Jafar

Jafar is an antagonist and a member of the villains.

## Character Information

### Personality

Suave, sinister, cruel, evil, dark, power-hungry, cold-hearted, cunning, mysterious, greedy, ill-tempered, snobby, ruthless, manipulative, deceptive, violent, sadistic, insane, selfish, vengeful, abusive, envious, psychopathic, blasphemous, shadowy, sneaky, cynical, vain, impatient, sarcastic, elegant, dishonest, pompous, murderous, conniving, arrogant, sleazy, wrathful, belligerent, megalomaniacal, scheming, opportunistic, haughty, traitorous, obsessive, hegemonic

### Nicknames

Big Nosed Wizard (Referred to by Teodora)

## **BIOGRAPHY**

As established in the film, Jafar is the second most powerful authority in Agrabah, answering only to the Sultan. He is always accompanied by his sarcastic, devious pet parrot, Iago. Jafar primarily operated from a secret lair hidden behind the walls of his bedroom in the Sultan's palace.

Whilst presenting a charming and respectable exterior to the Sultan and the people of Agrabah, he secretly holds everyone around him in contempt and is a power-hungry individual. Towards Agrabah's royal family, he constantly manipulates the Sultan by means of hypnotizing him with a magical snake-headed staff, which he always carries on his person. He had traveled widely and amassed a wide knowledge of magical artifacts and legends. Until he uses Genie's powers to become a sorcerer, and later a genie, however, his magical abilities were limited to the use of such artifacts as he has collected, and his prowess as an accomplished alchemist. He also had some contacts within the Agrabah underworld, including the thief Gazeem.

Outside of Agrabah, he is also a member of The Villains.

## **APPEARANCE**

Jafar is a tall, bony man dressed in extravagant clothing, always seen carrying a gold, ruby-eyed, cobra headed staff to supplement his magical powers. Jafar has a twisted, black goatee and a faint mustache, as well as grey eyeliner. He was supposed to be designed as ugly, and Genie makes this obvious when he refers to him as "a tall, dark, sinister, ugly man." He is apparently completely bald, as evidenced by when he removes his beggar disguise, acting as the only time Jafar did not wear his distinctive headdress, although it was never made clear whether he was naturally bald or if he shaved his head for the disguise. He also carries a cobra-head staff, which he uses for his sorcery.

As Royal Vizier, Jafar wears black robes that reach the ground over top a red garment with bell sleeves, under which he wears a jet-black shirt with very close-fitting sleeves that reach his wrists, all held in place with a red-violet sash tied around his waist. The shoulders of his outer robe are pointed and curved upward, connected to a long, billowing black cape with a blood-red underside, while his brown shoes curl inward at the tips. He also wears an odd, pale-yellowish garment that covers his neck, the back of his head, and his chest.

The outfit is topped off with a tall, black headdress, seemingly a type of mitre, with a thin, yellow pattern lined around the middle and downwards at the front, a ruby-like gemstone situated in the front, and a crimson-red feather sticking out above it. The headdress itself is apparently (yet strangely) made out of metal, as evidenced by the hollow clonking sound it made when Iago briefly knocked on it while trying to get Jafar to calm down from a laughing fit as he thought he went insane (not realizing he was actually laughing because he realized that not only did the lamp actually survive, it's actually in close proximity since Prince Ali, or rather, Aladdin, owns it). A red-violet cloth hangs from the miter, draping over Jafar's shoulders. As Sultan, Jafar wears a white, blue, and gold version of this outfit resembling the actual sultan's.

## **PERSONALITY**

Jafar is portrayed as an immoral psychopath who will not hesitate to destroy anyone he perceives as a threat to his own sinister designs. Like numerous clinically-diagnosed psychopaths, Jafar wears a metaphorical mask of normalcy throughout the film, establishing himself as a cool-headed schemer and gaining the trust of those around him, despite his rather untrustworthy physical appearance. Even with this mask, Jafar's psychopathic tendencies tend to seep through and become apparent to the viewer, particularly in the opening sequence, where Jafar, outside of immediate initial anger over Gazeem the thief not being the one who is the Diamond in the Rough, displays no remorse in sending Gazeem to his death in the Cave of Wonders, simply proclaiming that, "Gazeem was obviously less than worthy" in a rather dry tone of voice. It is not until Jafar gains control of the Genie's lamp that he fully shows his true colors, becoming arrogant, tyrannical, and ill-tempered with his subjects. He also was depicted as laughing excessively and in a deranged manner shortly after banishing Aladdin to the North Pole, suggesting that Jafar was also insane and suffered from hysteria.

Jafar displays narcissistic tendencies, his most obvious ones being his obsessive desire for power and sense of entitlement. However, his lust for power does not stem from a mere desire for authority (though this *is* a motivating factor), but rather an intolerance for subordination. Jafar detests being "second best" to anyone else—be it the Sultan or a cosmic entity such as the Genie. It is this excessive thirst for power that ultimately leads to Jafar's downfall; upon becoming a sorcerer (and, by extension, the most powerful man in the world), Jafar realizes that his power is still inferior to the Genie's, which drives him to hastily wish to become a genie, himself, without realizing this would render him a slave for all eternity.

## **TRIVIA**

* Jafar has a recurring theme in *Aladdin*, which can be found as "On a Dark Night" on the official soundtrack. The character was intended to have a song that would have been placed during the climax; some include "Humiliate the Boy", "Why Me?", "Master of the Lamp", and "My Finest Hour"—the latter of which incorporated the melody of "On a Dark Night". In the end, as the filmmakers believed a full song would disrupt the film's pace, Jafar was given a dark reprise of "Prince Ali".
* Jafar's sorcerer outfit was originally going to be blue as shown in the storyboards of "Why Me?"
* "Jafar" means "stream" in Arabic.
* As he spends much of the film hiding his true emotions, Andreas Deja designed Jafar's face to resemble a mask.
* Besides Patrick Stewart, Tim Curry, Kelsey Grammer, John Hurt, Christopher Lloyd, and Ian McKellen were also considered for the role of Jafar.
* Jafar's death is one of the slightly more graphic deaths of a Disney villain, as he behaves in a manner similar to electrocution as his lamp melts and his skeleton can even be seen.
	+ The DVD release, however, censors this by removing several frames of his skeleton (though the last two scenes of his skeleton remain intact) This is due by the fact that the frame rate of the DVD version is different from the VHS since the parts of his skeleton flicker in a different frame rate from the last two scenes.
	+ Jafar is also the only villain to die in his second film instead of the first.
* During the scene where Genie is discussing his wish for freedom, he briefly transforms into a sinister-looking version of himself with a reddish-pink hue, similar to what Jafar would assume at the climax, even adopting a similar cosmic background and body language.
	+ Both Genie's description of what Genies entail and the scene of Jafar's transformation in the climax were homages to the Disney educational short *Our Friend the Atom*.
	+ Also, the lighting on Jafar's genie design pays homage to Chernabog from *Fantasia*.
* Originally, when he made his wish to become sultan, Jafar did more than merely steal the Sultan's attire and have Genie place the palace atop a mountain behind them: He also unleashed a shock wave that resulted in history being altered to make it appear as though Jafar had been the sultan all along instead of usurping the position from the actual Sultan. The only ones immune to this and retaining their knowledge of what really happened were the Magic Carpet (due to being immune to the effects of the wave), Aladdin and Abu (the latter two being covered by the Magic Carpet at the last second). This plot point was cut due to it being too confusing, although a similar plot point would eventually be enacted in the *Aladdin* TV series via the character Sadira against Princess Jasmine, and the ones immune to the spell are Iago, Abu, and Rajah due to Sadira neglecting to include animals in the spell.