Even though I know that it will never happen, I noticed that there were at least 3 different early episodes where Jeannie threaten to kill a couple of people (a princess, Dr. Bellows even including Nelson on one occasion.)
There were times when she defiantly ignored Nelson's orders even saying to him one at time "Who's going to stop me?"
Does anyone know any other examples that I might have left out.
She was indeed dangerous because as a young girl she had been imprisoned in that bottle thus eliminating normal social interactions with other people. Those interactions help a person become mature and well-balanced.
Her displacement in a society 2000 years removed from her upbringing didn't help, she didn't understand the modern world and having to be keep hidden from it didn't help.
These shortcomings combined with her basically unlimited powers made her very dangerous.
What she needed was for Herself, Tony, Rodger, and Dr. Bellows to form a top-secret but informal developmental group that would help her adjust to the modern world and also find suitable uses for her powers.
The only other person who would need to know of her existence would be the President of the United States. Properly educated and developed, she could for example probably stop a nuclear attack dead in it's tracks.
I don't recall Jeannie ever saying she would kill Dr. Bellows. However, there was a scene in "My Master, the Magician" where, after the good doctor had left when he caught Tony floating in the air in his easy chair, Jeannie appeared and asked Tony if wished her to turn Dr. Bellows into something. I don't consider that killing someone as at least what they have become is still there to change back.
Now, in the early episodes, Jeannie did offer to turn Roger into a pillar of salt (episode #3, I think.) And in the episode with Billy Mumy as Custer, she was brainstorming what to do to him, including turning him into a frog, a bat, and, when Tony reacted with "You'll turn him into nothing!" Jeannie took it literally and considered it an excellent idea! That would be akin to killing a person because their body is gone and there's nothing left in which the magic could place the person's mind. It's free of the body in every way.
In the book, Jeannie killed all of the astronauts ahead of Tony in experience, stating that they were all "with the angels." And yet, she was also able to bring them back from death (defying Disney's "rules") with merely headaches for the rest of their evenings.
In "The Mod Party" Jeannie accidentally turns Roger's grade-school friend Corky into nothing, and then brings him back. My "educated" guess from the evidence we have is that so long as the djinni remembers who they turned into nothing, they can still bring the person back. What gives one pause, though, is when you start to wonder how often the djinn have turned people into nothing and then forgot about them Not to mention doing the same after turning humans into animals and objects, or even other humans, such as slaves (including changing their minds to that of the perfectly subservient and obedient slave.)
Jeannie may have been educated out of that mindset as the years went on, but I do believe her culture remained a strong influence on her decisions that way. Plus the other djinn, including her family, did still think it was okay to do such things to humans. (Remember her mother wanted to put Tony to sleep for five years, and then threatened to make it one thousand.)
Jeannie could be dangerous if she wanted to be, the point was she chose not to. In the early episodes she was much harder edged because of the combination of Tony's girlfriend Melissa and trying to get used to being free after being stuck in the bottle for 2,000 years. Perhaps the most significant Episode of the Series was 'Guess Who Is Going To Be A Bride Part 2" You see just how different she became. Is she still a genie? Yes (she has green as well as red blood), but she has become as human as she possibly be (even the Bellows liked her).
shareThe entire run of the show had the problem of the writers progressively "dumbing her down" whether intelligently, or by magic power. By the fifth season, she's almost unrecognizable compared to what she was like in the first, and not because she's personally "mellowed." One simply does not discard 2000 years of cultural baggage and programming in a handful of years' exposure to modern society. Jeannie will forever be a product of her culture and her past, no matter how well she may hide it from humans of the present day.
And Jeannie was constantly choosing to be dangerous to others. With the exception of her saving Tony from where he hung over those hungry crocodiles (yes, she put him there at his command) she was often blinking Roger and Tony into perilous predicaments. She also never intervened by bringing them back. She left them to fend for themselves in making their way home again. Watch the episode "Who Needs A Green-Eyed Jeannie?" and listen to Roger talk about spending the entire previous evening up on that radio tower with no help for getting down.
In the fifth season, Jeannie's two uncles kept knocking Tony unconscious and also stated that if he failed their evaluation, they'd eliminate him. Most of the stories of the fifth season also eliminated much of the slapstick of the previous seasons, as they attempted to mellow the show further (now that they were married, no more "crazy" scenarios.)
Just as the first season gives us the most powerful and most intelligent Jeannie, the fifth season presents us with a djinni now acting rather dumb and seemingly powerless (as if that's a good thing.) The marriage isn't what killed the show. Bad writing (and Network Suits) killed it.
Here is the thing about this show. It cannot be duplicated in a way that works. Even Barbara Eden in Season Five or the movies is better then anyone else ( think of the cartoon that lasted only 16 episodes ( and that was over 40 years ago)). Hollywood tried it with Bewitched( and failed), and is going to try it with Ghostbusters( and I suspect the same). Columbia has tried for years to come up with a new Jeannie but they cannot find a new Barbara Eden.
shareOkay, but I don't know what that has to do with whether Jeannie is dangerous or not. I gave examples of her behavior from the show, including how her culture (both that of Ancient Persia and the race of the djinn) perceive morals with humanity.
As for the cartoon, CBS could have ordered an additional season, but chose not to for some odd reason. The cartoon was highly-rated, even won some kind of recognition for its age-group. Normally, that alone would be enough to order at least another full season for any other series. It had potential, and was quashed by some network suit for reasons we'll likely never know.
My comments were related to your statement about the final Season of Jeannie. It goes without saying that unless she is locked somewhere like her bottle or the safe there is no one more powerful then Jeannie ( unless it is another Genie).
shareWell, here's one example of how they made her less powerful in the fifth season:
It was pretty well established by then that she could cure any disease or ailment in a human being. And yet, in the 5th season episode "Jeannie the recording Secretary" she can't counteract a simple sleeping pill. She can change reality, change time, make the days of the week stand still, and yet she can't wake up her husband from a human-made sleeping pill.
She's affected by alcohol like a human from the fourth season forward, yet in earlier seasons all she gets is a little bit of a buzz that affects neither her judgment nor her powers. Her sister gets trapped in both a bottle of champagne ("How to Marry and Astronaut") as well as in a bottle of perfume, the latter of which is also heavy in alcohol. She never seems affected by it.
Another part of why there are such problems is that at the time, there was no such thing as a "show bible." Rules and characteristics were not recorded for each character, other than whatever Sheldon might have relayed to the other writers. (If he had any personal notes to that effect, they have never been released to the fans.) Those writers were hired and put to work without much if any knowledge of what had been established before. Plus, writers were often working on other similar fantasy shows (such as Bewitched) and things would get confused.
I agree that there is no force more powerful than Jeannie, other than another djinni. It's just that the show had a hard time keeping that as a solid immutable fact.
Her sister gets trapped in both a bottle of champagne ("How to Marry and Astronaut") as well as in a bottle of perfume, the latter of which is also heavy in alcohol. She never seems affected by it.
No, we don't get to see it, but I would think a master would be more concerned about having a drunk djinni on his hands if keeping her in a perfume bottle would affect her. So, I think we can safely surmise that it doesn't really affect them as depicted in later episodes :wink:
shareNo. I don't think that Jeannie was dangerous.
shareShe could have annihilated everyone on the planet if she had wanted to. That made her more sexy.
shareIt's true, there were times when Jeannie could be really dangerous, particularly when she was really angry, or her mind was being manipulated by a potion; but due to the campy nature of the show, 1 of 2 things would happen:
- Major Nelson finds a way to stop her, despite being a bungling mortal
- Jeannie's better nature wins in the end
No. She wasn't dangerous really. Now, let's talk about the genie of myth, or more correctly, the djinn. Watch "Wishmaster". That is the way djinns were, according to legend.
shareWishmaster is the depiction of a either an afarit or a ghoul (which is not undead as defined in European myth/lore). Read more stories from the time period. I suggest starting with the book "Arab Folktales" by Inea Bushnaq. She explains that many of the stories she collected for that book date back more than 2,500 years.
I also recommend looking up the book "Encyclopedia of Spirits" by Judika Illes. It is an excellent source and details all of the different kinds of djinn, including afarit, Aisha Qandisha, bori, Lalla Malika (and the others with the Lalla title), and so much more. Once you look up the entry on Djinn, you'll see these examples for further research.
As mentioned, a ghoul (or an afarit) is the kind of djinni in the movie (which you should not use as a scholarly source, unless it were a documentary). The definition of them (from the Encyclopedia of Spirits) is, "a lower order of extremely malicious Djinn. They are murderous, treacherous, voracious spirits who will kill and devour humans..." The definition of an afarit (same source) is "a type of malevolent spirit. True Afarit are primordial fire spirits who existed on Earth thousands of years before people..."
Many of the other types are 'volatile' but that doesn't mean malicious. Personally, I would place Jeannie on the order of Lalla Mkouna Bent Mkoun. To wit, "Lalla Mkouna is the benevolent Djinn who serves as guardian of the hearth and by extension, guardian of the home."
There are many more than I can describe here, so find a library :-)
Wow! Who knew? I did some research, but you have me beat hands down!
shareThanks :-)
I Dream of Jeannie got me more interested in the stories of the Arabian Nights, so I started reading them, and was pleasantly surprised. Plus, if you ever read the story of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" you'll see all of the stuff in that original story that Disney either got wrong, or made up, or left out entirely (such as the Djinni of the Ring).