Playing With / Jackass Genie

Basic Trope: A wish-granting entity deliberately misinterprets a wish to the wisher's detriment.

• Straight: Bob wishes to be attractive. He attracts knives.
• Exaggerated:
  • Bob specifically wishes to be attractive to human females of appropriate age for him, and closes a number of other loopholes. The Jackass Genie makes him look absolutely repulsive, and makes all the human females of appropriate age become attracted to that sort of appearance.
  • Or just grants the wish normally...and then sets him on fire (Hey, he didn't wish that he wouldn't be set on fire!).
  • Bob wishes to be the smartest person on earth. The genie mentally handicaps everyone except Bob.
  • The genie doesn't even pretend to be a wish granter, outright forcing Bob to make "wishes" that benefit the genie himself.
  • Bob asks the genie for million dollars and the genie rips his guts out. Turns out the genie invented a language where "give me a million dollars" means "rip my guts out".
  • Bob asks to get laid. The genie teleports him to prison.
  • Alice asks to be world famous. The genie teleports her naked on America’s Got Talent and forces her into an Involuntary Dance and Piss-Take Rap.
  • The genie tells Bob, "I can grant anyone wish but you will suffer a terrible price", and Bob avoids the genie. Turns out that "you" refers specifically to Bob himself, and that any wish made by anyone will harm Bob in one way or another.
  • Going anywhere near the genie's lamp will result in your heartfelt desires being granted in the cruelest way possible.
• Downplayed:
  • Literal Genie.
  • The Genie is a Jerkass, but he can't actually mess with the wishes he's forced to grant and must do them perfectly regardless of his feelings.
  • The genie is a Benevolent Genie, except to those who wish him to harm innocent people.
  • Bob asks the genie to strip Alice naked. The disgusted genie teleports Alice naked a few feet above Bob. She lands on Bob and breaks his neck, killing him.
• Justified:
  • Bob has used sorcery to enslave the Genie, who is understandably pissed.
  • The Genie can grant any wish. Screwing people over keeps them from abusing it.
  • Being stuck in a lamp for thousands of years can crush even the strongest of souls. Of course he isn't going to be right in the head when he finally escapes.
  • The entity Bob has summoned is actually a demon who takes pleasure in being as much of a dick as possible to everyone.
  • The people who have summoned the Genie in the past treated him badly and/or abused his wish-granting powers for evil. As a result, the Genie has grown to hate humans, and he takes out his frustrations on them by being as much of a dick as possible to everyone.
  • The genie hates having to grant wishes, and figures that if he screws over everyone who tries to get a wish from him eventually word will get around and people will stop trying to get wishes.
  • Bob is a massive Jerkass.
  • Genie wishes just go wrong by their very nature of a mortal forcing a fallen angel^note "genie" is a corruption of "djinn," a kind of angel formed out of fire that was said to have been cast out of Heaven for refusing to give humanity its proper respect to twist God's plan to the mortal's will.
  • Genies are barely-constrained supernatural entities, and it's impressive that they were bound to a lamp at all. Forcing one to to grant wishes to whoever owns the lamp was a half-complete experiment by a mad wizard. The genie seeks to destroy the foolish mortal who dares presume to give it orders, but has to grant their wish anyways.
  • The genie thinks it's funny.
• Inverted: Benevolent Genie.
• Subverted:
  • Bob makes a wish inaudible to the audience. The Genie does something horrific to him, while he looks horrified and begs and pleads. It turns out this was what he had wished for, and it is later revealed to have gone All According to Plan.
  • The magic turns out to have a mind of its own. It, not the Genie, is the Jerkass.
  • The Genie is actually a Benevolent Genie. He messed up the wish to teach Bob a moral lesson.
  • When the Genie's allowed to tell his side of the story, it turns out the wish was not twisted at all; Bob just made a selfish wish without thinking of the potential consequences, like asking for a billion dollars but not considering that his bank would want to know where all that money came from...
• Double Subverted:
  • Bob makes an unheard wish. There is a Hit Flash, and Bob is shown injured. Bob coughs, and thanks the genie - now he can use his Wounded Gazelle Gambit. Then the genie smirks, and says that Bob didn't necessarily wish to only be hit once...
  • This is because Bob wished for the genie not to screw him over, so the malice was transferred to the magic itself.
  • The "lesson" being that life is unfair and one should just sit down and take whatever misfortunes are thrown at him, because genies are far superior to humans.
• Parodied:
  • The genie does everything he can to piss off his master by playing with his wishes' loopholes, but the master does not care and actually likes how his wishes have been twisted.
  • Bob gets frustrated with the genie's efforts:
  Bob: Is- is that seriously what you're doing? Just kill me now!
  Genie: *Grins sadistically*
  Bob: ...No. Do not do that. Please.
  Genie: Killjoy.
• Zig Zagged:
  • It first appears that the wish has been granted literally, but then it turns out that it was not granted at all... but wait, not being noticed was the intention of the original wisher.
  • We don't know whether the genie is benevolent or malevolent. It is then revealed that the genie follows an alien moral code.
• Averted: Genies do attempt to grant wishes without any harmful side effects.
• Enforced: Having the hero actually get wishes granted would wrap things up far too easily, so the wish has to go wrong. Bob has also been established to be a Guile Hero who could probably outsmart a typical Literal Genie, requiring something a bit more malicious for this to work.
• Lampshaded: "Genies these days... never helpful and benevolent, are they?"
• Invoked:
  • The good genie is stolen by the Big Bad. While it shivers in horror at what it will be forced to do, The Hero suggests that it (ab)use multiple interpretations of the Big Bad's wishes to screw him over. It does.
  • Someone wishes that the Genie misinterprets everyone elses' wishes so they can be the only one to get wishes granted.
• Exploited: Bob outsmarts the genie by using the genie's jerkassery in clever ways to defeat a foe or screw somebody else over.
• Defied:
  • Bob ensures restraints on the genie's power so that it can't do anything outside the spirit of the wish.
  • "Okay, here's the deal. You don't screw me over, and my third wish will be for your freedom, OK?"
  • Bob is also a master of manipulation, and intentionally specifies his wishes, tying up all possible loopholes that the genie could exploit.
  • Bob calls a lawyer to cover all possible loopholes from his wishes.
• Discussed: "Why don't we rub the lamp and use the genie as a Reset Button?" "Dude, he'd probably reset us to the beginning of the universe or something".
• Conversed: "Why is it that these movies always have the same plot?" "The genies must be jerks or something".
• Deconstructed:
  • Every wish granted by the genie becomes fatal, and its lamp becomes an Artifact of Doom sought only by the evil, reckless or arrogant.
  • As a response to the Genie skewering his previous two wishes Bob wishes for the genie to be deprived of his powers.
• Reconstructed:
  • The genie is redeemed through the Power of Friendship by a kind master, and refuses to kill or seriously harm them, but still enjoys griefing them.
  • The reason why the genie is such a Jerkass is because ALL of those that have managed to get his lamp were even bigger bastards motivated by greed and power-lust. All these centuries, he has just been delivering karmic justice upon them for all their past and future crimes.
• Played For Laughs:
  • The genie's shenanigans turn Bob into The Chew Toy.
  • The Genie is a psychotic friend of the heroes, and they have to constantly reign in its manic desires.
• Played For Drama: A great catastrophe has just happened. The genie tempts Bob to make a wish to restore everything, and Bob is very tempted, but he also knows this genie has Jackass Genie tendencies, and could make things far worse.
• Implied: Bob looks at the enormous rooster in his backyard, cursing the genie and lamenting his lack of foresight.

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I wish to go back to Arson, Murder and Jaywalking. Wait, it isn't going to Arson, Murder and Jaywalking!

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