History Fridge / ThePrinceOfEgypt

** Lice from the Dust: Signifies God’s power over Geb, the Egyptian god of the earth/land. ** Swarms of Flies: This Shows God’s authority over Khepri, the Egyptian god who moved the sun with the head of a fly/scarab/insect.

* Just like the source material, each of the Plagues was made that way because God may have also wanted to prove his dominion over the Egyptian pantheon. Water Becomes Blood: Signifies God’s supremacy over Hapi, an Egyptian god associated with the Nile's annual flooding who was the "water bearer" along with Sobek, who is the Nile's guardian. Frogs from the Nile: Illustrates God’s power over Heket, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, who had the head of a frog. Lice from the Dust: Signifies God’s power over Geb, the Egyptian god of the earth/land. Swarms of Flies: This Shows God’s authority over Khepri, the Egyptian god of creation with the head of a fly/scarab/insect. Death of the Livestock: This Shows God’s victory over Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of love usually depicted with a cow head and is closely associated with cattle.Boils and Sores: Represents God’s power over Isis, the Egyptian goddess of medicine, magic, and peace. Burning Hail: Signifies God’s dominion over Nut, Egyptian goddess of the sky. Hoards of Locusts: Illustrates God’s supremacy over Seth/Set; Egyptian god of destruction, storms, and disorder. Three Days of Absolute Darkness: Represents God’s supremacy over Ra, the Egyptian sun god. Possibly also demonstrates superiority over Aten (another solar deity) and maybe Thoth (deity of knowledge and the moon). Death of the First Born: Signifies God’s authority over Osiris (Egyptian god of the afterlife), Horus (Deity closely associated with Pharaohs and life itself), Anubis (Egyptian god of the dead) and Pharaoh (the "highest authority" of Egypt).

* The fact that God allowed Rameses to live in the end was, when one thinks about it, an act of CruelMercy.

* Water seems to represent some connection with a home: Moses is found by Queen Tuya in the moat and immediately adopts him into the family. Thus, Baby!Moses enters another home. Moses tricks Tzipporah into falling into the moat. The next scene? He helps her escape so she can return home. Moses finds the home of his infancy and meets Aaron and Miriam when he sees them giving Tzipporah water for her journey. Moses accidentally falls into a well. He is then welcomed to join Tzipporah's home and (eventually) her family. The famous parting the sea. God helped lead Moses and the Hebrews to a newer home.

* One little known detail of the scene where Moses floats up in a basket that is lost on modern readers is as follows: not only would it have been the then-current pharaoh's daughter rather than his wife as noted above, but the "bathing" she was in the middle of doing wasn't run-of-the-mill cleaning of oneself; it was likely a fertility ritual for a just-reaching-puberty princess. "When the gods send you a blessing" indeed.

* The slaughter of the Hebrew babies is depicted on the Hieroglyphics. Imagine how the people who had to paint that felt. And if it was done by slaves, they had to illustrate a horrific event that happened to their own people.

* During ''The Plagues'', we hear Moses singing to Rameses of letting his people go. Throughout the song, Moses references on how Rameses was (and still, in a way, IS) his brother, and how by being so stubborn he's harming the people of Egypt, which was their home. We also see Moses' face during the sequence isn't just a grave look at seeing the en masse destruction— he looks downright anguished at seeing his old home in that state. In a sense, the people he is begging Rameses to free aren't just the slaves: it's also the Egyptians themselves. He's telling Rameses how he's pretty much ''enslaving'' his subjects to the punishment of God, which they didn't deserve. ''They too are Moses' people''. This makes the song that more haunting. It also doubles as a [[TearJerker Tear Jerker]] in a way.

** The second point is further emphasized by what happens during and after the song. During the song, Moses' staff-turned-snake eats the other two with zero problems or interference in ''a fraction'' of the time it took for the Egyptian priests to change theirs. Second, the Egyptian magicians after this moment are so dumfounded they don't try again... presumably because they wasted all their theatrics on the first set where Moses can do it at a whim because of God.
** Another bit of brilliance that crosses into GeniusBonus: Some viewers have noted that one of the only dieties not mentioned is Ma'At, Egyptian goddess of justice, balance, and harmony. This could be read as, Egypt's choice to enslave, kill, and torment the Hebrews has no justice, balance, or harmony--thus, nor does the empire of Egypt. One could also read this as Yahweh defeating the Egyptian pantheon yet again, making the point that justice, balance, and harmony are found in Him alone.

* Water seems to represent some connection with a home: Moses is found by Queen Tuya in the moat and immediately adopts him into the family. Thus, Baby!Moses enters another home. Moses tricks Tzipporah into falling into the moat. The next scene? He helps her escape so she can return back home. Moses finds the home of his infancy and meets Aaron and Miriam when he sees them giving Tzipporah water for her journey. Moses accidentally falls into a well. He is then welcomed to join Tzipporah's home and (eventually) her family. The famous parting the sea. God helped lead Moses and the Hebrews to a newer home.
* In the scene where Moses and Rameses are touring the construction site, just after Rameses has been made Prince Regent and Moses has found out about his true heritage, it seems like Moses and Rameses are on totally different pages. Rameses is excited and optimistic, planning a grandiose new building project. Moses is depressed and ashamed, focused on the suffering of the slaves surrounding them. But really, they’re focused on the exact same thing—the damage done by the chariot race (on one hand), and the heritage they have to live up to (on the other hand). They’re just coming at it from opposite angles: Rameses is work-focused, thinking about what he can contribute to the Pharaonic legacy, while Moses is people-focused, thinking about what he has contributed (harmfully) to his people’s well-being. It also demonstrates how, throughout the movie, Rameses is consistently self-focused, while Moses is consistently focused on others. To this troper, this one scene epitomizes how Moses and Rameses are polar opposite people with very different destinies despite both being leaders and both growing up together in the same context.
* During the first half of "When You Believe," many of the newly-freed Hebrews seem to be in a daze, as if they're not quite sure what to think of being free. Many seem hesitant, and while some actually seem happy, none are ecstatic or "jumping for joy", etc. Viktor Frankl, who was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, wrote in ''Man's Search for Meaning'' that when the Nazis overseeing his camp surrendered and fled before the Allied forces arrived, the newly-freed prisoners there experienced this same thing:
--> "'Freedom'--we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it. We had said this word so often during all the years we dreamed about it, that it had lost its meaning. ''Its reality did not penetrate into our consciousness; we could not grasp the fact that freedom was ours''...In the evening when we all met again in our hut, one said secretly to the other, 'Tell me, were you pleased today?' And the other replied, feeling ashamed as he did not know that we all felt similarly, 'Truthfully, no!' We had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly."

* Rameses' reactions to the Plagues: he looks sure and safe through most of them (until the final one, that's it), but the Mosquitoes, the Darkness and the Hail of Fire [[OhCrap scare him]] and the Boils enrage him. It seemed strange that he could shrug off the others (especially the Locusts) but react to those, but three of them hit his beliefs ''hard'': the Darkness? In his own words, Rameses is "the morning and the evening star", and as the Pharaoh he's the living incarnation of a number of sun and sky gods, and yet he can do nothing about this. On top of that, a statue of the sun god Ra crumbles as the darkness washes over it. The Hail of Fire? Hail and storms are the dominion of Set, who at the time was not only not demonized yet but ''one of the most important gods of the Egyptian pantheon'', after whom ''Rameses' own father had been named''. The Boils? They fall under the dominion of Thoth, who is both God of Medicine and ''administrator of justice'', and he's furious because he can't see what he did wrong to call for the punishment of that one god. As for the Mosquitoes, why did he show fear of that one before steeling himself? I had to rewatch the scene many times, but finally I got it: [[PapaWolf he was scared for his son,]] and was preparing to defend him with everything he had.
* It also seems kind of strange at first that Ramses is so quick to dismiss the river of blood, in spite of the fact that the priests ''clearly'' hadn't reproduced the effect. Then again, Ramses was in a situation where he felt the need to maintain a sense of control. It's likely he was delusional enough to just take ''any'' sign that Moses was a fraud and run with it.
* Just like the source material, each of the Plagues were made that way because God may have also wanted to prove his dominion over the Egyptian pantheon. Water Becomes Blood: Signifies God’s supremacy over Hapi, Egyptian god associated with the Nile's annual flooding who was the "water bearer" along with Sobek, who is the Nile's guardian. Frogs from the Nile: Illustrates God’s power over Heket, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, who had the head of a frog. Lice from the Dust: Signifies God’s power over Geb, Egyptian god of the earth/land. Swarms of Flies: Shows God’s authority over Khepri, Egyptian god of creation with the head of a fly/scarab/insect. Death of the Livestock: Shows God’s victory over Hathor, Egyptian goddess of love usually depicted with a cow head and is closely associated with cattle.Boils and Sores: Represents God’s power over Isis, Egyptian goddess of medicine, magic, and peace. Burning Hail: Signifies God’s dominion over Nut, Egyptian goddess of the sky. Hoards of Locusts: Illustrates God’s supremacy over Seth/Set; Egyptian god of destruction, storms, and disorde. Three Days of Absolute Darkness: Represents God’s supremacy over Ra, the Egyptian sun god. Possibly also demonstrates superiority over Aten (another solar deity) and maybe Thoth (deity of knowledge and the moon). Death of the First Born: Signifies God’s authority over Osiris (Egyptian god of the afterlife), Horus (Deity closely associated with Pharaohs and life itself), Anubis (Egyptian god of the dead) and Pharaoh (the "highest authority" of Egypt).

* Doubles as Fridge Sadness. Tzipporah immediately goes to comfort her husband after he confronts Rameses for the very last time. This scene is actually quite brilliant, as well as heartbreaking, because Tzipporah is the only one to truly understand Moses's pain: the loss of a family forever. Tzipporah understands why Moses is feeling such pain. Surely, during the years Moses has known her, he must have told her about the palace and his close brotherly relationship with Rameses. Here, Tzipporah doesn’t need to be told to know that the final confrontation with Pharaoh did not end on a peaceful note—the people are free, but Moses and Rameses’ relationship is broken, almost certainly for good. As for Moses, his adoptive family was all the family he had known for eighteen years, until he met Tzipporah and her sisters, and had a family again. Leaving Midian would have been really difficult for Tzipporah, as she knew she would likely not see her father or her sisters ever again, if not for a very long time. So she can empathize with Moses when he has lost all his adoptive family he had known and loved, possibly forever. On the other hand, Miriam and Aaron have lost their parents, but they had—and still have—each other, and now they have Tzipporah and Moses too. They have never known what it is to have to lose all the family you’ve known (whether adoptive or not). So Miriam is sympathetic, as she can tell how grieved Moses is, but does not understand the true agony of knowing you have lost someone you knew as your whole family likely for good. She can feel bad for Moses—and does feel bad for our favorite shepherd—but does not truly understand like Tzipporah does. Miriam loves her brother, and tries to comfort him, but only Tzipporah, who knows she has likely said goodbye to her Midian family forever, truly understands what Moses is feeling at that moment.
* In "The Plague" the choir representing God ends with "Thus Saith the Lord". Apparently it's a biblical reference...except it's not God singing, it's His Angels singing His praise and what they're doing in His name.

* One things that's always bothered me about the Exodus story is why choose Moses in the first place. If God knew that Pharaoh would not listen and the plagues were need to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, then why choose Moses specifically? Then it hit me watching this movie. When speaking to Moses, God says that "Pharaoh will not listen", God never says Ramses will not listen. God makes the distinction between Ramses the Pharaoh and Ramses the person, Ramses the Brother. If anyone had gone to him and spoken for God, he would not listen and would probably have put them to death but Moses was the only one who could attempt to appeal to Ramses' humanity, to convince to put aside his responsibility to his kingdom, his father, and his son, and instead embrace the moral responsibility he has to his fellow human beings.

* Moses refusing to dance. When Tzipporah's youngest sister ask him, he refused. He still was lost, depressed and thinking himself an stranger in a strange land. Time passed and he got used to living among the Midians so when Tzipporah literally dragged him to the dancing circle, he still fought back a little, but at the end gave in. Despite living with them for around ten years (I suppose), he still considers himself an outsider, despite being happier than before. Only when he got married to Tzipporah and officially entered her family, did he start to clumsily dance with her in his wedding. He was finally happy.

* The reason why Moses' first attempt at convincing Rameses failed it was he said "The God of the Hebrews commands you". That's not what God said to Moses to say, He said Moses should just say "Let my people go". Moses was at that moment speaking man's words, not God's.

* Aaron, despite being from the same family as Moses and Miriam, is noticeably more emaciated than either of them. While Moses was understandably well-fed for most of his life, Aaron and Miriam live in the same homestead. The reason he's far thinner and more malnourished is because he likely gives most of the food to his sister, keeping only enough for himself so he doesn't completely starve.
* Jethro honoring Moses seem to be just him being nice to a stranger, but when you think about it, Jethro owes a lot to Moses. Moses saved Tzipporah from Egypt, a fate she likely wouldn't have escaped otherwise. He also drove off two bandits who were accosting his remaining three children. Said bandits were manhandling them and likely wouldn't have spared a thought about killing them or selling them into slavery, even if Tzipporah had shown up in time. If it wasn't for Moses, Jethro would have lost all of his children in the span of a few months.

* The animations for the burning bush and and angel of death look completely out of place compared to the rest of the film... and that's because '''they are'''. All we see otherwise are humans and animals, compared to the otherworldly beings that are Jehovah and angels.

* That sequence of young Miriam watching her brother endure everything in the Nile, looking terrified as hell? At first glance, we may be used to it, because we've seen terrified characters before...but think about it. This is a terrified ''young girl'' who is watching helplessly as her infant brother narrowly misses getting eaten by crocodiles and hippos, being knocked around by oars, then raised up onto a net before dropping back into the Nile.

* In the beginning of "All I Ever Wanted", Moses accidentally knocks over an old Hebrew man on the streets as he's running away from his sister. The man cringes in fear, as though he's expecting to be beaten. Moses might not seem imposing to the audience, but he's a prince of Egypt, after all. He's one of the most powerful men in the world and has no reason not to horribly punish a random slave just for making him trip.

* At the same time (and this definitely counts as FridgeBrilliance), Hotep and Hoy seemed aware of Tzipporah's fiery, indomitable nature. Thus, they knew that she would cause Rameses grief--hence, they chose her as their "offering" to him in order to get back at him for his shenanigans. (This is why they're so excited to get her.) But that being the case, it's doubtful they expected things to end well for her, so this goes right back to being FridgeHorror.

* The Angel of Death is seen chasing one of the palace guards at one point. That means that adults who were firstborn weren't spared either. How many awoke to find that not only were their firstborn children/older siblings dead, but that they had also lost a parent or a spouse?

* Seti I reigned for either eleven or fifteen years, depending on the dates one accept. This adds quite some horrors all-around: If one accepts the longest dates and that Seti gave the order, the extermination of the firstborn Hebrews was literally ''Seti's first order as a pharaoh''. Alternatively (and more likely considering that Moses' adopted mother was supposed to be a princess), Seti didn't give the order, but it was either his father Ramses I or, considering how short his reign was, Horemheb of the previous dinasty. When Moses confronts him about the killing of the Hebrew newborns, Seti is trying to defend either his father or his father's predecessor...and confused on why Moses is blaming ''him''.

* Moses is no young boy when he runs away: he seems sixteen at the very youngest, more likely eighteen or twenty. Knowing how short Seti's reign was, it seems likely that he died soon after Moses left. Since he did [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely love his adopted son,]] his death may have partly been DeathByDespair due to losing him...and for Ramases, not only losing his beloved brother (as pointed out above), but losing his father and having to assume the responsibilities of the throne so quickly afterward may well have contributed to his becoming tyrannical.
* Moses was a baby during "Deliver Us." As noted above, Moses is not young when he runs away, and given that when he returns, Rameses is Pharaoh with a son who is at least five years old, it could have been twenty years since the opening. There was at least one old man toiling in construction, and who knows how many more died young from being overworked, malnourished, or sick? Most of the slaves singing "Deliver Us" probably didn't live to see freedom.

* The portal that the Angel of Death comes out of? Pay attention to the stars around it in the night sky- it is the constellation Orion, which to the Egyptians was the constellation for Osiris, aka the God who judges the dead. This could be taken in various ways, either that Osiris '''is''' the Angel of Death and thus a god of Egypt is subservient to the Abrahamic God (or at the very least helping him out of distaste for what Egypt has become), or it could be that God is once more being symbolic with his plagues and choosing to clue in anyone who notices that it is He and He alone who judges the dead.

* The portal that the Angel of Death comes out of? Pay attention to the stars around it in the night sky- it is the constellation Orion, which to the Egyptians was the constellation for Osiris, aka the God who judges the dead. This could be taken in various ways, either that Osiris '''is''' the Angel of Death and thus a god of Egypt is subservient to the Abrahamic God, or it could be that God is once more being symbolic with his plagues and choosing to clue in anyone who notices that it is He and He alone who judges the dead.

--> "'Freedom'--we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it. We had said this word so often during all the years we dreamed about it, that it had lost its meaning. ''Its reality did not penetrate into our consciousness; we could not grasp the fact that freedom was ours''...In the evening when we all met again in our hut, one said secretly to the other, 'Tell me, were you pleased today?' And the other replied, feeling ashamed as he did not know that we all felt similarly, 'Truthfully, no!' We had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly." Then there's the fact that the Hebrews, at this point, had ''never'' experienced freedom, and life outside of Egypt. It was what they were familiar with. So, even without the burden of taskmasters over them, the prospect of heading out into the unknown, never to return, would be difficult to be overjoyed about.

* The first interpretation of the opening lines "So you think you've got friends in high places/With the power to put us on the run" initially seems to be a mocking allusion to the Hebrew God as a "friend in a high place" of Moses. However, it is actually very probable that the Priests were referring to ''Ramses''. In their intrigue-addled mind, they probably thought Moses was just as much of a faking hypocrite as them, and he was ''going after their job'', hoping to use his past relation to Ramses to upstage them and become the new High Priest of Egypt.
* What the priests needed to ([[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane maybe]]) turn their staffs into snakes: The staffs, invocations to dozens of Egyptian gods, an [[VillainSong elaborately-choreographed song-and-dance number]], an army of servants, each carrying a generously-portioned libation, lots of smoke and mirrors, and a flash of light to blind the audience (or at least cause them to look away), as the staffs turned into snakes. So, Moses accomplished with the power of one God what it took the priests dozens of their gods plus theatrics to do.

* One little known detail of the scene where Moses floats up in a basket that is lost on modern readers is as follows: not only would it have been the then-current pharaoh's daughter rather than his wife as noted above, but the "bathing" she was in the middle of doing wasn't rune of the mill cleaning of oneself; it was likely a fertility ritual for a just-reaching-puberty princess. "When the gods send you a blessing" indeed.

* That sequence of young Miriam watching her brother endure everything in the Nile, looking terrified as hell? At first glance, we may be used to it, because we've seen terrified characters before...but think about it. This is a terrified ''young girl'' who is watching helplessly as her infant brother narrowly miss getting eaten by crocodiles and hippos, being knocked around by oars, then raised up onto a net before dropping back into the Nile.

* During ''The Plagues'', we hear Moses singing to Rameses of letting his people go. Obviously he's talking about the Hebrews, but I suddenly realized something. Throughout the song, Moses references on how Rameses was (and still, in a way, IS) his brother, and how by being so stubborn he's harming the people of Egypt, which was their home. We also see Moses' face during the sequence isn't just a grave look at seeing the en masse destruction— he looks downright anguished at seeing his old home in that state. In a sense, the people he is begging Rameses to free aren't just the slaves: it's also the Egyptians themselves. He's telling Rameses how he's pretty much ''enslaving'' his subjects to the punishment of God, which they didn't deserve. ''They too are Moses' people''. This makes the song that more haunting. It also doubles as a [[TearJerker Tear Jerker]] in a way.

** At first, the song didn't seem that amazing to this troper, it was more calling on their gods and doing some sleight of hand than anything particularly impressive happening. It might have just been that it was hard to make [[EvilIsCool coolness]] contrast, given [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic the soundtrack]]. Then I realized: This is a [[Literature/TheBible Bible]] story. These are priests calling on their gods in the face of a prophet. ''Of course'' it feels fake.
** The first interpretation of the opening lines "So you think you've got friends in high places/With the power to put us on the run" initially seems to be a mocking allusion to the Hebrew God as a "friend in a high place" of Moses. However, it is actually very probable that the Priests were referring to ''Ramses''. In their intrigue-addled mind, they probably thought Moses was just as much of a faking hypocrite as them, and he was ''going after their job'', hoping to use his past relation to Ramses to upstage them and become the new High Priest of Egypt.
*** Reinforced by their later lines "You put up a front/You put up a fight/And just to show we feel no spite/You can be our acolyte". This whole time, they thought they were competing with Moses for their job and offer him (still mockingly) a position beneath them; something they wouldn't be likely to do if they thought he had someone like YHVH backing him.
** The blinding light in the sequence probably was the magicians' way of switching their staffs with snakes.
** For the longest time, during the song "Playing with the Big Boys Now" I assumed the priests themselves were the 'big boys' named in the song. It was only after rewatching the film again that I realised that the Big Boys ''are Egypt's gods'' - which adds another dimension to the sequence, since the Big Boys that the magicians proclaim as giving them great power prove powerless before the one true God, who swallows their snakes!
*** It's worth noting also that at first in the sequence, Moses's snake/staff retreats from a confrontation with the other snakes, only to turn around and devour them both. In the moment, the priests have theatrics, smoke and mirrors, and they present a grandiose image which seems belittling when compared to a guy who "just" turned a stick into a snake; not unlike how the Egyptians initially didn't think much of YHVH, but came into a very different mindset once the plagues started.
** From a comment on Website/YouTube, the song was a way of demonstrating the superiority of YHVH's miracles to Egyptian magic, like so:
*** What Moses needed to turn his staff into a snake: The staff and an invocation to YHVH.
*** What the priests needed to ([[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane maybe]]) turn their staffs into snakes: The staffs, invocations to dozens of Egyptian gods, an [[VillainSong elaborately-choreographed song-and-dance number]], an army of servants, each carrying a generously-portioned libation, lots of smoke and mirrors, and a flash of light to blind the audience (or at least cause them to look away), as the staffs turned into snakes. So, Moses accomplished with the power of one God what it took the priests dozens of their gods plus theatrics to do.
*** The writers most likely got this from 1st Kings 18, where Elijah challenges the priests of Baal to a contest: whichever god is able to consume a sacrifice with fire is the true god. Baal's priests spend most of the day praying, dancing around, yelling, and cutting themselves to no avail, while a simple prayer from Elijah brings down fire that consumes the sacrifice, the wood, the altar they were sitting on, and the dozens of gallons of water they had dumped on it.
*** Also when the magicians were calling upon their gods for aid they forgot a very important god: Isis, goddess of magic and Queen of the gods. She is know to be petty and cruel in myths, so when they forgot to call upon her, she made sure they couldn't do any real magic.
*** I think you're missing the implication that within the context of their world at least, there are no real Egyptian gods, just false idols, and the priests were doing tricks to maintain the belief they had real power. Whether they called upon Isis or not, it would have changed nothing because their power was phony stage magic being pitted against the power of the One True God.

** Also, it could double as a reference to Matthew 17:20, which states that faith the size of a mustard seed can uproot a mountain.

** "Force follows stiffness"; a hard wooden pole would hold more than a rubber one before buckling, but overloading a wooden pole breaks it (or whatever it's attached to; whatever gives first) while the rubber one would just bend before snapping back, no harm done. Had Rameses freed the slaves at the first command, sure it would have been an economic blow to lose their free workforce, but everyone and everything else would be intact to find a way to recover. By refusing to bend early enough, Rameses' lost everything to the plagues and later to his failed attack.

** That's not the first time it happens. Moses' nightmare in which he learns the truth of his parentage and what happened to the Hebrews ends with Moses flying in the disk of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten Aten]], that, in one (forcefully eradicated) variant of the Egyptian religion, was worshipped as the ''One True God, Creator and Bringer of Life''. God was telling him who had sent him the dream in a way he could understand.
* Water seems to represent some connection with a home:
** Moses is found by Queen Tuya in the moat and immediately adopts him into the family. Thus, Baby!Moses enters another home.
** Moses tricks Tzipporah into falling into the moat. The next scene? He helps her escape so she can return back home.
** Moses finds the home of his infancy and meets Aaron and Miriam when he sees them giving Tzipporah water for her journey.
** Moses accidentally falls into a well. He is then welcomed to join Tzipporah's home and (eventually) her family.
** The famous parting the sea. God helped lead Moses and the Hebrews to a newer home.
*** Well, his name does mean "Drawn From the Water"
* When I re-watched the movie again I was curious on why Moses looked older than Rameses, despite being the youngest. Then, I realized it was because of their effect on one another's character. Without Moses, Rameses didn't mature into a better person; so his growth was ''stunted''. And without his older brother, Moses was able to ''grow up''.
** It could also be their difference in lifestyle. Rameses remained pampered at the palace, while Moses had to do physical work for a living out in the desert. In the hot sun, no less! Then again, hard work builds character, as they say, so Moses' time in the desert helped him age both physically and emotionally much farther from Rameses.
** Also, facial hair really "adds years" to one's appearance (speaking from experience).
** There's a cultural reason for it, too: Moses has a full beard and a shaggy head of hair because he'd abandoned his previous Egyptian culture, whereas Ramses remained essentially hairless because the Ancient Egyptians saw hair as being unclean, shaving their whole bodies and wearing wigs instead, which is why Ancient Egyptians in media typically have the same straight, shiny black hair. The wigs are demonstrated in the film itself, too, as Moses rips his off as he leaves Egypt after killing the overseer.
* As a kid, I loved Miriam's spunk and detested Aaron's cowardice. Miriam is always willing to stand up for truth, justice, and freedom. Aaron is constantly apologizing, groveling, and allowing injustice without a fight. When I grew up, I wondered how is she still alive? Realistically, Miriam should have been beaten within an inch of her life and/or killed for her insolence years ago. Then I realized Aaron is always there making excuses and apologies for her (like when she first meets "Prince Moses") or holding her back (like when he keeps her from trying to stop the old man from getting flogged). While the other characters and narrative scorn Aaron for his groveling and cowardice, it's possible he HAD to become that way to keep his sister from getting herself killed. Suddenly I had a lot more respect for the guy.
** It just occurred to this troper that when Aaron asked Moses, "How does it feel when ''you'' get struck to the ground?" he may have been specifically referring to when Moses threw Miriam to the ground years before, rather than only in a general sense. BigBrotherInstinct indeed.
** Aaron meant well, but he was still a coward. And his attempts to protect Miriam were...kind of degrading. (''"Oh, she's just crazy."'') He would have been fine with perpetual slavery as long as it meant he (and Miriam) got to live out their lives in it. Miriam wanted better for her and Aaron, but also the rest of the Hebrew slaves. She was the only one who saw the potential in Moses right off the bat - and she was the only one with enough guts to set it all in motion.
** Miriam is idealistic and Aaron is realistic--both important for their situation. When Miriam first recognized Moses, Aaron calmed him down so he wouldn't punish Miriam, and Miriam was subsequently able to help Moses later realize she really was telling the truth. If it had just been Aaron, he may not have spoken to Moses, and if it had just been Miriam, she would have been hurt. Miriam and Aaron unconsciously work off of each other well, and both made it possible for everyone to have freedom.
** In the biblical story Aaron is always the conciliator, that's what made him worthy of being the Cohen Gadol(High Priest) it's literally his job and he is described as being beloved by the Jewish People because he would go around and make peace between husband and wive's. Myriam, on the other hand, was always stirring the pot and trying to push people by calling them out. Like when she calls out Moses for divorcing his wife. But she does it from the perspective of trying to better people and bring out the best in them. Both were prophets but with different focuses

** It's evident even before Moses gets his revelation. For instance, when Moses and Ramses wreck the temple with their chariot race, Moses immediately takes responsibility. He even gets a few PetTheDog moments in, specifically with his decision to let Tzipporah escape and his relatively lax treatment of Miriam when he first meets her. Even if he was a spoiled and arrogant prince who viewed slaves as beneath him, the potential for him to become a better person was still there despite his upbringing. One must wonder if Moses would have been a wiser Pharaoh than Rameses and let the Hebrews go after the first few plagues...

--> "'Freedom'--we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it. We had said this word so often during all the years we dreamed about it, that it had lost its meaning. ''Its reality did not penetrate into our consciousness; we could not grasp the fact that freedom was ours''...In the evening when we all met again in our hut, one said secretly to the other, 'Tell me, were you pleased today?' And the other replied, feeling ashamed as he did not know that we all felt similarly, 'Truthfully, no!' We had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly." (Italics added)
** Then there's the fact that the Hebrews, at this point, had ''never'' experienced freedom, and life outside of Egypt. It was what they were familiar with. So, even without the burden of taskmasters over them, the prospect of heading out into the unknown, never to return, would be difficult to be overjoyed about.
* As a kid, I didn't understand why Moses reacted more strongly to Miriam singing Yocheved's lullaby than to her saying that he was her brother. Then when I re-watched it, I noticed Moses humming the melody just after speaking to his Pharaoh father. ''He remembered'', at the very least subconsciously. He must have spent his whole life inexplicably knowing that song, and now he hears it again from only one other source -- a slave woman. Miriam's story by itself could easily be ignored, but the song confirmed that story by providing a link between her and Moses. That's why he panicked.
** Not only that, but when Miriam sang the lullaby, her tears and the light wind in her hair made her look just like Yocheved. If Moses remembered the lullaby, he may have also remembered his mother's face.

** Also, the reaction of him and his guards to the First Plague: Rameses was indifferent and the guards were initially puzzled before realizing it was blood, at which point the guards panicked and Rameses demanded an explanation from the priests. The thing is, the Nile would become red ''once per year'', right before the flooding (the red is the silt). That's why Rameses was indifferent and the guards puzzled: Rameses hadn't seen where the red had started to spread from and initially associated it with the flooding, and the guards were asking themselves why the sign of the flooding was spreading from the guy they were supposed to arrest. Then they realized that not only was it not that time of the year and but also that the Nile had become red with ''blood'' and not silt, upon which the guards panicked and Rameses started having doubts.
** This also explains Hotep and Hoy's quick explanation. The red powder they used wasn't just any powder, but a sample of the silt from the river bed. In short, they basically explained the above without any words when the Pharaoh demanded it.
** It also seems kind of strange at first that Ramses is so quick to dismiss the river of blood, in spite of the fact that the priests ''clearly'' hadn't reproduced the effect. Then again, Ramses was in a situation where he felt the need to maintain a sense of control. It's likely he was delusional enough to just take ''any'' sign that Moses was a fraud and run with it.
** Just like the source material, each of the Plagues were made that way because God may have also wanted to prove his dominion over the Egyptian pantheon.
*** Water Becomes Blood: Signifies God’s supremacy over Hapi, Egyptian god associated with the Nile's annual flooding who was the "water bearer" along with Sobek, who is the Nile's guardian.
*** Frogs from the Nile: Illustrates God’s power over Heket, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, who had the head of a frog.
*** Lice from the Dust: Signifies God’s power over Geb, Egyptian god of the earth/land.
*** Swarms of Flies: Shows God’s authority over Khepri, Egyptian god of creation with the head of a fly/scarab/insect.
*** Death of the Livestock: Shows God’s victory over Hathor, Egyptian goddess of love usually depicted with a cow head and is closely associated with cattle.
*** Boils and Sores: Represents God’s power over Isis, Egyptian goddess of medicine, magic, and peace.
*** Burning Hail: Signifies God’s dominion over Nut, Egyptian goddess of the sky.
*** Hoards of Locusts: Illustrates God’s supremacy over Seth/Set; Egyptian god of destruction, storms, and disorder.
*** Three Days of Absolute Darkness: Represents God’s supremacy over Ra, the Egyptian sun god. Possibly also demonstrates superiority over Aten (another solar deity) and maybe Thoth (deity of knowledge and the moon).
*** Death of the First Born: Signifies God’s authority over Osiris (Egyptian god of the afterlife), Horus (Deity closely associated with Pharaohs and life itself), Anubis (Egyptian god of the dead) and Pharaoh (the "highest authority" of Egypt).

** The portal that the Angel of Death comes out of? Pay attention to the stars around it in the night sky- it is the constellation Orion, which to the Egyptians was the constellation for Osiris, aka the God who judges the dead. This could be taken in various ways, either that Osiris '''is''' the Angel of Death and thus a god of Egypt is subservient to the Abrahamic God, or it could be that God is once more being symbolic with his plagues and choosing to clue in anyone who notices that it is He and He alone who judges the dead.
*** A bit of FridgeHorror, what if those stars were the ghosts of the [[StarsAreSouls firstborn children]]?!

** Additonally, Tzipporah has known Moses for years, whereas Miriam had only been reunited with him recently. Naturally, Tzipporah is a bit closer to Moses than Miriam is.

** Another layer to it: this was the same river Seti had thrown all those Hebrew babies into. The river of blood could be seen as a letter of grievance toward Pharaoh, as well.

** This is compounded when Ramses repeats Seti's line of, "Pharaoh speaks!" at the start of the movie.
** This also explains why God chose a Hebrew who had been raised as a member of the royal family, rather than from among the slaves. A slave would be filled with bitterness and want to be the sword of God's wrath, laying waste to as many Egyptians as possible. But Moses saw these people as his family. He had fond memories of them. That's why he tried to reason with them and be diplomatic at first, and warn them of the consequences rather than just throwing the plagues at them from the beginning and scream, "IT'S BETTER THAN WHAT YOU DESERVE, YOU IDOL-WORSHIPPING ***S!"
* During first nine plagues, we see a few moments where children are watching in horror but are not harmed like their parents, whereas during the the tenth plague, however, we only see children die. A Christian belief is that when children die, they will always go to Heaven as they are innocent, so one could interpret this as the children not being punished at all.
** This is a Jewish story, from the Torah. Christian beliefs have no place in this movie.
** While it is true that Exodus is a book in the Tenach/old testament and executive producer Katzenberg and one of the writers of the screenplay, Meyer, are Jewish, it is not [[YouKeepUsingThatWord inconceivable]] that Christian ideas found their way in through other people who worked on the production, as the US is a Christianity-dominated culture. In a similar vein, many ideas from contemporary culture found their way into the movie, [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory like the way that Moses appears to be against slavery in general, whereas it is permitted in the law as given to Moses.]]
** The creators of the film consulted heavily with Jewish, Christian and ''Muslim'' theologians [[ShownTheirWork to ensure accuracy and relative inoffensiveness.]]
** Not to mention that while Christianity doesn't place as strong an emphasis on the Exodus story as Judaism does, it is still included in the Bible and is referenced by Jesus, so saying there is no connection is incorrect.

** The reason why Moses' first attempt at convincing Rameses failed it was he said "The God of the Hebrews commands you". That's not what God said to Moses to say, He said Moses should just say "Let my people go". Moses was at that moment speaking man's words, not God's.
** Further FridgeBrilliance comes from the fact that God spoke to Moses in the latter's own voice. This makes God's original command for Moses to say "Let my people go" ambiguous: does "my people" mean ''God's'' people, or ''Moses's'' people? At first, Moses takes the first interpretation, but once he fully realizes how [[ItsPersonal personal]] the issue is, he switches to the second.

** Maybe. He's also a tall, strong male. This means he's likely doing much more strenuous work than his sister (he appears to be a mason of some sort). He's probably burning far more calories than she is.

** He says as much at the feast. When Moses claims that he's done nothing worth honoring, Jethro reminds him of how he saved the girls.

** Furthermore, another potential translation of the biblical line is not 'hardened Pharaoh's heart' but 'suffered Pharaoh's heart to be hardened' (Hebrew can be difficult to translate). IE, God ''tolerated'' his heart to be hardened, and thus Pharaoh made the choice of his own free will and God merely tolerated him to make his own decisions, which seems to be exactly what direction the movie takes.
* In Ancient Egypt, slaves were extremely rare and mostly composed of war prisoners or criminals, yet the Hebrews are shown as an entire ''people'' of slaves. Most people who know about Ancient Egypt would cringe...except the movie subtly provides a justification in Moses' nightmare, when God "signs" it with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten disk of Aten:]] the Hebrews ''did'' commit a crime, namely keep their monotheistic religion when Egypt was busy wiping out Aten's monotheistic cult.
** This would also explain the extermination of the Hebrew children: a show of force to ''break'' the Hebrews when they were posing a perceived danger as the last massive holdout of monotheism. A rather successful show of force, given just how meek they are until the Plagues.

** At the same time (and this definitely counts as FridgeBrilliance), Hotep and Hoy seemed aware of Tzipporah's fiery, indomitable nature. Thus, they knew that she would cause Rameses grief--hence, they chose her as their "offering" to him in order to get back at him for his shenanigans. (This is why they're so excited to get her.) But that being the case, it's doubtful they expected things to end well for her, so this goes right back to being FridgeHorror.

** She doesn't look on, she looks away in shame at what's been done. Only when Moses looks back at her and realizes how disappointed she is right then does he act regretful about his actions.
* As a kid I assumed that those jerks accosting Tzipporah's sisters were just annoying bullies who were picking on the girls, but watching it as an adult I realize that a number [[TheHighwayman of]] ''[[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil much]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil worse]]'' intentions are also possibilities. Come to think of it, Jethro being so grateful for Moses' intervention doesn't make much sense if they were just bullies.

** In the Bible, Jethro and his family join up with the Israelites following the Exodus, so you can think of that having happened at the end of the film as well.

** Actually, during that scene where Moses confronts Seti about his role in the massacre, if you look (and hear) very closely at Seti, you can tell that it haunts him. "Sometimes, for the greater good, sacrifices must be made." Maybe he figured out Moses was Hebrew and took him in as his son to alleviate the guilt he was feeling about the massacre? Don't forget [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes he was also a father too.]]
*** This. I think it's impossible that Seti wouldn't be aware of Moses' real heritage. He'd at least want some sort of explanation as to where the Queen has suddenly produced a child from, would be aware of the child's race (based on the different features Moses and Ramses have even as children), but like Tuya, would probably believe that Moses was some manner of gift from the gods, thus separating him from the people he's been using for slaves for years.
*** There's also the fact Ramses was a ''third'' child-and when Tuya takes Moses in, his siblings are nowhere to be seen. While the absence of the firstborn, Ramses' sister Tia, is explained by her being ''much'' older (she was married before Seti's ''father'' was made heir to the throne), Ramses' older brother Mehi was just a little older-and died in young age. Mehi had died only recently, and Moses was apparently the replacement sent by the gods.

** That means that the only remaining firstborn child in all of Egypt was...Rameses himself.
** No: Ramses was the thirdborn, he had [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tia_%28princess%29 a much older sister named Tia]], who may or may not have been already dead by that time, and an older brother named Mehi that died when Ramses was a child.
** In the actual Biblical story, yeah, every firstborn was killed, not just firstborn children. And when I say every I mean EVERY. Even the firstborn livestock were killed.

** Going further: that's exactly why the Egyptians conducted the massacre when they did. There are no Hebrew men in the slaves' quarters, they're all being whipped into work on the monuments across the river, and only women and other children are in the village. No one is there to try and stop the Egyptians or even slow them down so that others could be saved like Moses was.

** In Jewish interpretations of the "hardened Pharaoh's heart" passages, Pharaoh isn't a puppet, but still has free will. The "hardening his heart" essentially made it such that any decision that Pharaoh made would be committed to, without vacillation and second-guessing himself, or going back on his decisions. Essentially, the choice was his, G-d just made sure that he'd stick through it. Note that the one point where Pharaoh's heart isn't hardened in regards to a decision, he fairly quickly goes back on it, and chases after the Hebrews with an army. That's part of the reason for the tradition of Matzo--the unleavened bread eaten on Pesach (Passover)--Pharaoh's mercurial moods and arbitrary decisions were so (in)famous that, once the Hebrews were given permission to leave, they left as soon as possible, before the dough could even rise, out of the (justified) fear that he'd change his mind the next day. G-d hardened Pharaoh's heart to make a point to Pharaoh about good rulership, and this is something that still makes many modern Jews uncomfortable in its implications.
** Furthermore (in English translations, at any rate), it appears that God gave Pharaoh a point of no return, so to speak. Up until the Plague of Boils, Pharaoh changing his mind is stated as "he hardened his heart," or some variation of this. Only after the Plague of Boils does the phrase "the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart" come into use (and not for every plague after, either). Free will is present, but so is God's foreknowledge of what will come to pass. Where the line is drawn is to this day a point of tension among Christians.
** Another interpretation, which may even be acknowledged specifically by the movie, is that the hardening of the Pharaoh's heart was not a singular, miraculous action undertaken by God but rather the result of a process. God did not actually wave his hand to magically make Pharaoh refuse Moses' request - He's subjected him to the horrors of the plagues. His heart was "hardened" not by God directly but by the rage and hatred that have grown within him after watching his kingdom crumble.
*** The "then let my heart be hardened" line seems to back this theory up. It's certainly the least morally iffy option.
** Another potential translation of the passage is "God ''suffered'' Pharaoh's heart to be hardened," which is very much in line with what is presented in the movie: Ramses makes a choice to harden his heart, and God tolerates his ability to do so, even if it's the opposite of what He wants and will bring ruin on Ramses.

* Seti I reigned for either eleven or fifteen years, depending on the dates one accept. This adds quite some horrors all-around:
** If one accepts the longest dates and that Seti gave the order, the extermination of the firstborn Hebrews was literally ''Seti's first order as a pharaoh''.
** Alternatively (and more likely considering that Moses' adopted mother was supposed to be a princess), Seti didn't give the order, but it was either his father Ramses I or, considering how short his reign was, Horemheb of the previous dinasty. When Moses confronts him about the killing of the Hebrew newborns, Seti is trying to defend either his father or his father's predecessor...and confused on why Moses is blaming ''him''.
** Considering the Hebrews were monotheists and Horemheb's reign was characterized by the struggle to eliminate the consequences of Akhenaten's monotheistic reform (and God actually adopts Aten's iconography during Moses' dream about the killing of the Hebrews). If Horemheb gave the order, the Hebrews were enslaved and suffered the death of their newborns simply as ''collateral damage'' of a political struggle they had nothing to do with.
*** Seti and Tuya knowingly took in a Hebrew child, in open defiance of Horemheb's decree. Even if they asked him for permission, they took a serious risk. It would also add to Seti's reaction when Moses confronted him about it, as Seti was the one who risked his life to save him.
*** Which puts a new light on the whole 'sometimes for the greater good' thing. He spent his entire life trying to find some reason as to why his father or grandfather would do such a horrific act and he's a bit offended that Moses, the boy whom he risked his life (if not station in life) to protect made it out to be that ''he'' was responsible for that.
*** One little known detail of the scene where Moses floats up in a basket that is lost on modern readers is as follows: not only would it have been the then-current pharaoh's daughter rather than his wife as noted above, but the "bathing" she was in the middle of doing wasn't rune of the mill cleaning of oneself; it was likely a fertility ritual for a just-reaching-puberty princess. "When the gods send you a blessing" indeed.
** Moses is no young boy when he runs away: he seems sixteen at the very youngest, more likely eighteen or twenty. Knowing how short Seti's reign was, it seems likely that he died soon after Moses left. Since he did [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely love his adopted son,]] his death may have partly been DeathByDespair due to losing him...and for Ramases, not only losing his beloved brother (as pointed out above), but losing his father and having to assume the responsibilities of the throne so quickly afterward may well have contributed to his becoming tyrannical.
*** What if after Moses left Seti said YouShouldHaveDiedInstead thing to Rameses( most likely during a MomentOfWeakness)? Rameses seems like the kind of person who takes words seriously even if they were said during temporary insanity. If it's true, Rameses' love of Moses is more unconditional than it seems.

* How did Moses's adoptive parents react after they found out that their youngest son ran away in the desert right after killing an Egyptian worker?