Tag: mozenrath
What’s your head canon regarding Mozenrath’s sexual orientation? Fandom’s all over the place on this one and personally, I think he’s bi and gives no fucks what other people think about it.
When I’ve RP’d straight from the end of the series I’ve always had him undecided on that point, because he’s “married to his work.” Necromancers in old folklore and stuff tend to be celibate, so I’ve always written him as celibate, especially toward the end of the series when the effects of the gauntlet weigh a little heavier on him. Especially devoted practitioners, depending upon traditions, would likely involve a lot of ritual and fasting, which if overdone can do things like kill your sex drive. (And yes I have written him recovering from that.)
Mozenrath is kind of a mixed bag and seems to dabble all over the place, so he’s not by any stretch of the imagination strictly a necromancer, but one thing we do know about his necromantic practices is that by the time his run of episodes is in full swing he is maintaining a pretty sizable contingent of Mamluks.
In the show, he’s only shown interest (read: been a creep at) Jasmine in any way that might be deemed sexual in nature, and that could be his genuine perception of things or one Hell of a front, since we’ve already discussed that he’s not a reliable storyteller.
However, based on all of that? I think it could go either way and have always tackled it in a rather ambiguous fashion in writing or RP, that way that anything that happened to him could happen organically, during the story. Hell, he could just as easily be asexual or fall onto any point in between. Sexuality, even if you take a dominant role, runs the risk of placing you in too vulnerable a position or at the very least reveals vulnerability. He’s too busy, too sensitive about being seen as anything other than powerful, and overall too untrusting of other people to take that chance with anybody.
Strictly from a series standpoint? I don’t think he’s interested enough in people to think about it. And I’d also posit that not only is he a virgin, but also that he wouldn’t know what to do with any person that expressed sexual interest in him. He might know enough to fake it for a while, so as not to lose face, but that flight’s gonna crash and burn sooner or later 😐
This is purely to look at how the animators played with expressions in this scene, and this is some of my favorite linework for Mozenrath. all very fluid, many frames per second, LOTS of facial expressions, most all in a highly consistent style. The first picture is how it looks on the English episode. That’s what I had to work with. I had to touch up the Russian caps a little still, but I could still see his face in the original shots.
So Mozenrath seems to feel entitled to a little respect for all the work he’s put into kidnapping and extorting and murdering…
Mozenrath, you need a nap.
(Also, you may have noticed the Disney logo changed. The brightness is so high on my English copy that i couldn’t salvage it. Mozenrath’s face is completely blank. This is from a Russian dub.)
But no, we do get to an important facet of Mozenrath’s character that’s really only touched on a couple times in the series – and I’m not sure if it’s just because the writers decided to stop talking about it or Mozenrath just got over it.
He mocks Aladdin for refusing to be the Sultan so he could “play the hero” even though that’s totally not what happened. He refused to be Grand Vizier so he could play the hero. He still gets to be Sultan when he and Jasmine get married and her father passes away. Anyway, Aladdin shoots back that it “beats some of [Mozenrath’s] hobbies” and Mozenrath loses his shit.
“I singlehandedly conquered the Land of the Black Sand. I became the most powerful sorcerer of our age. And that’s only the start. I will rule the Seven Deserts.”
“And how many parties do you get invited to?”
The fact that this is a sticking point – I don’t know whether to nod at the episode for slipping it in or what. Why would this be important? Is it important? Maybe. Xerxes seems to think it’s a good enough burn to laugh at.
Remember that Mozenrath is, again, “barely older” than Aladdin. So yes. The fact that he managed all of this is impressive. But Aladdin? Is getting married to a Princess. Aladdin has a Genie, and a magic carpet, and talking animal companions with good grammar, and friends and a future and he’ll actually be recognized by other people for the things he’s achieved.
Will Mozenrath? Technically the only person that might have commended him for his advances, he killed. He may conquer the known world, true, but is anyone going to praise him for it? WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE BE IMPRESSED? Nobody even seemed to notice that he took over the Black Sands until he stepped into a neighboring city and made people come and look. And this apparently really burns his ass.
He brought Aladdin and company there to do a job, yes, but he was obviously showing off, too. It was his first outing. He was finally going to start making his mark on the world, and it ended in disaster, and as far as he’s concerned? It’s Aladdin’s fault. Aladdin ruined his perfect entrance into the world of global domination and politics. Aladdin not only didn’t think he was a badass, but he also humiliated and frightened him, forcing him to lose face.
So now it’s time to mess things up for Aladdin. First: take his Genie, which was apparently the first step toward his perfect life.
And GDI Aladdin you will respect the amount of effort he put into this kidnapping, picking a decently spooky location, catching and/or concocting such a clever trap, and setting up the can’t-possibly-fail structure of this ransom! Because he worked hard on it and you are not properly appreciating the lengths he goes to in order to impress you people, you little shit.
Production Code Episode 74: The Secret of Dagger Rock
Apologies in advance for the wall of text. In the original airing, this is the second episode Mozenrath appears in. In the production code order, however, it’s third, coming after “The Wind Jackals of Mozenrath.” I am doing these out of order because I think they were switched around for good reasons. The way that the characters interact in that episode (particularly Moze and Jasmine) makes less sense if you argue the other came before this one. It’s a little sad, because I kind of like the idea of Aladdin immediately going home and telling the Sultan “this guy’s dangerous and you need to gather some intel on him, because he’s not going to stop looking for magic to add to his collection, and he intends to use it on us.”
We can still assume this has happened here because in this episode Jasmine and the Sultan seem to have an equal amount of understanding of what Moze can do despite neither of them being present in his intro episode. It just took a little longer for the Sultan to get spies in there (something we’ll discuss when I do that episode). (Also take note: there is a trend in Mozenrath episodes of having to steal away into his domain [or wherever he is at the time] in secret in order to foil one of his plots, which is kind of awesome.)
Okay so some disclaimers about this episode:
1. I may spam with more screencaps than usual, because I’m kind of in love with the animation; it’s all very smooth, very stylistic (the most stylistic I’ve seen for a Mozenrath episode), very distinctive, and my video player lets me take frame-by-frames.
2. These posts may take a little longer than usual because one thing that’s common of pretty much all English versions of this episode, including the original, official VHS release (on the Jasmine’s Enchanted Tales volume, which was coupled with “Forget Me Lots,” actually), have a serious problem with brightness. In that it’s too high. It’s so high, in fact, that Mozenrath’s face is pretty much invisible in almost every scene he’s in. So I’ll be running my screencaps through photoshop to try to simmer that down a bit. The only time I have EVER found a clearer transfer is in a copy of the Russian Dub someone put online.
I will probably do “Sandswitch” after I do this episode.
So Mozenrath has a giant Wheel of Fortune wheel just for picking out countries to conquer. You’re kind of ridiculous, Mozenrath.
Also, have this mild coloring screwup on the part of the painters.
Mentioned locations include the “subterranean world of the Almuddi” which we have yet to cover because I really don’t like the episode, and “Quarkistan” which I also haven’t covered. Will soon. In one case – it’s a race of human-eaters. Have at, Moze. I’m sure that won’t end horribly for you. In the other, it’s a kingdom ruled by a child whose mood affects the weather and terrain. You’re going to threaten a kid with a monster that wants to eat him. You’re kind of a shithead, but you will also probably get struck by lightning because said kid only has as much control over his powers as a child would have over their emotions, and I’m pretty sure he can focus on being pissed off at you enough to make the earth swallow you whole. Just saying.
YOU HAVE NO PLAN.
Seriously, he approaches this with the same enthusiasm and utter lack of direction as a kid who gets their first car, decides they want to travel all over and have yet to realize they’ve never been outside their home town before and have no idea what they’re doing.
He is such a rookie in this episode.
And this is something that’s not openly acknowledged so often in the fandom, in RP (even I feel like I’ve learned something by looking so closely at this episode and I’ve been writing him for years), in discussions of him in general. his age isn’t really brought into play that often save to compare him to the hero – and because to some fans that adds to his attractiveness. Often villains are of an advanced age compared to the hero because it serves to show how opposed they are. A lot of focus is on his power and his snarkiness, his tragic disfiguring secret, etc and it doesn’t tend to go far beyond that.
The thing is: Mozenrath is dangerous because when he’s good, he’s amazing. He doesn’t fail because of comic relief blunders (unless he sends comic relief to do his job for him – see Vocal Hero) like Mechanicles and Abis Mal can and do. He fails often because he has to be overpowered. This is all often acknowledged.
However, more often than not, Mozenrath also fails because he frequently makes immature mistakes. Because he is immature. It’s not because he’s there to be funny; it’s because he, like Aladdin, is a teenage boy who thinks he knows everything, and if he were a hero rather than a villain with a murder rap-sheet, he might be seen as endearing because of his flaws.
And because he IS so massively powerful, because this level of power – enough that if Jafar had ever met him he would have NEEDED a Genie’s magic and his second wish granted for him to stand a chance – is in the hands of someone just as if not more flawed than Aladdin is, just as young and inexperienced as Aladdin is? He can be his own undoing, and he makes for a compelling character.
I say this isn’t often discussed because I don’t often see it. In most fic, even the big name fictions, he’s always a lot more collected than he ever is in the show. The immaturity is ignored.
Part of this is because a lot of us watched the show as kids, when the character, in relation to us, was older, and we were less likely to notice immature behavior when we, ourselves, were also immature. I didn’t come to appreciate this character fully until well into my adulthood, well after I would have passed his assumed age.
My point is that Mozenrath is a brat, but it works.
We get a brief interlude with Mozenrath and Xerxes.
Mozenrath is oddly confident that Aladdin won’t allow his friend to be the Thirdac’s next meal.
Because I spent so much time criticizing his little “hiring test” earlier I kinda had to roll over in my head the reasons why he’d be so confident – other than the fact that his ego seems to depend on not being wrong, ever.
Crappy exercise though it was, he could learn enough from his first encounter with Aladdin to come to this conclusion: 1) Aladdin said he would only risk his life to save others. 2) He demonstrated this when, as the creature came after him one last time, he put himself between the monster and the woman with no protection whatsoever, meaning he was brave enough to shoulder extreme harm to protect the life of a complete stranger and her sandpaper-voiced monster baby.
Now, I could be a little less harsh on Moze’s judging criteria and say he probably might have picked Aladdin on that merit alone in case he had to go back in there with him. If he was going to have to risk it and he was hiring help, pick the help that might feel inclined to try to save you if a monster gets the drop on you.
But I’m not going to give him the benefit of a doubt on this one. There was no way in Hell he intended to go back in there before the Thirdac had a collar on.
I also like to think that he snapped at Xerxes for “not being quiet enough” because he kept interrupting his monologuing earlier.
Xerxes is way more excited to be here than Mozenrath is. He’s so excited he keeps finishing his sentences.
He looks like he’s not even sure how he should feel about that. Why the Hell is my familiar trying to steal my thunder? We didn’t rehearse it this way.
This one is my favorite though. “Yes, once bitten.”
Xerxes: TWICE SHY.
And Mozenrath is just like “WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?”
The Land of the Black Sand, Destane, Mozenrath, clever animation, and so much headcanon ahoy.
Iago recognizes this place as the Land of the Black Sand. Before we get to what he knows, fun scientific bit. Noting that the sand is actually black, and the atmosphere in the setting shots:
Black Sand is caused by volcanic ash. There is an active volcano somewhere on Mozenrath’s property. This will never be addressed in the series despite that it would obviously be one of the coolest places ever to have a third act fight scene.
Okay, on with what Iago knows:
Iago remembers that Destane famously owns this place. A sorcerer that even Jafar openly avoided. Mozenrath is happy to inform them that the Land of the Black Sand is under new management. This was likely a very recent development, because everything about Mozenrath in this episode screams “wet behind the ears” if you look hard enough at it.
(This is also just one of my favorite candid shots ever.)
Something you may have noticed in the last scene or so, also, is that Mozenrath’s features have been a little – well, bigger. More wide-eyed, less standard “evil” looking, and that abruptly stops right after he openly admits to murdering Destane, who was “like a father to him.” I’m sure this is just because the animators switched off, but I think it was an interesting shift.
Until now, light thievery aside, even releasing the creature that didn’t really hurt anyone could be seen as irresponsible, not evil. The second you get a hint that this kid could be doing hard time for the stuff he’s done, with good reason, he visually becomes more unpleasant, in subtle ways, to give the viewer cues that he is more than just a jerk. Like I said, this could have been incidental, but if it was intentional on the part of the animators, it was damn clever.
On to Destane and Mozenrath. It is never confirmed whether Destane mentored him or not. The most that we know is that Mozenrath says “He was like a father to me, until I stole his power and his throne.” And we have already discussed why, in several little ways, Mozenrath is not in any way a reliable storyteller. For most of his backstory we only have the little things that he says.
I am of the party that assumes Destane raised and trained him. In RP, my Mozenrath has been with him since he was four or five years old – well before he can actually remember. Everything he knows about magic that didn’t come from private personal study came from him. I also assert that this is where most of his behavior comes from as well. If Mozenrath is a bully (and he is), then Destane was a super maxi bully – otherwise I don’t think we’d get this shot of Mozenrath standing over him, making Destane bow to him, and wheedling over his defeat.
It is very rare that I will say this of people being mistreated by villains in a Disney show, but given what very little we know about Destane, courtesy Iago, and how Mozenrath behaves now?
Destane probably had to be the kind of bastard we can’t show in Disney cartoons to push someone that far, especially what is essentially a teenage boy. .
The exchange that takes place after Mozenrath steals the lamp is just way too funny when you take a closer look at it.
Everybody wakes up in a panic and Mozenrath is just like “SO ABOUT THAT JOB YOU WERE GOING TO DO FOR ME.”
Which…the presumption. But Aladdin and co. have yet to realize that Moze is kind of a bully and a brat and doesn’t hear “no” very often, apparently.
One of these people doesn’t seem to remember Aladdin telling him to piss off yesterday, and Aladdin is not certain who that person is.
“I just can’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” And I actually am not certain if he’s saying that in an “oh silly me I forgot that I was kind of an asshole and HERE I AM sorry” or if he’s playing it off casual because he actually CAN’T leave without bringing somebody back to handle his problem for him.
I love that when Mozenrath goes “nice hovel, Aladdin,” poor gullible Aladdin actually thinks he’s complimenting him and is like “Yeah, fixed it up myself. I’m putting in surround sound speakers later. My LAN parties are going to be AWESOME.”
And Mozenrath has to be like
“How did you even make it to your teens?”
The DVD Fairy 