The DVD Fairy

Aladdin insists that Mirage take him in place of Wahid, which is pretty damn noble of him, or at the very least seems to be, because he’s only known Wahid for a day but seems pretty intent on giving him whatever chance he can. Maybe because he sees Amahl in him, someone he feels like he couldn’t save. But we’ll get to more of this in a second.

The slight continuity issue comes with the way in which Mirage accepts the deal. He is too pure of heart to become an El Katib, but she’ll totally keep him around as a slave. The problem is, despite this being Mirage’s second appearance in the production code order, she refers to him as her “greatest enemy” and has not had enough experience with him for that to be something she would call him.

The reasoning behind this, of course, (at least I think) is that this is one of the Saturday morning episodes. The Saturday morning episodes aired concurrently with the weekday Disney Afternoon lineup, which means that even if they were being produced at the same time, one set only aired on its set block, the other on its own. It’s possible that, based on that, and knowing the other episodes were airing five days a week, they may have passed more than one Mirage episode from the weekday run before they ever got to this one. They therefore wrote it in this way to suggest an already existing familiarity. This is totally possible.

They do not have what she believes are the “true seeds of evil” necessary to make them part of the kinship. They’re too soft (and were probably stolen from loving families – it’s not a fair thing to say but Amahl and Wahid are probably typical El Katib initiates; they have enough wrong with their lives that they’re easily led by the promise of power).

While Aladdin is insistent that she won’t take Wahid, however, Wahid, to her, shows promise.

Until she tells him to go back into the Realm of Shadows, because El Katib have to stay there for seven years at a time and can only roam for three nights in between.

Wahid was not aware of this, and Mirage didn’t seem interested in telling him. He’d find out afterward and that’d just add to his bitterness and make him even more evil.

Aladdin won’t let her lie to him, though. It’s actually kind of impressive of him because he’s pissed. Moreso than we ever get to see him be. He has to be angry, though, if he wants to save Wahid’s life, and he tells him to ask his old friend Amahl if he doesn’t believe him.

Wahid looks at Amahl, who is impassive and doesn’t confirm or deny anything, and I think that’s the first time Wahid realizes what he’ll ultimately become. His anger is turned on Mirage, who he refuses to obey, until she tells him he doesn’t just get to keep the new powers. If he doesn’t return to the Realm of Shadow in time and the sun comes up? He’ll die.

And at least, on an emotional level, all that anger and aggression he’d been using up until now just slips away and he’s a vulnerable child again. He doesn’t want that for himself. He doesn’t want to be a monster.  He has just been faced with something worse than death because powerful or powerless, he wants to be free.

Which…is way too akin to scenes in the original Hellraiser but we’re gonna keep this emphatically Disney today mmkay.

While Genie’s quick to assume Amahl’s just been really busy, Aladdin is on his game, today. This happened to Amahl, too. That means someone else has to be behind everything.

And this is a good reveal. Mirage has a habit of just sort of hovering in the background being ominous even when she isn’t introduced right away. In fact, I’m pretty sure this is the ONLY episode where she doesn’t appear in the first five minutes of the episode. I am so super stoked at these writers. (But really, for recurring villains, who else could it have been? Maybe Ayam Aghoul, given his tie to shadows in a later episode, but this is just top shelf, and I don’t think he’s nearly ominous enough for this shit.)

I know he just wants to get away because these things scare him, but he’s pretty quick to just say “Let the portal close because they’ll be gone in 8 minutes. Wahid made his choice. He wants to be a jerk.”

Aladdin doesn’t think so. His transformation is not complete, and while Amahl may be too far gone, Wahid is still a kid. Also, there are other children. So in he goes!

You are just doing everything right in this episode, good sir. I have seriously never liked Aladdin as a character more than I do right now.

He understands Wahid and why this choice might be tempting for him. Amahl was angry at his lot in life just like Wahid because he had no reason to think it would get better unless he found a way to make it better himself. Aladdin, himself, wanted to make something of himself, but he didn’t want to hurt people to do it. He wasn’t that desperate. He didn’t feel like he was that alone, because he had Amahl.

This was a child in a terrible situation, for whom everything happened to turn out okay, and blessed diamond in the rough or not, Aladdin is damn lucky things went down for him the way they did. Because that’s not how it typically goes. Typically, they wind up like Amahl, though likely Amahl’s lot is a more metaphorical representation of what happens to Agrabah’s homeless on a day to day basis. His bitterness and anger at the life he’s been left with turns him into a literal monster, and the only legacy he can pass on is that same bitterness and anger. Aladdin doesn’t know if he can appeal to his better nature because he’s changed so much. He doesn’t know if there’s any of him still in there, if there’s even hope. In non-magic situations, it’s one (near) adult looking at another (near) adult and seeing that their choices have made them into who they are, and that’s a hard thing to change.

Wahid, however. is still a child, and he therefore still has a chance. Aladdin wants to make sure he gets one. (But not by like – adopting him or anything. But I’ll rant about that later because right now I’m just very happy with Aladdin’s handling of the situation so far.)

The basic rundown: Shadow Walkers, or the El Katib, are a race of beings that emerge during a full moon every 7 years. (Which – I’d say Aladdin looks about 9 or 10 at the time; neither he nor Amahl were teenagers yet, I’ll say that much.) This is over in about 8 minutes (according to Genie). Good that we get this information so that it doesn’t have to be shoved into an evil monologue later.

HOWEVER this raises some interesting questions. If Iago knows who these guys are, something tells me this is something Jafar knew, too. And Jafar was pretty much running this fucking city 7 years ago. May have even been around as an adviser well before that.

Was he letting this shit happen? He probably never even allowed the Sultan know it was going on. We get no indication that similar precautions were being taken (the curfews, for instance) the last time this took place. And how many times did this incident go unnoticed by the royal family?

We find it instantly recognizable because everyone wears relatively unique clothing in this show. Aladdin doesn’t have the same level of awareness of this as we do, so he chases it, only realizing when the shape leads him to the well where Amahl disappeared that it’s Wahid.

Of course he’s immediately overjoyed because for all he knew the kid could have been dead. Perhaps he escaped when the monster dropped Iago, he thinks (and heh heh, wait for it, folks).

So we immediately get the sense that something is wrong, but Aladdin doesn’t until the kid clocks him.

He is so confused right now.

No. Wahid wasn’t stolen. He wanted to go with the monster (you’d think Carpet would have given SOME signal of that if that’s how it went down). And why?

Power.

So while this kid roughs Aladdin up a bit, he explains that the monster belongs to the order of the El Katib, and he is now a willing initiate. He not only has immense physical power (which to a generally helpless, homeless little kid, who HAS to rely on his wits, is tempting shit indeed), but the El Katib are also immortal, so he never has to fear dying in the streets again. This is a potent temptation for a kid in his situation.

And clearly the transformation has already begun for him.

Aladdin realizes a little too late, however, that if this is what’s happening to him, then undoubtedly, the same has happened to Amahl.

SPEAKING OF WHICH.

This was a twist I genuinely didn’t see coming as a kid, and I was blown away. So is Aladdin, but when the creature speaks, he knows it’s true, because he knows his name.

And while Amahl could crush him right here, when Aladdin orders Genie not to attack him, he seems keen to return the favor. He and Wahid escape into the well, where he creates a portal to get away.

Genie catches it just before it closes and is able to use his magic to keep it open.

…In typical Genie fashion.

And this should bring us into Act III of the story and the most awesome character redesign ever.

The bottle he’s forced Iago to gnaw on has a homing beacon in it.

Because apparently Genie can do that. (But going with my headcanon for him, it only works if he makes it funny – I may expand on that someday and associate his most effective magic being centered around creating happy feelings, but that’s for another review.)

And the monster takes Iago pretty much the second they’re not looking at him.

We then have our heroes learn what we kind of already knew: the monster moves through portals. They learn this when they nearly catch up to it and it suddenly just disappears and reappears on the other side of town. 

Where it has ditched Iago and the tracking device. 

Aladdin is beating himself up about Wahid disappearing.

And honestly, I’m not as irritated with him as I was in “The Spice is Right” because his reasons for feeling this guilty are timely and tied to issues that have been built up so far as real emotional issues for him. He blames himself for not protecting Wahid and seems to be convinced that it’s his fault that the monster got Amahl.

We were there. Sort of. Moreso than Genie was, so we know there was literally nothing Aladdin could have done and the fact that he wasn’t taken, himself, is probably nothing short of a coincidence. (Also, he couldn’t take one NOW, as a grown young man with combat experience. That thing would have ripped him apart when he was a kid.)

Genie, however, is having none of this.

It’s not because he saw the same flashback we did but because he knows Aladdin doesn’t (intentionally) put people in danger and at the very least did what any of them would have done to protect Wahid – get him away from the monster as fast as possible and use their skills to try to capture and/or kill it.

And he tries to be gimmicky about it like last time and go for the laugh, but he gets serious really quick.

“We are GOING to find Wahid.”

(Goddamn the animation in this episode.)

He takes hold of Aladdin and makes sure he understands that he’s not going to give up, he feels confident in their chances, and Aladdin should feel that way too. It’s just the shot in the arm Aladdin needs to at least try to keep his hopes up. (And he IS just trying. There’s no “this is such a kid’s show” moment where he’s just suddenly upbeat again. He sighs. He speaks slowly. He is willing to try.)

The writing here is some of the best I’ve ever seen out of this group.