History Headscratchers / ThePrinceOfEgypt

* When Ramses has his VillainSpeech talking about how he's going to "finish the job"...one, that's going to destroy Egypt's manual labour base, so no more monuments, and if the Egyptians want to build anything they'll have to do it themselves. Two, at that point, what is even the difference between killing them all and letting them go if you experience all the bad side effects of letting them go either way? Seems like a major case of Ramses not thinking things through and grabbing the VillainBall hard.

** And if in any way the Queen disapproves of the Hebrew babies being slaughtered, she'd probably be powerless to stop it from happening, but she can at least protect this one child who appears to be divinely sent.

** Empathy, to feel a PARENT'S pain the Egyptian's got what the Hebrews got and if you think about it the Egyptian's with young children then would have been the same age as the children killed before. Harsh {{laser guided karma}} via {{sins of our fathers}}.

** @ OP- Remember, Ramses just ruined a statue/temple that likely took a good few decades to build, so he just added another few decades ''just to get it back to how it was in the first place''. Seti's afraid that Ramses' seeming recklessness and apparent apathy toward the station he'll have to bear later will spell Egypt's doom.
** it also worth noting that Seti's dynasty was still new at the time, he himself was the second one to sit the throne, and Egypt was still recovering from Akhenaten's little experience with monotheism so Seti expected perfection from his heir might be because he knows that his family can be toppled at any moment.
* It is also worth noting that this is an ancient times without any machines. No mixers, cranes or truckers. Slaves were literally breaking their backs to make the bricks and stack each and every one. And while Pharaoh might not care about their well-being, that is a waste of resources that could have been allocated elsewhere.

** It may also just be their way of portraying her as a shy girl, kind of like the way Violet always had her hair draped over her face in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' until she got more confident and learned to stick up for herself.

*** In the book of Exodus, Moses leaves at age forty, rather than what I think is twenty or so in the film, so the time periods were basically cut in half. Done true to the Biblical version Miriam and Aaron should have been about twice as old as they looked.

** I think that was more "wear and tear". As a prince, he lived well and didn't have to work. After he left Egypt and lived with Tziporra, he worked and was exposed to the sun and the wind and the elements more.
** Pretty much. As a prince, they probably didn't encourage him to go outside as the hot sun would damage his 'prince-ly' skin. With Tziporra's people, he had to work out in the fields with them, and his job, clearly, was to herd sheep. Though the movie doesn't show it, I imagine he was a little more rugged in appearance.

-->Exodus 7:22: But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh’s heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

--> "When the gods send you a blessing, you don't ask why it was sent."

** It's indicated that she knew he was Hebrew. When she takes baby Moses in, her maids look in disapproval and she gives them a DeathGlare. Also, when Moses humiliates Tzipporah at the banquet, the Queen looks at him in disappointment.

--> "When the gods send you a blessing, you don't ask why it was sent."

*** As an interesting side-note, this was the only plague that required action on the part of the Hebrews. They were told to kill a lamb and use a hyssop branch to spread blood on the doorposts and lintels. Though the Bible doesn't specify and the movie doesn't show it, the messages involving blood sacrifice throughout the Bible (culminating with the death of Jesus and the discovery that Gentiles could also become Christians) strongly suggest that any Hebrews who failed to spread the blood on the door could lose their firstborns, while any Egyptians who said "Heck with this" and spread the blood on the door could also be passed over.

** She directly attributes it to the gods later when trying to comfort Moses. They assumed that the gods (probably Osiris, given it was the Nile) deliberately sent him into their home and it would have been wrong and ungrateful to ask suspicious questions about why the child happened to be Hebrew.

** One little-known detail lost on modern folk is that in addition to this being the then-current pharaoh's daughter rather than his wife, the "bathing" she was doing was likely a fertility ritual for a princess just arriving at puberty. "When the gods send you a blessing" indeed.

** Ramses wasn't asking for the two to prove that their gods were better than the hebrew god. Ramses was asking for an explanation. The whole "superior might" thing was Hotep's own line (which, by the way he said it, sounded very rehearsed). Ramses just wanted the two to explain it; he knows Hotep and Hoy are stage magicians and if they could reveal the "trick", then Moses was just spouting nonsense. It was a way for Ramses to reinforce his own mindset. It's also why he later shoos them out during the Plagues; the two now couldn't even keep the "tricks" off themselves, much less explain any of it.

** Given the dangerous trip that Moses takes down the Nile and the fact that he floated up to the Queen's little dock/pier, she likely took it as a sign from the gods. They had sent them a Hebrew boy as their own, which was probably interpreted as a sign that the gods approved of the massacre and Moses was a symbol of the Egyptians having been giving the Hewbrews as their own.

** Given the dangerous trip that Moses takes down the Nile and the fact that he floated up to the Queen's little dock/pier,