The three witches from the episode "Witch way did she go", apart from theircreepy looks, are a G-rated example of black magic. They summon their staff from a hole connecting the world of living to the Realm of Mists, which, judging by what their leader Shakanta says later in the same episode ("Prepare to spend an eternity of agony in the Realm of Mists!"), is clearly meant to be Hell. Eventually, Sadira proposes to send team Aladdin into said hole to lower the guard of her fellow witches and use their staff to toss them in. You read right, we have a Disney character sending a group of villains to Hell (with them screaming and shouting a Big "NO!" all the way down, at that). Worse still, Shakanta almost managed to take Sadira with her before the latter closes the portal for good.
The show's intro version of the song "Arabian Nights" has some darker lyrics to describe the setting of Aladdin and the peril of his adventures.
"Pack your shield, Pack your sword, You won't ever get bored, Though get beaten or gored, you might!"
Whenever Carpet gets damaged. Carpet acts autonomously, and has on multiple occasions shown fear - such as the episode with a creature that devours magic, which it is terrified of. It is self-aware. So this begs the question; does it also feel pain?
Mozenrath's debut on the show. He starts out by sicking a pterodactyl-like demon on Agrabah to find someone to help him tame the magic-eating creature called the Thirdak. The Thirdak is from a dimension where magic is everywhere and eats anything even remotely magical by sucking it up like a vacuum. And Mozenrath wants Aladdin to collar the beast so he has a living weapon against any other sorcerer that might try and fight him. Aladdin refuses so the evil wizard finds his home and steals Genie and the lamp! Aladdin and his friends are then teleported to Mozenrath's kingdom, The Land of Black Sand. A seemingly dead land covered in eternal night and Mozenrath's palace is staffed by undead servants, including the former dark wizard Distaine who raised him like a child. Apparently, that particular wizard was so evil that even Jafar steered clear of him and Mozenrath usurped the throne, his power, and reduced his former master into another shambling zombie slave! Mozenrath explains what he wants Aladdin to do and gives an ultimatum; collar the Thirdak before Genie winds up on the menu!
Whats more Iago finds a tapestry that explains the nature of the Thirdak to the others about how everything in it's dimension is magic. It's in the food. The water and the air. Which makes Aladdin realize it's not evil. In a dimension like their without omnipresent magic, the poor creature is effectively dying of starvation and thirst.
He describes this explicitly as a price he paid for power. Paid ... to who?
It goes deeper than that. In "Two to Tangle", Mozenrath reveals that, thanks to the gauntlets repeated use, his body is rapidly dying. He makes plans to pull a Grand Theft Me with Aladdin's body.
There's an episode where Mozenrath replaces several of the palace's inhabitants, including Genie and Jasmine, with his undead servants in disguise. Aladdin finds out when he tries grabbing her arm to stop her from walking by, and ends up ripping it off. Thankfully this breaks the illusion, but that doesn't make the sound effect or Aladdin's shocked expression as he starts to bring the limb on-screen any better.
The Mukhtar. Not only for how he looks, the sound of his voice, or him being one of the biggest badasses in this show, but there's also the fact that you can never shake him once he sets out to get you. And then there's the wailing... and thesniffing.
Not to mention the Mukhtar race are said to be the archnemesis of Genies who are a race of reality warping mystical creatures. They live to wipe out Genies and are feared across the land as Genie Exterminators. Somehow these things are tough enough to not only pose a threat to such powerful beings but take on Genies and win!
On the surface, Mechanicles is one of the goofiest villains around. A fastidious inventor obsessed with cleaning. But don’t forget he makes all sorts of crazy contraptions like a brainwashing machine that could turn Aladdin’s friends and love against him, scorpion robots that demolish Agrabah, and mechanical termites that were about to eat up every bit of rainforest which would lead to a worldwide ecological disaster. And the man fully knows all life on the planet would follow the destruction but he didn’t care. Long as the planet is clean.
Destiny on Fire. The fact that one villain, not Jafar, Mozenrath, or Mirage, managed to turn Agrabah into... that.
His death counts as well: Power Incontinence from using his power too much causes his body to set on fire and him to turn red. He tries to breathe one more time... and he swells up and explodes onscreen.
The statue of Kileem. That way it just... stares at you with its glowing eyes and murderous sneer. One has to wonder if Steven Moffat watched this show at some point before he wrote Blink.
In the later half of the episode, Iago is heard desperately screaming from his locked bird cage in the throne room. Aladdin appears and Iago says he was screaming because the statue looked at him. We never see Kileem's statue move on its own, but its presence is so off setting and unnerving you keep expecting it's going to do something. And there's no telling what would've happenedhad Aladdin not arrived in time.
In the same episode, the Sultan's metamorphosis from a kind and bubbly Bumbling Dad to a ruthless and relentless warmongering Implacable Man who's willing to kill anyone or anything including his own daughter due to being possessed by Kileem's armor is an unsettling sight to behold. For the short time he was wearing the armor, he already made plans to conquer all the surrounding kingdoms, tried to kill Jasmine by beheading for betraying him (even Razoul is reluctant to follow this order), and tried to kill Aladdin and his friends with his bare hands. If not for the fact that destroying the statue of Kileem was the only thing that would turn the Sultan to normal, the Sultan would have won.
Even more unsettling is that the actual Kileem ruled Agrabah with an iron fist and willingly cursed the armor upon his death. How bad must things have been with someone like him in charge of Agrabah?
Mirage, quite naturally as an incarnation of Evil itself. Especially since a lot of times her motivation is simply that someone out there is happy and she wants to end it.
The Lost Ones, the episode with the El-Katib. Mirage lures/kidnaps children and turns them into demons. They think that they're just getting power and immortality, but she's really enslaving them and only letting them out for three nights every seven years, the rest spent in a creepy black void. And if they leave that void, they die.
Such feeling how Aladdin felt when he suddenly remembered a traumatizing childhood memory. Aladdin was friends with another street kid named Amal, who then ups and vanishes for no reason and without warning, all in a span of simply looking away for a moment.
Mirage takes a lot of sick joy in mocking her latest recruit Wahid when she reveals he'll die if he doesn't enter the void. She then starts playfully scolding herself for "neglecting" to mention that part of the deal until after he accepted to join her.
Mirage: Oh did I forget to mention that? Bad Mirage! Bad, bad, BAD Mirage!
And at the end of the episode, the El Katib she left behind do die: slowly disintegrating onscreen. A fan analyzing the episode on Tumblr really lets the Fridge Horror of that particular moment sink in.
Let me be more specific, here: Mirage barred the way for the El Katib to return to the Realm of Shadows, and abandoned all of them there to die. These are all children who were coerced into joining the kinship, who have known nothing but the blackness and space and whatever camaraderie could be had between the lot of them, and her – the closest thing any of them have to a parent.
These are all children, at least mentally, and she leaves them all to die.
While mostly a funny episode, in the beginning of "When Chaos Comes Calling" we see her casually dooming a king to drown at sea, plunging his country into civil war. She succeeds, without a hitch - we even see the ship disappear beneath the waves. She apparently wins all the time - according to her, she would have a near spotless record of misery and horror if it weren't for Agrabah or the times Fasir got in her way.
Her fire cats as well, they're terrifying, and get stronger the more afraid of them you are.
The end of her debut episode, where she threatens Aladdin and company... by zooming up close to the screen with creepy glowing eyes. And as if that wasn't enough, they cut to the appropriately scared Aladdin, and then cut back to her angry face.
It's heavily implied that since being freed, Genie is no longer bound to the "can't kill anybody" rule, as he has made some pretty graphic threats a few times, particularly involving the spinal area. (Beware the Silly Ones, indeed!) There are two examples of where he had done this:
In The Seven Faces of Genie, thanks to a magical bomb (courtesy of Abis Mal) Genie had been split up into 7 different personality traits: Laughter, Courage, Anger, Kindness, Fear, Wisdom, and Weirdness. Genie's Anger was Hair-Trigger Temper personified, as anything and everything would set him off. Abis Mal learned this the hard way.
Anger!Genie: POINT THAT BEARD AT ME AGAIN, AND I'LL RIP YOUR SPINE OUT!!!
Then, in Mission Imp-possible, Genie had to team up with Nefir to find a cure for Aladdin, who had been poisoned into a coma-like sleep. Said "cure" was at the stronghold of a giant worm that could spin golden silk. There were several obstacles to get to said stronghold, and after Genie would take care of each one, Nefir, being the greedy jerk that he is, would give Genie ridiculously expensive bills to pay. When they finally reach the stronghold, Nefir gets ready to pull out another bill to give to Genie, and Genie responds with this:
While on the subject of this episode, the creature whose silk they need to cure Aladdin. Nefir unwinds the cocoon into a ball, slowly revealing what's inside. And when it wakes and stretches its wings, it's no mere silkworm or caterpillar. It looks like freaking Battra!
"While the City Snoozes" Mirage magically gives our slumbering heroes nightmares. Special mentioned goes to Iago's
Iago: (in his sleep) Ah, yes. Come to me...my little crackaberra. (kissing noises)
Mirage: What's this? Pleasant dreams? We can't have that. This calls for a tiny nightmare. (puts small evil floating nightmare creature into Iago’s mind)
Iago: Oh! That tickles.....Huh?...Jafar?!... NO!! Not the CAGE OF TORMENT!
"Eye of the Beholder": Jasmine is tricked by Mirage into buying a mysterious lotion, stating it'll increase her beauty. But when Jasmine wakes up the next morning, she screams in horror to to see her waist turned half-snake!. Throughout the journey for the antidote, Jasmine's half-snake transformation increases and her eyes turn red and to make things worse she accidentally poisons Aladdin while trying to save him! All while worrying she might never be cured. Then Mirage destroys the antidote tree, ruining any hope for a cure! Aladdin turning himself into a snake to be with Jasmine does NOT help matters. The only reason they changed back to normal at all was because Fasir tells Mirage that her hatred for Aladdin is nothing compared to Aladdin and Jasmine's love for each other and restores the Antidote Fruit tree, since there's no need for them to pay for her defeat. Al and Jas each take a fruit and are human again.
Aladdin's nightmare after being poisoned doesn't help matters at all either and when he wakes up, we're treated to a lovely point-of-view shot of a fully transformed Jasmine.
"Vapor Chase" Where the gang have to defeat a creature The Sootanai, a soot like monster who takes sadistic joy in burning Agrabah to the ground.
The Day the Bird Stood Still Iago realizes the cursed bath oils he accidentally used are slowly turning him to stone. It gets rather horrifying when you look at from Iago's point of view. Imagine yourself slowly turning into a stone statue!
At the climax, everyone is now fighting over the stone Iago holding the antidote, with several close calls of the petrified parrot hitting the ground and shattering.
"The Spice is Right" has the villain Ayam Aghoul taking Jasmine as his bride til who knows how long. And near the end of the episode, it seems like he succeeded and taken Jasmine for an eternal marriage in his newly built castle with Aladdin upset. Thankfully Jasmine was safe and Ayam took Genie instead.
In "Raiders of the Lost Shark", Merc makes Jasmine unconscious and places her in the middle of the desert with the shark (which Merk refers to as "The Beast") coming towards her, therefore using the princess as bait. Luckily, Jasmine wakes up before the Beast comes close to her.
A particularly horrific example appears as early as "Air Feather Friends", in the form of a Noodle Incident mentioned between Abis Mal and Haroud. Whilst ranting to Haroud about Aladdin's interference, he promises that the next time they meet, he'll use a "Turn-A-Man-Inside-Out Spell" to put an end to him. Haroud simply reminds Abis Mal to look away when he uses it, "this time", which prompts Abis Mal to sport a truly disturbed face and shudder as he quietly whispers about "the nightmares". It's just a little aside-story, but it really makes you wonder just what happened... and the pictures it paints in your head aren't pleasant.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you the Genie of Genies... CHAOS. A being that is so powerful and terrifying that he makes MIRAGE nearly crap herself in fear. The creature is more powerful than any genie on Earth and he has ZERO rules for his powers as he feels order is just a limitation. He is a perfect example of how dangerous a Genie with TRUE unlimited power is capable of. Thank God he was only in Agrabah to teach Mirage not to try and manipulate him otherwise... it's best not to think of the outcome of a truly enraged Chaos.
Even worse, Chaos mentioned that he would return to cause grief for Aladdin and his friends if Aladdin ever got "boring". Does that mean Aladdin is doomed to live an action hero life or risk being tormented by an omnipotent Chaos God until he proves entertaining enough?!
The Ethereal. The entire episode is nightmare fuel strictly because of the Invincible Villain status of the villain of the week. The Ethereal, a mysterious humanoid masked being, appears in Agrabah claiming to be there to judge it as either worthy or it will destroy it and all its people. It's been around for millennia destroying entire civilizations including that of Atlantis, Babylon, and Pompeii to teach rulers that they should cherish their people. The being itself doesn't seem to cherish the people of the civilizations it destroys and sees them as collateral in it's punishment of the rulers. Even worse, nothing was shown to be able to harm it. Even the magical weapon that was forged to be its weakness only stopped it momentarily. Unsatisfied, it nearly destroyed Agrabah, but when Jasmine performed a Heroic Sacrifice, literally dying, to save a little boy, it stops and reverses all of the damage it has done, having seen what it wanted to see. In the end, it left and stated it would return to Agrabah and attempt to destroy it again if Jasmine or her family ever forgot the lesson to cherish her people, leaving behind expressions of terror for Aladdin and his friends. Basically Jasmine and her loved ones are either forced to be good rulers or some monster from the unknown promises to come back and kill everyone!
Arbutus is a walking moment of this, so you can't blame Aladdin for killing him. The Sultan tells Aladdin and his friends that one day he made a Deal with the Devil that Arbutus wouldn't kill him for plucking a flower if the Sultan gave up his greatest treasure in a decade or so. Everyone does guard duty outside the treasure room, falling asleep. Cue the Sultan having a nightmare, and waking up with one name on his lips: "Jasmine." It turns out that Arbutus was after the princess since she is her father's greatest treasure, and he succeeds in kidnapping her. Jasmine tries to escape the plant prison, but she's trapped in leaves and vines. When the Genie tries to eat out an exit as a caterpillar, Arbutus tries smothering him in greenery. The Sultan says Please, I Will Do Anything!, saying he'll give anything for Jasmine's life, Arbutus coldly reminds him they made a deal.
really lets the Fridge Horror of that particular moment sink in.Let me be more specific, here: Mirage barred the way for the El Katib to return to the Realm of Shadows, and abandoned all of them there to die. These are all children who were coerced into joining the kinship, who have known nothing but the blackness and space and whatever camaraderie could be had between the lot of them, and her – the closest thing any of them have to a parent.These are all children, at least mentally, and she leaves them all to die.Here’s the kicker: