Understanding King Magnifico
Spoilers
He is a villain. A great villain. An irredeemable villain.
We met him and he keeps his cool until after his song. His subject had stopped paying attention to him. He became, somewhat reasonably, annoyed that she hadn’t even been officially hired before asking a favor but maybe don’t have your kingdom structured to have that happen maybe. Then he, likely already looking for a reason to deny her, told her the wish was too dangerous. This plays into a bit earlier where they bonded over past loss. He clearly has some trauma from this, but the movie has no desire to justify him with this.
Confusing most audiences.
His first cruel act mirrors a greater moment of villainy later when he crushes her mother’s dream with his newly acquired dark power. At the first wish ceremony of the film he goes out of his way to crush both Asha and her grandpa’s hope because she dared challenge him.
This is a dick move. And his wife clearly follows him after to scold him for such a misuse of power.
She really had been the only thing keeping him off the deep end.
We see him triggered once again at the light of Star. Anything he doesn’t directly control freaks him out to the point of complete paranoid breakdown. He almost uses his cured book her, but his wife manages to calm him for now.
But as soon as more of his people start questioning him he spirals the rest of the way. His song ‘this is the thanks I get’ he is clearly trying to calm down by hyping himself up, and let me just say the storyboarding of the moment he sees the book and steps past the point of no return was excellent, so so smooth. Anyway. This fails and he descends into full on villainy.
We see his magic corrupted in the second wish ceremony where he clearly truly controls Simón to the point he snitches on the rest of his friends then.
The movie takes the hard stance that one act of such villainy is enough. He can’t be saved, no matter how much his queen wishes for it to be so. So much so that she puts herself and Dahlia in danger of the book themselves to search for a solution. But he has already used its power.
He cleverly bests the hero’s plan, and brutally takes Star and his power for his own, brutally throws Asha around, and locks down each of his individual subjects with his dark power. Then starts blasting at then when they still oppose him.
Once defeated he shows no remorse, only asking sympathy for himself and his terrible fate, but even his queen has lost the love she held for the man he once was or at least seemed to be. He is left in the dungeon to reflect for all eternity on what he has done, and whines like a brat at his comeuppance.
He was well written and amazingly entertaining. One of the highlights.
While I feel sorry for him, truly he was irredeemable, as he had no interest at any point in being better. Tragically he lost control on his quest for it. A cautionary tale.
A great return to form for classic Disney villains, while keeping a modern flare.