| “ | Nobody has ever fully deciphered the hieroglyphics, but I have! It's a magic chant that needs to be recited in order to complete the ritual! I'm sure of it! | ” |
—Jalil, "The Pharaoh" | ||
Jalil Kubdel[5] is a minor character of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. He is a young historian and Alix Kubdel's older brother.
In "The Pharaoh", after his theories about an ancient Egyptian scroll were disregarded by his father, Jalil was akumatized by Hawk Moth and became the Pharaoh, a supervillain with the powers of each ancient Egyptian god.
In "Reunion", when Jalil was upset over Alix's absence and resentful with Ladybug and Cat Noir for being the reason why his sister was away, while being determined to bring Alix back to the present, he summoned Monarch to reakumatize him into the Pharaoh and received the Turtle Miraculous superpower through his Alliance ring.
Appearance
Physical appearance
Jalil is a tall young man with chin-length moderate tangelo hair and brilliant phthalo blue eyes.
Civilian attire
He wears glasses, an orange scarf, a scarab pendant, a white shirt with a golden Eye of Horus on it, a grayish-green jacket, light yellowish gray jeans and sandals.
As the Pharaoh
The Pharaoh was tall and muscular, his pupil-less eyes glowed pale, light grayish cyan and his skin was rose-ish black, like the ancient dioritic statues of the pharaohs. He wore golden bands on his wrists, ankles and biceps, a golden mask (which resembles Tutankhamun's funerary mask) with a nemes, a fake beard and a cobra on the top, a golden shendyt (a kilt-like garment) and two necklaces. One necklace had three lines of beads (alternating light blue and white) connected by golden pieces. The second necklace was his old scarab pendant that considerably changed after getting Akumatized: it became light blue, flat and winged and had a sun disk above its head.
When the Pharaoh used the power of a god, his face became the one of the god's sacred animal or appearances: when using the power of Thoth he got a dog ape face, for Sekhmet a lioness, for Anubis a jackal, for Horus a hawk, and for Maat a woman.
- For more of Jalil Kubdel's outfits and designs, see Jalil Kubdel/Designs.
Personality
Jalil explaining his theory to his father.
Jalil is very passionate about his job: he is able to translate an ancient papyrus by himself and wants to perform the spell that is written on it. According to Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he jumps straight to conclusions, just like Alya Césaire. He is also willing to take the scepter from the exhibition to prove it, despite the spell being a theory and his father's job being at stake if he touches it.
Another example of his tendency to jump straight to conclusions is when he got convinced by the haters of social media that Ladybug and Cat Noir are the real villains, while Monarch is a misunderstood hero that is just trying to do good by taking their Miraculous, all because he resents the heroes for being the reason why his sister had to be away from the present. This caused him to willingly ally himself with Monarch to get the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous and have them to bring Alix to the present.
He's also a bit clumsy, as shown when he runs to the exhibition and bumps into Marinette and Alya, dropping everything he's holding in the process.
As the Pharaoh, he seemed to believe that he was the ancient pharaoh Tutankhamun, and he tried at all costs to perform the ancient resurrection ritual for his wife Nefertiti: he was even willing to transform a hundred people into mummies and to sacrifice Alya to Ra.
During his second akumatization as the Pharaoh, he was determined to force Ladybug and Cat Noir to bring Alix back to the present using the power of Maat, that asked people trivial questions. By having the heroes being asked a question about any event in the past or future, they would eventually need Bunnyx's help and she would need to come to the present. However, his anger towards the heroes and obsession in bringing his sister back caused the Pharaoh to miss the most obvious way to get the truth by simply asking his book that had the power of Maat.
Abilities
As a civilian
Jalil is able to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
As the Pharaoh
As the Pharaoh, he got supernatural strength, the power of telekinesis and the ability to perform an ancient resurrection ritual, which consisted of using 100 mummies and a pure soul as a sacrifice to please the sun god Ra, who would then bring Nefertiti back from the dead. The ritual required Tutankhamun's scepter to shoot a ray towards a pyramid (like the one at the Louvre), which would then direct it towards the sky creating a black cloud, where the human sacrifice was supposed to go.
He was also able to use the power of an ancient Egyptian god at choice:
- Thoth, the god of knowledge, gave him the power to create time-slowing bubbles that trapped people. This may have been due to the fact that Thoth is also the god of time measurement, and he once won 5 days gambling with Khonsu, the Moon, making the year of 365 days instead of 360.
- Sekhmet, the goddess of fire, war, dance, love, the desert wind and medicine, gave him even more strength, making him able to create powerful shockwaves only by clapping his hands and casually bends metal bars. This power may come from Sekhmet's name: "sekhem", in ancient Egyptian, means "power or might", so Sekhmet's name means "the (one who is) powerful".
- Anubis, the god of funerary rituals and (in more ancient depictions) death itself, gave him the power to shoot rays from his eyes that turned people into undead mummies under his control.
- Horus, the god of the sky and kingship, gave him the power to fly.
- Maat, the goddess of truth, allowed him to transfer his power to a living book that would ask trivia questions and imprisoned those who answered incorrectly. The book could also answer with the truth to any question done to it.
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In "Reunion", the Pharaoh received from Monarch the power of Shell-ter, the superpower of the Turtle Miraculous, through his Alliance ring. With it, he could use the Turtle Miraculous shield to conjure protective barriers that were nearly invulnerable, save for Cat Noir's Cataclysm.
Family
Tree
 Unknown ancestor | |||||||||||||||
| Missing Generations | |||||||||||||||
 Alim Kubdel | |||||||||||||||
 Jalil Kubdel |  Alix Kubdel | ||||||||||||||
| Unknown ancestor | |||||||||||||||||
| Missing Generations | |||||||||||||||||
| Alim Kubdel | |||||||||||||||||
| Jalil Kubdel | Alix Kubdel | ||||||||||||||||
= Male
= Female
= Gender Unknown
Relationships
Alim Kubdel
Jalil usually respects his father, but sometimes he doesn't when he is overconfident in his own theories, even to the point of willing to risk his father's job to prove them. At times, he has a hard time trusting his father. He believed his father was lying about Alix willingly traveling through time to protect the Rabbit Miraculous.
Alix Kubdel
It is heavily implied that Jalil cares about his sister, because in "Reunion", he missed her dearly and was determined to get her back as he was reakumatized into the Pharaoh. But without knowing it, he put his sister in terrible danger as he fell into Monarch's trap. And upon discovering the truth about his sister, he rejected the villain's influence.
Sightings
Episodes
Other Media
Comics and books
Other
Trivia
- In the original French language, the akumatized villain is called Akhenaten, a genuine Egyptian pharaoh. This is perhaps ironic, as Akhenaten is remembered as the ruler who attempted to overthrow worship in the old gods and install a sun cult religion in Egypt, yet the Pharaoh actively called on those same ancient pantheon gods, not Akhenaten's "Aten" sun disk god.
- Akhenaten is also the father of history's famous boy-king Tutankhamun, also known as King Tut.
- Although Jalil is the older sibling, Jalil's father gave the family heirloom watch to Alix instead of him.
- In the French version, Alim Kubdel says that the youngest child on his/her fifteen birthday inherits the watch.
- According to Thomas Astruc, Alim didn't give it to him, since he knows that Jalil is too much "in his own world".[6]
- Despite the fact that the show states that Nefertiti was Tutankhamen's wife, she was actually one of his father Akhenaten's wives.
- In the Korean version of the show, the Pharaoh tried instead to resurrect Ankhesenamun, Tutankhamun's half-sister and wife. However, this is still historically inaccurate because Tutankhamun died before Ankhesenamun.
- Even though Thoth is represented as a baboon when he uses his power, Thoth was more commonly depicted as an Ibis in Egyptian mythology, although some Egyptians did believe he was a baboon too.
- A scarlet version of the Pharaoh appeared in the two-part special event "Heroes' Day".
- The Pharaoh appeared another time in "Gamer 2.0" for Gamer 2.0's powers.
- As revealed in a tweet by Thomas Astruc, Jalil is a college/university student.[7]
- According to "Party Crasher", it appears that Jalil plays a djembe drum, a goblet drum from West Africa.
- This is most likely a reference to the fact that he and his family are supposed to be of Amazigh (Berber) origin.[8]
- Jalil is the sixth person to voluntarily akumatize themselves following Gabriel Agreste, Nathalie Sancoeur, Lila Rossi, Chloé Bourgeois, and Tomoe Tsurugi.
- He is the first person to voluntarily akumatize himself and not be a villain.
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
References
- ↑ https://pscp.tv/w/1LyxBbndWZOxN?t=13m
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KaggyFilms/status/1597028255554760704
- ↑ By Alya in "The Pharaoh"
- ↑ By Alix from her message in "Reunion"
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/653848134465007617
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/656807405775421440
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1275082308828069888
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/858703064420802560