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The Spell of the Three Genies is a spell featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It first appears in the twelfth episode.
History
After three brothers, Taj, Cyrus and Rafi, steal water from the Well of Wonders to save their dying mother Amara, Nyx curses them to become genies and separates them in lamps, before sending them away from their mother. ("Dirty Little Secrets")
Years later, Amara, now a feared sorceress, is visited at her home by a young boy, Jafar, who seeks vengeance against the Sultan, his estranged father. She agrees to train him, and over several years, they develop a close romantic relationship with Amara seeing Jafar as a partner, not merely her student. After testing him by having him let an innocent man die so that they will have a human liver as an ingredient for a masking spell, she reveals to Jafar her plan to find the three genies and use their power to change the laws of magic, making them the most powerful sorcerers in the world. However, her true secret motive is to change the laws of magic to free her sons from their eternal fates as the three genies. After acquiring two of the genie bottles, Jafar betrays Amara, transforming her into a serpent that becomes his staff, as he wishes to be the only most powerful sorcerer once the laws of magic are changed. The staff allows Jafar access to her magical abilities, which will eventually enable him get around the spell's requirement for a second sorcerer. ("The Serpent")
Jafar later acquires the third genie in Wonderland after entering an alliance with the Red Queen, trapping the genie in his lair inside a silver cage to prevent escape. However, the third genie's bottle remains out of their reach. ("Down the Rabbit Hole")Jafar and the Red Queen go to extraordinary lengths to acquire the bottle of the third genie, eventually bringing Alice back to Wonderland. However, whilst being allies, Jafar and the Red Queen are frequently at odds with each other, constantly seeking to undermine the other and gain the upper hand. Eventually, after betraying the Red Queen, Jafar seizes control of Wonderland and releases the Jabberwocky who eventually succeeds in retrieving the final bottle. ("Down the Rabbit Hole," "Bad Blood," "Home," "Nothing to Fear")
While attempting to cast the spell to break the laws of magic, Jafar finds that Will, who has taken Cyrus' place as the third genie, is somehow resistant to it. He discovers that Will is missing his heart, which he steals from Alice and Cyrus, after they retrieve it from another world. After Jafar returns Will's heart and kills Anastasia, Amara frees herself from the staff and battles Jafar. While attempting to steal the bottles from Jafar, Cyrus is fatally injured by a broken mirror shard that Jafar impales into him. Jafar convinces Amara to cast the spell with him, stating that it is the only way to save Cyrus, to which she agrees. ("Heart of the Matter," "To Catch a Thief")
After completing the spell, Jafar revels in the fact that he is one of the two most powerful sorcerers in history, and attempts to kill Amara as he has "never been good at sharing," but is interrupted by his father who appeals for him to show mercy. They briefly debate Jafar's deepest desire, which is to have his father's love, but his father refuses until Jafar changes the second law of magic and makes his father love him. However, he also desires to have his father know what it feels like to be murdered by someone you love, and uses magic to drown him. He turns back to confront Amara, but she, Alice and Cyrus have already escaped. ("And They Lived...")
Retreating to the home of the White Rabbit, Amara uses her magic to heal Cyrus' wounds. Meanwhile, Jafar releases Will from his bottle and reveals that he has brought Anastasia back from the dead, but gloats after revealing that he has made her fall in love with him to torment Will. He then travels to an army graveyard and revives all of Wonderland's deceased soldiers and succeeds in reacquiring Alice, however, Amara and Cyrus escape. In an attempt to break Alice and force her reveal Amara and Cyrus' destination, he threatens to break the third law of magic to ensure that she never met Cyrus. She in turn mocks him and his magic, calling his love with Anastasia an illusion. He later gets the information he seeks from Anastasia and leaves to pursue Amara and Cyrus. Will convinces Anastasia that her love with Jafar is fake, and uses true love's kiss to break Jafar's hold over her. Anastasia then frees Alice, who leaves with the White Rabbit to find Cyrus. ("And They Lived...")
At the Well of Wonders, Amara prepares to sacrifice herself and return the stolen water to Nyx to free her sons from the genie's curse. However, Jafar intervenes and murders Amara, reverting her body to water, and prepares to kill Cyrus before he is knocked back by the White Rabbit's portal. Alice pushes Cyrus to return the water, but just before it reaches the well, it is stolen by Jafar, who disperses it. He asks Alice about how she intends to stop him, to which she replies that she is not going to defeat him since he didn't steal the water from her, but from Nyx. As punishment for taking her water, Nyx reappears and curses Jafar into becoming a genie, sending him away in a bottle, and breaks the curse over Cyrus' brothers and Will, ending the spell of the three genies for good. Ending the spell also undoes all of Jafar's use of magic during that time, making Anastasia dead again, but Nyx provides water to revive her as her time to pass has not yet come. ("And They Lived...")Ways to Break the Spell
- Amara's death undid her use of the spell. ("And They Lived...")
- Will's true love for Anastasia allowed him to break Jafar's romantic influence over her. ("And They Lived...")
- After Nyx turned Jafar into a genie, his use of the spell was undone. ("And They Lived...")
Trivia
On-Screen Notes
- The incantations Jafar uses to take control over the Genie Lamps are:
- Incipio.Tres genies in utres. Ego te coniungere. Da mihi virtutem! Which is Latin for "Begin. Three genies in bottles. Give me power!"[1] [Note that there is no word for "genie" in Latin, so this word is plain English.]
- When that doesn't work, he tries Magicae res tres. Vult totam! Which means "Three magic things. He wants all!"[2] Unfortunately, that doesn't work either. ("Heart of the Matter")
Appearances
| Once Upon a Time in Wonderland | ||||||||||
| "Down the Rabbit Hole": | "Trust Me": | "Forget Me Not": | "The Serpent": | "Heart of Stone": | "Who's Alice": | "Bad Blood": | ||||
| Absent | Absent | Absent | Mentioned | Absent | Absent | Absent | ||||
| "Home": | "Nothing to Fear": | "Dirty Little Secrets": | "Heart of the Matter": | "To Catch a Thief": | "And They Lived...": | |||||
| Absent | Mentioned | Absent | Absent | Appears | Appears | |||||