A Snake Staff is an enchanted staff made of gold, set with rubies, and fashioned in the stylized likeness of a serpent.
Description[]
Jafar's Staves[]
A villainous "heirloom" identified as Jafar's Snake Staff was discovered by Sofia the First to be one of the Wicked Nine, magical artifacts created from the shards of Vor's Ring. At which point in his life Jafar wielded that Staff is unclear, but it may well have been the original template for the weaker Staves of which Jafar owned a great number throughout his career of wrongdoing.[1] In one divergent timeline, however, the original Snake Staff was shown to instead have been one of a collection of rare animal-themed magical artifacts, which also comprised the Scarab Staff and the Parrot Staff, and it was not inherently a tool of evil.[2]
At any rate, Jafar's first known Snake Staff, a golden staff in the likeness of a snake, was prized belonging of Grand Vizier Jafar, but was secretly an enchanted artifact (though hardly of the powerful sort), which allowed him to briefly hypnotize the weak-willed. Jafar used this staff whenever the Sultan of Agrabah couldn't be persuaded to do his bidding through mere manipulation. Aladdin later figured out Jafar's scheme and smashed the Staff, exposing Jafar for the traitor he was.[3]
However, Jafar owned a number of spare, identical Staffs,[4] and when he gained ultimate magic powers as the greatest sorcerer in the world, he summoned one of them to him and used it as an all-purpose channeling tool for his magic.[3][4] It was seemingly destroyed, alongside Jafar's clothing, when he was turned into a genie;[3] however, the Genie Jafar's arcane abilities allowed him to recreate it (alongside his human attire) whenever he wanted to take on human form.[5]
Jafar's brief resurrection by Hades shortly after his death as a Genie saw him being gifted a new, slightly different Snake Staff fashioned by the God of the Underworld himself. It could be used, like the previous one, as a focus for any magic Jafar wished to practice, but also essential to his continued survival, as it maintained his flesh body; if he let go of the Staff for even one moment, he lost all physicality and turned back into a ghost.[6]
Jafar's later, more permanent resurrection as a powerless immortal being still bound by the rules of the Genies saw him once again wielding a copy of his original Snake Staff. On top of its use as a hypnotic device (which he notably demonstrated on Donald Duck)[7] the new Staff was magical enough to be used to reflect the magic of the Sorcerer's Hat. Jafar lost this Staff after being trapped in the Genie's Lamp.[8]
Other Snake Staves[]
The Mad Doctor's cybernetic creation, the Blotworx Vizier, was built with the likeness of Jafar, and was given a Snake Staff of his own, though it may not have actually been magical and was rust-colored rather than golden.[9]
Jafar's counterpart in the LIAR Universe wielded a more intricately-adorned version of a Snake Staff, decorated with carved scales and patches of jade.[10] As earlier mentioned, one past Jafar had wielded a notably more powerful Snake Staff than any of those used by the Prime Universe Jafar during his time as a human, and which was twin to the Mage's Scarab Staff and Iago's Parrot Staff.[2][FANWORK]
The version of Jafar in the Descendants Universe also wielded a Snake Staff, of classical appearance, which, after this Jafar's imprisonment on the Isle of the Lost, found its way to the Museum of Cultural History.[11] The villainous Zevon briefly stole the Staff and augmented its power with the Birthright Jewels' in order to boost its hypnotic signal across Auradon, turning all of its inhabitants into his evil henchpeople.[12]
Behind the scenes[]
The various Snake Staves were first seen in the 1992 animated film Aladdin, and have made numerous appearances in related media.
Notes & References[]
- ↑ The Falcon's Eye.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Diamond in the Rough.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Aladdin.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Why Me?.
- ↑ The Return of Jafar.
- ↑ Hercules and the Arabian Nights.
- ↑ Donald's Lamp Trade.
- ↑ Mickey's House of Villains.
- ↑ Unused concept art for Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.
- ↑ Aladdin live-action remake.
- ↑ Steal Away.
- ↑ Party Crashers.