History Literature / ArabianNights

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** There's a Genie In A Bottle in "The Fisherman and the Jinni", which is the second story Shahrazad tells. The trope pops up again over 500 Nights later in "The City of Brass". Neither tale includes the modern notion in which the genie must serve whoever liberates him from the bottle. In fact the Jinni from "The Fisherman and the Jinni" is so bitter over being stuck in a bottle for centuries that he says he will kill the fisherman, and the fisherman has to use his wits to trick the Jinni back into the bottle.

* GhostCity: Everyone in "The City of Brass" is dead. There was no great calamity, though; they simply starved to death after many years of drought.

* EvilChancellor: Surprisingly averted as often as its played straight. For every backstabbing power-mad vizier, there's one urgently asking his lord if he should ''really'' be taunting the incredibly powerful and vengeful genie.

* YoungestChildWins: The Three Brothers

* The first expansion set to ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' was named "Arabian Nights" and, for obvious reasons, contained many references to the stories. When the ''Magic'' multiverse setting was established by subsequent sets, ''Arabian Nights'' was retroactively said to have taken place on a [[MagicTheGathering/Planes plane]] called Rabiah the Infinite that consists of 1,001 parallel worlds.

* The first expansion set to ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' was named "Arabian Nights" and, for obvious reasons, contained many references to the stories. When the ''Magic'' multiverse setting was established by subsequent sets, ''Arabian Nights'' was retroactively said to have taken place on a plane called Rabiah the Infinite that consists of 1,001 parallel worlds.

* The first expansion set to ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' was named "Arabian Nights" and, for obvious reasons, contained many references to the stories.

** MotorMouth: TheBarber from "The Tailor's Tale," called in merely to give a haircut, who will not stop talking, much to the storyteller's displeasure.

* TheBarber: A talkative "man of few words" ("The Tailor's Tale").

* BeautyEqualsGoodness
* BecauseDestinySaysSo / YouCantFightFate: So many of the stories revolve around the themes of fate and destiny that some consider fate and destiny themselves to be leading characters in the ''Nights''.

** When a merchant in "The Rogueries of Dalilah the Crafty and Her Daughter Zaynab the Coney- Catcher" is promised a rich young lady to wed, he charmingly remarks that Allah has given him "coin, clothing, and coynte".

* {{Pegasus}}: In the "History of Gharib and His Brother Ajib",Gharib and his genie buddy each have a flying horse.

** EvidenceScavengerHunt: In "The Three Apples," the caliph Harun al-Rashid, orders the TheGoodChancellor, UsefulNotes/GrandVizierJafar ibn Yahya, who gets a HistoricalHeroUpgrade in this tale, to play the role of a {{Detective}} and sends him on a scavenger hunt to solve the murder mystery and bring the [[CrimeAndPunishmentSeries culprit to justice]].

** In "King Yunan and the Sage Duban," the king is convinced by the evil vizier that the Sage Duban was an enemy spy, and that he could kill the king by poisoning anything he touched. The King has the Sage captured and is about to kill him, when the Sage hastily says he possesses a book that will allow the king to ask his severed head for advice. The King is intrigued, and lets the sage go get the book...[[WhatAnIdiot which the sage then poisons, killing the king]].

* NoPronunciationGuide:
** Many characters, especially Sheh-herr-uh-ZAUD. If you have a version with good transliteration in a transliteration system you're familiar with, it's possible to avert this trope. If not, you'll just end up pronouncing Jafar the way they do in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' and, like everything else in that movie, that isn't accurate.
** In the Burton translation, the girls' names are given as Sharázad and Dunyázad - meaning city-freer and city-saver, according to the footnotes.

* OffWithHisHead: the penalty for marrying the sultan. Averted in Shahrazad's case.

** In "Ishak of Mosul and His Mistress and the Devil",the Devil shows up, gets Ishak laid, and leaves.

** [invoked] Due to ValuesDissonance, this happens many, many times.

* {{Motifs}}: Recurring motifs are used to bind together several seperate tales into a story cycle.
* MotorMouth: TheBarber from "The Tailor's Tale," called in merely to give a haircut, who will not stop talking, much to the storyteller's displeasure.

** In "Ibrahim Bin Al-Mahdi and the Barber- Surgeon," Ibrahim does this after fleeing the wrath of the nephew that he refuses to recognize as Caliph.

* BalefulPolymorph:
** Many times, usually when a sorceress or a ''jinni'' turns someone into a beast to teach him a lesson.
** ... and sometimes just because they can do it. Queen Lab in "Julnar the Sea-Born and Her Son King Badr Basim of Persia" is an example of the latter type of sorceress: the first thing King Badr notices on entering her kingdom is the abnormally large number of donkeys, mules and horses on the streets. He later learns they were all her formerly human lovers whom she had transformed into animals after she tired of them.

* WomenAreWiser: Whenever someone suffers a BalefulPolymorph, the first person to figure it out is always a woman who was raised by an old lady who taught her witchcraft.

* MakeAWish: Several of the tales

* DownerEnding: Some of the tales end in tragedy. "Judar and His Brethren" is one notable example, in which the protagonist is murdered by his evil brothers.

* AdultFear: One can only imagine what Shahrazad's father goes through, consenting reluctantly to letting her wed a known tyrant and wife-killer after failing to convince her not to.

The FramingDevice for the story cycle is the tale of King Shahryar and the lady Shahrazad. The King's first wife had cheated on him, so he had her executed. Then, feeling that no woman could be trusted, he hit upon a plan only [[TheCaligula a powerful and insane tyrant]] could pull off: He'd marry a woman, spend the night with her, and then, in the morning, send her off to the royal Wazir (chancellor) to be executed. No woman would ever betray him again!