Aladdin’s just the holy fool, now, isn’t he?
I was going to go on for a bit about how you often run into an intriguingly-direct sort of wish fulfillment in a lot of classic adventures (like, say, those in 1,001 ARABIAN NIGHTS). I recall l there being some off-handed line in one of Aladdin’s adventures about him just erasing all of his troubles in one fell swoop with a single wish. It wasn’t with the sort of gradual improvement we’ve come to expect from modern storytelling. It was literally just him saying, “I want all my problems gone” in so many words.
We see the kid taking that same sort of directness in this episode. What was being set up as a painful and drawn-out war between two cultures gets quickly quashed by Aladdin literally just dropping into the enemy camp and asking the queen to, pretty please, stop being such a jerk.
I was also going to comment on how the bad guys’ power structure reminded me a bit of how celebrities are often able to get away with being mean to their fans by surrounding themselves with people they can delegate it to. Taylor Swift would look bad telling a fan to buzz off, but if she has one of her entourage do it, she can still keep her “nice” reputation - - even though she did want to tell the fan to buzz off, herself, anyway. Likewise, we have a queen here, who can look all saintly and virtuous because she keeps up appearances while her servant goes ahead and goes the dirty work.
Though, with the almost blackly humorous murder that happens at the end of this episode (c’mon - - it actually had a punchline!) I’m thinking now that these are all thoughts that the show wanted me to have so I’d fall right into their trap. Aladdin is exactly the sort of naïve sucker who’d fall for such tactics, and the “people of the plains” have now lost their matriarch due to that gullibility.
Of course, going back to the first point about the directness of magic in these tales, I feel like if Aladdin gets properly pissed, he could just command his genie to swat these bad guys into the ground. So that brings us back to the start, doesn't it?
Watch this episode, "People of the Plains" here and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s a writer and personality with a large number of comics, videos and features like this to his credit. Visit his website - - tompinchuk.com - - and follow his Twitter: @tompinchuk
