Don’t forget your lesson… Never. Forget. Your. Lesson.
Don’t forget your lesson… Never. Forget. Your. Lesson.
Oh, I’m not a historian, that’s actually just a few vaguely informed wikipedia searches. The extent of my education on Islam and Islamic culture is just a world religions class back in HS.
The monkey’s paw comes from a short story of the same name by W.W. Jacobs back in 1902. It seems the genie that grants three wishes dates all the way back to 1697 in “The Ridicuolous Wishes” by Charles Perrault.
In Islamic/pre-Islamic mythology (over simplifying greatly) genies are actually trapped demons forced into servitude long ago by human sorcerers. They must comply with your wish but use any ambiguity they can as a form of malicious compliance. It’s also worth noting that the idea of genies granting 3 wishes is mostly a western invention and is also likely influenced by Christian ideas of “deals with the devil” (see Foust for how that usually works out for the wisher)
The doomsday clock is symbolic with the minutes (or seconds) to midnight symbolizing how close we are to doomsday. Traditionally, that has meant nuclear war, but I believe more recently, they’ve factored in climate change