Jafar

Jafar is the main antagonist of Disney's 31st full-length animated feature film, Aladdin, its 1994 direct-to-video sequel, The Return of Jafar, and the 2002 direct-to-video film, Mickey's House of Villains. He is Aladdin's arch-nemesis and Iago's former owner and boss.

He was voiced by Jonathan Freeman in all of his appearances.

## Personality

Jafar is portrayed as a total 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 behavior as he hold no sympathy towards of his fellow conspirators or henchmen, especially Gazeem or Iago. Even with this mask, Jafar's psychopathic tendencies tend to seep through and become apparent to the viewer. In addition, he is proven to be quite a sadist, as he enjoys putting people in suffering, such as demoting Jasmine and her father as servants after claiming as the new Sultan, and attempts to have Aladdin killed so many times with a few laughs, though this all ended up in failure.

In addition, in The Return of Jafar, Jafar was not outside of using loopholes to bypass the ban on Genies killing people via having Abis Mal arrange Aladdin's murder for him or using the environment to have death become an oppressive inevitability during the final battle, and was proven to not mind the Genies can't kill rule because "you'd be surprised at what you can live through", implying that he could torture people to the fullest extent without killing them. He is also proven to be quite narcissistic and egotistical, due to his desire for power and his manipulations towards the Sultan. It is not until Jafar gains control of the Genie's lamp that he fully shows his true colors, becoming very arrogant, traitorous, manipulative, and short-tempered with his subjects after usurping power from the Sultan. However, it is this power-hungry behavior that leads to Jafar's downfall, as Aladdin tricks him into using his third wish to become an omnipotent and transcendental genie, unaware of the life inside the lamp that he now has to endure.

Despite his psychopathic behavior, Jafar has a somewhat entertaining and comical edge that helps to add some humanity to his character, for example proclaiming "Ewww..." when contemplating decapitation, a trait unusual in a Disney villain. Furthermore, Jafar has a sense of humor himself, spurting several puns in a row while keeping Aladdin and his friends from getting the lamp during the film's climax ("Your time is up!", "Don't toy with me!", "Things are unraveling fast now, boy!", "Get the point?", "I'm just getting warmed up!"), as pointed out by Hades in "Hercules and the Arabian Night". This sense of humor does not carry over in the sequel, which aimed to make Jafar darker than usual.

He is also somewhat abusive, insulting, opprobrious, and argumentative towards his minions, as evidenced by his interactions with Iago and, later, Abis Mal. Ultimately, this proves to be his final downfall, as Iago ends up turning against him twice by destroying Jafar's lamp, resulting his own demise. This abuse heavily carries over to other characters in the film, specially during the climax as, following his hostile rise to power, Jafar immediately used his newfound abilities to ruthlessly torment Jasmine, the Sultan, Aladdin, and the Genie via physical abuse, humiliation, slavery, and other forms of sadistic torture, which he openly showed amusement in.

Like some villainous characters from other franchises, Jafar is attracted to a beautiful teenage girl that is a protagonist. Here, he is attracted to Princess Jasmine, but primarily for her good-looking body, and not for Jasmine herself as a person. His final wish was initially for Jasmine to fall desperately in love with him so he could make her his queen (he and Iago originally planned on killing her as soon as he became Sultan, but at some time later he refused to kill her, instead sparing her life); he first creates a golden crown for her from her shackles to do so with a wave of his hand, saying that a girl as beautiful as her "should be on the arm of the most powerful man in the world". (Much earlier, though, he says in what we would consider to be a sexist manner that Jasmine's speechlessness is "a fine quality in a wife").

Deleted scenes for the original film implied that most of his negative traits and motives stemmed from having to grow up impoverished and bullied on by the populace of Agrabah, making him almost similar to Aladdin, although their similarities differed in how they handled their suffering.

## Trivia

* Like his twin sister Nasira, Jafar also has a secret Lair of his own in the first Aladdin film.
* Jafar is the male equivalent of Maleficent. They are both powerful spellcasters, have bird sidekicks, try to kill the heroes by transforming into giant reptilian monsters, carry staffs which they primarily use to channel their magic and, of course, are very evil.
* In the first film, Jafar is similar to Ben Yusuf, the main antagonist from animated Spanish film, El Cid: The Legend: Both characters kidnaps to protagonist's love interest and forces her to be his slave.
* Jafar is also very similar to Queen Grimhilde from Disney's 1st full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Both will do what ever it takes to succeed at their goal. They also disguise as an elderly person to trick the protagonist to gain the upper hand. Both have birds as their side kicks.
* Jafar is one of the five male villains to transform into a second form. the others being Judge Doom, Oogie Boogie, and Pain and Panic. Jafar is also the only Disney Villain to have nine other forms (Old Man, Sultan, Sorcerer, Snake, Genie, Ghost, an old granny, an army of thieves with winged horses, disguised as Jasmine).
* Part of his design, motive, and his position in Aladdin could have been inspired by Zigzag from The Thief and the Cobbler.
* In House of Mouse, episode House of Magic, Jafar and Iago use the famous magic spell Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo to return the House of Mouse after Daisy Duck magically causes it to vanish, and were tricked by Mickey to receive "Agrabah" as a reward for their good deeds.
* Despite being a villain, he is the main protagonist of StarKid Productions' parody musical Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier.
* Jafar is the second main villain of a Disney Princess movie not to die in his first appearance after Lady Tremaine, as well the only main Disney animated villain movie to survive in the canon and to die in the sequel.
* Jafar also appeared in Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse as one of the Disney Villains celebrating Christmas and is even shown in the music song, "The Best Christmas of All" as one of its notable singers, singing it with his fellow villains alongside with many Disney heroes. Also, Jafar, alongside with Iago (as well as his enemies Genie, Carpet, Abu, and all Disney characters), are all insulted when Donald Duck refuses to change his mood that is not Christmas.
* In the films, Jafar is the main and most recurring antagonist, except for the third film, where he is replaced by a new main villain.
* Jafar is similar to Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. Both of them were the main antagonists in the first two movies in their respective trilogies but in the third film, a new villain replaces them and become the new main villain.
* His My Life as a Teenage Robot counterpart is Dr. Locus because they both have side characters that turned good (Jafar has Iago, Locus had Melody), trap heroines, have handy objects (Jafar has a staff, Locus has a remote control), and got trapped in metal objects. (Jafar was sucked into a magic lamp, while Dr. Locus was eaten by a robot snake with a set of teeth for a head.)
* In 2014, when Aladdin was turned into a Broadway musical, Jonathan Freeman, who had voiced Jafar in his every appearance, returned to play the character onstage.
* Tim Curry, Kelsey Grammer, John Hurt, Christopher Lloyd and Ian McKellen were considered for the role of Jafar. Tim Curry, Kelsey Grammer and Christopher Lloyd have previously played villains before they were considered for the role: Tim Curry played Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Wadsworth, Lord of Darkness and Pennywise the Clown. Kelsey Grammer played Sideshow Bob and Christopher Lloyd played Judge Doom.
* Jafar is one of the few Disney villains to become primary members of the Disney Villains franchise, the others being Maleficent, Queen Grimhilde, Cruella De Vil, Ursula, Captain James Hook, Hades, Scar, Queen of Hearts, Dr. Facilier and Chernabog.

## Gallery

Snake JafarGenie JafarJafar Once Upon a TimeJafar in Descendants