Any official source saying R1 and RO magician are the same?

[ArcaneDarkling]

Hey! I've been reading the early script from Rayman Origins, and to me, it seems to be implied R1 Magician (Rayperson) and RO Magician (Teensy "Ales Mansay") are not the same!

I've been going insane about this, since people have been spreading around that it's just a re-design yet I haven't been able to find a official source that directly states this. In a similar topic posted in 2013, I saw that someone said they "recall hearing a confirmation", yet never gave a source and they themselves said they are unsure. Eventually the topic devolves into disappointment of the re-design and people believing it since Raywiki says so (I haven't been able to find a source there either!)

The only thing I could think of is the RO manual which refers to him as the magician, however this just shows the picture of the hat, and doesn't imply the betrayal at the end of Origins. It could simply just be for the sake of the twist!

I believe the Teensy pretended to be the magician to gain the gang's trust, and removed the star from his hat to reveal he deceived them, and to make them think he is Mr. Dark due to his similar attire and motif (since he is a big fan). In the end, when his hat falls off, he is revealed to only be a Teensy, "Ales Mansay".

This is pretty much proved by Murfy's (scrapped) Dialogue when they reach the bad guy's lair, where he first says "The bad guy is the magician!" then to correct himself to "No, is Mr Dark!" when he removes the star, and finally exclaims when his hat falls off "The bad guy... is a Teensy?" as it took him by complete surprise. Even when the Teensy escapes, Murfy is clearly confused and corrects himself from Magician, to Mr Dark, to only a Teensy. Even Bubble Dreamer doesn't refer to him as a Magician, he simply refers to him as "Ales Mansay", the teensy that sucked at magic, was teased by the rest and had a sense of humour. He doesn't make any reference to R1 ever.

Even his clones in Legends are not referred to as magicians, but "Dark Teensies"; not only that but they clearly suck at magic like Ales himself. The only magic I ever recall them casting is the spell that transforms the gang into Ducks (likely a failed spell) and a force shield that is easily dispelled when the Prisoner Teensy Girl honks his nose. They clearly compensate with machines like in RO... Meanwhile the Magician in Rayman 1 is called a "Great Magician" in his song in Rayman Activity Centre, and while I don't know much about the educational games, I doubt he is portrayed as a bad magician. It just makes sense a lot of sense for them NOT to be the same! The only thing they have in common other than the hat is the fact they have a sense of humour, but that's it.

So I've been wondering: If a source proving they are the same exists, can someone PLEASE tell me the source? The only thing I can think of there being a confirmation in is the book "l'histoire de rayman" which I don't own and isn't available online for legal reasons.

Also you might say that it is scrapped for a reason, however there's lots of traces of the script's story in the game (such as the microphone and the reveal). The only things I found that were changed were the magician's sob story (replaced with the dance scene likely cuz it serves the same purpose to trick the others and give himself a chance to escape) and Bubble Dreamer being Big Mamma (which even in the script there is a part implying it is an if, an idea).

[Hunchman801]

Greengoop shared similar thoughts last year, and they're certainly worth considering. Back then, I asked what evidence was used to justify that both characters are the same, but got no answer.

The manual you provided, however, seems to be just that. I can't remember though, when does the Teensie first appear in the game, instead of just his hat? It's not crazy to assume that he might have been impersonating the real Magician until that point.

On a side note, the name "Ales Mansay" was dropped during development and is in no way official.

[PluMGMK]

The Teensie appears in person at the end of every level (except the last one), and trades you Lums for Electoons / medals.

[Hunchman801]

That's right, in which case you'd expect Rayman to be surprised if the dude in the hat turned out to be an imposter rather than the real Magician, but he just does a stupid dance and seems unfazed.

[DaveRattlehead]

Not sure if there's an official confirmation, but it's very clear most of the characters were redesigned, such as Betilla, the Hunter, the Livingstones, etc. Keep in mind that Rayman Origins is a reboot from the series, which means that the story has a different interpretation. Probably they've never thought about this, as Rayman's lore has always been a bit of a mess, but the Magician being a bad guy instead of a good guy could be part of a new interpretation! However, the absence of dialogues and the plot tending to be a bit absurd makes things a bit harder to understand

[Greengoop]

I asked what evidence was used to justify that both characters are the same, but got no answer.

Well, of course, it’s obvious that this ties in with my parallel universe theory!

[ArcaneDarkling]

After having compiled and analyzed carefully all the info I could gather, I have arrived at this conclusion and I NEED to share it since it's been driving me nuts for months!

First of all, I'd like to clarify, that many people seem to forget there doesn't seem to be ANY direct confirmation they are the same character (unlike with Betilla, Polokus, and Raymesis). Seems like a he-said-she-said kinda situation, and people don't seem to question it UNLESS they dislike the alleged changes to Rayman 1's Magician and headcanon it out, or just don't interact much with the community.

Places that mention he is a Magician mainly refer to the hat or just a title (that has been used with Teensies in general, and even a few times with Mr. Dark)

He ***can*** be called Magician, however, that doesn't immediately make him the same as Rayman 1’s (you could think of it similarly to a Land of the Livid Dead situation)

Now, hear me out.

Rayman Origins has an early script that pretty much stays ~90% true to the canon. However there is a bit of cut dialogue, and I'd like to emphasize the one during the level “The Reveal”

I will refer to him as Ales Mansay since that's his actual name as revealed by the script (and since apparently people who worked on the game still call him that? unsure)

When the heroes find Ales, Murfy exclaims “The Bad Guy, it's the Magician!” however after he removes the star from his hat, Murfy corrects himself to “No! It's Mr. Dark!” Ales plays along and soon pulls the lever, leading us into boss fights. However, when we return and take him by surprise, his hat falls off and Murfy says: “Oh! The bad guy! It's a Teensy!”

We can gather from this: Murfy is unsure of Ales' identity, however, he no longer believes the claim he is either The Magician or Mr. Dark, thus only identifying him as a Teensie.

According to the lead writer Gabrielle Shrager, he is an “usurper” (I guess she meant “impersonator”) of Mr. Dark, which is also consistent with the script, in which he confirms he is a big fan of Mr. Dark and even plays along when Murfy assumes he is. Not only that, his clothes are more similar if we consider the appearance of the Dark Teensies in Legends and Mr. Dark in Mini. Also, the history book mentions he is dressing like Mr. Dark and that they look like “two water droplets” (but I would not claim it's a completely reliable source since it makes outrageous claims such as Red Globox = Uglette)

Now, a popular way of explaining the supposed retcon of turning the Magician into a Teensy is that they redesigned lots of characters to fit the newer narrative. This is true to a certain extent (Betilla, Polokus, Many Rayman 1 enemies), however, if we take a look at the other characters that were allegedly turned into Teensies:

1. Mr. Dark, who didn't stay that way, looking at Rayman Mini.
2. The Photographer.

However, the photographer was very likely turned into Ales Mansay. What do I mean by this? Well, in the script, he says things such as “Checkpoint!” and “Cheese!”. To clear any remaining doubts, a dev note confirms he is taking a picture (you can consider the level-end screens as remains of this concept). His name in the script is also “ALES MANSAY_MagicianPhotographer”, so if we assume both of these reflect his identity, it would also imply the Magician and the Photographer are the same character (which I highly doubt)

Also, I'd like to point out that Tarayzan was meant to be playable as a Rayman skin, and Polokus had dialogue that referenced Rayman 1. Plus, Electoons and Stone People remain limbless. So his design wouldn't have needed to be changed in such a drastic way.

Now let's talk about Ales' motivations. He sucked at magic and was even bullied for it. He came to admire Mr. Dark for being Dark and Mysterious and hated the Bubble Dreamer (Polokus) for his uncontrollable nightmares that terrorized the Glade. He wanted to get rid of all magic and bring “order” and “reason” to the Glade with his machines.

Now, these motivations don't fit AT ALL with Rayman 1’s Magician. Although I'm unsure if the edutainment games are canon, he is clearly knowledgeable and graduated in magic school, not only that, he also kept the Magic Book of Knowledge that was later stolen by Mr. Dark and returned by Rayman.

Meanwhile, Ales Mansay is never shown using magic, only machines he created. While the edutainment games mention the Magician being a handyman, there's not as much emphasis as with Ales.

The Dark Teensies, meanwhile, are nightmares created by Bubble Dreamer based on him. Their magic also consists of temporarily turning others into half-ducks, (situational) teleporting? and a forcefield that can be dissolved by honking their nose.

They also keep a bit of the mechanical theme with their flying machine. You can also make the assumption the Mechanical Dragon and some of the bases in 20,000 Lums under the sea were made by them, however there is not enough evidence to prove this.

Minor points (not evidence on its own, but COULD make sense why)

- They are called Dark Teensies instead of something like Dark Magicians
- They aren't very similar personality-wise
- While they share the same VA, so do they with many characters in Origins and all of them in Legends. Also, Murfy and Rayman were both voiced by Billy West in Rayman 3 and Rayman the animated show respectively.
- If he truly was the same Magician as in Rayman 1, he and other characters would probably reference stuff from the game (like with Polokus, Betilla, Raymesis, and the scrapped Tarayzan and Uglette. There's even a mention of Robo-pirates in Robot Teensy's!)
- (Very bad argument) Globteen and Teensy Ray exist and they aren't Globox and Rayman redesigns
- The different Markings on his nose could also reference/imply his struggles at magic, considering Teensies are very sensitive to magic and can even smell it with their nostrils, so Ales could just be built differently (but then again, those markings aren't their nostrils).

To finish it all up, I genuinely believe he is meant to reference Rayman 1’s Magician, however, I don't think it's because they're the same. His true identity as a villain was hidden not only from the heroes but also from the players, so I believe pretending to be the Magician was also part of his plan to deceive everyone, except it worked too well (or to say the least, it wasn't conveyed in the best way)

Now about the script; the few things that contradict the canon are (hopefully I didn't miss anything): Big Mamma = Bubble Dreamer and Ales Mansay telling us about his plan and crying instead of dancing to distract us. Everything else either doesn't contradict anything or is heavily implied to be the same still

In any case, I believe Ales was created using scrapped ideas: Teensy Mr. Dark and Photographer and identity theft inspiration from the magician. He's an entirely new character. The dialogue was (probably) cut since the developers wanted to tell a story with the least amount of dialogue, and didn't wanna take too much time away from the action.

I know that making a case mainly on cut/scrapped content is pretty questionable, but honestly? I think there's even less proof they're the same! In any case, if you have any doubts, agree or disagree, I'd like to hear what you have to say.

[PluMGMK]

Yeah, I buy it… After all, the idea that Ales even was the original Magician also basically came from the scrapped script, so I think basing further theories on it is perfectly legitimate tbh.

Could you pinpoint where in the script those lines from Murfy are? They seem pretty clear, but I've never actually looked at that document before, and it's torture to search! I can see why people might have missed them before and come to the erroneous conclusion that Ales was supposed to be the original Magician…

The question remains… In that case, what did happen to the real Magician?

[Greengoop]

The question remains… In that case, what did happen to the real Magician?

One peaceful winters night in the glade of dreams, with the sun gently setting and snow pattering on the ground, a certain magician’s 9-5 job had just ended. Strolling through the alleyway of majestic oak trees and up the bitter cold blue mountains that happily loomed over Rayman’s world, he couldn’t help but notice something was off. Was it the temperature, that was higher than average? Or was it the small bite the air had to it? Neither, just a couple of bushes away sat a crafty little teensy.


“Heheheh, what a great catch! A stupid little circus boy!”


The blue critter smugly thought to himself



The night went on, and he followed him through the blazing kitchens of gourmand land, the peaceful aura of picture city, and the menacing snare of candy chateau. However, at a well-hidden point in the gibberish jungle, the teensy bought out his razor


ZZZPPPPPP!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

The teensy, in a cocky voice, laughed


“You wanna know what’s going on?”




THE NEXT DAY:
The circus was worried about what had happened to the magician. Posters all over the glade were hammered to the walls, little did they know…

[Hunchman801]

Thanks for sharing, that's once again very insightful.

To summarize (and stick to the facts), the only mention of the Magician's name in the final material is in the manual, where only his hat is shown. When you first brought this up in June, I thought this was already a good indication that the Teensie was impersonating the Magician from Rayman 1, hiding inside the signature hat.

However, PluM rightly reminded me that, at the end of every level, the Teensie is seen in full (though still wearing his hat) when collecting the Lums amassed by the heroes, which conflicted with that theory: how could the heroes not notice that it's a Teensie with gray hair, and not blond member of Rayman's species, when it's so obvious to the player?

But then, this appears to shed new light on the situation:

When the heroes find Ales, Murfy exclaims “The Bad Guy, it's the Magician!” however after he removes the star from his hat, Murfy corrects himself to “No! It's Mr. Dark!” Ales plays along and soon pulls the lever, leading us into boss fights. However, when we return and take him by surprise, his hat falls off and Murfy says: “Oh! The bad guy! It's a Teensy!”

So it would seem that, in that scrapped script, the protagonists only realized that this Magician is a Teensie when his hat fell off, and even confused him with Mr Dark before when he took the star off the aforementioned hat, despite Mr Dark having never been known to be a Teensie. This indicates that the developers' intention was for the heroes not to realize that they're dealing with a Teensie as long as he hat his hat on, and therefore that, in the final game, the end of level sequences should not be interpreted as revealing anything of the sort to the heroes. That's dumb as fuck, because once again, it's obvious to the player that it's a Teensie, but then again, Rayman Origins so poorly written that it shouldn't come as a surprise. At least, at some point during the game's development, the writers were happy with this kind of storytelling.

One last remark: when asked by RaySpola whether "the magician [was] the real Mr Dark or [...] trying to imitate him", Gabrielle Shrager replied that "he's a Teensy usurper". Could that also refer to the Origins Magician impersonating the one from Rayman 1, and not just Mr Dark, who she goes on to say he is a huge fan of? This interaction lacks context and is highly subject to interpretation.

So, what conclusions can we draw? Well, mostly that it's unclear. I agree that the most likely explanation is that the Origins Magician is a Teensie impersonating the Rayman 1 Magician, but nothing explicitly rules out of the possibility that it's the same character, redesigned. One could also imagine that both magicians are different characters and that it's obvious to the heroes from the start, with no impersonation taking place.

In the end, my take is that we adopt a neutral position, acknowledging that the lack of clear storytelling and numerous inconsistencies make it impossible to draw a clear conclusion, and that the relationship between both characters is unclear, as we have done with Rayman's evil clones.

[Greengoop]

Thanks for sharing, that's once again very insightful.

Thank you hunchamn180, I do believe this is the correct reason for all of this kerfuffle

[The Jonster]

Well in any case, I still prefer the original Magician from R1 So cool looking and the challenge theme slaps.

[Greengoop]

I don’t really get the hype around the challenge theme, like IMO it’s one of the worse songs in the game

[hoodlumsworld]

I buy it too, this magician situation never made any sense to begin with. I think there's a good reason they only show the hat on the manual and not his face, and it's because he's an impersonator.

[Greengoop]

Exactly! I don’t know why this is so hard to grasp in the first place

[hoodlumsworld]

Then is it time for a split on RayWiki?

[Greengoop]

Certainly! I didn’t know raywiki was spewing this tomfoolery out

[hoodlumsworld]

Both are currently presented as the same character under the same article.

[Greengoop]

Well, I definitely think that there should be separate articles for each. Many people ask the stupid question “why is he evil now and a teensy” when the answer is obviously because they are different. There is an article for him, but it’s called “dark teensies” talking about the legends antagonists

[Hunchman801]

There is an article for him, but it’s called “dark teensies” talking about the legends antagonists

I'm pretty sure the Dark Teensies are clones and not the Origins magician himself. At the very least, that's the case for 4 of them.