Magic Mirror


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"Well, that was awfully cruel..."
 * This article focuses on the character, the Magic Mirror. For the Magic Mirror's Storybrooke counterpart, see Sidney Glass.
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- The Magic Mirror to the Evil Queen on manipulating the Mad Hatter

The Magic Mirror, formerly the Genie of Agrabah, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. He makes his debut in the second episode of the first season. He is portrayed by guest star Giancarlo Esposito, and his Storybrooke counterpart is Sidney Glass.

The Magic Mirror is based on a character with the same name from the fairytale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and the Genie from the folktale "Aladdin".

Before the Curse
Before he becomes the Magic Mirror, he is the Genie of Agrabah, a powerful magical being who is imprisoned within the confines of a magic lamp; granting wishes to all who happen to come across it in their travels. One day, while taking a stroll through his kingdom, King Leopold comes across his lamp by the side of a river. After curiously rubbing the lamp, the Genie appears to the king, granting him three wishes; with the warning that once a wish is fulfilled it cannot be undone.

After realizing that King Leopold desires no wishes because he has everything he wants and seeks only the happiness of those in his kingdom, the two sit by the river's edge and the Genie tells the king of his sorrowful life, and how he has never found happiness while granting wishes for others over the years. When asked by Leopold what the Genie would wish for, he tells the king how he would wish for nothing more than to be free. Wanting to make the genie truly happy, King Leopold uses his first wish to release the Genie from his chains, giving his second wish to let the Genie have his third wish.

The genie is both surprised and worried, as over the years he has watched a thousand and one wishes be made only to have them all turn out bad in the end, which is why he vows never to make his final wish. Seeing the Genie as a wise confidant, Leopold invites him back to his palace where he meets the king's daughter Snow White and his second wife Regina, with whom he falls in love at first sight under the queen's apple tree.

During a birthday party for the king, the Genie sees Regina alone and unhappy, while the king, his daughter, and their subjects are all enjoying the king's speech about his daughter and how she looks like his first wife, her mother, who was the "fairest of them all". When Regina is alone outside, the Genie follows, giving her a mirror to show her how beautiful she is as he sees her as the fairest in the land.

Some time later, the king finds the mirror and discovers written in her diary that she has found another love and asks the Genie to find the person who gave her the mirror. As the Genie stood under Regina's apple tree, the queen's father, Henry, delivers a box asking him to take it to his daughter as he isn't allowed inside the castle.

He takes the box to Regina and as she opens it, she tells the Genie that she is going to kill herself from the bite of a poisonous Agrabahn viper, he stops her and offers to kill the king instead, so that they can be together forever. He then takes the box with the viper to the king's room, opens it and let it slither up to the king's face, telling the king as he lies dying that he was the one who gave Regina the mirror and that he has fallen for her.

After telling Regina that he has successfully killed the king and that they can now be together, Regina tells him that she never loved him and only used him to kill King Leopold for her. His heart broken, the genie wishes to be with her forever and to look upon her face always. With this wish and much to his dismay, he becomes trapped as the Magic Mirror, now, ironically, able to look upon Regina forever. ("Fruit of the Poisonous Tree")

After his imprisonment in mirrors, Regina uses him for spying on her enemies. Some people he could spy on were Snow White, Rumplestiltskin and the Blind Witch. It is the magic mirror who suggests that Regina use a huntsman to kill Snow White after Leopold's death, knowing that Snow White was too well-liked by everyone to be killed outright by the Queen.

Sometime after Regina came to power, Magic Mirror accompanied the Queen when she disguised herself as a hag merchant and didn't allow Jefferson to buy his daughter a stuffed rabbit for less than the asking price. ("Hat Trick")

For events occurring after the casting of the Dark Curse, see Sidney Glass.

Trivia

 * When first meeting King Leopold, he states that he has granted "One thousand and one wishes..." This is a reference to the popular Middle Eastern folk-tales One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, which itself contains the story "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp".
 * The lamp that he once lived in is currently in the possession of Mr. Gold.
 * He says to King Leopald that "All wishes come with a price" which is similar to Rumplestiltskin's saying "All Magic comes with a price."

Appearances
Miroir magique