YMMV / Aladdin: The Series

• Adorkable: Genie has a lot of dorky moments, most notably when he first meets Eden and acts like a smitten human boy.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Jasmine. Due to how easily she becomes criminal in "Forget Me Lots" — due to Criminal Amnesiac — and eventually betrays and overthrows Abis Mal as the Big Bad of the chapter and tries to kill Aladdin (for a very petty reason), suggests for some fans that she hides a very dark side in her.
• Complete Monster: Most of Aladdin's enemies have some degree of comedic traits. However, things get much darker when either of these two are around:
  • Mozenrath is the most personal, recurring foe that Aladdin has faced. A youthful sorcerer who betrayed, zombified, and enslaved his own master, Mozenrath enacts a variety of schemes to destroy Agrabah and bind Genie to his will. Attempting to unleash the Wind Jackal to annihilate Agrabah and threatening to do the same to every other kingdom of the world if they don't kowtow to him, Mozenrath later dominates the entire race of Sprites, turning them into a force of slaves that he works to near-death before trying to wipe them all out when they rebel. Mozenrath also traps a large portion of the Sultan's palace in an alternate plane of existence to be damned while he swoops in for control, and in another plot manipulated Genie and his girlfriend with dirty tricks so as to turn them into living batteries. In his final bout of villainy, Mozenrath horribly tries to bodyjack Aladdin and leave the boy hero trapped in his own dying body.
  • Mirage is evil incarnate, devoted only to proliferating misery and destroying all that is good. As an early testament to her evil, Mirage orders a village and its population incinerated in her debut just because of the crops they grow for the surrounding land. Mirage's plots range from the grandiose to the sadistically petty, everything from attempting to have all of Agrabah destroyed and brewing up civil wars for fun, to trying to destroy Aladdin and Jasmine's love for each other by slowly transforming Jasmine into a snake. Mirage even tempts children into her clutches, promising them immortality in exchange for becoming the monstrous El-Katib, a process she neglects to mention entails their eternal servitude in a dark void with release only three nights every seven years. Mirage has no issue abandoning the El-Katib to die, coldly leaving them all to perish in the sunlight when one of them finally defies her.
• Continuity Lockout: If you haven't seen Aladdin: The Return of Jafar, you'll likely be confused by Iago a) being free from Jafar's lamp and b) on the side of the good guys.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Mozenrath doesn't really do a single decent thing or display any redeeming qualities in any of the episodes he appears in. This did not stop fans from interpreting him in a more sympathetic light and shipping him with multiple characters due to how charming and attractive he is.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Mozenrath. While only appearing in 9 out of all the 86 episodes, there was just enough depth to his character to make him stand out from the crowd, resulting in endless theories about him and his past life.
  • Chaos, in spades. Despite being a one-shot character, he is highly popular among fans.
  • Thundra the rainbird has quite the fandom for her scant appearances.
  • Mirage — especially for the Furry Fandom.
  • Eden is also a favorite among fans, despite only being in 2 episodes.
  • Arbutus only appeared in 1 episode, but gained a fair amount of popularity due to his Anti-Villain traits and making some valid points in his Green Aesop. Being voiced by Ron Perlman certainly doesn't hurt either.
  • Fatima and Minos, due to being an Outlaw Couple who have some interesting history with Aladdin and Abu, get some decent Character Development, and are initially subjected to a Forced Transformation. Fatima's attractive appearance also inspires a lot of fan art. Several fans wish they'd been in more than two episodes.
  • Vain Sorceress Saleen has an impressively diverse assortment of fan art. It helps she's pretty much a sexier, vampier take on Ariel partly inspired by an unused Ursula design.
  • Sadira only makes four appearances, but her position as a Badass Adorable Cute Witch who is a Shadow Archetype to both Aladdin and Jasmine and has a Heel–Face Revolving Door arc make her a major face of the show. Her cameo appearance in Aladdin and the King of Thieves was very well received.
• Evil Is Cool: Many villains are seen this way, like Arbutus, Chaos, Malcho, The Mukhtar and Mozenrath.
• Fanon:
  • The idea of Mozenrath being Aladdin's long lost brother proved interesting enough to become very popular, despite Disney deciding not to use it. If Aladdin and Mozenrath are portrayed as brothers, it's often as half-brothers with Cassim as their shared parent and different mothers.
  • Somehow, the idea that Mirage is Mozenrath's mother has gotten quite a bit of traction among fans, manifesting itself commonly in fanfiction where Mozenrath is portrayed as Mirage's exasperated prodigal son. At no point in the TV show itself do the two have any interactions, nor is any such relationship even hinted at, not to mention that Mozenrath is apparently human and Mirage not.
  • Destane has only made one appearance in the series and it's mostly a posthumous appearance as an undead Mamluk controlled by Mozenrath. Beyond that, we know very little about him aside from him being an evil sorcerer who was so dangerous that Jafar avoided him and that Mozenrath eventually overthrew him. In most fanworks, whenever Destane does appear, he's almost always portrayed as being physically and/or sexually abusive towards a young Mozenrath to justify Mozenrath being the Bastard Understudy who eventually overthrows him. Due to Mozenrath's Draco in Leather Pants treatment, being a horrible, abusive caretaker is all Destane is portrayed as and the possibility that Destane, despite being a dark wizard, might've genuinely cared for Mozenrath (he did teach Mozenrath magic after all) is never even considered, much less the prospect that Mozenrath might've been the more evil, power-hungry Ungrateful Bastard who decided to betray his father figure because he felt like it and/or wanted more power and control.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Aladdin and Mozenrath have quite the fan following with numerous fanfics and fanart of them. Jasmine and Saleen too.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In "The Seven Faces of Genie", Genie's Anger, Laughter, and Kindness bear some resemblance to Yao, Ling, and Chien Po, respectively.
  • Chaos, a crazy cat-like being with god-like powers has quite a lot in common with Discord. .
  • In "The Flawed Couple", Iago is affected by one of Mechanikles' machines and starts hitting on Jasmine. Japanese people will probably get slight Thumbelina flashbacks, since the two have the same voice actors, Akira Kamiya and Kaori Asoh. In the original version, Iago even calls Jasmine "toots".
  • "Secret of Dagger Rock" has Jasmine disguise herself as a palace guard to save Aladdin from Mozenrath. Four years after this episode aired, Disney released a movie about another girl who disguises herself as a man.
  • Much like Cyberchase would feature Gilbert Gottfried voicing a loudmouthed bird that was formerly a henchman for the Big Bad like Iago, that same series would have Bebe Neuwirth voicing an antagonistic character based off of an Egyptian cat like Mirage (though Binky's more of a Punch-Clock Villain henchman to Mumsy rather than being outright evil like Mirage).
  • The magical gauntlet in "To Cure A Thief" looks nearly identical to the Infinity Gauntlet.
  • Mirage mentions taking the El Khatib (and Aladdin) to a place called the Shadow Realm.
  • The premise of "Sandswitch", a villain alters reality switching places with a Disney Princess so that she can marry the prince and live happily ever after. Which is also the plot of Cinderella III: A Twist in Time
  • The premise of the episode with the Ethereal makes one wonder if the developers of Stella Glow and Final Fantasy XIV may have seen this episode.
  • Mirage’s domain is called Morbia, which may elicit a chuckle due to the prevalence of memes about Morbius (2022).
• Ho Yay: Iago and Abu have a few moments of monkey-parrot bromance. Hell, you can say that Iago has a few Tsundere tendencies towards Abu. Example of how close it can get between them? This bit at the end of "The Day the Bird Stood Still", after he's been saved from becoming a stone statue:
  Iago: Don’t ask me to explain this. (Kisses Abu hard on the forehead)
  • And if you thought that was gay, in "In the Heat of the Fright", the two realize with horror that they've had a Sleep Cute moment, with Iago telling himself that it's all just been a bad dream.
• Jerkass Woobie: Iago sometimes shows a more pitiful side instead of his usual crankiness.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Mozenrath. He hasn't even met half the characters he gets shipped with.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • "When Chaos Comes Calling": Chaos, implied to be the Anthropomorphic Personification of his namesake, is a near-omnipotent trickster whose unpredictability is matched only by his love of fun and affability. Chaos is "tricked" by the evil goddess Mirage into visiting Agrabah, where he proceeds to begin screwing with reality for his own amusement, creating an evil Aladdin and an evil Genie to challenge the status quo when he's informed "Aladdin always wins." Motivated by nothing but his whims, Chaos is still a fiendishly good planner who set up Mirage from the beginning, and tricks her into falling into his evil Genie's clutches just to place her in so much danger she ends inadvertently saving the day. Not only the most powerful being seen in the series, Chaos is a cunning Trickster Mentor who commends Aladdin for what he's done with Agrabah and tells him to keep up the good work—lest he return to make things "interesting" again.
  • The Mukhtar is a snake-like mercenary and the most skilled genie hunter in all the land. In his introductory episode, Mukhtar uses Iago and Abu to lead him to Genie and then masterfully fights and defeats Genie with a variety of skills, using both magical tools and pragmatic wit to outdo the powerful Reality Warper as well as his friends. Letting Genie go without issue when his employer calls the hunt off, Mukhtar later returns to take all of Genie's friends hostage in a ploy to lure Genie into Mozenrath's hands, which goes off without a hitch. Mukhtar's honor being as mighty as his tracking abilities, the mercenary ends up backstabbing Mozenrath while saving Genie and his friends due to a feeling of closeness with Genie, parting ways with the heroes peacefully at the end of his story after regarding them all as friends.
  • "Garden of Evil": The plant elemental wizard Arbutus once made a bargain to spare the life of the Sultan in return for his "dearest treasure." Concealing that this was his daughter Jasmine, Arbutus returns to kidnap her, easily beating the heroes in the process with intent to hold Jasmine as a possession in his garden. Revealing his deep love for the plants he deems his children and his rage at humankind for mistreating them, Arbutus shows he is amenable to Jasmine's attempts to persuade him before the tragic misunderstanding causes him to be slain by Aladdin, with Jasmine and Aladdin mourning his fate once the latter uncovers the truth.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Mirage in her debut episode sets a completely defenseless village on fire.
  • Saleen just seems to be an Entitled Bastard, since rather than kill Jasmine she gives her the ability to breathe underwater and traps her while going after Aladdin. (She's shocked when Aladdin only met her for dinner to bargain for Jasmine's freedom.) Then she turns Aladdin into a shark against his will in the next episode, being quite clear that she wants him, no matter how he feels about it.
• One-Scene Wonder: Destane, Mozenrath's former master, became quite memorable, considering he only had a few seconds of screen-time, as well as no lines.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: In fanfiction, it's quite common to pair Mozenrath with Sadira even though the two have never even interacted on the show.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Of Rhapsody in Blue when Genie is dressed as a flight attendant on the carpet. An obvious nod to the famous use of the song by United Airlines, although odd considering in 1992 Delta was the official airline of Disney.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Chaos, who's possibly the most powerful being in the Aladdin universe, and can give Mirage a run for her money, only appeared in one episode.
  • Destane, Mozenrath's former mentor of whom the latter betrayed. Apparently he was nasty enough that Jafar steered clear of him. Only appeared or was even mentioned in one episode.
  • Khartoum was one of the most powerful and clever villains in the series, even outwitting Mozenrath! It's too bad he only appeared in one episode.
  • Saleen only appeared in two episodes, and to make it worse, at the end of her second appearance ("Shark Treatment"), she vows, "We'll get them next time, Armand". Sadly, Saleen was never seen or mentioned for the remainder of the series.
  • Eden only shows up in two episodes, which is disappointing considering she and Genie have such great chemistry with each other.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • In "Eye of the Beholder", it was revealed that Fasir and Mirage used to have a thing together. Wouldn't it be great to show what their past was like?
  • Despite Mechanicles being an Ancient Greek character, he doesn't appear in the Hercules crossover.
  • Minos and Fatima pursuing Aziz after turning good and seeking redemption could have been an interesting story, but only the latter is ever seen again after their two-part debut.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Xerxes◊ is usually just plain ugly, but can sometimes cross into this when it's shown how devoted he is to his master.
  • Also the Unkbut, the giant bugs that live under Agrabah are scary-looking but can also be cute in the right circumstance.
  • In "Eye of the Beholder", despite Jasmine's snake form being treated in-universe as a scary ugly monster that could never be loved for her looks, viewers tend to see her as a Cute Monster Girl instead.
• Unintentional Period Piece: In one episode, Genie states that men were most masculine in the 1970's. Nothing says The '90s more than 70's nostalgia. Granted, this show takes place in ancient Arabia or Persia, but that's Genie for you.
• Values Resonance: Sadira before her Heel–Face Turn accidentally traumatized Aladdin when brainwashing him into loving her as a European prince. Aladdin has a realistic response on realizing he's kissing a different woman; he pushes her away and goes to Jasmine to both explain himself and realize that he can't explain it due to the fact that he was under a spell. While the episode ending is Played for Laughs, where Sadira gives a genuine apology to Jasmine but not to Aladdin for essentially giving him a roofie, the sequel where Sadira has completed her Heel–Face Turn still has Aladdin suspicious of her. While Aladdin and the others go too far in assuming Sadira absolutely must be the culprit behind what the newly revived Sand Witches have been doing, he's not wrong to be on his guard about Sadira since every time they've tangled, she's tried to mess with his mind. Sadira has to truly prove that she's changed, by taking on the Sand Witches and nearly sacrificing her life to do so, as well as breaking their staff.
• The Woobie: All of the main characters gets their moments, or even episodes, of this. Yes, even Carpet.

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