Queen La

"I am La. Queen La."

- Queen La introducing herself to Tarzan, Jane, and their friends. "Don't worry. I'm not gonna dispose of you. Not at least until I can find an especially gruesome and painful way of doing it."

- Queen La to Kaj, the leader of the Leopard Men rebels.

Queen La (simply known as La) is an antagonist in Disney's animated TV series The Legend of Tarzan.

In the original novels, she is a high priestess of a blood cult who fell in love with Tarzan.

In her adaptation for the series, she is a former member of the African Waziri tribe, exiled due to her continued practices of forbidden magic to extend her life. As a result of this exile, she has become an utterly vicious and manipulative sorceress who rules over the abandoned city of Opar, where she lords over the Leopard Men, leopards whom she has changed into humanoid form to serve her.

After she sees Tarzan fight to save the professor, she falls in love with him. One time, she invites Tarzan and Jane to see the Springs of Opar, but Jane falls behind. Tarzan and La arrive and La tries to convince him to be her husband, by using "fate", which Tarzan and Jane did, but she tries to change it to Tarzan and La, trying to make Tarzan into her king.

She was voiced by famed Dynasty actress Diahann Carroll.

The Lost City of Opar
La appears when two Leopard Men bring Professor Porter before her, but she is outraged that they didn't bring her a man more suitable to be a king like she asked them, so she uses her staff to vaporize the two Leopard Men as punishment for failing her. She decides to leave her throne for the time being and tells the other Leopard Men to sacrifice the Professor since she has no use for him.

La later hears all the chaos caused by Tarzan, Jane, and their friends, and she watches from the balcony, impressed with how easily and skillfully Tarzan was fighting her Leopard Men. When the heroes then try to escape with the Professor, she appears before them to stop them. It initially seems like she has ill intentions toward them, but instead amicably apologizes for the Leopard Men's behavior. Professor Porter is quick to accept her apology despite his near-sacrifice, and La introduces herself to the group. She then asks who Tarzan is, admiring how he "fights with the strength of ten lions," and he gives his name. However, she interrupts Jane as she introduces herself as Tarzan's wife.

La takes the heroes on a tour of Opar, and she weaves a phony tale of woe about her life. She tells Tarzan, Jane, Terk, Tantor, and the Professor that she had lived in the city for most of her life, raised by the Leopard Men since her childhood. When Tarzan tells her that he had been raised by gorillas, La is even more smitten to him, seeing their "similar" backgrounds. This is instantly noticed by Jane, who knows that La is just throwing herself at Tarzan. Fortunately for her, Tarzan's attention is drawn away from La when part of the bridge that she (Jane) and Tantor are on breaks due to the latter's weight, and they both fall into the water. Tarzan jumps in to save her, despite her being unharmed by the fall (as is Tantor, who swims out of the water himself), which puts La off. Eventually, La has the Leopard Men prepare bedchambers for the heroes since they will be staying for the night.

Once alone, Jane admits to Tarzan that she doesn't trust La, since it is obvious that she likes him "a little too much." Tarzan assures Jane that La won't get anywhere with him because of all of the women he knows, "Jane is the best" (his way of telling Jane that he loves her). Jane now feels reassured that Tarzan loves her and doesn't have to worry about La. However, it turns out that she does have to worry, as La is privately venting to one of her Leopard Men that "Tarzan must be [hers]." The Leopard Man reminds her that Tarzan is married (with a roar, of course), but La already has a plan to work around that. "Until death do they part," she says. "So we'll just have to part them, won't we?"

The next morning, while Tarzan is further exploring Opar, La takes a walk with Jane and starts manipulating her subtly, bringing up her not exactly being native to the jungle, and Tarzan finding her "an easy burden to bear." Jane does not like the idea of being a "burden" to Tarzan, something that, unbeknownst to La, had already been eating at her since before meeting La. She later extends an invitation to show Tarzan and Jane the hot springs of Opar up in the mountains. While Jane is a bit unnerved by how much of a hike it appears to be, she decides to go, as well. However, she balks upon seeing that it will require climbing trees to get there instead of simply walking up the mountain. She nonetheless tries on her own, but fails. She then rejects Tarzan's offer to help her, telling him to go on with La so she can try herself. Tarzan reluctantly goes on, while Jane continues her futile attempts to climb the tree herself for another minute before eventually giving up and walking back into the city in frustration.

Meanwhile, La reaches the springs with Tarzan and, after admiring the view (of him, while he admires the view of the springs), she tries coming on to him, asking him if he believes in fate. In this case, she means two people finding each other against all odds. Tarzan thinks that she means Jane and himself, but La tells him outright that she means herself and him.

However, before Tarzan can reply to this, La's trap is sprung, as now that Tarzan is at the springs with her, Jane is alone and vulnerable back in Opar, and she finds herself ambushed by two Leopard Men. They grab her, carry her to the bridge overlooking Opar's waterfall, and waste no time in throwing her to what they presume to be her death. Tarzan hears her screams and rushes back to Opar, while La watches him run off with an evil grin on her face.

Tarzan arrives just in time to see Terk, Tantor, and Professor Porter mournfully looking over the edge, thinking that Jane is gone. La suggests that Jane might have slipped and gives Tarzan her false condolences, privately pleased that Jane is out of the way and that she now has a clear path to Tarzan. Tarzan is initially distraught, as well, until he notices three sets of footprints leading up to where Jane "slipped." He notices her own footprints suddenly disappearing well before the edge, and both Leopard Men's footprints only leading up to it, which makes him realize that it was no accident. "Jane didn't slip," he growls furiously. "She was pushed." The reveal of this also brings anger to Terk's face, and shock to Tantor and Professor Porter's faces.

La nervously tries to blame the Leopard Men's behavior, but Tarzan is hearing none of it, saying that the Leopard Men "do what [La tells] them!" He then tries to pounce on La, presumably to kill her for having Jane killed, but the Leopard Men quickly capture and restrain him, Terk, Tantor, and Professor Porter. With the remaining heroes now down, La tries to appeal to Tarzan once more, saying that Jane "was all wrong for [him], anyway," and that she is more perfect for him since they are more alike, with both of them being "part-human, part-beast." Tarzan roars that La is nothing like him, and that he will never join her. La warns Tarzan not to "test" her and randomly vaporizes a Leopard Man standing behind her just to show him what may happen if he continues to refuse her. Then, she arrogantly says, "Queen La always gets what she wants. And she wants . . . is you."

Later, La has Tarzan tied to the same slab to which the Professor had previously been tied and gives him one final chance to live, as she will otherwise sacrifice him. "Live with me in this life," she says, "or with Jane in the next." Tarzan snarls in reply, "I choose Jane." La, however, tells Tarzan to reconsider, reminding him that Jane is dead, while she is very much alive. "I choose Jane," Tarzan repeats. Unbeknownst to both of them, Jane, who has actually survived her fall and has climbed back up the waterfall and into the city, has overheard, and she holds her heart, touched by Tarzan's words. Still, she knows that she must save her husband somehow. She realizes that La is using a gigantic jewel to cast a powerful, searing sunbeam on the slab to cut open Tarzan in half. The jewel is powered by the sun, so Jane just needs to block the sun itself from reaching the jewel.

After making a fire (by unintentionally burning an Opar tapestry hanging nearby her while trying to burn some cinders), the smoke indeed blocks the sun from hitting the jewel. La sees the smoke and takes some Leopard Men outside to investigate. Jane uses the distraction to slip inside and release Tarzan out of their sight. Unfortunately, Terk, Tantor, and Professor Porter are all sitting near the door, tied up and forced to watch the sacrifice, and Professor Porter sees his daughter and, not realizing why she is there, loudly expresses his relief that she is alive, which draws La and the Leopard Men's attention to her. La orders them to kill Jane, and a brief chase ensues. However, Tantor grabs the Leopard Man with the keys to their chains, and Terk catches them with her foot, using them immediately to free herself and then her friends.

After Terk, Tantor, and the Professor free Tarzan, he runs off to save Jane, who has been chased to a wall and cornered near it. La has her surrounded and moves in to vaporize Jane with her staff. However, Tarzan lets out his jungle cry, jumps down onto the scene, and fights off La's Leopard Men. La starts to aim her staff at him, but Jane grabs it from her, runs to Tarzan, and slams the ground with the staff, causing herself, Tarzan, Terk, Tantor, and the Professor to disappear, thus escaping from Opar. La screams in frustration and despair over their escape.

Tarzan and Jane ride home on Tantor's back, with Tarzan assuring Jane once more that "Jane is the best." Jane makes sure that he doesn't find her a burden, and Tarzan simply says it again, causing Jane to lovingly tell her husband how "wonderfully stubborn" he is. However, La, somehow watching the whole thing, says that Tarzan will find that she can be stubborn, as well. She then calls on a rainstorm to extinguish the fires set by Jane and says deviously, "Quite stubborn, indeed."