| “ | This is the thanks I get?! | „ |
| ~ Magnifico's catchphrase.
|
| “ | I decide what everyone deserves! | „ |
| ~ King Magnifico to Asha upon revealing his true nature and his most infamous quote. |
| “ | There will be no wishing on stars, ever again! In fact, there will be no more hope, no more dreams, and no escape. No chance to rise up! No one to tell any tales. No one to challenge me ever again! You... are... NOTHING! | „ |
| ~ Magnifico to Asha and his subjects. |
King Magnifico is the main antagonist of Disney's 62nd full-length animated feature film Wish, which serves as a milestone celebration for the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company.
He is the charismatic and ruthless ruler of the Kingdom of Rosas, the husband of Queen Amaya and the master-turned-arch nemesis of Asha. An experienced sorcerer, Magnifico uses his powers to collect the wishes of his people, but only grants the wishes that can serve his rule while leaving most of them ungranted, leading Asha to look for ways to help her kingdom, leading to Star's arrival.
He was voiced by Chris Pine, who also played Frank in Don't Worry Darling.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Though it was implied King Magnifico initially did have glimpses of goodness, as shown by how he loved his wife Queen Amaya and his late family and was initially hesitant to use the Forbidden Magic, when he decides to use such dark magic, he gleefully embraces the power and happily throws away any sort of goodness within him as he makes it clear that the only person he has any regard for anymore is just himself.
- While it can be argued that the Forbidden Magic the book contained controlled Magnifico, which could imply moral agency issues, this is not true at all as he was conscious of its power while using it, but he preferred to embrace it anyway. Even if it was the case, it's not a prevention as Magnifico was already a selfish tyrant before getting corrupted (the book serving as a metaphor for Magnifico's true nature revealing itself).
- While having his own share of comedic moments throughout the film, they diminish over the course of the movie as Magnifico grows more unhinged and the audience sees his true, frightening colors as a legitimate menace. Therefore, he became a genuine, serious and dangerous threat.
- Even his imprisonment in the glass shard and pleading with Amaya to free him is to show he's been dealt with.
- Despite having a somewhat tragic backstory, with him losing his family and homeland from destruction caused by a group of thieves, this ultimately doesn't hold up anymore, as he just mentioned his family while he put on a good façade in front of Asha and never mentions them again.
- While the truth was the more he practiced magic over the years, the more it made him easily obsessed due to how much the power was too addictive to him, slowly making him feel important then anyone or anything in the world while he admitted that while singing at his laboratory that the only thing he cares for now is to be respected. Overall, he give up his family tragedy over power as the true reason for being the tyrannical, cruel despot he truly is.
- During the song "This Is The Thanks I Get?!", it is revealed that he has a deep, unjustified resentment towards his own subjects (and possibly all of humanity), often doing immoral things to them under the guise of helping them, such as stealing a person's clothing to give to another or volunteering a person when their home is about to be destroyed instead of using his magic to save it (which would be toned down in varying degrees in some dubs of the movie to avoid spoiling his true hatred early on).
- To drive home the hatred he feels for his people, he vents his frustrations by creating tiny magic people only to destroy them all during a tantrum, foreshadowing what he would do in the final battle and his defeat.
- After reading the book of Forbidden Magic, his hatred became more obvious as he took pleasure in frightening his subjects during a Wishing Ceremony.
Wish[]
- While he presents himself as a benevolent monarch who enforces a seemingly benign system where people can surrender the memories of their deepest wishes on the false hope that he will grant them, he cons them into giving him the most important parts of their souls and will only grant the ones that would benefit his kingdom (or at the very least himself) out of pragmatism once every month while keeping the rest stockpiled in Rosas Castle so that they would not threaten his power or authority, leaving most people in Rosas with a feeling of incompletion.
- Furthermore, he also refuses to give back the wishes he takes from his subjects so that they could at least fulfill their wishes themselves, assuming that if they would come to Rosas to have him grant their wish by willingly giving them to him, it would be because they could never fulfill their dreams on their own. While this may be a sign that he actually does care for his subjects, it is ultimately an excuse to keep the people weak enough for him to rule over.
- While Magnifico did said that preventing himself from fulfilling some of his subjects's wishes, which seems dangerous to him and Rosas, it was merely an excuse out of his own paranoia that something out of his control is dangerous (mainly for himself). While that's because of the lost of his family and homeland from destruction caused by a group of thieves at a very young age was out of his control and to him (still affected by this memory) the said wishes were similar to his tragedy (mainly; uncontrollable events that led to destruction). Yet, it doesn't excuse his actions, as not only his tragedy wasn’t even brought up later in the movie, this excuse led to create a perfect world of his own with the kingdom of Rosas which he can control, with his subjects living in controlled harmony with every day being the same while leaving them at his mercy.
- Plus, while becoming both a king and a sorcerer helped controlled his kingdom and his subjects, over the years, and by practicing magical spells during the time, Magnifico slowly became a power-hungry, narcissistic control freak having an unhealthy obsession for magic and the power that give him a pleasant sensation to him.
- When his subjects begin questioning about their wish being granted or not, Magnifico's paranoia leads him to insanity as he sees their questioning as disturbance to his kingdom (even to himself), melodramatically seeing them as the same vandals who take away everything when he was young and then begins to slowly hate them for daring to stand up to him by traumatizing him, despite this not being their intention.
- While Magnifico did said that preventing himself from fulfilling some of his subjects's wishes, which seems dangerous to him and Rosas, it was merely an excuse out of his own paranoia that something out of his control is dangerous (mainly for himself). While that's because of the lost of his family and homeland from destruction caused by a group of thieves at a very young age was out of his control and to him (still affected by this memory) the said wishes were similar to his tragedy (mainly; uncontrollable events that led to destruction). Yet, it doesn't excuse his actions, as not only his tragedy wasn’t even brought up later in the movie, this excuse led to create a perfect world of his own with the kingdom of Rosas which he can control, with his subjects living in controlled harmony with every day being the same while leaving them at his mercy.
- The tie-in novel A Recipe For Adventure affirms that Simon O'Donohue was more active and training to achieve his wish before the film, becoming his sleepy self only after the wish was taken from him. This shows how much Magnifico hoarding wishes can damage the people of Rosas.
- Furthermore, he also refuses to give back the wishes he takes from his subjects so that they could at least fulfill their wishes themselves, assuming that if they would come to Rosas to have him grant their wish by willingly giving them to him, it would be because they could never fulfill their dreams on their own. While this may be a sign that he actually does care for his subjects, it is ultimately an excuse to keep the people weak enough for him to rule over.
- He kept a book about Forbidden Magic within his study as a precaution in case if anything were to threaten his rule over Rosas, despite being fully aware the dangerous effects it would have on anyone who even reads it.
- When he does use it, he claims that he didn't want to, but then fully embraces the power it grants him.
- When Asha asked for him to grant the wish of her centenarian grandfather Sabino, who had just turned 100 years old and had been waiting a long time to have his wish granted, he refused to do so out of fear of it inspiring a rebellion, despite Asha telling him that her grandfather held no ill will towards him.
- Then, when she realized how selfish his methods are and called him out for it while stating that everyone deserves to have their wishes returned, he furiously silenced her by stating that he alone decides what everyone deserves, thus revealing his true nature to her.
- During the wishing ceremony, he purposely made it look like he was going to grant Sabino's wish, only to grant someone else's instead just to spite Asha for questioning his methods. Further twisting the knife inside the wound, he then told her that her mother Sakina's wish will also never be granted, even though she had nothing to do with the matter, while also saying she won't be getting a job as his apprentice.
- What make this worse is that Sakina’s wish was just seeing her daughter happy, something that wasn’t clearly dangerous, but he doesn't care, proving that he only chooses to granted wishes that would only be beneficial to him by abusing his subjects.
- When he learns that a new magic had been summoned to Rosas (due to Asha's wish to fulfill her family's wishes having brought a sapient star), he immediately becomes paranoid and outraged that someone other than him was using magic, deeming such individual a threat to his rule regardless of their intentions.
- This causes him to almost use Forbidden Magic until Amaya was able to talk him out of it.
- While Amaya helped reassured Magnifico about how much good he is for his people, he has get is senses back and saying to her that she is right only because she mentioned "handsome" to him, showing how much narcissistic Magnifico, not caring about others than himself.
- He calls a gathering of his people and tells them that the magic that was brought to Rosas is dangerous to them all, despite it having a positive effect on everyone other than him, and states that the one responsible for it will be punished severely.
- When people begin questioning his methods on wish-granting, he loses his temper and yells at them for being "selfish".
- He then reluctantly agrees to grant the wish of the one who would identify the culprit, while also threatening that anyone caught assisting the traitor will never have their wish granted. This would cause Simon O'Donohue, one of Asha's closest friends, to become afraid of losing his wish and ultimately sell out Asha to the king.
- Finally loses his patience after the meeting as he believes that the people were being ungrateful of his "generosity" and "protection", ultimately causing him to resort to using Forbidden Magic, which drove him insane, despite promising Amaya that he would never use it.
- Upon learning from Simon that Asha was the one who summoned the star, he confronts her and her family in their home to demand the star's location.
- In another act of spite towards her, he also brings Sakina's wish with him and crushes it in front of her, giving her a sharp pain of grief. Magnifico's sole reaction to it was glee as he realizes how absorbing the wish for himself feels good, as he wasn't aware he could do it. This forces Asha's family to temporarily relocate to another nearby island for safety.
- When creating a magic staff for himself, he absorbs the wishes of three people who made a few minor questions against him over the safety of their wishes out of spite to fuel it, reducing them to deep emotional despair. When Amaya calls him out for what he just did, he points his staff at her, threatening her into compliance.
- He then frames Asha for the deed to turn the kingdom against her, making her a criminal.
- While granting Simon's wish of being a knight as a reward for selling out Asha, he painfully corrupts him into becoming his loyal slave. Afterwards, Simon sells out his other friends to Magnifico, forcing them into hiding with heavy implications that they would be sentenced to capital punishment due to them saying that they would be "doomed" if found.
- He goes on a wish-crushing spree to further empower himself, sadistically destroying an additional three wishes on-screen (those being able to fly, to have a nanny of two children and to find true love) while being aware that they are alive, as he described them earlier.
- When Amaya, who teamed up with Asha and her friends to stop Magnifico and free the wishes he trapped, attempts to distract her mad husband by telling him the whereabouts of Asha (who agreed to be bait for the king), he predicts her betrayal and instead sends out Simon, who he disguised as himself with magic, while he intercepts the wishes being freed with his staff.
- When his wife had enough of Magnifico's depravity and calls him out for betraying his people, he ruthlessly blasts her with magic in front of the masses, thus officially destroying their relationship as well as the faith his subjects once had for him.
- He immediately absorbs all of the remaining wishes when Star tries to free them, claiming that they were his alone, and then entraps Star. Then when Asha returns to town to save Star, he uses magic to pull her to the top of his tower to taunt her and force her to watch as he absorbs Star into his staff.
- He tortures Star to be a living battery for one single purpose; to enslave the entire population of Rosas by inflicting them all with never-ending despair and pain, leaving them all emotionally destroyed wrecks so that no will ever stand up to him again.
- He also puts his entire kingdom in magical chains to keep them from escaping, which ends up endangering numerous people, including his wife and especially a little girl who is restrained from hugging her mother.
- When Asha refuses to surrender and tries to inspire the people to rise up against Magnifico, he then attempts to torture her to death in front of the kingdom to further break their spirits and show there is no escape from his reign. However, this only spurs the people to rise up against him anyway, and he responds by attempting to blast them.
- When the hope of the people begins to give Star the strength to break free of Magnifico's staff, he attempts to stop their singing by using an unknown spell in the form of a green cloud upon them, though it fails.
- He demands Amaya to free him after he gets sucked into a small glass shard of his own staff, yet shows no remorse for his actions, accusing Amaya and everyone of being ungrateful to him when they rightfully decide not to free him. He also pathetically begs not to be put in the dungeon, claiming that it smells very bad.
- His defeat, as comedic as it is, is played for karma and he deserved it for attempting a coup.
Trivia[]
- One of the inspirations cited for King Magnifico was Queen Grimhilde from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which is very fitting, as Queen Grimhilde is likewise Pure Evil. Similarly, Chris Pine has wondered on if Magnifico will end up as iconic as Scar & Bill Cipher, who are also Pure Evils.
- In fact, towards the end of the film, it's subtly implied that King Magnifico ends up becoming the Magic Mirror of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves due to the Mirror's face making a quick cameo appearance as Magnifico is sealed inside his staff's glass shard. If it were confirmed that Magnifico did become the Mirror and went on to serve Queen Grimhilde voluntarily, it would make him even more viler due to driving Grimhilde into villainy, essentially making him the overarching antagonist of that film.
- In the original draft of the film, Queen Amaya was also going to be a villain and work alongside King Magnifico. Had this concept been carried over to the final movie, it could have likely affected King Magnifico's Pure Evil status, depending on how their relationship was portrayed, as the filmmakers intended Amaya and Magnifico to act like Carmela and Tony Soprano of The Sopranos.
- He is the first theatrical Pure Evil Disney villain to have a villain song since Dr. Facilier from 2009's The Princess and the Frog, over a decade before him.
- In addition, he is the first Pure Evil Disney villain since Hades not to die.
- He, along with King Runeard, Milton and Ebenezer Lynxley, are the only Disney Pure Evils to be CG animated. In addition, he is the only one of them to come from an original CGI Disney animated film, since Runeard, Milton and Ebenezer originated in sequels.
- His voice actor, Chris Pine, previously voiced Jack Frost from DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians, who is ironically a Pure Good. Interestingly enough, both characters were ordinary men who didn't gain supernatural powers up until much later on (only that in Magnifico's case, he's still alive when he absorbed the people of Rosas' wishes).
External Links[]
- King Magnifico on the Villains Wiki
- King Magnifico on the Disney Wiki
- King Magnifico on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
- King Magnifico on the Wikipedia
