History Main / JackassGenie

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway, like in "Literature/THeMonkeysPaw": "You asked to be rich, you didn't ''not'' ask for the money to come from your adult son's life insurance. What was that? You want your son back? Sure, I'll just send a shambling zombie to your door..."

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway: "Oh, the words you used mean something else in a very obscure dialect in AnotherDimension," or "You asked to be rich, you didn't ''not'' ask for the money to come from your spouse's life insurance..."

Oftentimes the Jackass Genie just seems to be [[KickTheDog taking cheap shots at characters who are literally helpless before him]]. As a result, expect him to be the clear villain when he appears. The Literal Genie can be excused somewhat if they're just naturally [[TheDitz ditzy]] or are trying to teach you a lesson [[AnAesop about being careful what you wish for]], but the Jackass Genie can lay no such claim. If there is any lesson to be learned with them, it might be "[[TooGoodToBeTrue if an offer seems too good to be true, it is]]" -- after all, this genie acts like a supernatural ConMan, and [[{{Greed}} you always had the option to walk away]] and/or [[{{Wishplosion}} wish none of this ever happened]]. If you literally wish for the latter, however, don't be too surprised if the genie erases either you, the entire earth, or the universe from history. MortonsFork may apply.

No matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway: "Oh, the words you used mean something else in a very obscure dialect in AnotherDimension."

Genie jackassery is a natural repercussion of the [[GenieInABottle original mythologies]], where most wish-granting djinn are [[TheFairFolk faeries]] enslaved by sorcerers (usually [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon this specific one]]) and are ''rather unhappy with their servitude''. As such, they will take every opportunity to screw over their master. Genies following this tradition are basically sending AnAesop that "you shouldn't consort with magical beings, full stop". Nowadays that might be because "[[MiseryBuildsCharacter hard work is good for you]]" or "WantingIsBetterThanHaving".

Generally speaking, a LiteralGenie will make logical but basic interpretations of a wish. Nothing more and nothing less than what the wish ''[[ExactWords explicitly]]'' states. This is so that when a wish backfires, we can laugh at the foolishness of whoever made the wish, as opposed to the genie, who is supposedly [[JustFollowingOrders just doing their job]].

Sometimes, though, the literal interpretation just isn't enough. Try as we might, there simply aren't that many wishes which can be literally interpreted to mean "Turn me blue." So when the humiliation ''really'' needs to pile on, the Jackass Genie has to make an appearance.

What differentiates the Jackass Genie from the Literal Genie is sheer malice. This creature has it in for whoever has the misfortune of being his master and will make whatever bizarre interpretation is necessary to make the master's life a living hell. A Literal Genie will grant the wish as is, for better or worse. Any negative consequences are simply a result of [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor the wish being poorly thought out]], or at worst a [[PoorCommunicationKills legitimate misunderstanding]]. The Jackass Genie on the other hand will be the precise opposite of the BenevolentGenie, intentionally granting the absolute worst version of any wish.

In short, you just can't win; no matter what you wish for, the Jackass Genie will find a way to twist it so you end up worse off. Expect him to milk ExactWords and MetaphoricallyTrue for all they're worth. And taking the Literal Genie approach of making sure your wish is very specific is nothing but a trap. Unless you know a rule that he absolutely ''has'' to follow, he'll just [[MovingTheGoalposts move the goalposts]] and screw you over anyway: "Oh, the words you used mean something else in a very obscure dialect in AnotherDimension." And ''that'' is assuming that he doesn't just flat-out lie and claim to have "misheard" you, knowing that you can't prove him wrong.

You can also expect a Jackass Genie to interpret ''anything'' you say as a wish, [[RhetoricalRequestBlunder even if you didn't intend to make one.]] Never say "I wish I were dead" when this particular genie is within earshot. Your "wish" ''will'' be granted. Even the Literal Genie tends to have a tenuous grasp of the concept of hyperbole. Even worse, the Jackass Genie may just suddenly set you on fire because "You didn't wish ''not'' to be set on fire".

As you can plainly see, oftentimes the Jackass Genie just seems to be [[KickTheDog taking cheap shots at characters who are literally helpless before him]]. As a result, expect him to be the clear villain when he appears. The Literal Genie can be excused somewhat if they're just naturally [[TheDitz ditzy]] or are trying to teach you a lesson [[AnAesop about being careful what you wish for]], but the Jackass Genie can lay no such claim. If there is any lesson to be learned with them, it might be "[[TooGoodToBeTrue if an offer seems too good to be true, it is]]" -- after all, this genie acts like a supernatural ConMan, and [[{{Greed}} you always had the option to walk away]] and/or [[{{Wishplosion}} wish none of this ever happened]]. If you literally wish for the latter, however, don't be too surprised if the genie erases either you, the entire earth, or the universe from history. MortonsFork may apply.

Genie jackassery is a natural repercussion of the [[GenieInABottle original mythology]], since most wish-granting djinn were spirits imprisoned and enslaved by sorcerers (usually [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon this specific one]]) and are ''rather unhappy with their servitude''. As such, they will take every opportunity to screw over their master. Genies following this tradition are basically sending AnAesop that "you shouldn't consort with magical beings, full stop". Nowadays that might be because "[[MiseryBuildsCharacter hard work is good for you]]" or "WantingIsBetterThanHaving".

** Jafar, however, does give him a freebie regarding enugh the treasure to fill Abis Mal's heart's content, in exchange for the third wish to set him free from the lamp (after Aladdin is believed to have died). Abis Mal was going to wish for Jafar's freedom, but stops himself and wonders whether Jafar's going to actually keep his word about the treasure, or if the treasure will disappear once being set free, apparently having become skeptical due to Jafar's tendency towards this trope. Jafar finally loses his patience at this point.

* A classic [[RussianHumor Russian joke]] involves a man asking the Golden Fish (the traditional Russian wish granter) to make him a Hero of the Soviet Union. He promptly finds himself on a battlefield, staring down five German tanks while armed with a knife and two hand grenades.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Sci-fi version with Q, a superpowerful {{Energy Being|s}} alien who can grant wishes but most of the time with some dark twist or some "lesson" he wants to teach specially to Picard. Q also has appearances in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' with similar role.

* The ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' fanfic ''Fanfic/GazDreamsOfGenie'' has an example mixed with LaserGuidedKarma. After breaking the lamp of Azie the genie and wasting her first two wishes, Gaz wishes for the power to grant her own wishes. Azie obliges...by switching places with Gaz, making her the genie and imprisoning her in the lamp, while stealing her place as Dib's sister. Not only that, but she also rewrites reality so that she, Azie, is and has always been Dib's sister and Professor Membrane's daughter, essentially erasing Gaz's previous life from history so no one will ever remember her. Gaz is left to fume inside the lamp prison, plotting her revenge, while unbeknownst to her, the lamp is stuffed in a crate and locked away in a SecretGovernmentWarehouse.

* [[EldritchLocation The Room]] in ''Film/Stalker1979'' is an interesting twist on this trope. It does not twist wishes to screw you over; quite the contrary, it grants you your greatest desire, no catch. But you don't get to ''ask'' for what you want, the process is automatic, and what you ''think'' you want may not be what you actually get. Case in point, the protagonist's mentor went into the Room to wish his dead brother back to life, [[spoiler:and was given a huge sum of cash because deep down he wanted to be rich more than he wanted his brother back, subsequently [[DrivenToSuicide killing himself]] out of self-loathing.]] Put simply, whether the Room is a Jackass Genie depends on whether you know what you truly want and whether you really ''want'' to know.

** The past Skullgirls' wishes are as follows: [[spoiler:Annie's mother]] wished for her daughter to remain a child forever. On top of becoming the Skullgirl, [[spoiler:she trapped the now-forever-15-year-old Annie in an endless struggle against future generations of Skullgirls]]. Selene Contiello wished to bring back her family, recently murdered by Black Dahlia. She became the Skullgirl and her family was brought back as mindless undead minions save for her daughter Squigly, who only avoided the "mindless" part thanks to being bonded to the Parasite Leviathan and forcing her to help kill her. Queen Renoir wished to stop a massive world war. That wish was fulfilled by making her a Skullgirl so horrible and destructive that the countries ''had'' to stop fighting each other just to take her down. Ironically, the only Skullgirl whose wish seems to be fulfilled in a satisfactory way is that of the current Skullgirl, who wished for revenge against the Medici crime syndicate and depending on the story route chosen, gets her revenge before falling apart.

** The past Skullgirls' wishes are as follows: Selene Contiello wished to bring back her family, recently murdered by Black Dahlia. She became the Skullgirl, and her family was brought back as mindless undead minions. Queen Renoir wished to stop a massive world war. That wish was fulfilled by making her a Skullgirl so horrible and destructive that the countries ''had'' to stop fighting each other just to take her down. Ironically, the only Skullgirl whose wish seems to be fulfilled in a satisfactory way is that of the current Skullgirl, who wished for revenge against the Medici crime syndicate and depending on the story route chosen, gets her revenge before falling apart.
** In the story endings, some of the characters make wishes on the Heart. [[spoiler:Fillia]] wishes to restore a normal life to Painwheel. Her wish is nearly pure, so she becomes a Skullgirl slowly, but Painwheel receives a normal life ''as Painwheel'', and doesn't have any memory of her former life. [[spoiler:Parasoul]] wishes that [[spoiler:Umbrella]] will never become the Skullgirl, so she is made the Skullgirl in her place. The only wish that isn't corrupted in any way among the original cast is [[spoiler:Valentine]]'s because she wished to become the Skullgirl. Miss Fortune narrowly avoids it: just as she's about to make a wish she realizes that this trope is in play and opts to destroy the Skull Heart, instead.

* {{Satan}} in UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} is not a fallen angel, but a fallen genie. Yes, the whole "[[DealWithTheDevil temptation of humankind]]" ''is'' otherwise unchanged...

** Dollface, the driver of Darkside in ''Black'', wishes to be able to take off [[ClingyCostume her unremovable mask]] from which she gets her moniker. She's given a SadisticChoice when it turns out that taking the key to the mask will also mean killing her former employer, the guy who locked her in it in the first place, but since [[KickTheSonOfABitch he had it coming]], [[PayEvilUntoEvil she goes through with it]]... only to decide that she's fine wearing her mask until she grows old.

* In one of ''Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries'' episodes, "Wishes Come True", there was a "genie" that inhabited a creepy-looking mask who offered to grant your wish, but he would not grant your wish to be rich or beautiful, because "it's impossible" or "I don't like the idea." Instead, he would stalk you and wait until you said to someone: "I wish you would die," at which point he'd melt the person alive with hell-slime. This is because the "genie" was really a demon, and killing people was the only "wish" that it could grant.

* In ''Literature/TheMonkeysPaw'', the first wish is for two hundred pounds (that is, money). Just to show how old this trope is, the characters in this story are aware of it and more worried one of them is going to be killed by the money falling from the sky in change and beaning them on the head. However, it is instead received via the eldest son dying in a horrible accident at work and the corporation giving them a settlement out of pity (because this story was written in an age where lawsuits for this kind of thing were unheard of). It gets worse: The mother is so distraught she forces her husband to wish the son alive again -- but she didn't specify what shape she wanted him back in. It turns out his fatal accident had horribly mutilated him, and they hear a knock on the door. We never do find out just what shape the son is in, because when the mother goes to answer the door, the father rushes back in order to make his final wish, which is presumably to wish the son dead and back in his grave, because when the mother opens the door, no-one is there. Though some versions have him as a literal zombie, growling and scratching at the door.

* In ''Literature/TheMonkeysPaw'', the first wish is for two hundred pounds. Just to show how old this trope is, the characters in this story are aware of it and more worried one of them is going to be killed by the money falling from the sky in change and beaning them on the head. However, it is instead received via the eldest son dying in a horrible accident at work and the corporation giving them a settlement out of pity (because this story was written in an age where lawsuits for this kind of thing were unheard of). It gets worse: The mother is so distraught she forces her husband to wish the son alive again -- but she didn't specify what shape she wanted him back in. It turns out his fatal accident had horribly mutilated him, and they hear a knock on the door. We never do find out just what shape the son is in, because when the mother goes to answer the door, the father rushes back in order to make his final wish, which is presumably to wish the son dead and back in his grave, because when the mother opens the door, no-one is there. Though some versions have him as a literal zombie, growling and scratching at the door.

** In the story endings, some of the characters make wishes on the Heart. [[spoiler:Fillia]] wishes to restore a normal life to Painwheel. Her wish is nearly pure, so she becomes a Skullgirl slowly, but Painwheel receives a normal life ''as Painwheel'', and doesn't have any memory of her former life. [[spoiler:Parasoul]] wishes that [[spoiler:Umbrella]] will never become the Skullgirl, so she is made the Skullgirl in her place. The only wish that isn't corrupted in any way is [[spoiler:Valentine]]'s because she wished to become the Skullgirl. Miss Fortune narrowly avoids it: just as she's about to make a wish she realizes that this trope is in play and opts to destroy the Skull Heart, instead.

* The Rainy Devil in ''LightNovel/{{Bakemonogatari}}'' makes a deal with Kanbaru Suruga that obviously references ''Monkey's Paw'', to the point where she actually gets her arm replaced with that of a monkey and interprets wishes very liberally and dangerously for everyone involved. [[spoiler:Subverted, as instead of misinterpreting anything the devil simply obeys her hidden desires to the letter, which are far darker than what she'd expected.]]

** Jafar, however, does give him a freebie regarding enugh the treasure to fill Abis Mal's heart's content, in exchange for the third wish to set him free from the lamp (after Aladdin is believed to have died). Abis Mal was going to wish for Jafar's freedom, but stops himself and wonders whether Jafar's going to actually keep his word about the treasure, or if the treasure will disappear once being set free, apparently having become skeptical due to Jafar's tendency towards this trope.

** ''Anime/CarnivalPhantasm'', as a GagSeries spinoff of the above, features [[spoiler:"Grail-kun"]], a kooky parody of {{Manga/Doraemon}} who "grants wishes" by handing the wisher a kitchen knife and telling them to go stab the source of their problems.

* ''Series/MadMen'' offers a non-fantasy example. After Harry, who's looking for a raise, pulls off a mild coup and impresses a client, his boss Roger calls him into his office.
-->'''Roger:''' Well, you're in here. I'm smiling. What do you want?\\
'''Harry:''' There should be a Television Department and I should be the head of it.\\
'''Roger:''' ''[waves his hands]'' Done. We now have a Department of Television consisting entirely of you... anything else?\\
'''Harry:''' I'd like a raise.\\
'''Roger:''' Hey, you've already gotten something big!
:: In later episodes, Harry is now considered solely responsible whenever something television-related goes wrong, but has no additional resources and still makes much less than people with fewer responsibilities.

->''"'The Last Night of a Jockey' is an old ''Twilight Zone'' episode about a jockey who gets suspended from riding horses, then wishes he was bigger. The wish, obviously, backfires, because The ''Twilight Zone'' was basically one giant PSA about the dangers of evil genies."''

[[caption-width-right:286:"Can I wish for a better genie?" "[[RhetoricalQuestionBlunder Of course]] you ''[[ExactWords can]]''!" ]]

* ''Series/FraggleRock'' has an episode where Wembley finds an old bottle and polishes it up, only to notice pictograms saying "Do Not Rub This Bottle". Out pops a genie, who unlike most of these examples doesn't try to trick Wembley with ExactWords or LiteralGenie shenanigans--he just refuses to grant wishes, and instead starts using his magic to prank the other Fraggles. [[spoiler: After an attempt to re-trap him in the bottle ends with Wembley being tricked into letting him back out under the promise that he'll leave Fraggle Rock (but the genie merely goes ILied), he mind controls all of the Fraggles except Wembley. In Wembley's attempts to get him to stop he discovers that the genie actually has to grant any wish Wembley asks of him (he just didn't want to), which results in Wembley wishing to have the other Fraggles no longer be mind controlled, to have everything the genie broke fixed, and for the genie to have a HeelFaceTurn]]

* In ''Literature/TheBartimaeusTrilogy'', "demons" such as Bartimaeus highly resent the magicians who summon and bind them (well-deserved. It's basically slavery), and actively search for any loophole in the magician's power or orders. In addition to usual malicious literalness, one popular method they use is to creatively interpret pauses for breath as periods, rendering commands completely worthless if the magician can't get them off in one breath. Some spirits are more creative with this than others. They usually ''do'' follow orders [[LiteralGenie as long as they are worded correctly without obvious loopholes]], but it is mentioned that Nathaniel once encountered one who allegedly required a command half an hour long just to correctly fill his bath. Most spirits are reluctant to go that far, as wizards don't require a spirit's assistance to use torture spells on their slaves.
** Also, that's not even getting into what happens if a demon learns the summoner's TrueName, or worse if the summoner botches a summoning ritual. When trying to summon high-level spirits, even the smallest mistake can get one eaten alive.
--->'''Bartimaeus:''' One magician I worked for once called for my aid during an earthquake which was toppling his tower. Unfortunately for him, the precise words he used were: "Preserve me!" A cork, a great big bottle, a vat of pickling fluid, and -- presto! -- the job was done.

* ''Literature/EnchantedForestChronicles'': Book 1 (''Dealing With Dragons'') features a genie released after over three hundred years of imprisonment, only to grant the protagonist, Princess Cimorene, the choice of how she would die. The immediate response, "Old age", turns out not to work because she has to die that day. After some questions, it turns out [[spoiler:that the genie, having really been imprisoned in the bottle for only two hundred and seventeen years, was actually required to grant Cimorene three wishes -- however, for the genie to return home without killing Cimorene would render him a laughingstock. In the end, Cimorene convinces the genie to [[TakeAThirdOption go back into the bottle for eighty-three years]], thus allowing the genie to return home with his pride intact and fulfill the "old age" request for how Cimorene would die]]. He turns out to be a pretty good sport about the whole thing, though; in return for the brilliant idea, he grants Cimorene a wish, so she uses it to get the hen's teeth she's been looking for.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Long ago the creator of the Black Court of Vampires, Vlad Tepesh a.k.a. "Dracula", came to Mab with a request to be together forever with his human lover whom he did not want to turn into an undead monstrosity. Mab granted this wish by encasing them both in ice and using the resulting sculptures as decoration for her ice garden.

** Later, the Wishing Dolly enchants a man's penis so that it can cause whatever it enters to instantly have an orgasm and fall asleep; this is not only limited to women but even affects [[ADateWithRosiePalms his own hand.]] Needless to say, he's quite sexually frustrated nowadays. His later attempts to deal with his frustration [[RefugeInAudacity have to be seen to be believed]].

* ''Manga/InuYasha'': The Shikon Jewel is said to be able to grant any wish; in reality, it will twist a wish to its own benefit at worst or simply not grant it at best. It's even stated in-story that ''every single attempt'' to use the jewel for good has backfired. What this amounts to at the end of the story when someone is in a position to make that wish is that there's only one precise wish that can be made that will actually work (apparently the Jewel has no power to pervert that one) and anything else will result in doom. [[spoiler:Kagome wishes for the jewel to vanish from existence forever, which is said precise wish.]]

* The wish-granting devil in ''Manga/{{Dorohedoro}}'' prefers to grant wishes that are stupid or selfish. The main characters figure this out and realize that he can be manipulated into granting selfless wishes if they're phrased in such a way as to sound selfish.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': sci-fi version with Q, a superpowerful EnergyBeing alien who can grant wishes but most of the time with some dark twist or some "lesson" he wants to teach specially to Picard. Q also has appearences on ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' with similar role.

** DownplayedTrope with the Crossroads demons. They can seemingly grant any wish [[DealWithTheDevil in exchange for your soul]] after a specified period of time (usually 10 years), and Crowley takes pride in him and his underlings averting this trope as much as possible in grounds of "integrity" (case in point, dragging one demon back to Hell after finding out it had been murdering its "clients" shortly after securing their souls). He makes it pretty clear though this is [[PragmaticVillainy only so people will keep making deals with them]]; after all, where's the incentive to make deals with them at all if you're not even going to get what you asked for? Of course, this still somewhat counts, since a) most people they deal with are either very desperate, or just gullible idiots in over their head, and b) when the allotted time is up and it's time for your soul to be collected, the manner in which this is done is to have you ''hunted down by hellhounds who rip you to shreds", whereupon you wake up in the abyss to be [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil tortured into becoming a demon yourself]].
** DoubleSubversion in the episode [[Recap/SupernaturalS02E20WhatIsAndWhatShouldNeverBe "What Is And What Should Never Be" (S02, Ep20)]]. The djinn is introduced as a monster preying on people, but after Dean encounters it he wakes up to find that his wish that his mother never died has been granted. Dean's new life is pretty pleasant, and the only downsides are logical outcomes of the wish, such as him and Sam not getting along without hunting to bring them together, and all the people that they would have saved dying instead. [[spoiler:Then it turns out that the djinn doesn't actually grant wishes. It just [[LotusEaterMachine induces magical hallucinations in its victims to make them think that their wishes have been granted]], then drinks their blood for a few days until they die (though the hallucinations can subjectively last for years, even a lifetime).]]
** [[Recap/SupernaturalS04E08WishfulThinking "Wishful Thinking" (S04, Ep08)]] features a chintzy restaurant wishing well spiked by a cursed wish-granting coin. Amongst the wishes granted by this coin is an actual ax-crazy fiancee, a teddy bear made real but given a healthy dose of existential crisis and a free sandwich with a side of food poisoning.

* ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'':
** "The Man in the Bottle". A genie grants a man four wishes. The genie fixes a broken display window for free, but then the man wishes for a million dollars... and after giving away a lot of his money, [[TaxmanTakesTheWinnings gets stuck paying the tax on a million-dollar lottery win]], leaving him no better off than he started. The man's third wish is to become the head of a contemporary foreign country who can't be voted out of office. The genie turns him into UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, in a bunker under attack. The man has to use his fourth wish to escape this fate. [[spoiler:[[BrickJoke Then he accidentally breaks the window again.]]]]

** "Tooth and Consequences" has a dentist wish for his crush to love him back and for his patients to respect and look forward to their appointments. A tooth fairy grants it, but his crush's love is suffocating and his patients now won't leave him alone. He ends up hopping a freight train to get away, where he meets other dentists having gone through the same thing. Apparently the tooth fairy is running a con because he wants more people to lose their teeth.

* In ''Series/{{The Witcher|2019}}'', the genie they encounter turns out to be pretty hard to handle, made worse because you don't need to say what you want ''out loud'' for it to "grant your wish". Its master ends up [[spoiler:almost killing his friend through strangulation by silently wishing he'd shut up]]. Geralt notes that a freed genie isn't dangerous, and this malevolence is a result of their imprisonment.

* The genie in [[https://xkcd.com/2741/ this]] ''Webcomic/{{Xkcd}}'' comic explictly warns he'll twist wishes [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor to teach people a lesson]]. But [[JerkAss Black Hat]] wishes for things that are so obviously destructive without any creative twisting, the genie gets discouraged and offers to just give him 20 dollars if he'll go away.