HEAR ME OUT...

I have here some underappreciated excerpts from The Art of Wish:

I tried to highlight the relevant bits, but the quality is a bit iffy, so to repeat what I really want to draw attention to... "The castle was built long before Magnifico was around, but he superimposed himself on it when he took over, which is what rulers have done all throughout history. [...] "Magnifico Style" is on full display in his study. We imagine that Magnifico remodeled when he took power, so this is a newly built and interior-designed space with everything to his taste. [...] Actually, the decision to have an ancient secret lair came very late in production and affected the design of the magic book as well. The lair is an ancient room that Magnifico discovered while doing renovations to his study, so the book had to be ancient too." So despite the movie's implications that Magnifico and Amaya built the castle from the ground up when they settled on the island, this isn't actually the case. Something ancient was already there and they built over it, shaping something new and 'beautiful' out of what I can only assume were ruins, because at this point in time Magnifico wouldn't have had enough power/authority to usurp any previous rulers. I expect the island was abandoned, the previous owner of the castle long gone. He found the lair in the tower with all its creepy contents (apple dripping green poison, cauldrons, skulls, etc.), including the forbidden book, which he then moved upstairs and sealed away in a glass case with a protective enchantment on it. But now we get to the actual reason that I wanted to draw attention to this, because what we have here is potential for COMEDY GOLD. Can you imagine it? Magnifico and Amaya arrive on this island, find an old castle with the most shady stuff imaginable in it, and instead of doing the smart thing and tearing it all down to the ground, Magnifico instead flips this evil villain lair. He grows increasingly persistent that this can work because he's stubborn like that, and refuses to give up on the new home they're building for themselves, while Amaya grows increasingly worried over the many warning signs.