Mozenrath

Mozenrath is a recurring antagonist in the Disney 1994-1995 Aladdin animated television series. He is a young sorcerer and necromancer who rules over the Land of the Black Sand.
==Background==
===Personality===
Mozenrath is very ambitious and extremely self-centered. Described as “Jafar Jr” by Iago, he has many character traits similar to Jafar, because he, too, is psychopathic, power-hungry, very sarcastic, and extremely cruel. Although he rules the Land of the Black Sand, his main goal is becoming powerful enough to conquer the Seven Deserts, including Agrabah. He will step on anyone to achieve his goals and the episodes where in he appeared. typically presents him as either collecting and accruing power (magical or otherwise) for his aim of conquest, or plotting such to actually and personally overseeing the proceedings of one such scheme. He is calm and calculating, but he could easily lose his temper when things don't go his way. He is also selfish and a little bratty, getting angry when he learns that Aladdin was killed by somebody else (though this did not turn out to be true). However, he is immensely intelligent, devious, cunning, and scheming. He can think on his feet, deduce correct facts from very few clues, adapt his plans to the situations at hand and devise nearly flawless schemes.
===Physical appearance===
Mozenrath is tall and slender, unlike the bony Jafar. Rumor has it that the writers were planning on revealing that he and Aladdin were brothers in the third movie, before the focus was shifted to Aladdin's father. Unlike Aladdin, Mozenrath is very pale, which is probably because he spends most of the time in the Land of the Black Sand, which doesn't get much sun. In the episode "The Secret of Dagger Rock", his skin gradually gets darker and more normal-looking from being out in the sun all day. He has black hair and thick, black eyebrows.
He has the same dress style of Jafar, which consists of dark blue and black robes trimmed with gold complete with a blue and grey turban with a ruby in the center. He also wears a large brown and black trimmed gauntlet glove on his right hand.
===Powers and abilities===
Thanks to his magic gauntlet, Mozenrath is able to use a wide variety of magical powers; energy rays, teleportation, portals, flight, telekinesis, illusions that he can use to change his appearance, pyrokinesis, astral projection, and probably others.
Mozenrath possesses a fairly extensive array of magical artifacts (most were probably acquired from Destane), which is shown when he offers many of them to Amin Damoola in exchange for his services in capturing the Sultan in the episode "Vocal Hero". His most powerful and treasured artifact is a magical gauntlet that gives him tremendous magical power. He always wears his gauntlet on his right hand. This power comes at a price though, as the flesh beneath the gauntlet has rotted or dissolved away, leaving only bones, although he can still manipulate his motions of the skinless hand and fingers. Thanks to the gauntlet, Mozenrath can exert many magical powers including telekinesis, teleporting, flight, energy rays, pyrokinesis, dimensional portals, and illusions.
While he has extensive knowledge of magic (spells, potions, etc.), he has no magic without the gauntlet or his other artifacts. Mozenrath's magic can be used to move, trap, and hurt people, but not kill. The blasts from Mozenrath's gauntlet are painful and they can render people unconscious, but they don't pose much of a threat to someone with nerves like Aladdin, which explains why Aladdin was never afraid to face Mozenrath head-on. There seems to be a rule in the Disney universe that magic can't be used to kill people, only to trap them, hurt them, and create threatening circumstances where people might end up dying. Alternatively, Disney purposely didn't show its characters kill by using magic in order to make their shows as family-friendly as possible.
Mozenrath's magic has been shown to be very effective against Genie. In their first encounter, neither knew that his magic was stronger, so Genie was able to fake him out. However, in every encounter after that, his magic was shown to be more powerful, except for one time at the end of the episode "The Wind Jackals of Mozenrath", when Genie grabbed him and contained his magic with anti-magic mittens while Mozenrath was distracted. Mozenrath only has two weaknesses. He cannot perform offensive magical spells that would cause pain or injury while being touched or when someone is very close by, and he can't use magic without the gauntlet or his other artifacts. Perhaps he can't use magic when people are touching him or close to him because the magic would rebound and hurt him as well. This has allowed Aladdin to stop him on multiple occasions by grabbing him or tackling him and Genie to defeat Mozenrath with the anti-magic mittens whilst Aladdin distracted him.
Despite Mozenrath's young age, his body was physically weak and was not going to live much longer. His physical deterioration was a side effect of wearing his gauntlet. Because of this, Mozenrath attempted to switch bodies with Aladdin in the episode "Two to Tangle", but failed.
==Appearances==
==="The Citadel"===
This episode marked Mozenrath's debut. The sorcerer visits Agrabah, looking for someone worthy enough for a dangerous task that he can't accomplish himself. He unleashes a winged, dinosaur-like monster on the city, planning to recruit the one able to defeat it. Unsurprisingly, Aladdin does the job and Mozenrath approaches him, offering him a huge reward if he accepts his offer. Aladdin refuses, disgusted by the way he "tests" people. He then concludes that getting Aladdin to do the task would be harder than he anticipated, but would also be "fun" just the same.
The morning after, Mozenrath finds Aladdin's hovel, sneaks in and steals the Genie's lamp, (with the Genie sleeping inside) which he teleports to his palace in the Land of the Black Sand. He then wakes up Aladdin, Abu, Iago, and the Magic Carpet and teleports with them near his palace.
Mozenrath brought a Thirdac, a monster from another dimension who feeds on magic and magical beings into his palace. Mozenrath crafted a collar to control the beast, but given his own magic powers, it would be too dangerous for him to get too close to it, so he gives the collar to Aladdin and instructs him to put it on the Thirdac before it finds and devours the Genie. Aladdin's ultimately succeeds and Mozenrath immediately takes the creature with him.
Mozenrath plans to use the Thirdac to destroy the magical defenses of the kingdoms of the Seven Deserts in order to invade them, but Aladdin sneaks into his fortress and manages to set the Thirdac free. Attacked by the beast, the sorcerer's only option is to send it back to its own dimension, ruining his plans of conquest. By doing this, Aladdin made himself a new archenemy.
==="The Secret of Dagger Rock"===
Mozenrath captures Aladdin in a magical trap and demands Jasmine to bring him the Genie by dusk at Dagger Rock: a gloomy, rocky place near the border between the Agrabanian desert and the Land of the Black Sand, otherwise, he will execute Aladdin. He also demands that no Royal Guards be sent.
Despite Jasmine's protests, The Sultan sends the royal guards to rescue the hero, but Jasmine and Genie infiltrate the patrol, disguised as guards. During the journey, Xerxes spots the guards and warns Mozenrath that the guards are coming without the Genie or the lamp. Mozenrath then sends his Mamluks, but Genie and Jasmine make short work of them. Mozenrath then dispatches the guards by creating two huge hands of stone, but Jasmine, Genie, and Carpet manage to reach Dagger Rock.
Mozenrath subdues Jasmine and shows the protagonists a crystal of Ix, a magical crystal that captures magical beings and reveals that Dagger Rock is in fact a monumental crystal of Ix. He plans to trap the Genie inside the Dagger Rock crystal and to absorb all his semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic power, in order to become all-powerful. He nearly captures the Genie but Jasmine ends up trapping him and Xerxes inside the crystal instead.
==="The Wind Jackals of Mozenrath"===
Aladdin, Jasmine, and Abu are infiltrating the Land of the Black Sand. They learned from the Sultan's spies that Mozenrath (who somehow freed himself from the crystal) found a magical weapon, powerful enough to destroy the Seven Deserts one by one and they plan to steal and destroy this weapon before it's brought to Mozenrath's palace. They manage to steal the carriage which transports the weapon and to deceive Mozenrath himself and rush back to Agrabah.
Back in Agrabah, Iago discovers where they went. Convinced that they went on a treasure hunt without him, he goes to the Land of the Black Sand with Genie and Carpet, who got detected by the magic-detecting crystals dispersed all over the land. Mozenrath swiftly captures them and deduces from their words that Aladdin is already here. He then realizes that Aladdin is the carriage driver and sets an ambush in motion.
The whole group is captured and ends up chained in a room inside Mozenrath's palace, restrained by anti-magic chains that prevent even Genie from escaping. A huge diamond in the ceiling will absorb and amplify the light and heat by sunrise, burning them all to a crisp. Before leaving, Mozenrath shows them his weapon: Sirocco, a very powerful, one-of-a-kind, wind jackal, able to turn into a highly destructive tornado. With this beast in his army, Mozenrath would easily take over the Seven Deserts.
Mozenrath leaves them to die and goes to destroy Agrabah as revenge. However, he didn't know about Abu's talents for thievery. The monkey always has a needle with him and using it with his tail, he manages to free Genie, who destroys the diamond and frees the others. They rush to Agrabah and battle Mozenrath, but even Genie is no match for Sirocco. Ultimately, Iago, being a parrot able to mimic voices, imitates Mozenrath's voice and orders Sirocco to go to the farthest corner of the earth and never come back, defeating the sorcerer once more.
==="Black Sand"===
One night in Agrabah, Mozenrath captures the royal guards and traps them in a shifting sand-like pool of black sand. The following morning, the guards are seen alive and well, yet acting strangely, as if they were zombies. They gather hundreds of barrels full of black sand in the courtyard and manage to trap Jasmine in it. This doesn't go unnoticed, as Iago and Abu later see Jasmine holding a barrel and not answering to them. Later, Genie is swallowed by the black sand as well and re-emerges from it, now zombie-like just like the others.
Aladdin, Iago, Abu, and Carpet soon discover that Mozenrath replaced almost everyone with his undead Mamluks, shape-shifted to resemble the ones they're impersonating and is using them to invade the palace. He bases himself in Jafar's old secret lair. The protagonists fail to save the Sultan and Mozenrath has Aladdin restrained by two mamluks. As Mozenrath takes the Sultan's throne and lifts the spell, Aladdin breaks free and attacks him, but the sorcerer effortlessly subdues him and casts him into the black sand.
Iago then tries to distract Mozenrath while Abu keeps Xerxes at bay and Carpet dives into the black sand into the dimensional void where everyone is trapped, with a rope attached to the other side, helping everyone escape. In the ensuing battle, Mozenrath casts a very powerful magical blast which Genie deflects back. Aladdin then tries to save Mozenrath from falling into his own black sand, but the sorcerer tries to push him over the edge and falls, disappearing into the dimensional void despite Xerxes' efforts to save him.
==="Vocal Hero"===
The clumsy thief and recurring comedic villain, Amin Damoola infiltrates the palace, wearing winged sandals that enable him to fly. He then uses a magic powder that turns the Sultan into a small golden statue, which he takes with him before departing. Aladdin and Carpet chase him and manage to get the Sultan statue back, but Amin uses a bewitched monkey paw to steal the statue again and defeats Aladdin with a magical stick that conjures clouds.
Iago and Carpet later manage to retrieve the statue and to capture Amin Damoola. Later, the Genie (who has been away until now) states that Griffin's claw is necessary to lift the spell on the Sultan. Unfortunately, the one who hired Amin took away every Griffin in the Seven Deserts. Amin is thrown in a cell and chained over a pit full of crocodiles by Razoul. Then, a magical gate opens revealing Mozenrath, the one for who he works and from who he got all these relics. The sorcerer plans to hold the Sultan hostage and claim a ransom, but he chose the wrong thief.
He scolds his incompetent henchman and reminds him that 1) he still has two relics left, 2) if he succeeds he will become the most respected thief ever, 3) if he fails, his punishment will be dreadful. Amin uses a belt of invisibility to escape his cell, trapping Aladdin and Jasmine in it and to steal the Sultan statue for the third time. Meanwhile, Mozenrath appears to taunt his foes and edict his conditions.
Iago manages to steal the magic belt, forcing Amin to use the last relic: a gem of transformation which he uses to become a huge and powerful Griffin, whose eyes shoots energy beams, before engaging a fight against Aladdin. At this point, he has already forgotten about Griffin's claw needed to end the spell, much to Mozenrath's dismay. Amin soon takes down both Genie and Aladdin and it's Iago, using the belt of invisibility who takes back both the Sultan and the claw needed. Genie then uses a magic mirror to send back Amin's eye-beams, which zaps him and returns him to his human form. Shortly after, an angry Mozenrath appears to take him to a dire future of servitude, presumably as a mamluk.
==="The Lost City of the Sun"===
Mozenrath enslaved a whole tribe of Sprites and he is forcing them to dig the whole desert around the lost City of the Sun, hoping to find the mythical Sun of Shamash: an extremely potent magical artifact which generates fire and heat like the real sun. Knowing that the entire Sprite tribe is too much to handle, even for him, he locked the majority away and only has a dozen Sprites to do the work. One of the Sprites manages to flee and rushes to Aladdin for help; Aladdin got acquainted with the Sprite tribe in a previous episode.
The Sprite leads Aladdin and his crew to the City of the Sun, where they spy on Mozenrath. The sorcerer tells the Sprites that the "hand in the sand" leads to the Sun of Shamash and the Sprites just uncovered a statue buried in the sand, pointing in a direction. He makes them dig in this direction. Hearing this, Aladdin resolves to find the Sun and use it to defeat Mozenrath. While Aladdin and Carpet investigate the ruins, Genie, Abu, and Iago sneak into the temple where the Sprite tribe is held captive in order to free them.
At this moment, Xerxes enters the temple to fetch more Sprites to work. The three, transformed into Sprites to avoid being spotted, follow them. They soon discover that the statue leads to another one, which leads to another, which leads to another, and so on and so forth, irking Mozenrath greatly. Meanwhile, Aladdin and Carpet find the real "hand in the sand", a huge geoglyph pointing towards a point in the ruins where the Sun is buried.
Iago convinces the Sprites to stop working and to start a strike, prompting Xerxes to warn Mozenrath. The sorcerer instantly recognizes the three odd-looking Sprites and cancels their transformation. Genie then engages a fight, but Mozenrath casually sends him flying far away, right on the Sun of Shamash. The sorcerer then follows him and activates the Sun. He takes control of it and prepares to destroy Aladdin, but Carpet, Iago, and Abu manage to free the Sprites; who use the statues to shield Aladdin from the Sun's deadly fire blasts. The Sprites ultimately steal Mozenrath's gauntlet and bury it somewhere in the desert, before casting the Sun of Shamash into space.
==="The Hunted"===
One night in Agrabah, Aladdin, Jasmine, and their friends is chased by a mysterious creature, who makes them disappear one by one until only Genie remains. The creature now reveals itself to be the Mukthar: the sole survivor of an ancient species of genie-hunters, who now works for hire and whom Aladdin and his group - once again - met in a previous episode.
The Mukthar requires Genie's help to defeat Mozenrath, who wants to use his abilities to sense and to cancel magic for himself and sent his Mamluks after him. The Mukthar imprisoned everyone inside a magical locket and uses them as hostages, given that Genie would very unlikely help his old enemy without coercion.
The two go to the Land of the Black Sand and infiltrate Mozenrath's palace. There, they accidentally enter the greenhouse, where a gigantic carnivorous plant captures the Mukthar whom it nearly eats before Genie saves him. Now the Mukthar owes his enemy a debt of honor. They next reach a large room where a huge crystal of Ix has been placed. Genie is immediately sucked inside and Mozenrath appears with a satisfied look. This entire situation was nothing but a clever scheme devised by the sorcerer to get the Genie where he wanted him.
The Mukthar tells Mozenrath that he had to kill the others, who were too dangerous. This news infuriates the sorcerer, who wanted to kill Aladdin himself. In the end, Mozenrath handsomely rewards the Mukthar, who takes his leave under Genie's insults. Then, Mozenrath begins to absorb Genie's power to increase his own.
In the desert of the Land of the Black Sand, the Mukthar releases Genie's friends, (who were actually still alive) and tells them that he is paying his debt by taking them out of harm. As the Mukthar departs, Aladdin resolves to rescue his friend and the group sneaks into the palace to battle Mozenrath. Unfortunately for them, the sorcerer is now way over his, already immense, usual level of power (and he still has lots of power to absorb).
Mozenrath effortlessly defeats them all by conjuring chains and sentient, winged, snakes of energy, before turning Jasmine into stone. In the end, the Mukthar returns to destroy the crystal of Ix and ensnares Mozenrath with his magic-trapping bolas, knocking him out and repaying his debt of honor for real. Genie gets his power back and he and the Mukthar start a friendly truce.
==="When Chaos Comes Calling"===
Mozenrath made a brief cameo appearance along with Abis Mal and Mechanicles on Genie's T.V. screen.
==="The Book of Khartoum"===
Mozenrath has found the legendary book of Khartoum, after seven years of research. The spirit of the evil sorcerer Khartoum, sealed inside his own book, is awoken by Mozenrath's magic and Mozenrath demands to know all of his secrets. Khartoum tells Mozenrath how to create the Philosopher's Stone: an incredibly powerful artifact that contains all the magic of the universe. The first ingredients are very easy for Mozenrath to gather, but when Khartoum tells him that he needs a source of cosmic powers, he thinks of Genie, whom he plans to capture again.
Meanwhile, in Agrabah, Genie prepares to go on a date with his girlfriend, the female genie Eden. He waits for her at a beach, where a hooded figure conducting a carriage suddenly appears. Genie gets in the carriage, stating that a walk along the beach at night would be very romantic, but he just falls into a rather obvious trap and the carriage is transformed into an anti-magic cage, while the hooded figure reveals himself to be Mozenrath. However, Abu and Iago saw everything and report it to Eden, who came to the palace with her master: a young orphan girl named Dhandi. Furious, Eden goes to the Land of the Black Sand to get her boyfriend back, followed by Aladdin, Abu, Iago, and Carpet.
Mozenrath places Genie in a huge, glass bottle, linked to the magic kettle where he is making the Philosopher's Stone and starts to absorb all his power into the furnace. But even the Genie's whole magic isn't enough. Then, Eden storms into the castle demanding Genie, but she can't free him. Eden ultimately offers Mozenrath to take her instead and the sorcerer feigns to accept, but she ends up trapped as well. Aladdin arrives and tries to stop his enemy, but Mozenrath sends the whole group flying through the window, to the desert.
With both Genie's and Eden's power, the Philosopher Stone is completed at last, but Khartoum takes it for himself and uses it to escape the book in which he has been trapped for so many centuries. Mozenrath protests and attacks the double-crosser, but Khartoum now wields incredible powers granted by the Philosopher's Stone, and neither he nor Aladdin who has returned is a match for him.
Khartoum grows in size to gigantic proportions and unleashes countless bolts of lightning, destroying the palace and the kettle, which frees the two powerless genies. Genie and Eden then perform a ritual that gives them back their power, before engaging a fight against Khartoum. They manage to steal his Philosopher's Stone, which was filled with too much cosmic power and is about to explode. The stone's destruction makes Khartoum, whose life was somehow linked to it, disappear forever.
==="Two to Tangle"===
Because of his gauntlet which drains his life-force, Mozenrath has little time left to live. Like many other villains in this situation, he decides to transfer his soul into a young and strong body.
Later in Agrabah, Aladdin, Jasmine, and Genie are playing polo, riding winged dragons, with Aladdin's being Abu. Jasmine and Genie go to retrieve the ball, leaving Aladdin alone; but Jasmine soon reappears with her dragon and the polo ball and offers Aladdin a walk in the garden. A little bit puzzled by the quickness with which she caught the ball, Aladdin accepts.
Then Genie and another Jasmine arrive, to Aladdin's astonishment. The first Jasmine is then revealed to be a shape-shifted Mozenrath (in a very detailed disguise). The sorcerer teleports back to his palace, taking Aladdin with him. He plans to exchange bodies with his enemy, taking Aladdin's strong body and leaving Aladdin condemned to die inside his own.
Aladdin's friends storm into the castle and interrupt the exchange, which turns Mozenrath into a small stone statue and free Aladdin. Back in Agrabah, Aladdin puts Mozenrath's statue and his gauntlet in a chest, which he places in a cell, protected by an alarm system set up by Genie. However, Aladdin feels tired and experiences strange mood swings. The following night, the group discovers that Aladdin snuck into the cell to take Mozenrath's gauntlet. It appears that because of the failed exchange, Mozenrath's soul is now trapped inside Aladdin's body and that the two alternatively switch control of it. The only thing that could help them is the legendary Elixir of Life.
The group, followed by Xerxes, is forced to let Mozenrath guide them to a temple in the desert, where the Elixir of Life is kept. Aladdin-Mozenrath quickly blasts away the huge sandworms guarding the elixir with Mozenrath's bolts of dark magic. When Aladdin-Mozenrath is about to drink the elixir, the sorcerer who has changed his mind attempts to destroy Aladdin's mind from the inside. Even though the elixir could send Mozenrath's spirit back to his body, the sorcerer still wants to switch bodies (Likely because of Aladdin's better physical condition). Mozenrath's soul attacks Aladdin's inside Aladdin's body and overwhelms him, but Aladdin proves to be able to use his willpower like a weapon and defeats him.
Aladdin drinks the Elixir and Mozenrath's spirit leaves his body and returns to his own dying one, which is brought back to its regular height, minus his right arm of course. Genie then locks the sorcerer and Xerxes in an anti-magic cage attached to a hot air balloon. Aladdin takes Mozenrath's gauntlet away for good, before Genie sends the balloon flying far, far away, defeating Mozenrath for the last time. It's unknown what became of him afterwards, but it's likely he died given how weak he had become.
==Gallery==
==Trivia==
*Disney studied Jonathan Brandis' appearance and movements and incorporated them into Mozenrath's character.
*For unknown reasons, Mozenrath was voiced by Jeff Bennett instead of Jonathan Brandis in the episode "Black Sand".
*Mozenrath's name comes from the writers' Bill Motz and Bob Roth. They also wrote the first Mozenrath episode "The Citadel".
*Mozenrath is the second most recurring villain (next to Abis Mal) in the Aladdin TV Series, appearing in nine episodes.
*It is never shown what happened to Mozenrath after his final defeat, but because his life was coming to an end due to wearing the gauntlet for so long, he most likely perished.
*Jonathan Brandis was uncredited as Mozenrath in the episode "The Hunted".
*Mozenrath's Mamluks are named for the slave soldiers who served the Ottoman Empire during the Middle Ages.
*Mozenrath was designed by Paul Felix, an art director at Disney features.
*Despite popular belief, Mozenrath is not Jafar's son. In the episode "Black Sand", Iago tries to distract Mozenrath, bringing up Jafar asking Mozenrath if he ever had heard of him—to which the young sorcerer doesn't even react. Iago has often called Mozenrath "Jafar, Jr." because of the sorcerers' similarities.
**Similarly, no evidence exists if Mozenrath was Destane's apprentice nor if the Aladdin staff first planned to make Mozenrath appear in the third movie as the primary antagonist. These were started by early internet fan fiction writers, leading to a popular rumor, according to which Mozenrath would have been revealed to be Aladdin's long lost older half-brother in what would have become Aladdin and the King of Thieves, as well as the being confirmed as Destane's apprentice.
==References==
==External links==
*
*http://mozenrath.mybb.ru/ - forum for all mozen-fans!
*Mozenrath-- Agrabah's enemies
*Gomorrha Minute, the fanlisting for Mozenrath
ar:موزنراث
da:Mozenrath (karakter)
pt-br:Mozenrath
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