Passing thought: why are so many Disney villains magicians? I can think of exactly two non-villainous magicians offhand: Merlin in “Sword and the Stone” and Elsa in “Frozen”. It all feels really ironic given how fundamentally magical the medium of animation is, especially when Disney went on to make the “Magic Kingdom” theme parks.
Oh also I guess there are the good fairies in Cinderella? And maybe the fairy in Pinocchio. By and large though any cartoon magician in Disney (or most other US cartoon features) is the heavy in a fairy tale adaptation.
@anthracite Pretty sure Rafiki counts as magical, and he's not a villain.
Ah yes, the first Disney feature I never got around to seeing because I was starting to be too busy trying to get a career in animation to keep up with everything. 😇
@anthracite valid! I'd recommend the non-cgi, non special edition if you still haven't seen it.
Still haven’t, nah. It became so ubiquitous that never having seen it started to feel like a quirk worth maintaining, if that makes sense?
If I ever do see it I’m definitely gonna be seeing the version actually drawn by animators, though!
@anthracite it makes a kind of sense!
@kelseyhusky @anthracite Rafiki is a "wise mentor" though. So even though he does qualify as magical he's basically neutralized as part of making the story about the protagonist. It's like Kenobi dying, Gandalf going to fight the Necromancer etc; the story has to figure out a way to get this powerful person out of the way.