I Dream of Another Jeanie Bottle 9
Jan08
Apologies for the later-than-usual release this week. That’s my fault, as I’d entirely forgotten that Hachimitsu sent me this page! lol
Also, Hachi is recovering from a bit over overwork. So if you guys could send him some good vibes, I’d sure he’d appreciate it. 🙂
By the way, I realize that the text at the bottom of panel 2 is pretty small. If you click the image to view the full-size version, it’ll be much easier to read. Though if that’s still too small, please let me know, and I’ll upload an even higher resolution version.
Well Agent Anderson your new exciting life begins. But Anderson does bring up some good points about the Genie Master relationship being similar to slavery makes you think doesn’t it.
Probably why Neil treats Jean as a friend and not a slave.
Well, like everything else, the rules depend on how you interpret things. For example, it says that “owning another person” is illegal… but suppose genies, as nonhuman, supernatural beings, are not legally persons?
(Don’t laugh – there is plenty of legal precedent for distinctions like this.)
I like Kant’s definition of a person as a moral agent. That is a person is any being that is rational and self aware. This is also what scientifically is called “sapience”, and is the defining characteristic that biologist use to describe humans.
As such, genies being sapient but none human would be called a hetro sapient. For them not to be a person they would have to lack the capacity to reason and be no more than a dog.
When that is said, I am a little worried for Agent Anne Anderson as she dosn’t seem to be able to control what she says. If she truly is trapped in her mind, than that is a fate far worse than simply being a slave.
@Alastir:
All this legalizing and philosophizing is nice and all, but it seems to have already been established that Genie law trumps Human laws, in the sense that when there is a conflict, a Genie is bound to obey the Genie law.
Actually, Genie have limited sovereignty over what they can do. According to the Genie Rules they have to grant three wishes to any one that opens the bottle, but, there are some things that they can do independent of there master and such. Although it in the form of a master slave relationship, Genie still have some independence on which way they choose to go. If the Greek Captain would have taken his three wishes and then let Jeanie go, he would not have had a problem, but, he wanted to force Jeanie to become his wife so that he could keep her around. Which was a violation of Jeanie will will, all bets are off as to what going to happen.
Anderson seems to know the rules already, completely unlike Jean.
Love the costume for Anderson could you do a design for Jean and Natalie in their genie clothes?
So what happens if someone wishes for Anderson to marry them? Would that count as being against the rules?
Of course it would be against rule 2- “changing someone’s free will (Anderson’s)”, and possibly rule 3 “saving a mortal from the tragic fate of marrying poorly”.
Of course, creating her as a genie violated rule 2 and 3 already (she didn’t freely choose to give that speech, from the thought bubbles, and HER tragic mortal fate has been changed)
as for the 3 wishes dodge, I like the one from a Ranma 1/2 parody, where the master wished for 1000+ copies of an interactive video game, where the individual genie in the GAME would give 3 wishes
“Of course it would be against rule 2- “changing someone’s free will (Anderson’s)”,”
Not necessarily. You are not changing their will as it could be a forced marriage.
If they wished that Anderson would “want” to marry them then that indeed would be against rule 2
@Stalk – I personally prefer the Fairly OddParents one, wherein you can keep wishing for more wishes, just never more than three at one time. Not because it’s a good idea, but because of how it’s introduced (Norm explains that a lazy genie came up with the “no extra wishes” lie, and no one ever bothered correcting gullible mortals).
Also, I like the differences between Anderson’s preprogrammed spiel and her inner thoughts. Really sells her not liking this new gig. Can she please catch a break this time?
I also wonder what would happen if Anderson was faced with someone who was willing to exploit the meta of the situation, as in this cartoon by Geoph Essex
@Fearless Ferret — not necessarily. A lot of times with arranged marriages, it’s the parents who are pushing the thing through, and the kids are just along for the ride. it would take some clever wording to try and get out of that one, because you would have to be circumventing the will of the parents, who definitely want to see their marriage go through. That’s why they said that up in the first place, after all. As an example, look at colonial life. A girl from a poor family of farmers might be married to the son of the banker, bringing with her a dowry of, say, twenty sheep and ten goats. Neither of the kids know or like each other, but the parents are both benefitting — the farmers by having their debt alleviated, and the banker by having an heir and getting some milk and wool. Somehow the wish would have to work out so neither of the parents needs or desires the marriage any longer.
@sean: Note that while that cartoon is funny, it requires the wishes to have quite improbable self-referral powers. Most likely, the mentioned caveats wouldn’t literally be ONLY limits on wishes, AND it would be impossible to change them with a wish.
@HKMaly:
I agree–there is no justification given for the “grant my wishes exclusively according to my intent” wish overriding the rules, since it is implied that the rules are something that a genie is incapable of violating rather than simply unwilling to violate.
I note that many of those rules are exactly contradicting what has happened to Agent Anderson in that free will has been lost and likely at least one other rule has been broken.
Which explains why this strip is not canon.
No contradiction.
The rules govern what a genie can and cannot do at the behest of their master.
Totally unrelated to what befalls you if you uncork a cursed bottle.
If you want an example of how CD has broken his own rules, just remember Eva Braun. “No kill” and “No influencing minds” were massively ignored.
How were the rules massively ignored by Eva? We have no idea what specific magical effects she brought about. It’s entirely possible that all she did was make it significantly easier for Hitler to amass followers and funding, and then he did the rest. That wouldn’t violate either of those rules.
Regarding Robert’s comment:
This brings up a particularly scary scenario: Suppose an attorney got genie-fied? Imagine how badly someone who is used to twisted logic could finagle their way around the [badly worded] genie rules? (shudder!)
Neat, but I don’t recall a spiel like this happening when Jean got Genied. Ah, well….at least Anderson seems to be accepting of it, silently fuming instead of constantly raging.
Non-canon. Ergo, the only rule is “Screw the rules”.
There’s also the matter that Niel claimed Jean instantly after he got bottled, while Anderson had however many days it took for the bottle to be delivered halfway around the planet via whichever non-magical delivery service the shopkeeper used. That leaves the possibility for Anderson to have learned of her new role during that time–maybe the bottle came with a Handbook for New Genies?
This bottle doesn’t appear to be quite the same as your typical barren Genie Totem (which is what Jean found). The shopkeeper specifically said it was cursed, which may imply that something more has happened to Anderson than what happened to Jean. We won’t know for sure until/unless Hachi reveals the full details.
I believe in the second panel’s thought balloon you want the phrase “drug addiction” not “drug addition.” The font is small, but I think the “c” is missing.
As for the spiel upon being released, AA had more time inside the bottle before being uncorked, so maybe the transition had more time to become fully formed. Jean was quickly uncorked and maybe didn’t have enough time to “marinate.” 😉
Yup, you nailed it despite the small font. This one’s entirely on me, too. I had to rewrite that bubble entirely, to fix a number of other issues, and introduced that typo myself.
“marinate”? So are you saying that Anderson is in a bit of a pickle?
She is in Dubai.
I’m feeling a bit dorkish today–can someone remind me when we last saw Agent Anderson, and how we know this is her?
===
Not at all by-the-way, fabulous art! And a lovely premise. Really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
The frame of Dubai reminds me of some of the art from the old Heavy Metal magazine. (Métal Hurlant in its original French incarnation.) I am a bit shaken by the fact that a modern city can so strongly invoke those fantastic cityscapes.
The “Anderson becomes a genie” storyline began with https://jeaniebottle.com/?comic=i-dream-of-another-jeanie-bottle-1
That is the start of the sequence. though to me it seems Anderson had gotten hit with the idoit ball here. As she should already know magic exists and it can have life changing effects, as she has to deal with the fallout from that every day. So when someone said this item has a magical curse on it, why doesn’t she go well even though I’d have even less use for the rest of the stuff then a nice looking bottle. it’s least not going to have any magic on it that could make my life even worse then my last run in with magic already has.
She didn’t hear him say it was cursed until she’d already opened the bottle, though…
@Robert:
Actually, he DID say it (in panel 3) BEFORE she opened the bottle (in panel 4) – she just didn’t pay much attention until it was too late.
https://jeaniebottle.com/?comic=i-dream-of-another-jeanie-bottle-2
I love how she’s posing in the first two images.
Tell Hachimitsu the last panel looks very Jack Kirby-ish.
It is always fun to guess what is coming up.
C. D. is someplace he can’t tell us where it is. He can’t post his comic from this place. Could be Dubai.
C. d. Rudd is agent Annie’s new master.!!!!Now if only we could see Bay in that outfit.
Haha, that’s a fun theory!
I, too, would like to see Bay in Anne’s new outfit. 🙂
some genie been watching Disney Aladdin too many times
wonder how long it will take her to realize what she is wearing
She’s more likely to realize what she’s not wearing. [Damn near anything.]
I’m suprised she’s not referring to them as master
I believe there’s a reason for this, which we’ll learn in next week’s page.
An interesting observation… Jean has legs, Anne does not.
These rules sound like the ones from Disney’s Alladin with minor changes.
This is certainly interesting, from what has happened in the last few comics, Anderson seems to be A LOT more powerful than Jean. Anderson seems to be more like the genie from Aladdin, able to grant ANY wish as long as it does not violate the 3 basic rules, while Jean is limited by how much magic she has, rules imposed by genie lords, and how competent she is with her magic. Anderson doesn’t seem to have any of those limitations and is practically nigh-omnipotent when it comes to wish granting. In exchange, Anderson doesn’t seem to have the level of freedom Jean has. Anderson’s bottle seems to go so far as to force her thoughts to conform to her position as a genie. At least Jean has most of her free will and her rules are mostly enforced by the genie lords and not by mental restraints. This does give Anderson an opportunity though, her master could theoretically wish for her freedom and it would be granted. Such a wish would be illegal for Jean to grant.