History Main / BenevolentGenie

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3063 SCP-3063]] is a very cruel twist of the PowerAtAPrice variety, in that it grants a wish to the spirit of the wish, but [[spoiler:the wisher invariably gets devoured alive by maggots about six years and a half after making their wish]].

* The Meeseeks from ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' will generally act this way provided the wishes are kept fairly simple (though they are capable of more complex things such as ensuring your popularity at school within a single afternoon or assuage your concerns of your marriage). However, because existence is pain for them and they only exist so long as their summoner's wish remains unfulfilled, they become desperate and violently insane if they take too long to fulfill a wish; when unable to improve Jerry's golf game the Meeseeks simply decide to kill him, reasoning that if he's dead then he'll have ''all'' the strokes off of his game.

* ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'' episode "I Dream of Genie" features a genie who can only grant one wish and so encourages the man who finds him to [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor carefully consider what he really wants]]. The hero rejects various ordinary wishes for wealth, love and power, and finally [[spoiler:wishes to become a Benevolent Genie himself, one who can grant three wishes and arranges for his lamp to be found by the homeless and needy]].

* The Genie in ''Film/Aladdin2019'', the live-action remake, takes the trope even further: he explicitly shows Aladdin how vague wording could cause problems ("Make me a prince" could be interpreted as "create a prince for me"), then goes out of his way to coach Aladdin on how to woo Jasmine (although part of this is so Genie can end up with [[BetaCouple Dahlia]]) even though Aladdin did not specify that as part of his wish. It's also zig-zagged in regards to Jafar: Genie grants his wishes literally, but not maliciously, so there are blind spots in the wish (i.e. becoming sultan doesn't mean the people have to obey you). He also catches on to Aladdin's gambit in the final act, so that wish is definitely done with malice.

* The ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' spell "Wish" is more famous for [[JackassGenie the opposite trope]], but the spell description does instruct the GameMaster to treat it this way if the request is within reason, and lists several specific effects that are guaranteed to work without issue.

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'' once had the heroes stumble upon a genie who granted their wishes as they intended them. It was a critique of the newly-developed patch devices; Kevin wishes for enhanced skills, and quickly realizes VictoryIsBoring. [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Mega Man]] wishes for enhanced strength, and nearly ''knocks down the palace.'' Princess Lana immediately wishes that "no one had made any wishes", returning things to normal for the moment so they can get on with the plot.

* In the ''Franchise/{{Batman}}''[=/=]''[[Anime/RanmaOneHalf Ranma]]''[=/=]''Anime/AhMyGoddess'' crossover ''[[http://web.archive.org/web/20051016212129/www.furinkan.net/fanfic/batman-wish.txt A Wish for Batman]]'': Batman is granted a single wish; reluctantly, he wishes for "the only thing he could" -- that Gotham be safe. His wish is granted, and much more: "Even though he wished for what he thought he had to, he still got what he wanted. That's what we do."

* The ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' fic "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/49689625/ Jackpot]]" presents Peter and Mary Jane finding a genie in an alternate post-''ComicBook/OneMoreDay'' world where they didn't take Mephisto's deal and Aunt May died, with Peter accidentally summoning the genie when he saves its bottle during a robbery of a museum. Not only does the genie leave a duplicate of his bottle in the museum while Spider-Man takes the original home, counting it as a favor rather than a wish as Spider-Man saved his vessel, but when Peter and Mary Jane are thinking about their three wishes the genie explains that it can answer certain questions about the afterlife and what might have been and count these questions as one wish, depending on the complexity of the questions. As a result, Peter uses one wish to ask if Aunt May's soul is happy where she is and what would have happened if he and Mary Jane had made the deal, one wish to erase all public knowledge of Spider-Man's true identity (only their true friends will remember the truth afterwards), and the third and final wish to bring Gwen Stacy back to life (with the stipulation that Gwen can stay dead if she doesn't ''want'' to come back).

* ''Film/MyDarlingGenie'', a Creator/ShawBrothers film about a genie summoned from an umbrella. The first thing the protagonist (played by Creator/DerekYee) releases her is heal a young boy who was left wheelchair-bound after an accident. She then accompanies him through life and befriends him.

* The ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' fanfic ''Fanfic/GazDreamsOfGenie'' has the titular genie, Azie, who grants Gaz three wishes after Gaz breaks her bottle, freeing her. While she's a little condescending to Gaz and trolls her a bit, she's mostly pretty helpful in granting Gaz's first two wishes, and tries to give her honest advice when she's carefully contemplating her last one. [[spoiler: Though when this final wish results in her and Gaz [[BecomingTheGenie switching lives]], she smugly gives Gaz a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, informing her that it would have happened anyway because Gaz broke the bottle, but that this curse could have been avoided if she'd only made a SelflessWish, then leaves Gaz trapped in the restored bottle.]]

* In ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVI'', [[EvilChancellor evil Vizier]] [[MeanigfulName Abdul Alhazred]] has a genie named Shamir who keeps trying to get you to kill yourself in creative ways. It's explained that genies don't have personalities of their own, rather they reflect the personality of their master. This makes them "benevolent" in the sense that they can't subvert their master's wishes. Once you capture Shamir's lamp, he's relieved that he no longer has to work for a villain.

* In ''Comicbook/EightBillionGenies'', While the genies are amoral at best given how they're happy to grant blatantly destructive wishes like the carasaurus or turning a person into a vampire, they're never malicious about what they do. They're also happy to be consulted for context and advice up to the point that the wish is actually made and will fulfill a wish to the full spirit of the wish rather than the letter of the wish. But they can still act as a LiteralGenie if a wish is ill-thought out and will not care about the consequences unless they're "boring" or would deny others their wish.

** Pazuzu's an odd case of this. While he is a demon prince and his wishes are the result of a DealWithTheDevil, he grants wishes how the wisher wants them and takes care no evil comes from the wish itself. The trick is that each time you summon him for a wish, the price gets higher (and more corrupting), and [[PragmaticVillainy he wouldn't get any repeat summons if he screwed over everyone who did it once]].
** Some treatments of the clerical counterpart to "Wish", "Miracle", suggests treating it as this -- since it is granted by a being who to at least ''some'' degree have an interest in your success (the deity you are a cleric of) it is more likely to look to intent rather than exact wording and more likely to outright fail to do anything rather than provide some form of undesirable partial or cruelly interpreted result if you ask for something unreasonable.

* In ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVI'', evil Vizier Abdul Alhazred has a genie named Shamir who keeps trying to get you to kill yourself in creative ways. It's explained that genies don't have personalities of their own, rather they reflect the personality of their master. This makes them "benevolent" in the sense that they can't subvert their master's wishes. Once you capture Shamir's lamp, he's relieved that he no longer has to work for a villain.

* The Genie in ''Film/Aladdin2019'', the live-action remake takes the trope even further: he explicitly shows Aladdin how vague wording could cause problems ("Make me a prince" could be interpreted as "create a prince for me"), then goes out of his way to coach Aladdin on how to woo Jasmine (although part of this is so Genie can end up with [[BetaCouple Dahlia]]).

* In the ending of ''[[Literature/TheMoomins Finn Family Moomintroll]]'', the Hobgoblin/Magician decides to grant everyone a wish -- he has some special power to do that, so that he can grant just about any wish to others even though he can't do the same things for himself. Most of the people present end up satisfied with their wish, with the only exception being Snorkmaiden, and even then, that's because [[DidNotThinkThisThrough she didn't think about the consequences of her wish]] (to have her face look like the one on a beautiful wooden figurehead they had found earlier), which [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor made it impossible to grant it in a way that would make her happy]]. Even then, the Hobgoblin asks if she's sure that's what she wants before granting the wish, and then allows Moomintroll to use his own wish to undo it when Snorkmaiden is horrified at the results.

* In the ending of ''[[Literature/TheMoomins Finn Family Moomintroll]]'', the Hobgoblin/Magician decides to grant everyone a wish -- he has some special power to do that, so that he can grant just about any wish to others even though he can't do the same things for himself -- and is quite willing to give them a do-over if they get into trouble with BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor.

* The twist in ''LightNovel/{{Bakemonogatari}}'''s Kanbaru arc is that the Rainy Devil, despite looking like the famous cursed Monkey's Paw, is in fact ''not'' a JackassGenie. Instead it ignores what the wisher claims to want and give them what they ''truly'' desire. For example, when Kanbaru wished to be the fastest runner in class, everyone that had picked on her for being the slowest got beaten up and couldn't run anymore. This isn't actually twisting the wish but rather that the Rainy Devil was granting her subconscious wish for revenge against the bullies.

* The eponymous MagicalGirlfriend of ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'' tries to be as useful as she could, although her attempts rarely go particularly well, partly because she's a bit [[TheDitz scatterbrained]], and partly because she's from a time and place so [[FishOutOfTemporalWater different than the 20th century US]], she might just as well be an alien. It doesn't help that she is easily jealous, either.

** The sequel ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheReturnOfJafar'' shows that Genies are not required to be benevolent; Jafar is very promptly a real jerk. Genie chose to be friendly to Aladdin, showing when Aladdin was drowning he really liked Aladdin and actively ''wanted'' to save his life, but was limited by his own previous statements ("no more freebies), so he took what he could get.

* In ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'', Snow White is one of these.

*** Shenron also appears to have omnipotent knowledge he's more than willing to share to help grant a wish with the intended effect. When the heroes are discussing whether they should just wish to kill the Saiyans before they arrive, he interrupts to say he can't do it as they exceed his power. The Saiyans were arriving from space and Shenron had never left Earth or even heard of them, yet he instinctively knows that this wish won't work.

** The manga version of ''[[Manga/DragonBallSuper]]'' adds the dragon Toronbo. Many of his wishes [[PowerAtAPrice require a hefty price to be paid]], but he makes sure to throughly explain what exactly the price of a specific wish will be, so that people can decide whether or not to go through with their request.

* In ''Fanfic/TheMermaidAndTheGenie'', when Ariel (''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'') finds Genie (''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'') after the destruction of her collection of human things, she uses her first wish to become human, but then admits to Genie that she doesn't actually want anything else from him. In keeping with his usual attitude, when Ariel suggests that she could use her second wish to set him free, Genie advises her to wait and see how her humanity plays out rather than let her essentially waste two wishes just to set the Genie free.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* PlayedWith on ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' -- [[BigBad Demona]], a villain, summons [[GreatGazoo Puck]] of the [[TheFairFolk Third Race]] and tries to use him to KillAllHumans (or at least, as many as his great-but-limited power can). The thing is, Puck likes humans, so by acting like a JerkassGenie and LiteralGenie to Demona throughout the episode (getting rid of the humans in Manhattan by turning them into gargoyles) he's actually keeping humanity safe.

* The genie in the ''ComicBook/XXXenophile'' short "Wish Fulfillment". Though he is bound by the three wishes limit, and acts as a LiteralGenie when he wants to, he is very benevolent towards his "chosen" mistress. Specifically, he chose to interpret the villain's words in such a way that the heroine wasn't legally the same person as she'd been when she'd made her first three wishes and was therefore entitled to three ''more'' wishes. Specifically, it allowed her to [[DroppedABridgeOnHim get rid of the villain]], then [[FreeingTheGenie free the genie]], whom she was in love with.
* The d'jinni Anhikiahl in ''ComicBook/PoisonElves'' acts as a (somewhat) Benevolent Genie for Lusiphur, but only because she feels guilty for attacking him after being freed. When Lusiphur tries the old WishingForMoreWishes trick she points out that she can be a JackassGenie too if he doesn't keep his wishes reasonable. (It later turns out that the wishes she ended up granting weren't that problem-free either, due to certain "mandatory bylaws".)

* The Gangreen Gang in ''ComicBook/ThePowerpuffGirls'' story "I Green Of Genie" gets superpowers from a girl genie (from a magic lamp they find in a dump) which they use to overcome the girls. It looks like the girls are finished until Big Billy, who was sad because his power was being overly stinky, wishes things were back to normal.