I’ve been reading through your account, and your post about where Sadira could have come from (since she’s apparently new in town) made me think: What if she’s from Getzistan? It’s essentially Las Vegas, so there’s probably a well-developed seedy underbelly with organized crime and such. Perhaps her family lost their wealth to gambling/somehow ran afoul of organized crime, and Sadira was forced to the streets- likely at a young age, which I think would help explain her initial ruthlessness.

It’s certainly a debatable point. I wish they had developed more on other locations in the Seven Deserts, for reasons like this.

So we’ll kick off this potential relationship with the wrong foot.

It doesn’t occur to Genie that Eden’s not going to take his sudden appearance for some simple attempt at being friendly. Because let’s be real – how often does that happen? 

There’s not exactly an abundance of free genies in the world. In fact, our Genie, here, may be the only one. 

(Come to think of it, while I know he’s called Genie has just part of the plot initially, it makes one wonder within the context of the story: Why’s he just called “Genie” when all the others we encounter have names? I had the thought – Eden mentioned being only in the bottle 2,000 years since her last awakening. For Genie, it was 10,000 years. For Jafar – well, he didn’t live very long either way. 

Genies are bound to their objects. In most interpretations, something put them there. Is it possible Genie has no memory whatsoever of the name he had before he was bound? Stuff for another discussion someday, I think.)

Okay so. Eden thinks he’s trying to move in on her girl. She hasn’t been able to work in a while; get out of her way, stranger. 

Genie…true to romantic subplot tropes is very “he thinks ‘get lost’ means ‘take me, I’m yours’” about all this, to quote Megara. Eden doing everything she can to get rid of him must mean he’s not being obnoxious enough to get her attention. 

Here is why I love Eden as a character (Also a bit more on how Genies work)

Eden prompts Dandi to tell her what she wishes for, suggesting simple things – a dress weaved of gold, the treasure of a thousand kings. Y’know, basic wishes. 

Dandi, however, is hungry. So she asks for a little food.

Eden, very unlike Genie, seems to operate on some middle ground between the extremes. She doesn’t immediately go out of her way to fudge on things to make them the best they possibly can be, the way Genie does, and she doesn’t selectively choose word meanings to fuck people over, like Jafar did. She does, however, acknowledge there are rules she lives by where she’s supposed to take a wish at face value.

She is aware that she is dealing with a child, and seeing she is a child who would think first of basic necessities over fun, but nice, things? She’s going to throw her a bone. She’s going to make sure her wishes work for her. There is an immediate instinct to protect her. 

She instead tells Dandi to repeat after her: “I wish to never go hungry again for the rest of my life." 

Something that, for what appears to be a homeless child, changes literally everything. 

Now, when I say that there is an immediate instinct on her part to take care of Dandi, it’s actually illustrated in how she chooses to grant this wish. She could have just made it so that Dandi forever has the amount of nutrients in her body to live and never feels hunger pangs again. Problem solved. No more need to eat or drink. 

Instead, she serves her, with the appearance that she will continue to do this, and make sure Dandi is always able to find food when she needs it. 

Of course, while this is going on, Genie actually doesn’t seem to notice this about her. He seems to be more preoccupied with the fact that a) she is definitely a genie, and b) she’s hot. 

I’m not even kidding. 

While Genie’s getting his hound dog on, Eden explains the rules to her new master.

“The formalities,” as she calls them. I’ll say this much: for what’s happening here, the writers are relatively clever. They know everyone watching this has seen the movie and could probably quote Robin Williams’ delivery on command. This means they have to find a way to present the same information in a totally fresh way. They succeed, for the most part, because Eden has a distinctive voice and her own way of delivering. 

Oddly enough, the only rules she makes specific are that Dandi only gets 3 wishes and that she can’t kill anybody. I guess the whole “falling in love” thing she decided didn’t need to be explained to a seven year-old. What’s important, here, also, is that her references are pretty schticky, much like some of Genie’s are (because the writers are trying to write Robin Williams rather than let Dan do his thing), but here it works. It works because she is interacting with a child and she seems to be aware of this, keeping everything simple and clearly illustrating what she’s saying. It’s really cute. 

Introducing: Eden (and also Dandi)

Eden, as a character, is in only two episodes of the series, and unfortunately the other one is absolutely terrible (which is sad, because it’s a Mozenrath episode). Part of the reason why the other episode is terrible is because Eden is so well written and defined and animated here, so much that when she’s placed in the hands of other writers and animators, it’s an obviously poor imitation. (And if they were the same writers, then for shame, because they had someone on staff whose job it was, specifically, to make sure everyone stayed consistent, character and timeline-wise.)

If these initial screengrabs look weird? It’s because Eden moves across the screen so fast that she’s made almost entirely of between-frames. The animation here is so fluid and so fast-paced. 

In the span of about five seconds she pops out a few references to show she’s definitely cut from the same cloth as Genie. 

She tells us she’s been in the bottle for 2,000 years (because she…needed to be younger than Genie?) and Dandi is just sort of still stoked that Eden’s a real genie. 

Apparently part of genie powers does not include knowing your makeup stays on point for 2,000 years, especially when it’s made of magic.

Genie, of course, is immediately smitten. 

…Because I’ve been spending so much time thinking about how genies work in this universe, I’m actually not sure how I feel about this, but I’m willing to go with it for now. 

GENIE OF THE BOTTLE?!

So…Genie gets a little sidetracked. 

While looking for Abis Mal he comes across a little girl, who’s found another genie. Before I fully introduce Eden, let’s discuss this for a second. 

So, we’re never given a clear clue as to how Eden wound up in this part of Agrabah or how she fell into the hands of a child. But it’s kind of a huge coincidence, no? You’d think these would be spread out all over the place, enough so that Jafar would waste so much time and energy on finding the one in the Cave of Wonders – the one that’s arguably the hardest to get to – when he could (oh, I don’t know) hire a genie hunter to track down one that’s a little bit easier to steal? (We’ll cover those soon in another episode.)

Like this one, that just fell into this little girl’s lap? 

Now, I’m not going to assume Jafar even knew enough to know there was such a thing as genie hunters, but given how vast his experience has shown itself to be (despite his limited magical power), I wouldn’t put it past him. 

Maybe he was after a certain type of Genie. Once or twice we get clues enough that there are different sorts, and it’s possible he knew enough to know the Genie of the Lamp was a benevolent sort and not the type to try and fuck him over when he makes wishes. Safer to get a lamp and wish upon it when you have a good idea what kind of genie you’re getting. 

I don’t know. We’ll see if more ever comes up.