History Main / FreeingTheGenie

* Are You Afraid of The Dark: The storekeeper who sold the protagonist the box containing a female genie accidentally becomes a genie himself when he wishes for a million wishes.
* Two episodes of ''Charmed'' dealt with genies, the first genie needing to grant three wishes in exchange for freedom. The second episode had Phoebe acquire a genie accidentally and when she wished her free, became the genie [[FanService herself]]. And the genie turned out to be a demon who was imprisoned in the bottle as punishment.

ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Is usually done with a wish that usually is something along the lines of: "I wish you were free" but it doesn't have be those exact words, or even involve wishing at all. There are two basic forms; if it's a BenevolentGenie, the master may make this his final wish as a reward. If it's a JackassGenie, such [[TurnTheOtherCheek an act of selfless generosity]] may be the only way to get it on your side - see {{Wishplosion}}.

One interesting thing about this trope that should be noted: the reason the Genies are enslaved is almost never given. This is because, originally, they were a race of beings told to obey men by God, but they refused, so they got forced to do the wish-granting as punishment. This is too controversial for most of the genres they appear in. One exception is in ''IDreamOfJeannie'', where it turns out Jeannie was imprisoned by a more powerful, evil genie.

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[[AC:{{Fan Fic}}]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* A variation in ''{{The 7th Voyage of Sinbad}}''. Near the end of the movie Sinbad throws the lamp into a river of lava, which frees the genie inside as was prophesied.

** Contrary to the Sinbad example above, destroying a Genie's lamp kills him instead of freeing.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

* There's this short story where a girl has a wish egg. I think its by CharlesDeLint in the ''WaifsAndStrays'' collection of short stories. [[spoiler: At the end, she sets it free with her wish]].

[[AC:{{Live Action TV}}]]

** It wasn't that she was a JerkAss, it was simply that everybody almost always wished for selfish things (although when Mulder tries wishing for "Peace on Earth" without stipulating "and Goodwill towards Men", he ends up with an Earth that simply lacks humans). All she wanted, she said, was just to sip coffee in France, but she knew she would never do that. [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming That last scene is her sipping coffee in France.]]

* Are You Afraid of The Dark: The storekeeper who sold the protagonist the box containing a female genie (who made his life hell by twisting his wishes to her own amusement) accidentally becomes a genie himself when he wishes for a million wishes (the same wish the female genie used before she became a genie and so must grant others those wishes).
* Two episodes of ''Charmed'' dealt with genies, the first genie needing to grant three wishes in exchange for its freedom. The second episode had Phoebe acquire a genie accidentally and when she wished her free, became the genie [[FanService herself]]. And the genie turned out to be a demon who was imprisoned in the bottle as punishment.

[[AC:{{Video Games}}]]

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]

[[AC:{{Western Animation}}]]

* ''{{DuckTales}} [[DuckTalesTheMovieTreasureOfTheLostLamp The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp]]'', when Scrooge uses his final wish to turn the genie into [[BecomeARealBoy a real boy.]]

* Used in an episode of ''{{Samurai Jack}}''. He attempted to rescue a captured fairy who can grant one wish, with which he could get home, but kills the only person who knew how to get her free. In trying to get her out, he gets himself trapped, and after a thinking for a few moments, decides what to wish for-- [[spoiler:"I wish we were free."]]

* Subverted in the ''RiverOfTheDancingGods'' series with the Lamp of Lakash. Anyone greedy enough to make a second wish from the lamp would ''automatically'' free the genie and take its place. The "three wishes" story was a clever dodge by the genies to get themselves freed by unwitting masters.

ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Is usually done with a wish that usually is something along the lines of: "I wish you were free" but it doesn't have be those exact words, or even involve wishing at all. There are two basic forms; if it's a BenevolentGenie, the master may make this his final wish as a reward. If it's a JackassGenie, such an act of selfless generosity may be the only way to get it on your side - see {{Wishplosion}}.

ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Is usually done with a wish that usually is something along the lines of: "I wish you were free" but it doesn't have be those exact words, or even involve wishing at all. There are two basic forms; if it's a BenevolentGenie, the master may make this his final wish as a reward. If it's a JackassGenie, [[KobayashiMaru changing the rules]] may be the only way to get it on your side - see {{Wishplosion}}.

ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Is usually done with a wish that usually is something along the lines of: "I wish you were free" but it doesn't have be those exact words, or even involve wishing at all. Typically done when the genie is a BenevolentGenie or will only stop [[JackassGenie being mean]] if set free.

* "Addams Family Tree", an episode of ''TheAddamsFamily'', has a woman wish that a wishing well never existed so as to free the ghost trapped inside it.

* In ''Castle in the Air'' by DianaWynneJones, the sequel to ''Literature/HowlsMovingCastle'', it is revealed that the JerkassGenie freed at the end was actually [[BalefulPolymorph Howl]] who'd been turned into a bottled genie by a more powerful djinn[[hottip:*:In this ArabianNightsDays setting, there is apparently a fundamental difference between a genie, who lives in a bottle and grants wishes, and a djinn, who is more like the original djinn of legend.]] who wanted him and Calcifer out of the way.

* ''{{Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers}}'' subverted it: whoever frees the genie has to take their place (as the LiteralGenie who appeared in the episode failed to mention). The genie tricked the wisher into replacing the genie by saying something about having infinite wishes...

* In AdventureQuestWorlds, [[spoiler:this was Zhoom's reason for destroying Zahart's ring in the Sandsea saga, which he had been using to control Tibicenas. Tibicenas promptly enslaves Zahart and escapes to the Djinn Realm to take revenge upon the Efreet, the ruler of all Djinn, for kicking him out. NiceJobBreakingItHero]].

* In ''Castle in the Air'' by DianaWynneJones, the sequel to ''HowlsMovingCastle'', it is revealed that the JerkassGenie freed at the end was actually [[BalefulPolymorph Howl]] who'd been turned into a bottled genie by a more powerful djinn[[hottip:*:In this ArabianNightsDays setting, there is apparently a fundamental difference between a genie, who live in a bottle and grant wishes, and a djinn, who is more like the original djinn of legend.]] who wanted him and Calcifer out of the way.

* ''{{DuckTales}} The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp'', when Scrooge uses his final wish to turn the genie into a real boy.

* In the second Castle book by {{Diana Wynne Jones}} (the first being ''Howls Moving Castle''), ''Castle's In The Air'', it is revealed that the [[JerkassGenie djinn]] freed at the end was actually [[BalefulPolymorph Howl]] who'd been turned into a bottled djinn by an even bigger djinn who wanted him and Calcifer out of the way.

* In the EnchantedForestChronicles, ''Dealing With Dragons'', Cimorene and a rather annoying young man accidentally release a genie who is about to kill them. Apparently, if freed before a certain period of time, the djinn will leave after granting the free-er a wish. After that period, though, it will kill whoever frees it. Cimorene points out that, [[ExactWords by it's own rules]], it can't legally kill then since it's time limit wasn't up. In the end, the djinn goes back into the bottle and everyone agrees to keep the entitre incident hushed up because no self-respecting djinn ever gets freed during the wish-granting time period.

* Are You Afraid of The Dark: The storekeeper who sold the protagonist the box containing a female genie (who made his life hell by twisting his wishes to her own amusement) accidently becomes a genie himself when he wishes for a million wishes (the same wish the female genie used before she became a genie and so must grant others those wishes).

* In ''[[KingsQuest King's Quest V]]'', the genie's first act upon being freed is to put the person who freed it into the lamp.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* In the second Castle book by {{Diana Wynne Jones}} (the first being ''Howls Moving Castle''), ''Castle's In The Air'', it is revealed that the [[JerkassGenie djinn]] freed at the end was actually [[BalefulPolymorph Howl]] who'd been turned into a bottled djinn by an even bigger djinn who wanted him and Calcifer out of the way.
* In the EnchantedForestChronicles, ''Dealing With Dragons'', Cimorene and a rather annoying young man accidentally release a genie who is about to kill them. Apparently, if freed before a certain period of time, the djinn will leave after granting the free-er a wish. After that period, though, it will kill whoever frees it. Cimorene points out that, [[ExactWords by it's own rules]], it can't legally kill then since it's time limit wasn't up. In the end, the djinn goes back into the bottle and everyone agrees to keep the entitre incident hushed up because no self-respecting djinn ever gets freed during the wish-granting time period.
* There's this short story where a girl has a wish egg. I think its by CharlesDeLint in the ''WaifsAndStrays'' collection of short stories. [[spoiler: At the end, she sets it free with her wish]].
* One anthology of djinn stories had a tale where the genie had a succession of married couple masters, each of whom wished for "youth, wealth and power"--and each time he made the wishers younger (with correspondingly smaller wealth and power grants), until one of the wishers was young enough to trick into wishing him free.

[[AC:{{Western Animation}}]]
* ''{{DuckTales}} The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp'', when Scrooge uses his final wish to turn the genie into a real boy.
* Used in an episode of ''{{Samurai Jack}}''. He attempted to rescue a captured fairy who can grant one wish, with which he could get home, but kills the only person who knew how to get her free. In trying to get her out, he gets himself trapped, and after a thinking for a few moments, decides what to wish for-- [[spoiler:"I wish we were free."]]
* ''{{Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers}}'' subverted it: whoever frees the genie has to take their place (as the LiteralGenie who appeared in the episode failed to mention). The genie tricked the wisher into replacing the genie by saying something about having infinite wishes...
* ''The Fantastic Voyages Of SinbadTheSailor'' cartoon also had a freeing of the Genie at the end on one episode. How? By wishing that there was no lamp.

[[AC:{{Live Action TV}}]]
* An episode of ''{{The X-Files}}'' had Mulder finding a genie in a carpet who was such a pain in the ass about being a LiteralGenie this was the only wish that would work.
** It wasn't that she was a JerkAss, it was simply that everybody almost always wished for selfish things (although when Mulder tries wishing for "Peace on Earth" without stipulating "and Goodwill towards Men", he ends up with an Earth that simply lacks humans). All she wanted, she said, was just to sip coffee in France, but she knew she would never do that. [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming That last scene is her sipping coffee in France.]]
* "Addams Family Tree", an episode of ''TheAddamsFamily'', has a woman wish that a wishing well never existed so as to free the ghost trapped inside it.
* Are You Afraid of The Dark: The storekeeper who sold the protagonist the box containing a female genie (who made his life hell by twisting his wishes to her own amusement) accidently becomes a genie himself when he wishes for a million wishes (the same wish the female genie used before she became a genie and so must grant others those wishes).
* Two episodes of ''Charmed'' dealt with genies, the first genie needing to grant three wishes in exchange for its freedom. The second episode had Phoebe acquire a genie accidentally and when she wished her free, became the genie [[FanService herself]]. And the genie turned out to be a demon who was imprisoned in the bottle as punishment.

[[AC:{{Video Games}}]]
* In ''[[KingsQuest King's Quest V]]'', the genie's first act upon being freed is to put the person who freed it into the lamp.

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* Two episodes of ''Charmed'' dealt with genies, the first genie needing to grant three wishes in exchange for its freedom. The second episode had Phoebe acquire a genie accidentally and when she wished her free, became the genie herself. And the genie turned out to be a demon who was imprisoned in the bottle as punishment.

** It wasn't that she was a JerkAss, it was simply that everybody almost always wished for selfish things. All she wanted, she said, was just to sip coffee in France, but she knew she would never do that. [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming That last scene is her sipping coffee in France.]]

* ''{{DuckTales}} The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp''.

* Used in an episode of ''{{Samurai Jack}}''. He attempted to rescue a captured fairy who can grant one wish, but kills the only person who knew the phrase to get her free. In trying to get her out, he gets himself trapped, and after a thinking for a few moments realizes what the secret phrase must be-- [[spoiler:"I wish we were free."]]

* In the {{EnchantedForestChrinicles}}, ''Dealing With Dragons'', Cimorene and a rather annoying young man accidentally release a genie who is about to kill them. Apparently, if freed before a certain period of time, the djinn will leave after granting the free-er a wish. After that period, though, it will kill whoever frees it. Cimorene points out that, [[ExactWords by it's own rules]], it can't legally kill then since it's time limit wasn't up. In the end, the djinn goes back into the bottle and everyone agrees to keep the entitre incident hushed up because no self-respecting djinn ever gets freed during the wish-granting time period.