The Blue Djinn is an evil genie who was apparently defeated by Lord Guano in the past. But now he's back, and he's angling to take down the Genie Lords... but how does Jeanie factor into his plans?
Jean AKA Jeannie AKA Jeanie is a film, book, and magazine reviewer for a national magazine. Most of Jean’s work is done through email, which means he doesn't have to go into the office.
On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found an empty Genie Bottle. Upon picking up this bottle, Jean became the bottle’s new genie-powered occupant. Not only was Jean turned into a genie, but the bottle turned him into what he believed a genie of the bottle should look like. Which, due to his fascination with a classic 60s TV show, turned him into a busty blonde woman.
A junior engineer working for a small engineering firm in Cocoa Beach. The firm focuses mostly on NASA projects.
Neil is Jean’s best friend. When Jean was turned into a genie, Neil became Jeanie’s master.
First, considering how dense Jeanie can be for certain things (I Dream of Verisimilitude anybody?), the fact that she see through Neil’s bluff so easy just show how truly close they are.
Second, ok, I am really curious as to what Blue’s idea to “appease” Neil could be.
I’m thinking Blue is going to take over again and attempt to seduce Neil. Which should clue Neil in that something is definitely wrong, since the last time that happened, Jeanie was insane from lack of sleep.
@Jacqui – If he had said “dealt with” instead of “appeased” Plus, I think Blue has figured out that’ll make Jeanie upset now. No, another tactic is in order.
Neil didn’t sell being “angry” with the con artist Jean good enough to scare “her” straight there. He’s going to need to amp up his game to really get Jean to reconsider “her” attitude and treatment towards everyone.
He didn’t even try to “sell angry”. He’s projecting calm, rational, weighing of the facts–typical engineer. That should frighten Jeanie to her core–but she may be too dense to pick it up.
Neil is not bluffing. He just hasn’t made up his mind, and he’s giving Jeanie the chance to show willing. She doesn’t have to obey every little whim and wish, because that’s not what Neil wants. He just wants her to stop toying with him, as if she were the master.
Jeanie’s out of control. Neil cannot allow Jeanie to continue to toy with him in the way she has. She’s an active hazard. He would no doubt prefer that there be a lesser punishment, but Haji Day is his only option.
Except, of course, WISHING that she’d stop doing those things. But, so I am led to believe, that would be enslaving her. Apparently, Jeanie enslaving Neil is permissible, even funny.
Neil’s playing this exactly right–not giving her any clues to his emotional state, letting the situation dangle. PROBABLY Neil won’t actually do away with her–but when he’s blank like this, she can’t really tell. Jeanie’s not getting any clues.
Except that’s obviously not true, we saw Neil himself say that he would never actually banish Jean and Jean called him on his bluff here. That’s just fact.
The only one that fell for Neil’s bluff was the Blue Djinn.
:@Jacqui My hasty search, back through Thanksgiving, did not find this. Can you point to the strip? I did find this: /?comic=jeanie-bottle-496 where Neil sends Araceli away, but then Neil, pondering, realizes that “Jeanie has been getting a little cocky with her magic lately.” That may negate any prior intent he may have had. @Robert: “Neil can’t make any more forced wishes with Jeanie. ” Oooh, excellent point. So Neil has exactly zero control over Jeanie, while she can toy with him endlessly. Haji’s Day is his one chance to escape.
Um, Jacqui? Hate to be a wet blanket, but I did go back and look… Neil didn’t actually say that, when Araceli told him about Haji Day.
Jeannie said it, about Neil, a couple of times, but Neil never actually stated that he wouldn’t do anything. We’ve kind of inferred that from his previous actions, but he never really said one way or the other.
@Jacqui, @Kattgirl: Kattgirl, thanks for checking as backup. The closest I can find is here: /?comic=jeanie-bottle-496, where Neil zeroes in on what Aracelli wants him to do, so she can take Jeanie’s place, but he then tells Aracelli to go home. That confirms that he wouldn’t do it for Aracelli’s sake, but then he muses that “Jeanie’s been getting a little cocky with her magic lately…” And when he comes in to confront Jeanie, she interrupts to ask him to make a cup of coffee for her, instead of poofing one up for herself. Bad timing on that, I think.
The problem is, Jeanie has little or no respect for Neil. She is overly confident that he lacks the sack to exile her permanently, and she knows he’s kind of a wimpy nerd. He can’t do anything to her, while she has almost no limits on what she can do to him. Plus, she’s a highly attractive female, and knows very well the effect that has on him. She’s got all the cards–except for H-Day.
Jeanie’s confident that Neil won’t send her away, but Neil has absolutely no cause to assume Jeanie is in any way benign.
I don’t think Neil asserting his mastership over Jeanie means he wants to make her an abject slave, as Jean might well have done to Natalie, but he’s got to know that Jeanie won’t turn him into her pet or servant.
One more wild card: Jeanie just realized that Blue is not “her magic”, but an independent entity with its own plans. She may very well conclude that she’s out of her depth, and call on Neil for help, even knowing he has not magic of her own. I’m betting he has read as much of the manual as he’s had time for, and understands the magic involved far more deeply than Jeanie does.
He may even be considering a career change, from engineer to wizard. He could really earn his chops here by dealing with the Blue threat.
But in any event, he must get his genie back under control.
Appeased? Can genies not just kill a human outright? We’ve seen Big Blue kill other genies without any problem or remorse. It seems to me that if BB could kill humans, he would just take control of Jeanie, kill Neil, and then make up any story he wanted to distract her long enough while he finishes off Haji.
Is forbidden for them to kill, but it’s clear that blue doesn’t care, my guess is that in his current state he still can’t afford to let his host without a master (that would mean get stuck in the bottle alongside Jeanie), much less to kill his host master without revealing himself to the Genie Lords.
According to genie rules, if Neil were to die, Jeanie would be returned to her bottle until another master finds it. This would put a huge cramp in Big Blue’s plans.
The reason Asha didn’t get sent back to her bottle when her own master died was that he hadn’t made his three wishes, yet. Neil has.
If that’s true, what was supposed to happen after Rouyah’s master died? If Haji can take a genie away from a master, why didn’t he take Eva away from her master? Also, I don’t believe Rouyah’s master ever made a third wish, or even one wish.
@Tom Sewell If I remember correctly, Eva actually was given the chance to left Hittler, but she refuse.
Also, according to the description, Asha master didn’t just die, he also take her totem to his grave, so they made a concession with her.
Rouya granted ONE wish, and one against Hajis rules on that, but Kazom and maybe Haji himself, let it past out of mercy due to Eva’s recent banishment. They weren’t so compressive with her second outlaw wish though.
Jeanie knows Neil well enough and the above window show that and the look on Neil face show that Jeanie cam see threw his bluff too. It going to be the Blue Djinn that insert himself that going to screw everything up. Like some of the other poster have already pointed out, Jeanie is dense, but, even Jeanie getting a little suspicious with her hearing what she thinks is her magic giving her an opinion or generally talking to her. If Blue Djinn does anything, he will blow his cover, because, both Jeanie and Neil will then know that there something wrong or that she is posses or something. Jeanie will be acting out of character and Neil will see it.
So, question from the last comic that carries over to this one: does Jean know she’s been globe-trotting to kill/capture genies for their magic, or did she miss Neil pointing out that she’s been disappearing lately? I thought of this yesterday, but posted it now just to see if anyone else was wondering it also.
Oh, and Jean? This is absolutely not the Jedi Mind Trick that BD is going to do to you over that question.
I think that Jeanie believes that the “disappearing”, that Neil was referring to, was when Jeannie went to Haji’s palace. So that’s probably not a tip-off to her. But the reference to “plans” certainly is.
Considering that Big Blue is afraid of Neil banishing Jeanie, my guess would be that it would send them both away, and lock them in Jeanie’s bottle together.
If Jeannie is safe as long as Neil doesn’t send her away before the time limit expires, then the simplest thing to do is to put Neil to sleep until tomorrow morning. Of course, hijinks being what they are, this simple answer will never occur to either Jeannie or Blue.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are safeguards against that sort of shenanigan. It’d be too easy for misbehaving genies to get around the one check against their power.
And, in fact, Jeannie already used one of those on Kendra, without any genie-law repercussions. (See JB #303) So, yes, she could probably easily send Neil off to dreamland for a day.
My problem with this whole “banishment” concept is its permanence. If a master sends his genie off on Haji’s day, is that not permanent? Neil’s been acting like he thinks it’s reversible. Banish Jeanie for a week or two to teach her a lesson, and then bring her back, but I assume it doesn’t work like that. I wonder how closely he read that manual?
As I see it, Neil is perfectly aware of how permanent the deal on Haji’s day is, I know how weird this sign may be, but Jeanie is right, Neil is just bluffing here. For what I understand, the relevancy of Haji Day come in two parts, first the master seem to have to declare by the end of the day the fate of their genie, second, the fact that all banished genies are send back to Haji, who decide whatever send them back to their totem until a new master finds them, or make them part of his harem.
But still, if Neil really wanted to teach Jeanie a lesson, he only needs to wait for her to sleep and seal her in her bottle for a while, and if he REALLY wanted to get rid of her, the same, but then he would send the bottle away so she become someone else problem, and Jeanie knows it. Neil may have a limit, and is true that Jeanie may not be aware of such limit, but for now she is perfectly aware that Neil isn’t really going to follow with his threat, at least for this year.
Actually, Araceli only said that the genie “would be sent away”. There was no mention of the length of time. And there’s no indication that Neil ACTUALLY read the manual – he only SAID he did, to avoid mentioning that Araceli had told him.
What’s more, Asha only said that the genie would be “banished” – meaning that she/he wouldn’t be bound to that master any more. No mention of what would happen to them. Maybe Haji would simply return them to their bottle temporarily, or be assigned to a new master. Or get confined to the palace for a while. Or something else. We don’t know yet, anything else is just an assumption.
So it’s not necessarily a horrible thing; it’s more like return-to-sender.
@Kattgirl Granted, I really don’t know how much Neil actually knows about Haji’s day, he knows that in this day he have to decide whatever to let Jeanie stay as his genie or let her go, and that if Caley have to declare that Arceli could stay, he may have to do the same, whatever he read more of the matter or not in the manual is open to interpretation.
With that said, we as the readers KNOW what happen in the Haji’s day, according to the info page:
“A day on which any master can choose to send their Genie back to Haji. This usually means that they go back into their totem to wait a new master. Genies who are sent away by their master no longer have a master to serve, thus becoming either Entrapped Genies or a part of Haji’s Harem.”
The only part I assume for myself is that, contrary to simply tossing a genie totem aside, the relevance of sending a genie back to Haji is that Haji himself choose what to do with the genie and their totem afterwards, hence why joining his Harem is one of the options.
Is also important to notice, we still don’t know how Haji and the lords handle entrapped genies on normal circumstances, back at the start of the story, before Jeanie stated that she wanted to stay with Neil, Guano was ready to take her elsewhere, Rouya was simply sell to another master after finishing her service with Oba Adolo, and Arceli spent one hundred years or so in the botton of the sea, until her Totem was lost in the mail limbo and Guano decided to poof her to Cocoa Beach.
After that display of arrogance, what kind of appeasement would satisfy Neil now. She, pretty much, just called him a spineless worm to his face. It may have been a bluff before but he may seriously consider it now. Friend or not, to have someone with that power over you, with no regard, would be terrifying.
@He Who Abides what she said?she just catch that Neil was bluffing, she didn’t insult him, she even admit she almost thought he was being serious, but again, he WAS bluffing. So what, is Neil suppose to get mad cause Jean, who happens to knows him for years, knew he isn’t cruel enough to exile her inside a bottle knowing the trauma it meas for her? He knows Jeans needs control, but he is not going to go that far, and she knows it.
You know what WOULD be interesting Jeanie being terrified by this revelation runs to Neil in terror. But Neil thinks it’s another one of his/her schemes and doesn’t believe Jeanie. For ONCE Jeanie would realize how Neil (and co) feel being jerked around. Best of all. It requires NO ONE to break character.
If Guano actually did defeat the Blue Djinn, Big Blue is not so big in the brain. He’d have to be even dumber than Guano. He kind of looks to me now like Damien from El Goonish Shive, a bully with a lot of power but who was actually pretty easy to defeat once he came up against people who were smarter, actually trained in combat, and had power in the same range.
You know, I reread Guano’s appearances lately. He comes off less stupid and more arrogant and prideful, so Blue most likely is smart but thunderingly arrogant, at least enough to underestimate Guano. Not a good thing, since it means he could underestimate a certain mouthy blonde genie with attitude . . .
It seemed like he was nervous, being as he was the hero of the day meeting a high-ranking member of genie society. I agree that there are genies that are smarter, both that we’ve seen and (presumably) that we haven’t seen, but I’m not writing him off as a total dummy at this point. He certainly has the number of most of the genies likely to succeed him as a Lord (though I doubt he expected Asha to go behind his back like she did). Most of the change since the 60s seems to be that he’s gotten more stubborn and power-hungry, though he’s also (probably) picked up a bunch of new tricks over the last few decades.
The marriage part won’t happen until we get close to the end of this series, that is if CD Rudd more or less stay with the TV series of I dream of Jeanie that is. Even though the series lasted another year, everybody could see the writing on the wall, that the series was winding down and it was the beginning of the end for that series. That the way it will probably end up here too. So the Marriage part is probably out for now, because, neither Jeanie or Neil is thinking that way nor are either one of them ready for it either. So that idea, probably happen right now. We haven’t got there yet. This series may go for another 200 to 400 post before it get to that point, it all depends on what CD Rudd want to do with this series, before, he intend to end, but, it been an interesting ride. Then he will probably go the marriage rout with Jeanie and Neil getting married to each other and then maybe another 20 to 40 post to tie up the loose ends and that will be the end of the series.
That the way I see logical way to end the series, but, like I say, it will probably be awhile before that happens.
From now on I shall call him Bluedemort – because only someone as blatantly evil as Voldemort could get away with this much evil and NOT get the main characters to catch on to what he’s doing 😛
Which is a good reminder. I wonder what CD Rudd has planed for the celebration of the 500 the mile stone for his “I dream of Jeanie Bottle” series. It has definitely been a successful comic series. It probably one of the best he had.
Is Neil bluffing? Would he in fact return her to Haji? I agree the chances are very low, but then, Jeanie presents a very high risk, over which he has no control whatsoever.
But it works the other way, too. Jeanie is ALSO bluffing, in the sense that if she decided Neil was serious, she’d very likely change her ways.
What we’re seeing here is a game of chicken, with tanks.
Quick note before the new strip comes up in an hour or so:
If Neil is bluffing, so is Jeanie, in that she would pull in her horns if she decided Neil’s threat had any force behind it. I believe it does, because the threat Jeanie poses to him is very real, as she has demonstrated several times. There are almost no limits to her power, and Neil has no other control over here.
He’s an aerospace engineer. Risk detection, assessment, and avoidance are very high priorities for those guys. (And yes, I believe he has checked the manual, even if only at Aracelli’s prompting. Again, engineer.)
[Dammit, redundant posts re: bluffing because my first try didn’t show up until I posted the rewrite–and now I’m not seeing the edit prompts. Sorry bout that.]
Looks like Jean, as dense as she is, is finally starting to get a clue. Though at this point, I’m not exactly sure what she can do about it.
Unfortunately, she also realized Neil is bluffing.
First, considering how dense Jeanie can be for certain things (I Dream of Verisimilitude anybody?), the fact that she see through Neil’s bluff so easy just show how truly close they are.
Second, ok, I am really curious as to what Blue’s idea to “appease” Neil could be.
I’m thinking Blue is going to take over again and attempt to seduce Neil. Which should clue Neil in that something is definitely wrong, since the last time that happened, Jeanie was insane from lack of sleep.
Or he’ll mess with Neil’s mind again.
@Jacqui – If he had said “dealt with” instead of “appeased” Plus, I think Blue has figured out that’ll make Jeanie upset now. No, another tactic is in order.
looks like the Blue Djinn’s got some splainin’ to do.
Neil didn’t sell being “angry” with the con artist Jean good enough to scare “her” straight there. He’s going to need to amp up his game to really get Jean to reconsider “her” attitude and treatment towards everyone.
He didn’t even try to “sell angry”. He’s projecting calm, rational, weighing of the facts–typical engineer. That should frighten Jeanie to her core–but she may be too dense to pick it up.
Neil is not bluffing. He just hasn’t made up his mind, and he’s giving Jeanie the chance to show willing. She doesn’t have to obey every little whim and wish, because that’s not what Neil wants. He just wants her to stop toying with him, as if she were the master.
Neil is indeed bluffing, you’re really reaching.
Jeanie’s out of control. Neil cannot allow Jeanie to continue to toy with him in the way she has. She’s an active hazard. He would no doubt prefer that there be a lesser punishment, but Haji Day is his only option.
Except, of course, WISHING that she’d stop doing those things. But, so I am led to believe, that would be enslaving her. Apparently, Jeanie enslaving Neil is permissible, even funny.
Neil’s playing this exactly right–not giving her any clues to his emotional state, letting the situation dangle. PROBABLY Neil won’t actually do away with her–but when he’s blank like this, she can’t really tell. Jeanie’s not getting any clues.
Except that’s obviously not true, we saw Neil himself say that he would never actually banish Jean and Jean called him on his bluff here. That’s just fact.
The only one that fell for Neil’s bluff was the Blue Djinn.
Neil can’t make any more forced wishes with Jeanie. He used up all three of them early in the story, and Jeanie is now staying with him voluntarily.
:@Jacqui My hasty search, back through Thanksgiving, did not find this. Can you point to the strip? I did find this: /?comic=jeanie-bottle-496 where Neil sends Araceli away, but then Neil, pondering, realizes that “Jeanie has been getting a little cocky with her magic lately.” That may negate any prior intent he may have had.
@Robert: “Neil can’t make any more forced wishes with Jeanie. ” Oooh, excellent point. So Neil has exactly zero control over Jeanie, while she can toy with him endlessly. Haji’s Day is his one chance to escape.
BTW, /?comic=jeanie-bottle-75 Remember this, anyone?
Did you really look? Because Neil straight up said he wouldn’t banish Jean when told about Haji day.
@Jacqui:
Um, Jacqui? Hate to be a wet blanket, but I did go back and look… Neil didn’t actually say that, when Araceli told him about Haji Day.
Jeannie said it, about Neil, a couple of times, but Neil never actually stated that he wouldn’t do anything. We’ve kind of inferred that from his previous actions, but he never really said one way or the other.
Correct me if I missed something.
@Jacqui, @Kattgirl: Kattgirl, thanks for checking as backup. The closest I can find is here: /?comic=jeanie-bottle-496, where Neil zeroes in on what Aracelli wants him to do, so she can take Jeanie’s place, but he then tells Aracelli to go home. That confirms that he wouldn’t do it for Aracelli’s sake, but then he muses that “Jeanie’s been getting a little cocky with her magic lately…” And when he comes in to confront Jeanie, she interrupts to ask him to make a cup of coffee for her, instead of poofing one up for herself. Bad timing on that, I think.
The problem is, Jeanie has little or no respect for Neil. She is overly confident that he lacks the sack to exile her permanently, and she knows he’s kind of a wimpy nerd. He can’t do anything to her, while she has almost no limits on what she can do to him. Plus, she’s a highly attractive female, and knows very well the effect that has on him. She’s got all the cards–except for H-Day.
Jeanie’s confident that Neil won’t send her away, but Neil has absolutely no cause to assume Jeanie is in any way benign.
I don’t think Neil asserting his mastership over Jeanie means he wants to make her an abject slave, as Jean might well have done to Natalie, but he’s got to know that Jeanie won’t turn him into her pet or servant.
One more wild card: Jeanie just realized that Blue is not “her magic”, but an independent entity with its own plans. She may very well conclude that she’s out of her depth, and call on Neil for help, even knowing he has not magic of her own. I’m betting he has read as much of the manual as he’s had time for, and understands the magic involved far more deeply than Jeanie does.
He may even be considering a career change, from engineer to wizard. He could really earn his chops here by dealing with the Blue threat.
But in any event, he must get his genie back under control.
Appeased? Can genies not just kill a human outright? We’ve seen Big Blue kill other genies without any problem or remorse. It seems to me that if BB could kill humans, he would just take control of Jeanie, kill Neil, and then make up any story he wanted to distract her long enough while he finishes off Haji.
Is forbidden for them to kill, but it’s clear that blue doesn’t care, my guess is that in his current state he still can’t afford to let his host without a master (that would mean get stuck in the bottle alongside Jeanie), much less to kill his host master without revealing himself to the Genie Lords.
According to genie rules, if Neil were to die, Jeanie would be returned to her bottle until another master finds it. This would put a huge cramp in Big Blue’s plans.
The reason Asha didn’t get sent back to her bottle when her own master died was that he hadn’t made his three wishes, yet. Neil has.
OK, thanks.
If that’s true, what was supposed to happen after Rouyah’s master died? If Haji can take a genie away from a master, why didn’t he take Eva away from her master? Also, I don’t believe Rouyah’s master ever made a third wish, or even one wish.
@Tom Sewell If I remember correctly, Eva actually was given the chance to left Hittler, but she refuse.
Also, according to the description, Asha master didn’t just die, he also take her totem to his grave, so they made a concession with her.
Rouya granted ONE wish, and one against Hajis rules on that, but Kazom and maybe Haji himself, let it past out of mercy due to Eva’s recent banishment. They weren’t so compressive with her second outlaw wish though.
Jeanie knows Neil well enough and the above window show that and the look on Neil face show that Jeanie cam see threw his bluff too. It going to be the Blue Djinn that insert himself that going to screw everything up. Like some of the other poster have already pointed out, Jeanie is dense, but, even Jeanie getting a little suspicious with her hearing what she thinks is her magic giving her an opinion or generally talking to her. If Blue Djinn does anything, he will blow his cover, because, both Jeanie and Neil will then know that there something wrong or that she is posses or something. Jeanie will be acting out of character and Neil will see it.
So, question from the last comic that carries over to this one: does Jean know she’s been globe-trotting to kill/capture genies for their magic, or did she miss Neil pointing out that she’s been disappearing lately? I thought of this yesterday, but posted it now just to see if anyone else was wondering it also.
Oh, and Jean? This is absolutely not the Jedi Mind Trick that BD is going to do to you over that question.
I think that Jeanie believes that the “disappearing”, that Neil was referring to, was when Jeannie went to Haji’s palace. So that’s probably not a tip-off to her. But the reference to “plans” certainly is.
If the Blue Djinn is in control of Jean and Neil sends it away does that get rid of Jean, the Blue Djinn, or both of them.
Considering that Big Blue is afraid of Neil banishing Jeanie, my guess would be that it would send them both away, and lock them in Jeanie’s bottle together.
If Jeannie is safe as long as Neil doesn’t send her away before the time limit expires, then the simplest thing to do is to put Neil to sleep until tomorrow morning. Of course, hijinks being what they are, this simple answer will never occur to either Jeannie or Blue.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are safeguards against that sort of shenanigan. It’d be too easy for misbehaving genies to get around the one check against their power.
There are non-magical ways of putting him to sleep that would probably not trip any “abuse of power” alarms . . .
Good point…
@ijuinkun:
And, in fact, Jeannie already used one of those on Kendra, without any genie-law repercussions. (See JB #303) So, yes, she could probably easily send Neil off to dreamland for a day.
My problem with this whole “banishment” concept is its permanence. If a master sends his genie off on Haji’s day, is that not permanent? Neil’s been acting like he thinks it’s reversible. Banish Jeanie for a week or two to teach her a lesson, and then bring her back, but I assume it doesn’t work like that. I wonder how closely he read that manual?
As I see it, Neil is perfectly aware of how permanent the deal on Haji’s day is, I know how weird this sign may be, but Jeanie is right, Neil is just bluffing here. For what I understand, the relevancy of Haji Day come in two parts, first the master seem to have to declare by the end of the day the fate of their genie, second, the fact that all banished genies are send back to Haji, who decide whatever send them back to their totem until a new master finds them, or make them part of his harem.
But still, if Neil really wanted to teach Jeanie a lesson, he only needs to wait for her to sleep and seal her in her bottle for a while, and if he REALLY wanted to get rid of her, the same, but then he would send the bottle away so she become someone else problem, and Jeanie knows it. Neil may have a limit, and is true that Jeanie may not be aware of such limit, but for now she is perfectly aware that Neil isn’t really going to follow with his threat, at least for this year.
Actually, Araceli only said that the genie “would be sent away”. There was no mention of the length of time. And there’s no indication that Neil ACTUALLY read the manual – he only SAID he did, to avoid mentioning that Araceli had told him.
What’s more, Asha only said that the genie would be “banished” – meaning that she/he wouldn’t be bound to that master any more. No mention of what would happen to them. Maybe Haji would simply return them to their bottle temporarily, or be assigned to a new master. Or get confined to the palace for a while. Or something else. We don’t know yet, anything else is just an assumption.
So it’s not necessarily a horrible thing; it’s more like return-to-sender.
@Kattgirl Granted, I really don’t know how much Neil actually knows about Haji’s day, he knows that in this day he have to decide whatever to let Jeanie stay as his genie or let her go, and that if Caley have to declare that Arceli could stay, he may have to do the same, whatever he read more of the matter or not in the manual is open to interpretation.
With that said, we as the readers KNOW what happen in the Haji’s day, according to the info page:
“A day on which any master can choose to send their Genie back to Haji. This usually means that they go back into their totem to wait a new master. Genies who are sent away by their master no longer have a master to serve, thus becoming either Entrapped Genies or a part of Haji’s Harem.”
The only part I assume for myself is that, contrary to simply tossing a genie totem aside, the relevance of sending a genie back to Haji is that Haji himself choose what to do with the genie and their totem afterwards, hence why joining his Harem is one of the options.
Is also important to notice, we still don’t know how Haji and the lords handle entrapped genies on normal circumstances, back at the start of the story, before Jeanie stated that she wanted to stay with Neil, Guano was ready to take her elsewhere, Rouya was simply sell to another master after finishing her service with Oba Adolo, and Arceli spent one hundred years or so in the botton of the sea, until her Totem was lost in the mail limbo and Guano decided to poof her to Cocoa Beach.
After that display of arrogance, what kind of appeasement would satisfy Neil now. She, pretty much, just called him a spineless worm to his face. It may have been a bluff before but he may seriously consider it now. Friend or not, to have someone with that power over you, with no regard, would be terrifying.
Yup. Right now, Jeanie is the one with frightening power over Neil, particularly frightening because she uses her powers so very carelessly.
You’re wrong, Neil will still do nothing, since it really was a bluff. Jean is the one who wears the pants here.
After what she just said? I believe he’s considering it.
@He Who Abides what she said?she just catch that Neil was bluffing, she didn’t insult him, she even admit she almost thought he was being serious, but again, he WAS bluffing. So what, is Neil suppose to get mad cause Jean, who happens to knows him for years, knew he isn’t cruel enough to exile her inside a bottle knowing the trauma it meas for her? He knows Jeans needs control, but he is not going to go that far, and she knows it.
You know what WOULD be interesting Jeanie being terrified by this revelation runs to Neil in terror. But Neil thinks it’s another one of his/her schemes and doesn’t believe Jeanie. For ONCE Jeanie would realize how Neil (and co) feel being jerked around. Best of all. It requires NO ONE to break character.
If Guano actually did defeat the Blue Djinn, Big Blue is not so big in the brain. He’d have to be even dumber than Guano. He kind of looks to me now like Damien from El Goonish Shive, a bully with a lot of power but who was actually pretty easy to defeat once he came up against people who were smarter, actually trained in combat, and had power in the same range.
You know, I reread Guano’s appearances lately. He comes off less stupid and more arrogant and prideful, so Blue most likely is smart but thunderingly arrogant, at least enough to underestimate Guano. Not a good thing, since it means he could underestimate a certain mouthy blonde genie with attitude . . .
Guano may have educated himself since the sixties, but he definitely wasn’t the smartest guy in the bottle back then.
It seemed like he was nervous, being as he was the hero of the day meeting a high-ranking member of genie society. I agree that there are genies that are smarter, both that we’ve seen and (presumably) that we haven’t seen, but I’m not writing him off as a total dummy at this point. He certainly has the number of most of the genies likely to succeed him as a Lord (though I doubt he expected Asha to go behind his back like she did). Most of the change since the 60s seems to be that he’s gotten more stubborn and power-hungry, though he’s also (probably) picked up a bunch of new tricks over the last few decades.
I think Neil should threaten to lock her in a safe and fire her to the moon.
I’m sure you could get Elon Musk to send her along into space in a Tesla. Think of the publicity if it had a driver!
Looks like it’s either “send her back” or “marriage.”
The marriage part won’t happen until we get close to the end of this series, that is if CD Rudd more or less stay with the TV series of I dream of Jeanie that is. Even though the series lasted another year, everybody could see the writing on the wall, that the series was winding down and it was the beginning of the end for that series. That the way it will probably end up here too. So the Marriage part is probably out for now, because, neither Jeanie or Neil is thinking that way nor are either one of them ready for it either. So that idea, probably happen right now. We haven’t got there yet. This series may go for another 200 to 400 post before it get to that point, it all depends on what CD Rudd want to do with this series, before, he intend to end, but, it been an interesting ride. Then he will probably go the marriage rout with Jeanie and Neil getting married to each other and then maybe another 20 to 40 post to tie up the loose ends and that will be the end of the series.
That the way I see logical way to end the series, but, like I say, it will probably be awhile before that happens.
From now on I shall call him Bluedemort – because only someone as blatantly evil as Voldemort could get away with this much evil and NOT get the main characters to catch on to what he’s doing 😛
No body mention that this is 499 a big milestone coming up….woo
Which is a good reminder. I wonder what CD Rudd has planed for the celebration of the 500 the mile stone for his “I dream of Jeanie Bottle” series. It has definitely been a successful comic series. It probably one of the best he had.
Oh I think you guys are going to be quite pleased. 🙂
Is Neil bluffing? Would he in fact return her to Haji? I agree the chances are very low, but then, Jeanie presents a very high risk, over which he has no control whatsoever.
But it works the other way, too. Jeanie is ALSO bluffing, in the sense that if she decided Neil was serious, she’d very likely change her ways.
What we’re seeing here is a game of chicken, with tanks.
Quick note before the new strip comes up in an hour or so:
If Neil is bluffing, so is Jeanie, in that she would pull in her horns if she decided Neil’s threat had any force behind it. I believe it does, because the threat Jeanie poses to him is very real, as she has demonstrated several times. There are almost no limits to her power, and Neil has no other control over here.
He’s an aerospace engineer. Risk detection, assessment, and avoidance are very high priorities for those guys. (And yes, I believe he has checked the manual, even if only at Aracelli’s prompting. Again, engineer.)
[Dammit, redundant posts re: bluffing because my first try didn’t show up until I posted the rewrite–and now I’m not seeing the edit prompts. Sorry bout that.]