Aladdin - the Arabian Nights

Chapter 22

The Sultan admired Aladdin so much that one time, about a year after Aladdin and Jasmine's marriage, when word came that an enemy army had risen up and was planning to invade Agrabah, he made the decision to have Aladdin lead the attack against them. Many of his advisors advised against this, pointing out quite sensibly that no matter how good Aladdin was at bettering the people's lives, he still had no military experience, but Jafar, thinking the same thing, agreed with the Sultan. So Aladdin was sent. Jasmine was not particularly happy about this decision either – she remembered as well as anyone that Aladdin knew nothing about leading an army and that there was a very real chance she might never see him again. She didn't hesitate to tell anyone what she thought about it, either – including Aladdin himself, whom Jasmine tried valiantly to talk out of going, getting so upset when he told her he had to that she lost her temper with him a little bit.

"You'll see me again," Aladdin had promised her before he left. "Do you trust me?"

But not even these familiar words were enough to soothe Jasmine.

The thought of leading an army when he had never done anything remotely similar before, and having all of Agrabah relying on him to get this right, overwhelmed Aladdin more than a little. But even if he didn't know anything about winning a war and hopefully doing it very quickly so that he could get back to his usual happy life and reassure his wife that she wouldn't lose him – Genie would. Aladdin tried first to wish that he would defeat the enemy army and do it quickly. But Genie reminded Aladdin that this came under the heading of killing someone, because the only way to defeat the enemy army was if a vast amount of their soldiers died, so Genie couldn't grant that. Well, Aladdin didn't want to kill anyone anyway, so he came up with a different plan. Using his next wish instead to ask Genie to protect him from harm while he did what he needed to do, he flew over to the enemy's army camp on his Carpet and walked right into their headquarters, where he sat down and, mostly shocking them into listening with his sheer audacity, talked to them about all the benefits of becoming his allies until they decided it would, after all, be more beneficial to them to form an alliance with Agrabah instead of fighting against them.

Well, when the people of Agrabah heard that Aladdin had singlehandedly stopped their city from being invaded and secured them some new powerful allies while he was at it, there was no containing their love for him. They sang his praises in the streets; Aladdin was greeted on his return with a hero's welcome, and the people showered him with confetti and carried him through the streets on their shoulders. Many of them went so far as to say: "Allah in heaven and Aladdin on earth"*, and soon this became a popular cry. When Aladdin heard it, he looked a little flustered and embarrassed – but not at all displeased. Tales of his heroics were told far and wide – of course, the actual details became greatly exaggerated, until even Genie's song for Aladdin paled in comparison.

Jasmine wasn't the slightest bit impressed by any of this. She had been trying to get at Aladdin since the jubilant noise of the crowd had announced her beloved husband's return, and had a lot of trouble doing it because of the wild throngs surrounding him, all wanting to touch or even just glimpse their hero. Finally she was able to fight her way through the crowd and reach him, and Aladdin swept his wife into his arms in a joyful hello, hoping she would admire him more than ever now that he was kind of, sort of, a war hero. But Jasmine just told Aladdin, in no uncertain terms, that the next time he went off on some dangerous mission like this, he was going to take her with him.

Jafar was a little disappointed at first that Aladdin had not died on the battlefield – Iago certainly was, he went on about it for several long minutes when Aladdin came back to Agrabah unscathed after barely a week away – but he soon decided that this was better. If Aladdin had died on the battlefield it would have been a hero's death, no humiliation or being exposed or any of the things that he deserved. Yes, Jafar could have then married Jasmine or found out where Aladdin was keeping the lamp, and become Sultan, but he would have been forever unsatisfied knowing that everyone in Agrabah still believed Aladdin was wonderful. Better that Jafar should orchestrate Aladdin's demise.

And Jafar decided the time to act was now. He had had enough of this ridiculous hero-worship. It was time to show these fools what their hero really was....

*Author's note: This cry of the people's comes directly from the version of the original story I read.  I thought Aladdin would definitely appreciate it :)