BTS Overview & Theory: Arabian Nights Ep. 3

Hey everyone, and welcome back to our Behind the Scenes Overview & Theory series! This time, we’ll be covering Arabian Nights Ep. 3: Careful What You Wish For, written by several of us on the PHB staff. Be sure to also check out the BTS post for Arabian Nights Ep. 2!

The episode will be released tomorrow for members, and is expected to be out mid-July for non-members. Without further ado, scroll down for spoilers!

:: description ::

Like always, let’s start off with the basics. Here’s the episode description:

The genie is out of the bottle, and now everyone wants a chance to make their wishes come true. But whether you’re a greedy merchant, a lovelorn palace guard, or a Sultan with a long-buried secret, heed this advice: be careful what you wish for!

Dun, dun duh!!! 😀

:: daily pop sneak peeks ::

Let’s take a look at the Daily Pops – we were only able to find relevant images posted from January to April 2015. After that, there were none, as they focused on pictures for Timmy Failure Island instead. This episode has been a long time in coming!

You can tell that all of these sneak peeks have a chance of relating to the island, but a few of them are only maybes, such as the Skeleton Key and Dust to Dust…

:: items ::

That is, until you see the items for the island!

As you can see, the Skeleton Key and Moon Dust/Stone are shown. Before moving on, there are a couple of things we need to note about the items.

While the Moon Dust and Moonstone are two separate items, the Crystals are only one item (in different forms). Regarding the Divination Dust, “Divination” is seeking knowledge by supernatural means. Also, a geode is basically a rock lined with crystals.

:: scenes & dialogue ::

Okay, now we can move on to the layout of the map and the scenes that take place. What happens is inferred from the dialogue we have uncovered for each scene.

First, we have the Treasure Keep. Nothing visual is significant besides the background.

The treasure room is the place where we left off. In this scene, we will finally see the genie face to face and he will grant the first wish, made by Brutus, the muscleman for the 40 thieves. Brutus wishes to make everything that he touches turn to dust.

But the treasure keep is part of the thieves’ lair, where you were being held prisoner last episode! Don’t worry, you’ll live to see the Desert outside, once someone (the princess?) gets you out just as the thieves’ cave collapses.

You’ll also be revisiting the Bazaar, which we don’t have a picture for, but for which the dialogue is rich with hints of genie hunting, camel chasing, and more item trading.

Beside the bazaar, as you may recall from the first episode, is the Palace Exterior. Here, the Master of Coin for the 40 Thieves wishes to hold infinite wealth – only to have the genie turn him into a treasure chest! Careful what you wish for, indeed!

Inside, of course, is the Palace Interior, which is still looking completely ransacked. In nervous words, you tell the Sultan that you had the lamp but lost it, and that the last time you saw the Vizier, he had vanished into thin air. (Well, he did!)

In the Atrium, for which we only have this snippet of a look inside, your character watches someone enter the lamp room, and also realizes that the sultan and genie must have met before.

Then there’s the Lamp Room. As the name suggests, the lamp room holds the genie’s lamp, the magical instrument where wishes are being made.

Also in the palace is the Princess Room, where you barge in and also discover the name “Samhal”, which may be the genie’s true name. Judging by the knifed drawing on the wall, however, she’s not too fond of the genie. Also, check out BT’s theory post about why the princess seems so sad!

Finally, there’s the Vizier Room, which houses a crafting table, kind of like in the previous episode. Plus, you make an obligatory Disney reference: “Hey, a magic carpet! Now I’m in a whole new world.”

:: final theory ::

In Arabian Nights, Episode 3: Careful What You Wish For, the genie has been released and everyone’s getting a chance to make a wish. However, the granted wishes don’t always turn out to be what people imagined: as we can see in the “Oh Baby” Daily Pop and desert dialogue, one man wishing to be “young” gets turned into a baby – and that’s just one!

Amid all this, there’s drama in the royal family – if you’ve read BT’s theory post about the princess, our speculation is that the princess, jealous of the bond between the genie and her father, the sultan, broke bad on her own and became one of the 40 thieves – the leader, in fact. That’s why she’s been forcing prisoners to rub lamps: to find the right one so she can get rid of the genie herself. We can tell by her bedroom wall that she really wants the genie gone.

Of course, the sultan has recruited you to help him, as well as his wise friend the Vizier – who, despite his “vanishing” in Episode 2, might just make a return.

So that’s our theory and evidence for the final episode of Arabian Nights! Check back here on the PHB for a guide when the island releases tomorrow for members.

Stay popping, Poptropicans. 😀