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| “ | Let's look at the big picture. I have the Genie, Aladdin is dead and my plans for world conquest are shaping up nicely. All in all, it's been a good night. | „ |
| ~ Mozenrath |
| “ | Well, I could rave all night, but I got a city to destroy! | „ |
| ~ Mozenrath |
Mozenrath is the main antagonist of the Aladdin television series, and he is and arguably the most dangerous villain out of all of the show's villains. He is the archenemy of Aladdin, right after the evil sorcerer Jafar. Mozenrath is a total antithesis of Aladdin. He is pale, physically frail and wears lavish garments, while Aladdin is tanned, athletic and clad in his beggar's rags. He is also malevolent, ambitious and scheming while Aladdin is gentle, selfless and a quick thinker.
He was voiced by the late Jonathan Brandis, while Jeff Bennett voiced him in "Black Sand". His mannerism and attitude were inspired by those of Brandis himself.
Overview
Mozenrath is a powerful and malevolent young sorcerer, not much older than Aladdin himself, who rules over the Land of the Black Sand: a desolated land solely populated by his army of Zombie soldiers called Mamluks. He is always accompanied by his familiar Xerxes, a flying, talking eel, fully devoted to him, who serves as his spy, his assistant and sometimes his punching ball, when the sorcerer is angry.
Personality
Mozenrath is cruel, ruthless, arrogant, over-proud, scornful, greedy and ambitious, much worse than most of the show's villains. His malevolence and lust for power are often compared to Jafar's, prompting Iago to nickname him "Jafar Junior". He doesn't care the slightest about those who he might harm during his experiences, to the point of showing disbelief when Aladdin chose helping people over personal benefit.
He wants to grow powerful enough to take over the magical realms of the Seven Deserts (and possibly the entire world). Ever since Aladdin first thwarted his schemes, he swore to destroy him and all he holds dear.
Like many powerful villains, Mozenrath is calm, collected, aristocratic and refined. He enjoys dominating the situation and taunting his enemies with dark humor and false courtesy. He is highly intelligent, cunning and scheming. He can devise very clever traps and schemes, guess things right from very few facts, think on his feet and quickly adapt to unexpected events. While he prefers direct confrontation over manipulation, he's certainly not above the latter. In most cases, albeit only when it serves his interests, he proves to be a man of honor, to whoever fulfills their part of a bargain and rewards generously those whom he hired. All this prompts him to firmly protect what he believes to be rightfully his and to protest whenever he himself gets double-crossed (which only happens once in the show).
Yet, he is also shown being stubborn, impatient, spoiled and somewhat petulant. When people refuse to work for him he coerces them to do what he wants and he tries to gain something from every situation. When his plans fail, he is prone to ranting like a bratty child. He also gets angry at the mere idea of Aladdin being murdered by someone else. He even displays jealousy towards Aladdin, "who got the magic of a Genie on a silver platter", while he had to make harsh sacrifices to reach his situation.
Powers and Abilities
Unsurprisingly, Mozenrath is an immensely powerful sorcerer. His power matches Jafar's own as well as Mirage's and Genie's, who often defeats Mozenrath with ease, but on more than one occasion, Mozenrath defeats Genie with the same kind of quickness, meaning their powers are on equal footing.
He claims to be "the most powerful sorcerer of [his] time" and this is obviously not an idle claim, given all the feats of magic he can perform, namely flight, teleporting himself and other people and objects, opening portals between two places and even between dimensions, making an image of himself appear where he isn't physically present, shapeshift himself and others, animate and bewitch objects, generate tangible illusions (like a woman holding a baby or a dragon), infuse anything with his magic in order to control it, compel creatures and people alike, perform telekinesis, increase his own strength, fire energy blasts and dark fire-bolts, create a dark, sticky matter which he uses to capture people and can compress to the size of a marble, etc.
The main source of his power resides in the magical gauntlet that he wears on his right hand. Taking away his gauntlet renders him powerless. Using the gauntlet comes with a heavy price, however, as it rots away his flesh, reducing his right forearm to mere bones. The gauntlet also drains his life force, which could very well be the reason as to why Mozenrath is physically frail and also condemns him to a premature demise.
Trivia
- Mozenrath is the second most recurring villain in the show after Abis Mal.
- Mozenrath's name is the contraction of "Motz and Roth", Bill Motz and Bob Roth being the writers of the sorcerer's debut episode The Citadel. Ironically, they thought that making Aladdin's new archenemy about Aladdin's age would not work.
- The Aladdin staff first planned to make Mozenrath appear in the third movie as the primary antagonist. However, they later decided to distance themselves from the television series, because they couldn't get in touch with Jonathan Brandis among other reasons. This started a rumor, according to which Mozenrath would have been revealed to be Aladdin's long lost brother.
- Mozenrath's Mamluks are named sfter the slave soldiers who served the Ottoman Empire during the Middle Ages.
- According with the above, it is unknown what Mozenrath's fate is, or was, as in the final episode he appears in, Two to Tangle, it is stated that he's dying, and at the end of the episode, he and Xeres are trapped and sent away in a hot air balloon. It's likely that he eventually died.
- It's said that many fans of Mozenrath wrote to Square Enix, asking them to make Mozenrath appear in the following Kingdom Hearts game. Whether this is true or not, the game's concepts seem to follow the movies.
- In Black Sand, Mozenrath was voiced by Jeff Bennett instead of Jonathan Brandis.
- Mozenrath is the overarching villain of the series because he has appeared more than any other villain and because of his obsession with destroying Aladdin at all costs.
- Hey may have been the inspiration of Zevon from Descendants: Wicked World, since Zevon shares a lot of similarities with him such as both being the darkest villains from their series as well as both being teenage sorcerers who appear as the arch-nemesis of their series' main protagonist.
- It is interesting to note that Mozenrath is able to perform the magic even in the hand where he does not wear the glove. It is possible that Mozenrath has magical powers in himself, and that the glove only considerably increases them.
- Similarly, it is unlikely that Destane, an exceptionally powerful wizard, would take a student without real magical powers.
 Villains
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