In Islamic/pre-Islamic mythology (over simplifying greatly) genies are actually trapped demons forced into servitude long ago by human sorcerers. They must comply with your wish but use any ambiguity they can as a form of malicious compliance. It’s also worth noting that the idea of genies granting 3 wishes is mostly a western invention and is also likely influenced by Christian ideas of “deals with the devil” (see Foust for how that usually works out for the wisher)
The monkey’s paw comes from a short story of the same name by W.W. Jacobs back in 1902. It seems the genie that grants three wishes dates all the way back to 1697 in “The Ridicuolous Wishes” by Charles Perrault.
This is the most askhistorians moment on Lemmy for me, thus far, I would like to read your thesis.
Thnx!
Isn’t it also that originally captured genies had more superhuman abilities rather than unlimited power? As in they could perform a human could if they were not bound by physical limitations, but materializing stuff out of thin air is impossible for them.
Another thing I heard is that the entities that could actually do that had a witch-like deal to them, meaning that refusing a request from such a spirit most likely had some dire consequences for you.
“Pre-Islamic”…
When are we going to have the balls to admit all the cultural appropriation and assimilation committed by the Abtahamic faiths?
Islam did to Arabic, Semetic and other middle eastern mysticisms, as the Catholic church did to European paganism.
A bit of genocide, with the motto of the round table. “Embrace, expand, extinguish”.
Merry Christmas, you filthy animals.
Kinda like how smart phones were a popular technology innovation that rapidly spread, the idea of no-human-sacrifices-required was kinda the same thing. I promise you, the various European pagan religious leaders back then were abusing their power just as Abrahamic religious leaders abuse their power today.
Because to the Genie it’s hilarious.
And the genie is a slave and twisting your wish is the closest they’ll ever get to freedom. And malicious compliance I guess.
“You shouldn’t be fighting me, Perry the platypus. You should be fighting genies. Genies are the problem”
In Germany we have a word for it. Schadenfreude. translates to something like malicious joy. Basically the pleasure at someone else’s misfortune.
Sadism usually enjoys inflicting the pain, whereas I understand schadenfreude as just enjoying it whether or not you were involved in causing it. Most times I’ve seen it used the person enjoying was not part of the cause.
An example would be maybe the Herman Cain awards subreddit. Anyone there was most likely doing the opposite of causing the problem, but were enjoying when people who did cause issues got comeuppance.
(For anyone not sure what that subreddit was, it was specifically showing when people who denied covid got sick and or died themselves. It wasn’t for anyone who had Covid, just for people who they could also show vehemently and dangerously denied Covid and/or showed how they harassed others about it).
I suppose it depends on what lore you’re using.
If you’re using Wishmaster rules, it would be most efficient to just do what they want with no ironic twists and then get your freedom to reign terror unexpectedly after the 3rd wish.
If we’re using Disney Alladin rules then the master must explicitly wish for the Genie’s freedom or else it’s trapped in the lamp forever. In this case it makes some sense to twist things as it would be the only kind of control you could exert.
In Quranic mythology, I think the jinn are mostly independent magical creatures that are purely neutral. In these cases, there are no real stakes for freedom at play, so every request would be played by ear.