Fridge / Aladdin

Disney's Aladdin

Fridge Brilliance

• The requirement for entering the Cave of Wonders, "one whose worth lies far within", seems rather arbitrary at first... until you realize that it can also be used to describe the Cave itself. The mountains of gold and gems are a metaphor for a person's surface appeal, while the Genie's Lamp, a metaphor for who someone is on the inside, is kept several chambers in and is the most valuable thing within the Cave.
• Aladdin was this troper's personal favorite of the Disney animated movies. It wasn't until later that I realized that the movie itself was a partial adaptation of The Count Of Monte Cristo. Both Edmunde and Aladdin are in, or about to start, a romantic relationship. Both are also imprisoned, and in prison both meet an old man who tells them of a grand treasure they know of. The two character's reach their respective treasures. Aladdin and Edmunde both reemerge as a wealthy newcomer.- Mister Noc
  • Since Aladdin the movie was based on Aladdin the story in One Thousand and One Nights, published in the 18th century, it may be a coincidence or the other way around
    • The romantic relationship, imprisonment, and old prisoner are unique to the Disney version. However, Edmunde does use the alias Sinbad the Sailor so you might not be far off.
• On the subject of Aladdin: all that with surviving being shot miles in moments, then finding the carpet, the one thing that can help him out, then pulling off that impressive bit with the getting under the window slot? Well. Genies can't kill people. (And the big blue guy likes Al.) —Red Wren
  • Unfortunately for that theory, as I recall it was Jafar who fired Aladdin into the Himalayas, rather than Genie.
    • Ah, but who gave Jafar enough power to fire Aladdin into the Himalayas, hmmmm?
    • Then it would have been impossible for Jafar to harm any of the characters with the hourglass, or the flames, or the swords, or when Scaled Up. Not what happened.
    • Who said that? All those tricks eventually failed. Perhaps Jafar's defeat was part of the universe's weird ploy to avoid the rules being broken.
    • However, you could say that Genies cannot kill, but that does not mean that they can't get someone killed indirectly. It is pretty much like in one of Isaac Asimov's stories: in it, the First Law of Robotics, "A robot may not harm or, by inaction, cause harm to a human", is reduced to "A robot may not harm a human". The potential for disaster is that a robot could actually kill a person by carrying out an action that would kill the person, but the robot would not do the killing (the example is dropping something heavy over a person).
    • Furthermore, to corroborate the fact that Aladdin could have died, in the sequel Jafar demonstrates that, while a Genie cannot kill directly, the can manipulate the situation in order to make a man die, therefore in the first movie Jafar could have killed Aladdin with the powers that Genie gave him.
    • It doesn't actually corroborate that, even when Jafar tries indirect means that seem like certain death they all still fail. All of Jafar's plans and traps work just fine right up until the body count should start racking up, then they fall apart and everyone survives.
• Okay, so the setting of Aladdin seems to be a cross between India and the Middle East. And what's it called? Agrabah — literally a Portmanteau of Agra and Baghdad.
• There has been some "racism" talk about how Jafar's skin is darker than those of Aladdin and Jasmine. It might actually be The Artifact from the first version of the story, where the evil sorcerer is said to be African.
• Sultan (at the beginning of the movie):
  "Dearest, you've got to stop rejecting every suitor who comes to call! The law says you must be married to a prince, by your next birthday! You've only got three more days!"
  • So, let's see... that night, she sneaks out, the next day she meets Aladdin, who is caught and "sentenced" that night, he comes back the next day as Prince Ali, and that night they have a ride to a whole new world. Not a bad start to your birthday, indeed, until you realize that the rest of the story concludes that same day. So a genie takes over Agribah ON HER BIRTHDAY!! And no one even stops to wish her a happy birthday! Though, one would suppose getting engaged and saving the universe on your birthday is a halfway decent present. :P
• If the Moroccan magician really did know Aladdin's father, the father may also have been North African or Middle Eastern — which would explain why Aladdin has an Arabic name despite living in China with a Chinese mother.
• Iago, being a New World scarlet macaw, seems like Misplaced Wildlife until this conversation:
  Jafar: Where exactly did you say you were from?
  Aladdin: Oh... uh... much... farther than you've traveled, I'm sure.
  Jafar: Try me.
  • That's debunked in The Return of Jafar.
  • The civilizations in South America had markets:
    Jafar: If it weren't for me, you'd still be in a cage at the bazaar, squawking "Polly want a cracker?"!
  • Speaking of Iago, why is he so good at mimicking voices? Because he's a parrot! (yes I'm aware that real life parrots don't work that way but Iago's not a real life parrot)
    • I don't think we really need to go much further (considering his owner) that A Wizard Did It.
• When Jafar wishes to become the world's most powerful sorcerer, he reveals "Ali" is Aladdin by changing his robes back into his beggar's rags - but remember that Aladdin had wished to be a prince, not just look like one. Now, who do we later learn Aladdin's father is?
• It doesn't take much insight to see that Jafar is a color-coded villain (you don't often see heroes wearing black after all), but what really hits you later is that Jafar's wardrobe matches his personality perfectly! His clothes are black on the outside (for overt malice, shadow and irritability) and red on the inside (for private feelings of anger and envy). Of course, later Jafar's color palette becomes almost entirely defined by the red, since anger becomes almost the sole driving force behind his character.
  • To take it one step further, after Jafar is turned into a genie, this colour-coding stays with him — on the outside, his lamp is black, and on the inside, it is red, as it contains him in all his red-genie glory.
• The genie actually grants Aladdin's wish after he's been freed. To recap: He asks Aladdin to wish for the Nile, and when he does, the genie rejects him, as proof of his freedom. But Aladdin says it so fast, what does he sound like he's saying? "Denial." And that's exactly what he gets.
• A possible Brick Joke where Iago says at the beginning of the film, "Oh, there's a big surprise! That's an incredi-I think I'm gonna have a heart attack and die from not surprised!", and later when Jasmine refuses to bow to him and Jafar, he replies in a more annoyed tone, "Why am I not surprised?!"
• In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, the rules of genies still apply, with Aladdin using up the wishes, and a Genie's master ordering the genie to do something counts as a wish - this still applies to the movie as well, since when Genie gets Aladdin out of the Cave of Wonders, Aladdin never gives Genie an order, he flat out tricks the genie. In-universe as well - since Genie tries to tell Aladdin that he had already made a wish, only for Aladdin to say that it wasn't an actual wish.
• From the series: in the episode "The Wind Jackals of Mozenrath", Mozenrath reveals to the others that his weapon is a wind elemental. Iago remarks that wind is an unimpressive weapon and asks if he can "buy some sand to go with that." In Mozenrath's next chronological episode, "Black Sand", guess what element is now dangerous?
• Another from the series: the chronological production order of episodes has Mozenrath appear several times in seasons 1 and 3, but not in 2. However, in his last episode in season 1, a team of sprites steals his magic gauntlet and hides it in a vast desert; he immediately begins digging with his bare hands. Where was he for that absent year between seasons 1 and 3? Still digging!
• In the "Hero With a Thousand Feathers" episode of the series, it initially seems like the whole adventure was a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. If Fasir hadn't informed Iago that he would unleash and (possibly) defeat an ancient evil, then the parrot wouldn't have accidentally released Amok in his panicked attempts to avoid fulfilling the prophecy in the first place. However, since the Sultan was planning on opening a trade route through the cavern Amok was imprisoned in, it was very likely the demon would have eventually been released anyway, likely by someone who wouldn't have ever been able to defeat him. Iago was an ideal candidate to release and destroy Amok because his ability to fly meant he could easily go inside Amok with the medallion in hand. It wasn't a prophecy at all; it was a Batman Gambit.
• A lot of people point out that the Genie is unusually nice; there are all sorts of ways he could've played with Aladdin's words to screw him over. But consider this: before Aladdin starts his wishing, he strikes a deal with the Genie to set him free with the third wish. If the Genie'd screwed him over on the first two — say, just giving him a certificate to verify that he's a prince, rather than the lavish entrance he actually got — Aladdin would've had every reason to go back on the deal and seal him away for another 10 millenniums. This also goes a long way to explain why he loosely interpreted Aladdin's second "wish" to save his life, or why he was so friendly and helpful and somewhat intrusive during most of the movie. Part of it is definitely that he's just a nice guy, but also, if Aladdin dies or the Genie fails to get him what he wants, his one chance at freedom is gone, and he probably would never get another one. In other words, the Genie was really trying to make sure he didn't fuck this one up.
  • That makes sense for why he was so nice to Aladdin but not why Genie was so nice to Jafar. With Jafar it's pretty much the exact opposite he had every reason to be as much of a Literal Genie or a Jerkass Genie as possible. You wish to be Sultan? Fine you're the Sultan of that 1 square foot piece of land you're standing on. You wish to the world's most powerful sorcerer? Congratulations you're now the only sorcerer on Earth
    • As for the "only sorcerer left on Earth", one, Jafar might not have minded that one bit since it would have given him more of an edge anyways, and two, Genies "can't kil people. So don't ask."
    • Well, indeed he can't kill all the other sorcerers, but he can still take away their powers and make them normal people? And then, grant Jafar, I don't know, the power to transform sausages into daisies (but taking away all his other powers). Transforming sausages into daisies is sorcery. So it counts.
    • He might be able to make Jafar the world's most powerful sorcerer... but also unable to use that power effectively. Just a thought.
    • Actually there are several thing reasons that could happen: the most likely one being that a Genie is bound to grant wishes to the best of his/her ability. Genie's actions during the battle with Jafar make it very clear that he doesn't want to grant Jafar's wishes. Heck, when Jafar wishes to become a genie he actually covers his eyes. If he WERE capable of screwing Jafar over, I don't think he'd be so reluctant to grant Jafar's wishes. Genie probably did go the extra mile for Aladdin (i.e. the HUGE product that was Prince Ali and the very loose interpretation of wish to to save Aladdin's life), but I don't think Genie was capable of active sabotage against his current master.
    • But if the Genie was bound to grant wishes to the best of his abilities, why wasn't that the case with Jafar in the sequel? He was bound to the same rules as Genie (3 wishes, thou shalt not kill, and possibly even not making people fall in love and not resurrecting them) and yet when Abis Mal wished to have a sunken treasure, he literally dragged him to the bottom of the sea and made him waste his second wish to save him, being every bit a Jerkass Genie as he could. Probably the reason why Genie doesn't do the same is that he really is a nice guy. After all, even in the original tale both Genies granted wishes without Loophole Abuse
    • Another possibility is that it has something to do with why and how they are genies. Jafar is actively resisting, but is still bound by some rules, while Genie seems much more limited even if he has some small leeway (that Aladdin exploits). It's possible that because Jafar wished to be a genie (the "all powerful" part might have something to do with it too, but I personally don't care) he can have a little bit more freedom with how he grants wishes than the original Genie, who was likely bound due to his own true nature or at least different circumstances than his own choices. That, and Genie sees himself as a slave to his master, and his own control over his power likely reflects that lack of freedom, whereas Jafar wished to be a genie for more power, not less.
• Just read something on the Disney Wiki that suddenly made everything make sense to me - Robin Williams, among several other requests on his contract that Disney didn't follow, believed the Genie's voice to be his intellectual property and didn't want it to be imitated. That made it click in my head why Dan Castellaneta's version of the Genie doesn't sound a thing like Robin despite that being well within Dan's talents - I suspect Disney knew they were already on Robin's bad side and didn't want to make things worse by having anyone do an authentic impression of him. On the same page, I read that Robin reconciled with the Disney company shortly before his death, and if I'm doing the math right, that was right about the time Jim Meskimen started playing the role - he lacks the energy and range of Dan's portrayal, but his imitation of Robin's voice is pitch-perfect. Pure speculation based on two facts, but it adds up.
• After reading the original version of "Aladdin", one will realize that Disney's is a brilliant deconstruction of it. In the original Aladdin is poor, uneducated, and dim-witted, while the princess is a one-dimensional character treated as a prize to be won. In the Disney version, Aladdin's life in poverty has made him street smart and clever, despite other character's insulting claims that he's just a stupid "street rat." The princess meanwhile is very much an individual, fiercely so, and explicitly calls herself "not a prize to be won."
• In the end of Aladdin, the now freed Genie announces he's going to travel the world and is shown with a Goofy hat and suitcase (insinuating that he's going to Disneyland). Arguably all the anachronisms from Genie are just Disney's throw-away jokes. But Genie is a Genie, and probably has some kind of cosmic time-space awareness powers and is able to skip through any time and space for his vacation.
• When Jafar took over, he tries to wish for Jasmine to fall in love with him. Now why would he do that when, as "THE MOST POWERFUL SORCERER IN THE WOOOOOOORLD(!)" he could easily just hypnotize her like he did with the Sultan? Well, look back on what happened when he tried to "seduce" her—she shouts at him and defiantly throws wine in his face. And earlier, while the Sultan was about to bow after Jafar ordered it, Jasmine boldly shouted "we will never bow to you!" Jafar didn't try to hypnotize Jasmine because he can't hypnotize her—his hypnosis only works on the Weak-Willed, hence why he can affect the Sultan but can't affect Jasmine.
• Jafar's situation at the beginning of the movie foreshadows his downfall towards the end. At the beginning, the Sultan considers him his most trusted adviser, and Jafar can hypnotize him at will, meaning he already has most of the power that being Sultan would grant, and not as many of the downsides (day to day bureaucratic things, Klingon Promotions, etc). However, it's not enough for him; once he gets Genie's lamp, he immediately wishes to be Sultan. At the end, Aladdin taunts him with the knowledge that Genie still has more raw power than he does. Jafar doesn't think about the fact that he has more control with the power he has than Genie does; even being nominally second best drives him to take the number one individual's position — and seal his own doom.
• Iago's hatred of crackers may be a lampshade hanging on Reality Is Unrealistic—real life parrots actually don't like to eat crackers and would much rather have fruits, nuts and seeds.
• When Prince Achmed calls Aladdin a "worthless street rat", he gets offended. This may come across as odd, since several guards called him a street rat and it didn't bother him at all. But it actually makes sense, considering that Achmed tried to whip two poor children, and Aladdin is clearly established to be a Friend to All Children. The guards chasing him down earlier were just doing their job, and it's implied that he gets it from them all the time. But he does NOT want to hear it from an attempted child abuser.
  • Then again, Aladdin could be offended at the "worthless" part more than the "street rat" part. "I'm not worthless!"
  • It might also have something to do with him being used to hearing such abuse from the guards. Prince Achmed, on the other hand, is a complete stranger.
• The Genie's rules—they're not just a gag nor are they arbitrary...they're the film's sneaky way of keeping out potential Deus Ex Machinas! For example, why can't the Genie kill anyone? So Aladdin can't end the movie early by wishing for the villain's death! Why can't he make people fall in love? Aside from the obvious, it's so Aladdin and Jasmine's relationship both develops properly and has legitimate conflict in it! And of course, keeping genies from bringing the dead back to life keeps the stakes up. Death is real and final and no amount of wishing will change that, so it's imperative the heroes do everything they can to avoid getting killed.
  • Alternatively, each of the three rules represents a different movie of the trilogy:
    • "I can't make people fall in love." The first movie is about Aladdin trying to make Jasmine fall in love with him.
    • "I can't kill anyone." The second movie is about Genie!Jafar working around this rule.
    • "I can't bring people back from the dead." The third movie is about Aladdin's father, who was previously thought to be deceased, turning out to be alive.
• The Harem Girls that Aladdin meets during the opening chase scene. If one believes that they're brothel workers, it makes perfect sense that they don't want Aladdin there. Being a homeless street rat, he has no money.
  • And if they ARE members of an actual harem, Aladdin being caught there would open them all up to charges of adultery, which carries the death penalty for women of the types of cultures that allow harems to exist.
• As elaborated as part of a theory that suggests that the Genie only really granted two of Aladdin's wishes, Genie might've been playing the long game in granting Al's wish to become a prince. One legal way to become royalty is to marry into royalty. Thus, seeing as Al was trying to woo a princess, Genie made him look like a prince to get his foot into the door (note that he dodge'd Jafar's question on how far he traveled), and played Shipper on Deck to get his master made into a prince by marrying Jasmine. Granted, it took three films, a TV series, and possibly a video game or two, but Aladdin eventually marries Jasmine, and, after a long period of time, Al's first wish was granted.
• During "Never Had A Friend Like Me", Genie poofs belly dancers to flirt with Aladdin twice, and then poofs them away before Al can fall too far for them.
  Genie: Rule Number Two. I can't make anybody fall in love with anybody else.
• This might not be intentional, but both Aladdin and Jasmine covered themselves up more when they pretended to be something they weren't.
• When Jafar is strangling Iago, he can still say clearly "Good grip.". But how? It's because parrots (and all other birds) have their voice box inside of their chests, not in throat like humans.
• In Return of Jafar, how is it Jafar is able to hit Genie with a Curb-Stomp Battle, despite the latter having millennia of experience? Simple: he didn't. Neither genie could destroy the other, because genies can't kill anyone, so the only way one of them could win the duel would be if the other gave up. As Jafar's a Manipulative Bastard, this is exactly the kind of situation where he excels: Break Them by Talking. Genie, meanwhile, doesn't have a deceitful bone in his body, and as shown in the first film, is pretty easy to manipulate. Overall, no contest.
• Lots of people claim that Aladdin could have wished for more genies instead of more wishes... but maybe that's not allowed either, hence "never duplicated".
• The crown Jafar makes for Jasmine when "proposing" to her are made of her shackles.
  • If she had accepted it (for whatever reason), it would be like she was accepting that she belonged to him (in a sense, accepting that which she had protested against during the movie: That she was not a possession).
• Jafar and Iago briefly worry that they might be banished or beheaded. In the end, they're trapped in a genie lamp and thrown all the way into the Cave of Wonders. In a way, they really were banished.
• We don't know for certain what time period the film is set but its definitely not the 20th century. In Jafars hideout, there's a color photo of him and Iago. Even if this film is set before photography was invented, we know that Jafar is a sorcerer and he could travel through other time periods. For all we know, he and the Iago could have travelled to the 20th or the 21st century in gotten the photo taken of them and framed.
• Prince Achmed insults Aladdin by telling him, "You were born a street rat, you will die a street rat, and only your fleas will mourn you." By the end of the movie, however, Aladdin has earned Jasmine's love and will likely be remembered long after he dies as a hero who saved the kingdom. On the other hand, Prince Achmed will probably fade into history as nothing more than an obscure prince of a nameless kingdom.
• When he first emerges from the lamp, among other things, the Genie calls himself "the often imitated." Guess what Jafar ends up trying to do?
• Jafar's defeat in the sequel was caused by the destruction of the selfsame lamp whose creation had brought about his defeat in the first movie.
• In the opening song of Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Genie mentions how the food served at Aladdin and Jasmine's wedding will be "disgusting." and transforms into a roast pig. Agrabah is an Islamic state, and pork is considered unclean (and thus, forbidden to eat) by halal dietary customs. Genie's not insulting the catering; he's just letting us know what won't be on the menu!
• In "Friend Like Me," Genie sings "Scheherezade had a thousand tales." Yet traditionally, in the Western world, the tale of Aladdin is presented as one of the tales Scheherezade told to her husband and sister. But this isn't the case in the original Arabic versions of the Thousand and One Nights: it was a French translator who first added the separate tale of Aladdin to the collection in the 1700s. So it makes perfect sense that Aladdin's Genie should refer to Scheherezade as a character in a separate story that took place earlier.

Fridge Horror

• It seems highly unlikely that Jafar's second wish of being a sorcerer invalidated his first one of being a sultan. So, Jafar didn't need to marry Jasmine, he just wanted to. There are some possible reasons for that and they're all pretty uncomfortable: He might've still wanted to torture/get back at her for all the years she had power over him; he was at least attracted to her; despite believing he had killed Aladdin, he wanted to take that which Aladdin loved; he has developed a crush...
• Jafar's (attempt at a) third wish is that Jasmine will "fall desperately in love" with him, so Jafar is at least attracted to, and maybe even in love with Jasmine. Note that in the sequel to this movie he implies he's still attracted to her.
• Genie looks extremely worried after Aladdin pulls out his Batman Gambit in the climax. For those who don't remember, Aladdin called Jafar's attention to the fact that the Genie still technically had more power than him. Now, as Aladdin hoped, this prompted Jafar to use his final wish to become "an all-powerful genie". But an equally rational answer would have been to wish for Genie to die. Now you see why he was so worried.
  • Well Jafar couldn't wish for Genie to die, because Rule Number One: "I don't kill people"... that would include killing himself. But Jafar could have wished for "Genie to become powerless" or something like that.
    • Another possible wish that Jafar might've been able to make is force Genie to stop existing altogether. This technically isn't even killing, merely erasing his existence (while killing implies actively taking someone's life), meaning Jafar could've taken advantage of Loophole Abuse by "killing" Genie without actually killing him.
  • The Genie probably was also worried that Jafar would wish just that, to be more powerful than him, since he wasn't happy with Al at all seconds before granting his wish. Imagine a psychopath like Jafar with more power than Genie himself. Or imagine if Jafar, instead of wishing to be a Genie, just wished to be "more powerful than a Genie". That wouldn't have necessarily turned him into a Genie, therefore Jafar would have been not only more powerful than him, but also perfectly able to kill him and take over the world with zero limits to his power.
  • This worry persists even after Jafar's wish turns out to be "make me a genie"; even the Genie, who had first hand experience with what being a genie entailed, had no guarantee Aladdin's plan would work. Jafar could have just as easily been made into a free, masterless genie with phenomenal cosmic powers and no restriction whatsoever. And that's without getting into whether imprisoning Jafar would reverse what he'd already done or not...
• A few involving Genies:
  • In the first sequel we learn that the only way Genies can die is if their lamp is destroyed if they are not freed, whether they are in it or not. In the first movie when Abu touches the gem and causes the whole cave to destroy itself the podium the lamp is on blows up as well; if Aladdin hadn't grabbed the lamp first then Genie would have died before he had a chance to notice what was happening!
  • Genie was stuck in the lamp for 10,000 years at the end of a secret cave that only one specific person is allowed to enter, surrounded by endless treasure that causes the cave and everything in it to melt and collapse. Not only does this mean he should be scared to die at any moment when someone sneaks in and tries to take treasure, but in the series we find out that genies can't use any of their powers when they are in a sealed space like a lamp, so he couldn't use his magic to materialize things to entertain himself or take his mind off the situation. All he can do is lay there in a tight space hoping that one day he might finally be let out again. Even with the next time in mind it's still scary.
    • Though it's never specifically stated what time period Aladdin is set, we can assume before the 19th century when photography was invented. After Aladdin exposes Hagar to the Sultan, Jafar and Iago go down to the dungeon of the palace and Iago takes out a photo of him and Jafar. This may seem like an anachronism until you realize that Jafar IS a sorcerer and can easily travel through time.

    • Genie may have been the cave of wonders itself. Notice that both the cave's head and Genie have their right ears pierced. Also notice how all that treasure disappears, and how Genie is able to make a lot of treasure appear in "Friend Like Me," only to make it disappear at the end of the song. Just because we only see him when he's let out of the lamp doesn't mean he isn't present at other times. That could be how he knew to appear when Aladdin and the lamp were underwater. We really have no idea what the true limits of his power are. He's already the most powerful character in the history of Disney, and just because he says something doesn't mean it's true. He's able to become multiple people at once and generate fake people . . . how do we know who's real and who's a magical illusion, or who is Genie himself? Jafar needed Iago to free him from the lamp, but that could have been Genie's work—Genie could have been writing new rules for him. Also, sort of unrelated, but does anyone else think it's odd that Iago, one of the greediest characters in the series, passes up the opportunity to get three wishes out of Jafar at the beginning of The Return of Jafar?
    • We do have some concept art where it is a distorted version of the Genie's head, rather than a tiger, who greets Jafar and Iago in the desert.
  • Genie is at a minimum 10,000 years old, almost surely much, much older. Genies don't die unless their lamp is destroyed, and this only kills them if they aren't free, so no problem here right? WRONG! Try this Cracked article on for size. Now a genie wouldn't have to worry about most of these things: humans know genies are different, and if humans evolved to a point where genies as we see them look nothing like humans in the slightest genies could always make themselves look more like current humans. Since genies aren't human they wouldn't have to worry about 4, and the magic of genies probably helps them avoid 3. They can always escape 1 with their magic, unless they are locked in a container after the end of the world. But 2 could be a scary if not very sad problem for a genie. In one episode of the series we learn that a Genie cold lasts a century or two, or can possibly be a "twenty-four year bug", and to Genie—at his age—a century or two is like one or two weeks. So even if Genie stays with Aladdin and Jasmine until they die it will still feel like no more than a few days with them. After a long time, the years he spent with them, or any other friends, would feel like a few hours, and eventually anyone he knew for even one hundred years would feel like someone he knew for just minutes! Unless he makes friends with other Genies or immortals it would feel like he never actually had any friends at all!
    • Genies are shapeshifters, so 5 isn't a problem either. And they probably have a work around for 2. I'm fairly certain there are drugs that can affect one's perception of the passage of time. I'm sure a genie could do the same to themselves with their nigh omnipotent magic.
    • If the Disney genies are anything like the djinni of real world folklore, they are eternal spirits rather than merely mortal beings who can be killed but can not die of natural causes, so the passage of time really doesn't mean anything to them.
• In Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Cassim and Iago are sentenced to life in prison but then set free. At a separate point in time, Razoul and the rest of the guards arrest a bunch of the thieves, and they are sentenced to life in prison. They're NEVER FREED, at least not on screen. This is sort of acknowledged in the end credits when Genie says "We're not getting out of here! This is it guys, end of the line!" Life in prison is depressing enough, but life in the dungeon of Agrabah's palace looks horrific.
• In an episode of the series version of the same name, Aladdin's head is (magically) separated from his body. If they hadn't reversed the process, his body, unable to eat or drink, would have died of thirst.
• Remember Aladdin's wish in the movie to become a prince? Read it carefully. He wanted to become a prince—not pass off as one but become one, as in, a bonafied prince with untold riches, and the ability to afford a large army of singing and dancing servants to march onto Agrabah. That leaves a hidden implication that the genie may have had to create an entire country in order to solidify Aladdin's claim of prince-hood, as discussed by Cracked. This raises worrisome questions such as...
  Genie never said they weren't allowed to create life, they just weren't allowed to end it (or resurrect the already deceased.) Doesn't this give him the 'cosmic powers' the lamp was trying to restrain?
  What happened to the poor people of Aladdin's fictional country when he was momentarily reverted back to being the beggar he really was? Even if they were still around, they're now busy wondering where the hell their Prince Ali Ababua got to. Even worse, the supposed mother and father of Prince Ali Ababua are probably having to come to grips with the fact that their son is currently MIA, and may never return.
  If Genie didn't magically create a country, but had merely altered the minds of an already existing country's populace, that still leaves the question of Genie potentially abusing his powers, and of Ababua's parents having to come to grips with suddenly remembering they have a son that they've never seen before and will never, ever see in the future.
  Aladdin's lie would have been exposed sooner or later. If Jafar hadn't gotten his nose into the deal, no doubt some time later either Jasmine or the Sultan would ask Aladdin about the country he's prince of. Imagine what would've happened then?

  Not necessarily — Genie's magic could have gone so far as to magically create memories in Aladdin's mind once they were necessary, like he Scooby Gang when Dawn shows up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Being a prince doesn't necessarily mean he rules over subjects. You don't even need to rule an entire country—he could technically rule that oasis they landed in after escaping the Cave of Wonders and be considered a prince. No need for any other royal family either, since prince is only an honorific in some cultures. As for the riches and processional, they could just be realistic mirages created by the Genie to help Aladdin better look the part.
  • Right, there are plenty of ways to explain all the people and animals. The genie could have exercised some sort of mind control on existing people which would explain how a giant procession was so well-choreographed. He could have created some kind of mirage or manipulated people into thinking that they saw more than what was really there. Which means the movie audience was similarly manipulated. Or he just has the ability to momentarily conjure up people and animals without bringing anything to life or killing anything when they disappear. They could all be extensions of him somehow, which is true for at least some of the people and animals.
    • In the Cut Song "Humiliate the Boy," the Genie says that the animals and people were transformed from vermin, the same way Abu was transformed into an elephant.
    • I've always assumed—after watching the third movie anyway—that the moment Aladdin gets his wish to become a prince, his father becomes the King of Thieves, thus making Aladdin, unbeknownst to himself, the "Prince" of Thieves. Genie never mentioned a country, and when Jafar questions Aladdin about where he's from, Aladdin couldn´t give a straight answer, so I doubt he even stopped to wonder what or where he was prince of. In the third movie Razoul does call Aladdin the Prince of Thieves after learning that the King is his father.
    • Aladdin could have been made a prince by being "added" to the royal family of an existing country.
    • Aladdin did become a prince. He marries Princess Jasmine.
• Back on the prince subject, there is a scene in the first movie where Jafar tries to have Aladdin killed when he's still masquerading as a prince. Now, at this point, he is still under the impression that Aladdin is the real thing, so that means Jafar knowingly and willingly tried to off someone who was likely a member of a royal family. Now imagine if he actually was. Lesser offences have lead to war, and that's just assuming that "Ali's" father or whoever was just a vanilla human. For all Jafar knew, this Ali guy could have had the equivalent of the Witch-King of Angmar for a father, with all that implies. And that goes double for the guards following his orders.
• Prince Achmed leaves with a bite taken out of his pants. Later, the sultan pulls a piece of Achmed's heart-covered undies out of Rajah's mouth. Only there wasn't any fabric missing from the undies when he left. If the fabric isn't from the back of his undies...
• Al and Abu weren't allowed to touch anything but the lamp in the Cave of Wonders, yet Carpet made contact with them multiple times. This can potentially be handwaved by Carpet not being a native treasure of the cave, but, if that's the case (considering it's very much sentient), exactly how long has it spent in isolation within the cave?
• The Genie's "I can't make anyone fall in love rule" becomes this when you realize the in-universe reason it might be considered off limits — granting such a wish would be a direct violation of someone's free will.
  • Additionally, while explaining the rules to Genie, he says he doesn't like raising people form the dead while begging him not to make him. These seems to suggest that these rules exist because he didn't like doing them, which raises concerning implications about what wishes he might've granted in the past.
• It's implied that Jasmine has turned down multiple princes before the start of the movie. How are those men's families going to react when they find out that Agrabah's princess turned down their royal sons to marry a "street rat"? It's likely a few of Agrabah's neighboring kingdoms are going to be feeling rather insulted. That could lead to all manner of nasty political consequences.
  • In the TV series, some ambassadors are turned into Kangaroos by Chaos. Talk about nasty political consequences. It's entirely possible the subject has been brought up off-screen, only for the kingdoms involved to back off in a hurry for fear of supernatural shenanigans showing up on their doorstep if they meddle with Agrabah too much.
• One of the lines in "Prince Ali" says that Ali has slaves. That raises a boatload of disturbing questions, even accounting for possible Deliberate Values Dissonance. Were they conjured out of thin air, or did Genie enslave random people? And why would Genie, of all characters, create slavery when he should know firsthand how awful slavery is?
  • It's hard to place this rendition of Aladdin in a historical timeline with any certainty, but Prince Ali's 'slaves' are almost certainly 'enslaved' under the traditions of ancient Middle Eastern civilizations. The most common image of slavery today is that of the Atlantic Slave Trade, in which people were treated as property for their lives (and born into it as well), with a strong racial component. Middle Eastern culture, on the other hand, tends to use the term 'slave' as a term of politeness ("I am your slave"), and it has referred to everyone from common field laborers to royal officials with titles, property, and authority over entire regions of the kingdom. Slavery, in that time period was neither generational nor racial (nor guaranteed to be lifelong), and it was one of the easiest ways to go from being someone in Aladdin's position to being someone in Jafar's position.
  • Hey, at least the Europeans didn't CASTRATE their male slaves, and turn the female ones into sex toys after FG Ming them.
• The Genie says he can't bring the dead back to life. Then he says it's not pretty and he doesn't like doing it. So, he can, but just won't, or does he mean he can't do it properly? And what incident made him decide this?
• In the deleted song "Why Me?", Jafar mentions how he was unappreciated and ridiculed by his peers while looking at a collection of skulls; this heavily implies that he murdered them in retaliation.
• Abu probably committed a murder. In the first movie, during the chase scene song, Abu yanks a sword out of the Sword Swallower's throat and threatens guards with it. The scene is played for laughs, but that Sword Swallower may have died. Even a dull Sword Swallower's sword is not supposed to be pulled out violently and may very well have caused serious lacerations on the way out, especially given that it was a curved-edged scimitar especially useful for slashing, rather than a more traditional straight-bladed arming sword. For all we know, the Sword Swallower may be gushing like a Red Fountain just outside the frame, given his pained expression. Even if the sword didn't lacerate anything on the way out, it could still cause all kinds of damage on his throat.
• Aladdin managed to some how cheat death when he was banished to the ends of the Earth because he was half dressed in freezing conditions. Aladdin really should had died of hypothermia in moments.
• In regards to the Genie: up until the end of the film, he is portrayed as one of the most powerful characters in the Disney canon (and one of the friendliest as well), yet has limits to his powers, like the number of wishes he can grant (three), being unable to make people fall in love with each other, killing and raising the dead, what with being trapped in a lamp and all. Then Aladdin uses his third wish to free the Genie from his ten thousand years as a slave to "masters". This has the side effect of removing just some of his powers, but also releases him from his Genie of the Lamp restrictions. So...what's stopping the Genie from killing people?
  • While talking about his rules, when Genie talks about not bringing back people from the dead, he says that he doesn't like doing it. This seems to suggest that the "rules" are moreso him not wanting to do these things than they are cosmic laws.
• Jafar's third wish: Agrabah (and the world) can be thankful that he recklessly demanded to become an all-powerful genie without realizing the confinement to a lamp and the restrictions to his powers, because if Jafar had been more considerate of the consequences, and told the Genie to remove all the rules and limits and became an all-powerful, unrestricted genie, no mortal being in the Disney universe would be able to defeat or even stop him!

---