Saturday, April 23, 2005
Forty fakirs
After trying once again and once again failing to read The Arabian Nights, I find myself with a question. You see, Aladdin gets his hands on a magic ring and a magic lamp, either of which when rubbed will cause a genie to appear and give him anything he wants. Everyone knows that the genie only offers three wishes, but this is not so in the version I read. So, when did this limitation get added on? I'm filing this next my long-standing question of when Atlantis changed from the destroyed city to the city in the bubble on the ocean floor: in the folder labelled "Stuff You'll Never Know".
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3 comments:
Are you implying, perish the thought, that Disney alters the truth in its media?
I'm shooting for even earlier than that. The 3-wish deal has been part of our cultural vocab for some time now, but isn't in the source text. Where did it come from?
But, to answer your question, Disney most certainly adapts the orignals to fit their audience, and it's a good thing. I'd be a different person if the Sleeping Beauty I watched as a kid had ber being raped by Prince Charming as she slept and awoken from her slumber nine months later by her twins crawling up her body trying to suckle.
Three things come to mind:
1. Yuck.
B. Most likely the 3 wishes were borrowed from another tale. You've peaked my curiosity, though, and now I'm going to lose sleep until I find the answer.
3. Really. Yuck. I didn't have to know that about her.
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