Sa'Luk is the main antagonist of Aladdin and the King of Thieves. He was the evil second-in-command of the Forty Thieves.
Background
Personality
Unlike other villains that Aladdin faces, such as Jafar, Mirage, or Mozenrath, Sa'Luk does not have any kind of magical powers, but he's no less threatening for it. Instead, Sa'Luk is a ruthless, violent, and rather impatient thug with the "take-no-prisoner" philosophy and takes sadistic pleasure in killing, with little if any tolerance for those he deems weak. He always hated Cassim, denouncing him as "soft", and usurping him as leader of the Forty Thieves is one of his primary motives throughout the movie, a goal that he finally achieves just more than halfway through the story. While not openly power-mad, he is considerably greedy, given his own desire to obtain the fabled Hand of Midas on top of his plans for control. Sa'Luk is also quite vengeful. After being defeated by Aladdin, he became hell-bent on avenging himself, going so far as to betray all but a handful of his own group to the Royal Guardsmen of Agrabah whilst at the same time, risking arrest himself. Yet despite his brutality, Sa'Luk isn't stupid. He was able to rally the seven remaining Thieves to his side despite their suspicions and convinced Razoul to spare his capture in exchange for a few prisoners.
Besides that, he is very good at manipulating people, showing his cold and calculating nature (indicating that he has a "scheming side"). Sa'Luk also has demonstrated some narcissistic tendencies (as seen in "Are You In or Out?" in the verses: "I'm the best, success is guaranteed" and "You want a fearless leader, one that's strong and stout?"), but it is more likely that he is an arrogant man than a narcissist.
Sa'Luk is pure evil and will do anything and everything to get what he wants, including betraying his former allies, allying himself with his enemies, and manipulating others.
Physical appearance
Sa'Luk is a tall, slender, muscular, bald man with light gray skin, big muscles, a thin upper lip, a plump, luscious lower lip, a thin mustache, and gray beard stubbles. He wears a black-and-purple gilet, large, blue pants held with a red band, and black shoes (in the Arabian style).
Abilities
Sa'Luk has proven to be one of the strongest and best-skilled fighters in the Disney universe, notably killing a shark with his bare hands and defeating the seven remaining Forty Thieves without breaking a sweat. What makes these feats even more impressive is the fact that, even with the level of physical strength that he possesses, he is still just a normal human.
He is also a skilled manipulator, being able to manipulate Razoul into helping him and convince the remaining Seven Thieves that Cassim betrayed them, even though he was the one who had committed the betrayal.
Role in the film
Sa'Luk helps with Cassim being the leader, but he openly hates him and wishes to overthrow him. His favored weapon is a single golden knuckleduster with three attached claws, worn on his left hand. He leads the attack on Aladdin and Jasmine's wedding and entices a bunch of elephants to stampede on the palace. Later on, Aladdin manages to track down the forty thieves with the help of the oracle and makes his way into their hideout, where he learns that Cassim, whom he fought earlier at the wedding, is actually his long-lost father whom he hadn't seen since childhood, and was believed by him to be dead.
To spare Aladdin from instant death, Cassim has Aladdin fight Sa'Luk in order to gain entry into their club. Aladdin gets a nasty cut on his arm during the fight and tries to use his dagger on him, but he knocks Aladdin aside and down a cliff. Aladdin slows his fall with the dagger and leaves it stuck in the cliff side. Sa'Luk joins him on the narrow ledge over the water to continue the fight. Aladdin manages to defeat him by grabbing onto his dagger and kicking Sa'Luk off a cliff where he plunges into the bay below, prompting the other thieves, thinking him dead, to allow Aladdin into their club. Unbeknownst to them, Sa'Luk survives the fall. He takes his anger out on some sharks that try to eat him and he kills one of them as he makes his way ashore.
Sa'Luk makes his way to Agrabah and confronts Razoul, the head guard, and in an attempt to put Cassim in prison, he tells Razoul the location of his hideout and tells him the password for the entrance to open: "Open Sesame". He later discovers that Cassim had left with Aladdin to find the Hand of Midas, so he gathers the remaining thieves that hadn't been captured and convinces them to turn against Cassim, convincing them that Cassim has betrayed them and hearkening back to the days before he became their King, when the Forty Thieves had been free to be truly ruthless.
Later, they work together and capture Cassim and Iago and makes him lead them to the Vanishing Isle, although during their journey Iago manages to escape and tells Aladdin the news. Having reached the Vanishing Isle, which is housed on a giant turtle, Genie distracts the turtle, so it will stay afloat, while Aladdin follows Sa'Luk, who has Cassim with him. Aladdin punches Sa'Luk, knocking him unconscious and frees Cassim. They eventually discover the Hand of Midas and are amazed by its power. Sa'Luk discovers this and knocks out Aladdin and demands Cassim hand over the Hand of Midas or he will kill Aladdin. Thinking quickly, Cassim throws the golden hand to Sa'Luk, who greedily catches it. Declaring the Hand of Midas to be his, Sa'Luk cackles, but also reveals that he intends to kill Aladdin anyway, but immediately becomes confused when he notices Cassim being unfazed by his threat, as well as Aladdin staring at him in horror. Upon suddenly noticing that he foolishly grabbed the hand by the golden section instead of the handle, Sa'Luk screams in horror as he fatally turns into a lifeless statue of gold and falls into the sea, shortly before the Vanishing Isle disappears beneath the water, taking Sa'luk's golden corpse with it.
Gallery
Trivia
- In Arabic, his name means "wretch", a despicable or contemptible person. This is fitting, given his overall personality traits.
- If you look real closely, Sa'Luk's knuckleduster disappears in some scenes.
- Sa'Luk shares his name with a previously unnamed rat from the TV series episode "Do the Rat Thing", though both same-named characters are completely unrelated to each other.
- The reason why he has grey skin, which is rather unnatural (especially for a fully human character with no magical powers), remains unknown. However, in some stock art, he has normally-colored skin instead of grey.
- Though possibly unintentional, when Sa'Luk is changed into a gold statue, his arms are raised above his head in a similar way to how Lumiere (also voiced by Jerry Orbach) from Beauty and the Beast is usually portrayed while cursed as a candelabra.
- After the song "Are You In or Out?", if you look very closely at Sa'luk, you can see Jerry Orbach, his voice actor, in his eyes, nose, and mouth.
- Sa'luk has the exact same build as Razoul.
- Sa'Luk bears a clear resemblance to Shan Yu from Disney's Mulan, as they have grey skin and long mustaches. They both also share the same Canadian/Quebec French, Czech, Danish, Korean, and Slovak voice actors, Guy Nadon, Ota Jirák, Lasse Lunderskov, Han Sang-Deok/한상덕, and Igor Čillík, respectively.
- Both Sa'Luk and Lyle Tiberius Rourke from Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire have a similar fate, being turned into solid mass (Sa'luk gets turned to gold and Rourke to crystal), but unlike Sa'luk, Rourke still lives while being crystal until he gets shattered.
- Both Sa'Luk and Scar from Disney's The Lion King tried to kill the protagonist's father (Cassim and Mufasa), but Sa'luk failed and Scar succeeded. Furthermore, they are voiced in the Japanese version by the same actor, Jō Haruhiko/壤晴彦, and also share the same Russian voice actor, Yuriy Lazarev/Юрий Лазарев.
- He shares similarities with Hades from Disney's Hercules. They both have a grey skin in their original movies, but have been recolored with a normal color of skin (in some commercial art for Sa'Luk, and in some episodes of House of Mouse for Hades). Both also share the same Norwegian voice actor, Nils Ole Oftebro.
- Sa'luk, along with Percival C. McLeach, Maestro Forte, and Zira, are the only Disney Villains from the sequel Disney films to die.
- Sa'luk's knuckleduster resembles a bagh nakh, a kind of Indian dagger which is also called the "tiger claw".
External links
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