Sa'Luk

"This is what we have to show for our trouble in Agrabah. NOTHING!"

- Sa'Luk

Sa'luk (sometimes spelled Sa'Luk), also called "Saluk", is the main antagonist of the 1996 animated Disney film, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, the second sequel to the 1992 animated Disney film, Aladdin. A member of the notorious Forty Thieves, he is initially second-in-command to the King of Thieves, Cassim, but later took control of the group himself.

He was voiced by the late Jerry Orbach, who also played Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and Jonathan in Disney's Tarzan.

Personality
While Sa'luk may not have any magical powers like Jafar, he is nearly almost as threatening - a ruthless, violent, deceptive, frightening, obstreperous, and rather impatient brute with little if any tolerance for those he deems weak. He always hated Cassim, denouncing him as "soft", and usurping him as leader of the Forty Thieves is one of his primary motives throughout the movie. While he is not openly power-mad, he is considerably greedy and acquisitive, given by his own desire to obtain the fabled Hand of Midas on top of his plans for control. Sa'luk is also quite vengeful, traitorous, and rebarbative: after being defeated by Aladdin, he became hell-bent on avenging himself, going so far as to betray all but a handful of his own group to the Royal Guardsmen of Agrabah whilst at the same time risking arrest himself. Yet, despite his brutality, Sa'luk is quite intelligent and manipulative as he was able to rally remaining Thieves to his side despite their suspicions and convinced Razoul to spare him capture in exchange for a few prisoners.

Appearance
Sa'luk is physically a slender, muscular, bald man with light gray skin, gray beard stubbles, and a thin black mustache. He wears a black vest, bronze bracelets, a red cummerbund, and baggy blue pants.

Powers and Abilities
Sa'luk is a very strong and exceptionally capable fighter, able to defeat the entire Forty Thieves without breaking a sweat and kill a shark with his bare hands. His signature weapon is a knuckleduster with three gold claws attached.

Role in the film
Sa'luk was first seen slicing his way out of a basket as the Forty Thieves were preparing to raid the wedding pavilion in Agrabah, where Aladdin and Princess Jasmine were to be married that day. Their target was a magic staff containing an oracle, which Cassim hoped would reveal the location of the Vanishing Isle, a castle on the back of a Giant Turtle, within which lay the Hand of Midas, a legendary treasure that turned anything it touched into solid gold. Sa'luk confronted Cassim for having him "suffocate like an animal" in the basket while Cassim stood in open air, to which Cassim replied that someone "had to keep a cool head". Sa'luk responded by threatening to behead Cassim if their mission turned out to be another "wild goose chase", implying that they had been searching for the oracle a long time with no success. When Cassim gave the signal to commence the raid, Sa'luk jabbed an elephant in the rear with his knuckleduster, starting a stampede. In ensuing chaos, the thieves initially had the upper hand, with Sa'luk confronting two royal guards and slicing their clothes to ribbons with his claws. However, Aladdin and his friends, including a Genie, fought back against the thieves in defense. Sa'luk, knowing the thieves could not match the Genie's magical powers, ordered a retreat, with Cassim joining them after failing to swipe the oracle thanks to Aladdin.

When Aladdin arrived at the thieves' lair, Sa'luk, angry at Cassim for the failed attempt to steal the oracle from Aladdin's wedding, attempted a mutiny against Cassim, but Aladdin stepped in before they could fight and subdued Sa'luk. Sa'luk then said to the other thieves that they must kill Aladdin for knowing the location of the hideout. Cassim, having little authority over the thieves but wanting to save his son, gave Aladdin the chance to fight for his life. Sa'luk instantly volunteered to be "the one to test him". Aladdin took a severe beating, but was eventually able to subdue and defeat Sa'luk, who fell down a cliff during the fight to his apparent death.

But Sa'luk survived and knew that he had by now been replaced by Aladdin. Enraged, Sa'luk returned to Agrabah and revealed the location of the thieves' hideout to Razoul, in exchange for immunity from prosecution. When Razoul arrested 31 of the thieves, Sa'luk found out that Cassim and Aladdin were not among them. When Sa'luk heard that Aladdin was in Agrabah, he assumed Cassim was too, and reveals that Cassim, Aladdin's recently-arrived father, was the King of Thieves. Then he returned to the thieves lair, and lied to the remaining seven thieves that it was Cassim who gave up the location of the hideout, despite the fact that the imprisoned 31 thieves know that it was Sa'luk who sold them out. He rallied the thieves to join him in his own quest for the Hand of Midas. When Cassim and Iago arrived at the thieves' lair, Sa'luk had them tied up, taking over as the new leader of the remaining thieves. The thieves sailed away, trying to find the Vanishing Island, where the hand of Midas was, with the oracle's help; however, Iago escaped and told Aladdin of the villain's plans.

Aladdin and company followed the thieves to the Vanishing Isle, where they engage in a great battle. Sa'luk cornered both Aladdin and Cassim and demanded that they gave him the hand or he would kill Aladdin. Refusing to sacrifice his son for the treasure he found, Cassim threw the golden hand, and Sa'luk greedily grabbed it - but by the golden hand itself instead of the bronze handle. Declaring the Hand of Midas to be his, Sa'luk cackles, but also reveals that intends to kill Aladdin for his own pleasure, much to Cassim's anger. However, Sa'luk realizes too late that he foolishly grabbed the golden hand rather than the handle, and he yells in defeat as he is almost instantly turned into a permanent golden statue and fell to the bottom of the flooding chamber, shortly before the Vanishing Island disappeared beneath the sea, never to be seen again.

Trivia

 * Sa'luk is similar to Jafar, the main antagonist of the first two movies, since they both dislike Aladdin and they both want to rule. However, unlike Jafar, Sa'luk does not have any magical powers, and he serves under Cassim instead of the Sultan.
 * Sa'luk's fate is fitting since he is primarily motivated by greed.
 * Why Sa'luk has grey skin, which is rather unnatural (especially for a fully human character with no magical powers), remains unknown. However, in some stock art, he has a normally-colored skin instead of grey.
 * Some fans claim him to be an Arabian incarnation of Wolverine from the Marvel comics.
 * Sa'Luk bears a clear resemblance to Shan Yu from Disney's Mulan.
 * Both are muscular, have grey skin and long mustaches. Like Sa'Luk, Shan Yu is quite strong.
 * He shares similarities with Lyle Tiberius Rourke from Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
 * Both are strong muscular men and their fates are similar, being turned into solid mass (Sa'luk gets turned to gold and Rourke to crystal), but unlike Sa'luk, Rourke still lives while being crystal.
 * Like Sa'luk, Rourke showed near super human strength.
 * He shares similarities with Scar from Disney's The Lion King.
 * They both dislike the main protagonist. They both tried to kill the protagonist's father (Cassim and Mufasa) (ironically, Sa'luk failed and Scar succeeded).
 * They do not have magic powers, they fought the protagonists physically (Sa'Luk used his hands and Scar used his paws).
 * Furthermore, they are voiced in the Japanese version by the same actor, Haruhiko Jō.
 * He shares similaries with Jenner from The Secret of NIMH.
 * ​They are members of a conquering team (Rats, Forty Thieves)
 * They rebel against the team leaders (Nicodemus, Cassim)
 * They hold a strong grudge against the heroes (Justin, Aladdin)
 * They fight with lethal weapons (Jenner with his sword, Sa'luk with his clawed knuckleduster)
 * They obsess over a metalic object (Amulet, Hand of Midas)
 * They disrupt the heroines' special occasions (Mrs. Brisby's rescue of her family, Jasmine's wedding)
 * They have gruesome deaths.
 * In Arabic, his name means "a poor low-life thief who owns nothing".
 * If you look real closely, Sa'luk's knuckleduster disappears in some scenes.
 * Despite being one of the few "brutal" Disney villains, Sa'luk is shown to be very clever.
 * Sa'Luk shares his name with a previously unnamed rat from the series episode "Do the Rat Thing."
 * He shares similarities with Hades from Disney's Hercules
 * They both have a grey skin in their original movies, but have been recolored with a normal color of skin (in some commercial art for Sa'Luk, in some episodes of House of Mouse for Hades).
 * Sa'luk, along with Maestro Forte and Zira, are the only Disney villains from the sequel Disney films to die.