Jasmine

The story of Aladdin is famous for its flying carpet, blue genie, and princess Jasmine. However the original story that Aladdin comes from, Arabian Nights, never mentions Jasmine. Aladdin tells the story of a poor boy who falls in love with a princess and pretends to be someone he’s not in order to capture the girl. Of course Jasmine finds out that he is lying, but at that point it was too late, she had already fallen for him and there would be no stopping them from their happily ever after. The original story was actually told in a series with other stories such as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Each of these stories were told as a cliffhanger to save the life of Scheherazade. Scheherazade was one of the sultan’s concubines that would have been killed if it weren’t for her genius idea to tell the sultan a story and leave it as a cliffhanger just so that he would keep her alive to hear the end of the story. When she told the story of Aladdin there were a few things different from how Disney told it. Aladdin is actually from China not the Middle East. In fact the whole story is set in China. Jasmine isn’t mention either; her name just happens to be Badroulbadour. Still Disney was still able to create a great movie with yet another classic princess, Jasmine.

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