fowls continuously.

However, as he evolved up and enhanced an adult, he started to be accepted by the gorillas, except for Kerchak, and he shoed off skills like fighting a snake, consuming termites, and even trained to excel when sustain accompanying the rest of the gorillas. By the opportunity he attained maturity, Tarzan governed to determine himself and was completely established by being one of the apes, but still had still to gain the authorization and agreement of Kerchak. One day, as he is performing accompanying Terk and Tantor, he hears a buzz in the shrub. As he comes close, it produces the unexpected Sabor, the one in spite of bearing old also, is still as deft and hazardous as when (s)he killed the lives of Tarzan's parents and Kerchak and Kala's baby. Kerchak fights but is too old for one fierce leopard. Tarzan fights the leopard, and receive scratched on the rib cage in the process, but lives. Tarzan steps in and kills the cheetah accompanying Kala, Kerchak (in a habit), Tantor, Terk, and the whole ape troop encouraging for welcome success. He before presents Kerchak Sabor's body, winning welcome unwilling respect. Almost instantaneously later, they find out a gaudy turbulence in the jungle. While the added gorillas (and Tantor) escape, Tarzan, compelled by welcome interest, ends to review the cry, disclosed expected a gunshot from Clayton-the protector of Professor Archimedes Q. Porter and welcome woman, Jane Porter. Fascinated by bureaucracy, on account of the reality he's never visualized another human before, Tarzan starts to privately see bureaucracy outside being seen.

Later, Jane is sketching a picture of a baby baboon, the baboon likes it and steals it from her. When she tricks him to get the picture back, his weeping angers a huge pack of baboons. Luckily, Tarzan meets expectations the rescue. After a number of occurrences, when they're dependable on the tree, Tarzan settles the chase by responding the drawing to the baby baboon. As Jane tries to leave, it' began to rain hard and they are forced into the shade of the great tree. In the tree together, Tarzan shows an extreme interest by her, does various unfamiliar actions in the way that listens to her pulse, tickles her, touches her hand, and cultivates romantic impressions for her. Finally, he has the talent to talk human as he said his name "Tarzan". After it stops raining, he takes Jane back to her camp. When Terk, and more immature gorillas, and Tantor are trashing the camp while making sounds that are pleasant, harmonized, Tarzan steps in and solves the problem. Unfortunately, Kerchak performs and describes everyone at hand back. Later, Kerchak warns all and Tarzan about the hazard of humans. However, Tarzan disobeys and keeps going back to the camp.

The next day, Tarzan returns to the campsite and jumps in between of Jane and Clayton's argument. Clayton, Jane, and her father realize that he is the perfect human to help them in accompanying their research, seeing he can lead to the location of the gorillas. Over opportunity, they begin to educate him in human actions, English, as well as belongings he's never seen before (city, astrophysics, science etc), but keeps welcome actives secret from his gorilla family and sneaks off early in the mornings, precipitating Kala and Terk to become troubled about his frequent absences and start to feel life out. During that time, Tarzan's idealistic feelings for Jane revive and he soon falls spellbound her, but he refuses to lead the explorers to the ape nest, worried for their security by Kerchak. Unfortunately, as the explorers are fitting to return to England, Tarzan displays hurt, to the point where he even tries to convince Jane to visit England one day and come back the next. However, Clayton uses this situation as a benefit to fulfill his evil plans and misleads Tarzan into thinking that Jane would stay if he showed them the gorillas, the reason why Jane was there. Tarzan agrees and leads the party to the ape pack's home, while Terk and Tantor lure Kerchak away to prevent him attacking the humans. Jane and her father are inspired to mingle with the gorillas. However, Kerchak returns and tries to attack them. Tarzan stops Kerchak letting Jane, her father, and Clayton run away.

Kerchak confronts Tarzan's actions, and tells him that he has betrayed his family. While Tarzan's sits on a tree, Kala comes comforting him and he expresses his confusion. Kala leads him to the old treehouse, and tells him that she should have told him about it earlier and that she isn't really his biological mother. He accomplishes that he was a human all along and, after Kala pronounced that she'll be happy with anything that makes him happy, wearing his deceased father's suit and follows the explorers to England. Before leaving, he says to Kala: "No matter place I go, you'll always be my mother."

When he's on the ship, he is surprised to find that Clayton's men had captured the crew and that they were doing the same with Archimedes and Jane. The thugs try to capture him, but thanks to his agility he manages to avoid them by jumping on the cages and climbing the ship's mast. However, they weren't exactly slow, as one of them manages to grab him from his ankle and leave him hanging from the mast. After shaking him off, and seeing the rest of the thugs closing in on him, he makes a huge leap from the top of the mast towards the funnel's end, managing to hold onto it. Here is where his strength and monkey-like acrobatics turned out useless, as his shoes would slip as he tried to climb up, while his hands would slowly slip away due to tiredness. This resulted in him falling from a great height, right into a pile of boxes. As soon as he crawled out of the remnants, two of the thugs grab him and slam him against the superstructure's wall; he then asks Clayton for help but Clayton reveals to him that he'll attack the gorilla's nest. Tarzan is locked up in the ship, desperately trying to get out, at one point even shows aggression toward Jane when she tries to calm him down and realizes that Kerchak was right about him betraying his family. Ultimately, he is rescued by Terk and Tantor after they heard Tarzan's cry.

After being rescued, he returns to strip off of his suit and goes to rescue the gorilla troop and to defeat Clayton's men, with the help of some more animals he summoned to help him in the rescue; including Terk and Tantor and Jane and her father. After the rescue, Clayton shoots Tarzan in his arm. When Kerchak sees this, he tries to stop Clayton but is, unfortunately, shot by Clayton. In a fit of rage, Tarzan aggressively attacks him but is forced to back down by Clayton's shots. Since he doesn't have the weapons to win over Clayton, he moves up to the trees, which lures Clayton to follow him.

On the tree branches, Tarzan and Clayton engage in a struggle in which the two are evenly matched. He manages to kick Clayton off and goes after his gun. He aims it at Clayton, who taunts him to be a man and shoot him. Realizing that doing so would turn him into the kind of criminal that Clayton is, Tarzan fools him with a gunshot imitation from his mouth and then smashes the gun to pieces on a tree branch declaring that he is not - and will never be - a man like him. Infuriated, Clayton pulls out a machete and furiously tries to kill him. Tarzan manages to escape with the aid of nearby vines but quickly meets a dead end. Clayton manages to catch up and continues to hack and slash at Tarzan, but to no use.

Using the vines, Tarzan traps Clayton in them and seemingly brings the fight to a stand still. Refusing to lose to the savage ape-man, Clayton aggressively rips the vines with his teeth and machete, unaware that one of them has slipped like a noose around his neck. Tarzan realizes this and tries to warn him, but Clayton, blind with rage, continues to cut the vines until he accidentally cuts the one he is hanging on to, causing both him and Tarzan to fall down. Clayton, unfortunately, meets his end when the vine around him snaps his neck upon going down while Tarzan lands safely on the ground as lightning illuminates the jungle, allowing him to witness the corpse of his enemy.

Tarzan moves toward a near-death Kerchak, who told him that he'll now lead the troop. Kerchak also tells him that he was wrong about him and that Tarzan has been a member of the troop all along. Kerchak, having finally accepted Tarzan as his son, then dies in the scene of heavy rain and the sadness of Jane, her father, Tarzan, and the gorillas. Tarzan pounds his chest, indicating his new position of leadership to the gorillas.

The next day, after his arm has been treated and bandaged from the almost fatal gunshot, Tarzan stands on the beach, watching as Jane and her father leave him and return to their home in London. One of Jane's gloves flies towards him, which only made him more depressed. After Jane realizes that she loves Tarzan, she jumps off the boat and runs toward him, much to his surprise and the two finally share their first kiss. Later, Jane's father joins his daughter, telling the captain to tell everyone back in England that he never found them; "After all, people get lost in the jungle every day," he says. Finally, Tarzan is seen swinging with his wife, Jane, to a tree with his big family (including Jane's father, Kala, and Terk with Tantor as a little help) as the King of The Jungle.

### In Tarzan II

In the midquel film, Tarzan's childhood and the origin of his unique identity shown into a deeper perspective. Tarzan was an awkward person trying to fit in with his ape family. When he was growing up, Tarzan had two childhood fears: first of the Zugor, a mythical monster said to live on Dark mountain. His second fear was that his mother, Kala, would get hurt because of him and his actions.

Although he walks like an ape, he is nowhere as fast as one, which results in the accident that leads his family to believe he is dead. When he overhears his mother tell Kerchak she would have given her life for him, and three ape females who say Kala and the family are better off without him, he decides to run away from the gorillas. After his traveling, perhaps two to three days after, he is chased by Sabor into a valley. After escaping the family of three apes who are trapped there, Tarzan follows an old gorilla into a tree the ape calls his home. When Tarzan discovers the old ape is really the Zugor, he blackmails him into mentoring him into becoming the best ape be can be, and when he realizes he isn't an ape, he forces Zugor to help him figure out what he is. Later on in the movie, he finally finds out that he is where he belonged, and calls himself a "Tarzan". This being his name and the only thing that he, at the time, knew himself to be, (other than a gorilla).

### The Legend of Tarzan

Tarzan appears as the main protagonist of the animated series.

Since the end of the film, Tarzan assumed his role as leader of the Gorillas' troop. He married Jane and they live happily in the jungle, residing in the old treehouse that Tarzan's parents had built before their deaths. Although Tarzan doesn't live with his mother and the other gorillas, Tarzan will still leap into action to protect them at any length, and he often returns to seek Kala's advice in dealing with situations such as the doubts of the other gorillas, and Jane wanting him to be more like a "civilized" man.

While helping Jane get over her more romantic ideas about jungle life, she acts as his guide to the duplicity in human nature—and insists he eats his food from a plate, and not with his bare hands. It is a never-ending process for both, with some startling insights into what "civilized" means, and some uproarious stumbling blocks along the way.

Many episodes revolve around his romance with Jane, his wife, Tarzan interacting with the human world, as well as meeting and encountering various visitors of the jungle from England and America, with the rainforest becoming a place of trade and port established by the recurring character, Renard Dumont, who may have a crush on Jane.

With Clayton and Sabor having been killed, a new series of enemies emerges for Tarzan and Jane to face, most notably Queen La, who fell in love with Tarzan and began an endless pursuit to make Tarzan not love Jane and have him as her mate.

Another would include Samuel T. Philander, a rival of Archimedes who often tries to steal his research. And there was Tublat, a rogue gorilla and Kerchak's former rival who wishes to rule over the gorillas' troop.

## Relatives

### Romance

#### Jane Porter

Jane is Tarzan's wife, and the current queen of the jungle along with Tarzan. Jane came to Africa with her father on an expedition to study gorillas, which led to Jane discovering and slowly falling in love with the ape-man as she gets to know him more every day,

After hearing Clayton's gunshots, Tarzan curiously went off to investigate where the sounds of the gun came from. Tarzan's curiosity then peaked as he had never seen other humans like him.