The Princess and the Frog/WMG

Dr. Facilier is actually a Vizard, and the "Other Side" he's referring to? That's Gensokyo.
More of a Rule of Funny thing, but younger brother made an off-hand comment about how Facilier made that skull paint appear from nowhere on his face in a similar manner to Ichigo's hollow mask. And the Genoskyo theory? Well, that mask on his wall could hold one of Yukari's borders, the voodoo trinket came from Rinnosuke's shop, and Naveen turning into a frog was most likely Suwako's doing.
 * Any Touhou character who tried to do what the people on the Other Side did would have to be suicidal, since Reimu (or her 1920's equivalent, or in a pinch Yukari) will probably just start exterminating for real. It is more likely the "Other Side" is the Disgaean Netherworld, and therefore Dr. Facilier will be turned into a Prinny. Which is probably ironic.
 * Then again, his name could refer to the yukkurii.

Dr. Facilier is actually
Think back to the temptation scene. Facilier sounds rather... personal on quite a few lines. He's a smooth operator, but he knows just how to make his pitch. This is quite impressive; we've seen his work before, but he'd been paying attention to Naveen, that was the focus of his plan. He hasn't met Tiana by this point, perhaps that time in Dukes... but he's shown to be focusing on the Le Boffes. Tiana on the otherhand knows of the 'Shadowman', but not the name Facilier, suggesting it's mostly by rep. Facilier doesn't even know that anyone's been accompanying Naveen.

The little echo of 'almost there' could take on another meaning in this context, no? Why this'd happen is another question, but still... *smiles* Even their character designs have some points of commonality. Imagine a gaunt version of  (ironic, given  ...

... Well, my little guess to add into the pile

Dr. Facilier and Mama Odie are related.
They could both come from a long line of closet voodoo practicioners. Facilier could be her nephew... or even, her great nephew or grandson... and through some distance from the family over the years, became evil as a way to become independent.
 * Mama Odie is repeatedly referred to as "Queen of the Bayou". Dr. Facilier said that he was a royal on his mother's side. Coincidence?
 * Yes because when he said that he held up a shrunken head with a crown on it. He was clearly lying.
 * Or alternatively he was still telling the truth. And was holding up a family heirloom. So to speak.
 * The head was his evil grandmother. His mother was good, so still rebellion, and Odie has gotten past all that rebellion stuff because she dug a little deeper. And is his x-times-great-grandmother. And yes, this means the above troper is correct, it was an heirloom.
 * I'd believe it. Both greatly resemble members of the Proud family.
 * This troper believes it too!
 * In an earlier script "Dr. Facilier would not just be a dark wizard who wants to conquer New Orleans with the help of his friends, he would have been Mama Odie's son, who followed the path of the dark arts unlike his mother. In this same script, there was to be a showdown between the two of them, which would have converged into a major battle during the Mardi Gras."(Source: Disney Wiki) In an alternate universe where this came to pass, even if Facilier were bad would Mama Odie really be driven to KILL HER OWN SON? WTF Disney!!

Louis is a relative of The Big Lipped Alligator.
Louis loves music. King Gator loves music. Louis is from the bayou in 20s New Orleans. King Gator is from a sewer in 30s New Orleans. Louis is most likely a reference to Louis Armstrong. Armstrong was given the nickname Satchmo, a contraction of Satchelmouth, a reference to the size of his lips. I'm pretty sure most of you can deduce where I'm going with this.
 * This troper roleplays Charlie from All Dogs Go To Heaven over on Live Journal. In one session, he met Charlotte, and they ended up having a conversation about this exact WMG!

Facilier's Deal Was Actually For Lawrence All Along
Naveen was just a formality, and, in order to fool them he had to act like Naveen was the one he was dealing with, but the main deal was with Lawrence, so that Lawrence could impersonate the Prince. However, in order for that to work, he had to get the Prince out of the way, so a necessary formality would be to accept anything that Naveen might have wondered or half-wished, as long as he could twist it into a way to get rid of him. Note that the whole time Naveen doesn't even realize what's going on and only vaguely realizes he's made an agreement, but Facilier specifically shows Lawrence his deal and Lawrence picks up on it right away.
 * That's pretty much right. Of course Naveen was just a formality. The whole plan was to get to Big Daddy's fortune by using a stooge to marry his daughter. But because of the way the spell works they needed Naveen alive, so he was turned into a frog because he would have been easier to deal with like that, or so Facilier thought. Facilier isn't the Enchantress, he wasn't trying to teach Naveen a lesson, or anything.
 * Naveen was too intelligent. Lawrence would be far easier to control, hence why his deal was with Lawrence, and he just screwed Naveen over.
 * Yeah, I thought this was pretty much canon. Naveen was just a tool to aid in the plot, but Lawrence was the one carrying it out. Also I got the impression once he was done with Lawrence, he inteded to hand him over to his Friends in his place. "I look deep within your heart and soul... You do have a soul, don'tcha Lawrence?"

Naveen and Tiana will take their kids to the premiere of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.
This movie takes place in the later half of the 1920s. Snow White came out in 1937. And you KNOW Charlotte is going to be first in line.
 * Somebody write that fic now.
 * I found [[http://porcelain-requiem.deviantart.com/art/TPATF-Watching-Snow-White-147122128?q=gallery
 * Before that, they'll take their kids to the premiere of Steamboat Willie. "Hey kids! That steamboat looks just like the ones in Louisiana! Boy, hand-drawn animation will be here way into 2005-2008!"
 * Among the many easter eggs of the movie has Walt Disney himself showing up a few times in Mardi Gras, the wedding and at Tiana's Palace at the end. If anything, he probably would invite them to the premiere of Snow White.

In this universe, wishing on a star really does work...
Just not in the way you expect -- a la Mama Odie, you get what you need, but not necessarily what you want. Proof? Tiana wishes upon a star, and what happens?
 * Of course it works, It's Disney.
 * When you wish upon a star/Makes no difference who you are/Anything your heart desires will come to you...

Dr. Facilier is the spurned, illegitimate child of Mr. LeBouf.
His obsession with the man is not explored at depth, but his insistence that LeBouf should pay attention to him and stop passing him by, coupled with his entire plot and his desire to bring up Tiana's own daddy issues make this seem like a possibility.
 * How? Facilier's in his mid-40s and probably of a similar age to Big Daddy
 * Alternate theory: Facilier is LeBouf's illegitimate half-brother. Explains just about as much as the other theory and takes account their similar ages.
 * Alternate alternate theory: Foe Yay.
 * This please. I demand Fanfic. If there must be slash in this fandom, let it be this.

There never was any higher bidder on Tiana's building.
The realtors just refused to sell it to her because of her... "background."
 * That was what I assumed from the beginning. This being a family movie, they probably couldn't come right out and say it (Politically Correct History and all), but the implication felt pretty obvious to me.
 * It certainly seems this way according to the time line. They said she needed the money by Wednesday, right? They were changed back on Wednesday morning, the day after Mardi Gras. During the timeskip to their human wedding Eudora had time to make Tiana's dress and Naveen's family traveled to New Orleans. It would have to be past the deadline by the time they finally went to buy and yet the Fenners were still in possession of the building.
 * Plus, it never indicates that they acquired any more money to pay the extra fees that were imposed -- Louis just glared at the realtors really hard! On the other hand, one wonders why the realtors didn't just refuse in the first place, rather than waiting for the party to tell her.
 * Because they're jackasses who enjoyed giving her false hope.
 * According to the novelization, the Fenner's accepted the original price, thanks to Louis.

The Princess and The Frog and Atlantis the Lost Empire take place in the same continuity.
Both Atlantis and this movie feature a rather unusually high prevalence of minorities in positions of power/wealth and high amounts of racial integration for the time periods. Thus it occurs to me that they might both be in the same universe. That universe is also an Alternate History.

This world split off from our own at the Revolutionary War. In this world, the United States' founding fathers were really radical, and decided that "liberty and justice for all" (yes, I know that's from the Pledge and not the constitution; work with me here) meant all. In that world, the abolishment of slavery and universal sufferage (both for minorities and women) were written into the constitution from the beginning. The United States has had about 100 extra years to work through its racial issues. The Civil War still happened, but slavery was no longer a part of it and it was instead purely about states' rights. In the 1910's-20's of these films, racism and race issues still exist (as they even do today), but aren't at a forefront. Hence why there are integrated restaurants in the Deep South, and why in Atlantis, we have Dr. Sweet and Hispanic Audrey working alongside the rest of the white crew.
 * Taking things further, this timeline extends back to Pocahontas, where the English colonists in the Americas founded a society that encouraged respect and cooperation with the Native Americans. This led to an all-around increase of progressive treatment of minority groups. I know, In Spite of a Nail and all, but it works.
 * This also places it in continuity with Gargoyles, for extra Rule of Cool.
 * And Phineas and Ferb's continuity. Cause
 * This troper has long since decided that the Disney universe is one which resembles our own, but brushes over things like laws for inheriting the title of prince or princess or racial or gender history.
 * Hm... changing the American Civil War to being about states' rights would have made it unrecognisable... but it might not be needed to actually have an American Civil War - neither Atlantis nor The Princess and the Frog references the ACW, after all. There might be another way, though: as the main page's entry on Politically Correct History notes, there are hints at blacks aren't quite up to social class with whites, yet it is clearly in advance of our world. This might be a world where Reconstruction was handled differently and better, leading to an America/South that both was more subtle about its discrimination of blacks than OTL, and far more willing to overlook race if talent was found (Sweet was a talented doctor, Audrey was a talented mechanist, Tiana is a talented chef), especially if eccentric rich white males were backing it.
 * It actually wasn't that uncommon at the time for minorities to have their own businesses and sources of wealth. Pat F is fairly accurate for its time period.
 * Also, might as well add Hercules too. Greece, rather than falling due to the pelopennisian wars, survived for many more years, long enough to become a technically advanced empire that intermingled with the Romans rather than being conquered.

The Princess and The Frog lends itself to a shared Disney universe.
proves that Timon was right and that stars are just fireflies stuck in that big bluish black thing. But the precise star that is now? The second star to the right.
 * Awwwww.
 * This troper thought that Evangeline was the second star to the right. Being the wishing star AND the gateway to Neverland? Boy does Evangeline have a busy schedule.
 * Hate to spoil a good theory, but Peter Pan takes place during The Edwardian Era, during the 1900s, at least ten years before this movie took place and, therefore, . Unless you say the Disney version happens later...
 * Sure Why Not?
 * Nobody said "magical star creation" had to follow the logic of causality. Basically, effect (star) preceding cause (events of the film) via magical time travel/reality rewrite. Since only the protagonists of the film notice the star, and not the many astronomers and astrologers who would almost certainly notice a star just appearing from nowhere. Since the stargazers of the world never notice the new star's sudden appearance (which they would and people would definately mention it later, as it is pretty damn unusual), we should assume reality has been rewritten to have that star always being there.
 * Doesn't the Disney Peter Pan sequel take place during WW 2? Wendy is only 10-15 years older in it, making Peter Pan canonically occur in the 1920s.
 * Timon was right about the stars. Pumbaa was full of it... gas that is, about his theory.

Mama Odie has Friends on the Other Side too.
But her friends are on the OTHER Other Side. The afterlife has two sides. A dark side, where the corrupted are doomed to suffering as shadows, and a light side, where the good live in peace as sources of light...Stars.
 * I assumed Faciler and Mama Odie were just working with different Loa: I could see Mama Odie being a disciple of Damballa or Diejuste while Facilier was conniving with Baron Kriminel or Kalfu.
 * Except Kalfu isn't evil at all, though one could say that Facilier isn't necessarily purely evil either, just power-hungry and likely desperate due to poverty. There are spirits one could work with in Voodoo that take the shape of shadow animals, and that seems to be what Facilier is working with in the later half of the movie. It could still be Kalfu, as he allows ALL manner of workings to pass by him if he can be bothered, it's just hard to tell with lwa because they don't work with the same system of morality that humans do.
 * I've always assumed they were both using the same entities, but used different approaches, with Mama Odie using them in a more benevolent way. That said, it could be that, for different uses, different prices, and that Facilier's particular sort of magic has human souls as the needed sacrifice.
 * Seeing how the movie doesn't use any real-life Voodoo imagery or symbols for very good reasons it's safe to assume that the "voodoo" used in the film actually are two wholly different systems. Facilier got his powers by making deals with devils and invoking the power of demons while Mama Odie invokes the power of nature.
 * Actually, there are a lot of real-life Voodoo symbols and imagery in the movie. Facilier in general is based around the image of Baron Samedi; the skull mask in "Friends on the Other Side" is a huge give away. There is also a flag in his store with the veve for Ezili Freda on it, and the snakes holding Naveen down could be a nod to Damballah. There are also some symbols floating by in green during the end of the song, some of which seemed legit but where going a bit fast for this troper to tell. In the end... Facilier seems to be using not lwa, but a different type of Voodoo spirit which usually takes the form of shadow animals, which is made obvious in the scene where he sends the shadows after Naveen and Tiana and they take the shape of animals.
 * Maybe Mama Odie's FOTOS is Evangeline? Instead of making deals for what people want she grants people what they need if they're willing to work for it. Everyone who makes a wish on her gets a happy ending.

Facilier grew up with prestige and power before falling to the bottom of the barrel.
Facilier appears very light in skin, and pronounces his name in what I'm guessing is a French pronunciation, which could possibly make him Creole. Creoles of some African descent did have quite a bit more opportunities with wealth and education than non-Creole African Americans. That is, until Jim Crow laws reared their ugly heads. Then anybody of any African descent was treated no differently under those laws (In fact, there's at least one instance where a person who was one-sixteenth African had to sit in the back of the bus.), causing many Creoles to lose their power. The same could have happened to Facilier. Being knocked down caused him to want the power he lost and more as he takes revenge on the city that stole it away from him.
 * On the audition list, they did mention that they were looking for someone with a Creole accent.

Facilier's "friends" are the Heartless.
After thinking about it this kinda makes sense. They apparently feed on the souls of people. Light harms them. And lets not forget that they are usually seen as shadowy figures. I dunno, but it sounds like a great way to set them up should they ever appear in a future Kingdom Hearts game.
 * That sounds twenty times better than how they inserted Heartless into the Mulan world.
 * Could be Organization Thirteen mixed into this as well.

Facilier's main 'friend on the other side' is The Other Mother.
She once took a break from the button eye method of stealing the souls of young children, so she made a deal with Facilier to gather up more souls. Once the device broke, she took him to her world, than turned him into a cat.

He switched sides, run off to the real world, and did battle with her ever since.
 * ...that's just too perfect.
 * And come to think of it, weren't three of the "friends" little dolls with button-eyes?
 * The Cat even has the same voice actor!
 * Someone please write this fic RIGHT NOW.

Rays Death...

 * ...was put in a a retaliation to what That Guy With the Glasses said about Scar. As in that he pointed out that Scar was the only Disney villain to knock off a main character. The challenge was set, and the film makers decided to beat that challenge.
 * As good a theory as any, considering it was a pretty senseless death otherwise.
 * I thought Ray's death played beautifully into the film's themes of sacrifice and doing what's right as opposed to what's easy- he had no need to help Tiana and Naveen, didn't want to ask Mama Odie for a wish, and could've just given them directions and left them to it. But he went out of his way to help them, like a good samaritan- and sadly paid the price, just as Tiana's dad paid the price working so hard to get his family out of poverty. But he still got a reward, whereas Facilier is presumably still being tortured as we type.

The FOTOS are actually Hades!
See here for more details

Facilier is The Genie's Nobody.
Both are charismatic men that sing a flashy, catchy song about friends and the magic they can use to a protagonist. Also supported by the theory that Facilier's "friends" are the Heartless.

Evangeline is a fairy.
Wishes made on her come true: Tiana got her restaurant, Lottie got her prince (I've waited this long!). But noble sacrifice also results in granting wishes: The Blue Fairy (who came down from seeming to be a star in the sky) gave Pinocchio "real boy"hood after a Heroic Sacrifice; came as the result of a Heroic Sacrifice as well, and he got his wish.
 * I'll go you one better: Evangaline IS the Blue Fairy.
 * First Jiminy, then Ray? That girl has a thing for insects.
 * No, Evangeline is the Evening Star, right? Venus. Evangeline's a goddess.

Facilier's debt was to bring himself back to life.
Dr Facilier (or the Shadow Man) had been interested in the occult during his life, but something happened (anything from sickness to murder to just an accident) and he was dead. The tombstone you saw near the end was his but it was normal. No face, maybe even no name if no one knew who he was. Just a date of death.

When Dr Facilier was on the other side, he met the "Friends on the Other Side." He convinced them to give him more time in the world of the living. In return, they demanded that he give them souls equal in worth to however much they demanded for the initial revive and the continued life-span. The interest tacked on by how long he was "alive" for was quite high, so Facilier quickly thought up a plan to get control of the city and sacrifice everyone in it to his Friends. At first, he may have planned to get the girl to give something to him in return for money or power, but when he read in the paper about the Prince, that was too good of a chance to pass up.

Either because of side effect of coming back to life in that manner or to help keep an eye on him, the Friends made Dr. Facilier's shadow come to life as well. When Dr Facilier was dragged into the maw of the giant mask, they left his horrified face on his tombstone as a final insult to him.


 * To add to this... His semi-skeletal face seen during the "I hope you're satisfied" bit is his magic failing to keep the charade of a completely living being, revealing a magically reanimated skeleton that is still on its way to being revived fully.
 * Eh, except that the skull mask is a huge symbol of the Gede Lwa, specifically Baron Samedi. It's pretty clear that was who Facilier was modeled after.
 * More specifically, he was Jafar. The personality isn't quite the same, but who knows what effect being dead for centuries might have?

Evangeline was at one point an actual firefly

 * Yes, fireflies don't live that long. And alligators don't play trumpet, either.
 * Still, consider one of the arguments for Ray/Evangeline being the Second Star on the Right, despite Peter Pan taking place well before The Princess and the Frog. Magic can make a timeline just as wibbly-wobbly as a time travel device in a sci-fi story. It's possible that when Evangeline and Ray became stars, the stars they became came into existence in the past as well.
 * This just has to be written.
 * Here ya go. Straight from the Fanfic Recs page. Enjoy~!
 * Here ya go. Straight from the Fanfic Recs page. Enjoy~!

If Tiana had accepted Facilier's deal, he wouldn't have been a Jackass Genie about it...at first.
WARNING: LIKELY DEPRESSING
 * ... all of which the relatively-Genre Savvy Facilier knew and would have laughed in her face about later. That sure would have been a depressing ending, all right.
 * On a more cheerful note,

The some of the shadows that Facilier summoned to kill Tiana and Naveen where once other Voodoo Practitioners.
Some of them like the female one appear to be human, at a time they where alive they had shadows like Facilier, once they screwed up with the voodoo gods
 * There is a type of spirit in Voodoo that takes the shape of a shadow, specifically animals. These are usually personable to one practitioner, as they are made to work for that specific person. The reason why they would be

Dr. Facilier bought out Tiana's building.
He's always shown looking around for people to con. Depriving the main character of her goal in an attempt to influence her to make a deal later would be totally in character. Later he insinuates that he has access to the building.
 * How would he do that? He had no money.
 * ...he probably had some deal with the realty brothers.
 * Well remember, the Fennor Brothers gave Tiana until Wednesday to come up with the money. If Facilier's plan had succeeded, he would have had the LeBouff's fortune by then. That would be more than enough to buy the building, he simply offered to pay after Mardi Gras, which is when the Fennor Brothers were going to start working anyway.
 * Or, he payed for the building in exchange for their souls to not be used as payment to his... friends.
 * He made the offer to pay in cash, thus overwhelming her bid, then would have approached her with a 'bargain' once she heard. As we saw, Tiana was completely crushed and desperate and Facilier was right down stairs, if Naveen hadn't escaped she would have made her way downstairs and Facilier would have offered her the building and received whatever he wanted in return all without needing to use the power from the FOTOS and increasing his dept. Simple, easy payoff, with no risk to himself, if she accepts he gets what he wats, if she doesn't he just takes back his bid. Think about it, the Fenners might have been acting like racist jerks but why would they? Tiana is BFF with Charlotte, daughter to the richest man in town. After a few days it would have been obvious there was no other buyer and they'd either have to accept Tiana's money or make it blatantly clear they were being racist. Tiana would have been crushed and Charlotte would not have stood for that, she'd have screamed for Daddy and ruined them. Only reason things got so desperate is because Tiana was turned into a frog before any of her ways out became clear.
 * A pair of Corrupt Corporate Executives see a stack of hundreds, they don't ask questions until their buyer disappears and the money turns into a pile of leaves. At that point, they still don't ask questions because their original buyer was shoving money across their desk while a talking alligator pointedly growls at them.

Dr. Facilier wasn't
And in relation to the above WMG about

Nathaniel was meant to be an ahead-of-time parody of Lawrence.
Well, Giselle, Edward, Pip, and Narissa all were somewhat parodies of previous Disney characters, but where does that leave Nathaniel? What I'm guessing is that because a completely-animated film takes much longer than a live-action-with-some-animation film, they could have been filming at around the same time. Thus, the Enchanted filmmakers figured they might as well make a parody of the Naveen and Lawrence dynamic with Edward and Nathaniel.
 * Lawrence is following the tradition of the doddering British sidekick who constantly gets abused, like the duke, Grimsby, Cogsworth, and Zazu. Nathaniel was probably supposed to be a parody of that, but because he was also villainous, it kind of messed up the twist in this movie when Lawrence went evil because he wasn't putting up with that shit anymore.

But I'm pretty sure decades from now, people will be surprised to hear that Enchanted was released before The Princess and the Frog anyway.
 * This troper saw Enchanted just an hour or so ago and kept thinking "Nathaniel reminds me eerily of Lawrence! How is that possible?" Perhaps Disney simply used Nathaniel to parody the spineless minions that the evil queens have (like the hunter in Snow White) and when they were making this movie, they looked back at Nathaniel and thought he would be good to reuse.

But the conception of this movie did take place at just about the same time Enchanted was being made. The reason Alan Menken couldn't work on this movie was because he was working on Enchanted. And, yes; every time I think of Lawrence, I hear Nathaniel's frantic "Oh no!"
 * This theory does sound likely, but Daystar is also pretty simular to that guy.

Facilier is a member of the Maldonian royal family.
Him saying he was royal on his mother's side wasn't just a throw-away gag. Facilier was born out of wedlock to a Maldonian queen/princess and a Creole man, but his father was exiled for this and he lost any claim he had to their power and fortune. That's why Facilier picked Naveen to use in his scheme; not only would it make him rich and pay off his debts to the Friends, but it was a way of finally getting revenge against the people who were responsible for his lot in life.
 * OR he stole the head from a Maldonian cemetery.

Facilier really descends from African royalty.
His ancestor may have been an illegitimate child of a king/prince of one of African monarchies (Ethiopia? Mali?). The father sold his unwanted child to slave traders who brought him to America. Facilier's mother is his descendant. While she wouldn't know about it, FOTOS may have told Facilier.

Facilier didn't die
That portal in the mouth of the big mask? That wasn't to the other side, but to another point in time and space. They gave Facilier a fate worse then death, they sent him into the future and turned him into Oscar Proud!
 * And Mama Odie lived on to become Suga Mama.
 * So that makes Juju Puff, right?
 * Alternate explanation: Oscar Proud is an identity created by Dr. Facilier for another get-rich-quick scheme to pay off his "debt". The reason Proud Snacks taste so awful is that.
 * And thus, Suga Mama is actually an identity created by Odie in order to ensure Oscar's eternal failure by causing his Proud Snacks to taste awful and slowly manipulating the entire Proud Family to treat him as the Butt Monkey.
 * Also, does that mean Facilier/Oscar decided to take the A.J. Crowley approach to damnation of the masses? (Also, it would explain why Suga Mama's sister was psychic and Penny's occasional appearances of magic powers...)

The second star next to the "Evangeline" is not Ray.
Go ahead and hate me, but it's simply not possible. It takes thousands, maybe millions of years for the light to reach the earth so the star would have had to be created before Ray had even been born. It was a coincidence, but his friends were just too hopeful.
 * A wishing star did it.
 * Rule of Romantic It's sweet, it's touching, it's never intended to be scientifically accurate.
 * Your Mileage May Vary
 * Maybe he's a Time Lord.
 * Hey, although science knows how fast light travels, no one knows how fast a soul travels. It's entirely possible that Ray's new "body" was created, yes, thousands of years ago, and his soul only got there recently. It's possible!
 * Disney is the most idealist company on Earth; Of course he gets to be with his girlfriend.
 * Because gators playing trumpets, shadow demons, 197 (the fact that she lived so long I mean) year old blind voodoo ladies, people turning into frogs are all possible right?

Evangeline used her wish to be with Ray.
Let's say that stars in this film really are balls of flaming gas in space, but that there are spirits that serve a purpose. Evangeline is the spirit of the wishing star, and listens to all people say to it and helps it come true. One night she hears someone not wishing on the star, but courting it. It's her star so she's flattered and the fact that he genuinely likes her (not to mention his sweet songs) helps her to fall in love. When Ray is dyeing, she uses her personal wish to be with Ray in some way; since the light from a new star is about to reach Earth, there is the need for a new star spirit, so...

Naveen's Younger Brother is Actually His Son
Casanova that he is, and with such a large age gap between him and his 6 1/2 year old brother, there's a chance that the kid is the result of a dalliance a teen-aged Naveen had with a palace chambermaid or something. To save face in the public eye his parents passed the kid off as their own.
 * Naveen is 20 years old, which would make him a father at age 13-14? I don't think Disney would suggest these kinds of things, anyways.
 * Disney wouldn't, but in a WMG, why not? ;)
 * Such large gaps aren't completely impossible, either way. In my family particularly, my older sister and I are eleven years apart, and I'm pretty sure I'm not her daughter.
 * Alternative WMG, Naveen's folks had his brother because they were beginning to suspect Naveen wouldn't be a suitable heir.

Mama Odie is married
She wears a ring on the traditional wedding ring finger. Juju seems like a possible candidate for her husband, though the Morphic Resonance rules of the universe would indicate he's a real snake due to his eyes. She could have turned him into a snake-eyed human at one point though.
 * Given 1: Mama Odie's only companion appears to be her snake. WMG Given: Mama Odie is married. Conclusion: She's married to the snake. Your logic fails. She could be widowed. Juju's relationship with is closer to that of Belle and the dog-turned-footstool - a pet and appliance when necessary. Mama Odie seems the type to rule any roost, but that seems to be going a little far.
 * Notice that the above above says Juju seems like a possible candidate. No one said she had to be married to him.
 * Perhaps the remains of her husband were the eyeballs and jaw in those jars?
 * This troper just thought the same thing! The jaw was even "smiling"!
 * Those are probably her's. Notice that Mama Odie is blind and toothless, yet has eyes and teeth in a jar?
 * Now that's just disturbing!
 * It's also possible she is spiritually married to a lwa she serves; sometimes lwa do ask practitioners to "wed" them as a show of devotion.

Dr. Facilier is a Depraved Bisexual
Judging by his appearance, he seems to be designed after the Vodou God, Baron Samedi. Who is, among other things, a bisexual (sometimes) crossdresser. He was a bit touchy-feeling with Naveen in the beginning... "If you relax it will enable me to do/anything I please..."
 * Not to mention some of the lyrics in his song:

Sounds sort of rape-y, both out of and in context.
 * Naveen: "He was VERY charismatic!"
 * There is also a flag in the background with the veve for Ezili Freda on it. She is known for being protective of gay men.

Dr. Facilier was reincarnated into Oogie Boogie
Dr. Facilier has his friends from the other side take the form of shadows. Oogie seems to be able to control his shadow to sing in the beginning song in Nighmare, so this troper's idea is that Dr. Facilier's "friends" decided to give him A Fate Worse Than Death - being trapped in a gigiantic burlap sack with living bugs as guts. This drives Facilier mad, making him less Genre Savvy, more sadistic, and lowered the quality of his grammar. So now Dr. Facilier is double dead first killed when the tailsman was broken, then when he was torn apart.

"Barrel: "How hard could it be?"
 * But he's not voiced by a big lipped alligator
 * On the other hand, the fact that the sack isn't his real body, and that his soul was placed in it, could explain why he's so easy to bring back from the dead in the games.

The main FTOS is Ganon
Rule of cool.

The Jail Bait Wait line is actually a Censor Decoy
The only explanation they got away with more than just Parental Bonus-es/this line.

Naveen had at least partial amnesia of the time shortly after his transformation.
Dialogue at various points indicate that he has no idea that Lawrence is impersonating him, such as "Who's waltzing with Lottie?" "How should I know?" and "Lawrence! What are you doing?" However, it's clear that it was Lawrence-impersonating-Naveen who loosened the lid on the jar to let Frog!Naveen free. Presumably the recently transformed Naveen was in too much of a daze to understand what was going on. And, though it's clear he explained at least most of his story to Tiana (enough that she can chide him for messin' with the Shadow Man), he never gives the slightest hint that there's a doppelganger running around, which causes Tiana to assume the worst when she sees Charlotte and the phony together. How was this amnesia accomplished when Tiana recovered just fine? He's got no stamina - loss of a relatively small amount of blood would lead to him feeling dizzy, because he's been pampered his whole life.
 * Are you sure it was Lawrence-impersonating-Naveen? It could have been before he put on the talisman, or he'd taken it off so as not to waste the magic or some such.
 * Lawrence said he loosened the jar lid because Naveen was starting to gasp. The lack of oxygen combined with the shock of being turned into a frog could have made him very disoriented and unsure of what was going on.

The FOTOS really were Facilier's friends--in life.
Or at least, the shadows were. Think about it: the shadows are the ones who seem most cooperative with Facilier, he only needs to whistle in order to get them to do something, and he's informal with them ("Now we're back in business, boys!"), and no other shadow but his own were present for his demise. The shadows were other Voodoo Practitioners who made deals with the other FOTOS, and eventually suffered the same fate that Facilier did later, and were twisted into mindless Eldritch Abominations. Facilier knows what will happen if the talisman is broken because he already saw what happened to his friends and doesn't want the same fate!
 * Look at the graves around Facilier as he says "I still got that froggy prince locked away"- you can see some of the shadows surrounding him, leering menacingly.
 * The female one might be his sister, and the dolls might be ones his mother made for him... just to add to this theory.
 * It could also be that he employed spirits to work for him; Voodoo does have such a concept in its beliefs. That would explain why they'd come at a mere whistle, yet turn on Facilier when he seems to be losing control of the situation.

Naveen's parents cutting him off financially was only a part of their plan. They had his little brother as a means of replacing him completely.

 * Naveen's what, 19, 20? He most likely started his hard-partying ways at around 13-15; plenty of time for his parents to figure out he was a lost cause and start over.

Ray's Evangeline is actually a pre-incarnated Minako
Evangeline is the North Star, which is Venus.
 * No wonder Minako is doomed to be unlucky in love for all eternity... her soulmate is a Cajun firefly.
 * Evangeline is supposed to be the evening star, from what I recall and could find online (which is, in fact, Venus). The North Star is an actual star, and has nothing to do with Venus.

Both Odie and Facilier are Awakened
More specifically, Odie is a Free Councilor while Facilier is a Seer of the Throne

Let's compare the two:


 * Odie is quite obviously a kind and generous woman, but besides that, she is also incredibly self-reliant and clever-both traits associated with Pentacle mages. She is a bit weaker, mystically speaking, then Facilier, but not because of lack of talent-she's chosen the hard-but-moral way of gaining strength and power, rather than selling her soul (and everyone else's) out to the Exarchs (represented by the shadow demons).


 * Facilier, on the other hand, is a greedy Classic Villain with absolutely no concern for the Muggle populous, caring only about himself and his own power-while hypocritically relying on the Exarchs to feed it. What's more, he's petty-he doesn't care about ruling the world, he cares about saving his own skin while making a pretty penny doing so. This, ultimately, leads to his Karmic Fate Worse Than Death-his own lack of ability to realize that other people care about their friends, unlike him, leads to the Exarchs being thoroughly defeated by a mortal. You Have Failed Me doesn't begin to explain their attitude towards this.


 * Better yet both Dr. Facillier and Mama Odie are Sin-Eaters
 * You thought so too?! I knew I was not the only one!
 * How about Changelings? The Friends on the Other Side... well, I don't think I have to elaborate.

Facilier and Mama Odie are Loa Scions
Continuing the White Wolf approach, they're both Scions of the Loa pantheon. Mama Odie is the direct daughter of Damballa and follows his path fairly straightforwardly. Dr. Facilier is a Scion of Baron Samedi, adopted by a previously unknown Titan of Darkness, the Friends on the Other Side.

Louis was turned into an Alligator by Dr. Facilier
Louis can play the trumpet, dreams of being a jazz singer and likes human foods. It could be possible that Louis was once human and had a run in with the Shadow Man like Naveen did, and was turned into an alligator and run out of town into the bayou. He wants to be human, but I guess either he's too dumb to figure out a way to change back, or it's an unbreakable curse.
 * This was actually the original plan for Louis (an early design had him wearing glasses, in fact). As production continued, the directors thought this made the story needlessly complicated, and simply made him a regular gator.
 * This could still be true anyway.

Charlotte's mother is Sophie from Anastasia
Yes, the movies are from different companies, but compare. I can't link images, but they're both round-faced blondes, and the movies take place fairly close together chronologically.
 * Charlotte: French last name, obsessed with fairy tales and romance.
 * Sophie: French, obsessed with fairy tales and romance.
 * Yeah, but Charlotte's last name comes from her father. (It would make sense that Sofie was her grandmother on her father's side
 * This makes little to no sense for a couple of reasons. First is time frame. Anastasia takes place in 1916 and 1926. Princess and the Frog takes places in the same decades. When Charlotte was born, Sophie was still living in Russia. Sophie is not French. She is Russian with presumably mixed heritage, as her real life counterpart had mixed blood that did not include French relations. When Sophie and her Empress Dowager cousin -- note that the age gap between Sophie and Dowager Empress Marie was large enough that they seemed more like daughter and mother, even though they were cousins -- moved to France during Russia's revolution, Sophie immersed herself in the romantic and thrilling culture of Paris, probably in part to drown out bad memories, and thus developed a French accent within the course of ten years. Sophie's surname was not French. It was Danish. Sophie could not possibly be Charlotte's grandmother because she was not even old enough to be a grandmother at the time that Charlotte was a little girl. Another dent in this theory is that Charlotte and her family look nothing like Sophie's lover, Vladimir. I'm sure that Sophie did play around with pretty boys in France, but again, Charlotte was already born by the time Sophie began her life in France. Mayhap the ladies could be distant relatives, but this would most likely have to be through Charlotte's unknown mother's lineage.

Dr. Facilier knew he was the villian
Because he put himself in the role. He saw that the way the future unfolded, to be down properly and be good, needed Naveen and Tiana to hook up, and he knew for it to be the perfect fairy tale romance, there needed to be a villain. Being the only convenient figure with ties to dark powers, he resigned himself to the role.

The Friends on the Other Side never expected Facilier to succeed.
They simply let Facilier believe that they expected him to pay his debt, allowing him to rack it up so high that he'd only be able to pay it back with his own soul. That's why they're smiling during the "Friends On The Other Side" reprise: the moment they've been waiting for has finally arrived, and they're free to claim the real prize, Facilier's soul.

Facilier himself is a Nobody or Heartless.
Going off of a previous WMG: Facilier gave up his heart (like Xehanort) to the FOTOS; the shadow behind him is his heartless. Alternatively, he is a heartless himself, and the shadow behind him is like the being attached to Xehanort's Heartless.
 * He seems to have emotions, which would rule out being a Nobody. I'll grant you, the Nobodies usually seem pretty emotional, despite what King Mickey suggested, but the genuine, desperate fear as he was being dragged to The Other Side seemed pretty legit.
 * Irrelevant, but it was Yen Sid who said they were emotionless, not King Mickey.
 * While I'm not necessarily arguing against this point, as he is too emotional for a Nobody, I'd like to point out that Demyx and Vexen seemed quite afraid of death.

== The Friends on the Other Side are a collective being of Eldritch Abomination and dead voodoo practitioners that couldn't pay their debts; this entire movie was a Xanatos Gambit on their part which paid off just fine. ==
 * Facilier accomplishes his goals? That's just fine with the Friends; they get a boatload of souls to boost their power, and they can take Facilier later as he keeps increasing both their power and his through deals. However, Facilier was also the Friends' earthly agent and appeared to have intelligence the collective lacked, perhaps because of the alien thought processes of dark beings and dead souls; rather than simply killing Facilier as punishment for failing them, the Friends absorbed him mind, body, and soul into their collective, regaining the power and knowledge they gave him plus interest. Facilier still lives as a shadow being on the Other Side, aiding his fellow Friends further and waiting for another voodoo user to come along, willing to make a deal...

David Xanatos inherited the Lebouf fortune.
By the time of the eighties, Xanatos will somehow receive the Lebouf fortune. I know, it may seem meager compared to the amount of money he has by the nineties, but he had to start somewhere.
 * Nope. He made his fortune through a Stable Time Loop involving two coins from 10th century Scotland and a letter to himself. See that article for more details.
 * Fine then. He bought whatever it was that made the Lebouf family rich.

Dr. Facilier got reincarnated as The Arbiter

 * Since the good doctor sold his soul to the FOTOS for power to make his life easier, they thought it would be a nice bit of Laser Guided Karma to have him reincarnate as a Proud Warrior Race Guy and force him to gather souls the old-fashioned way...with lots and lots of plasma to the face. Even after his Heel Face Turn at the end of Halo 2, he's still providing the FOTOS with Covenant souls, assuming they're not that picky. Besides, destroying all sentient life means there won't be any souls left in the long run for the FOTOS to take.

Evangeline is in fact the (or a part of) instrumentalized humans from Neon Genesis Evangelion
Not just the Evangeline = Evangelion name parallels. Remember when Ray died, and became one with Evangeline (lying beside), while everybody's wish came true? That actually symbolized. The FOTOS Dr Facilier served could be the Angels, or beings from an alternate instrumentality where the Angels dominated, considering their Eldritch Abomination- like nature. Alternatively,.

What? Every WMG should have at least one connecting it to Eva!


 * You know it's going to be jossed, don't you?

It's not a Fairy Tale curse, magic users are just dicks.
Mr. Facilier and the FOTOS knew that being turned into a frog is a stereotypical magical curse with the associated "cure" of kissing a princess. So, because it's black magic and they're all assholes, they engineered the curse to transform anybody who kisses the victim into another frog, regardless of royal lineage. When Mr. Facilier gets dragged off by the FOTOS and his amulet maintaining the spell on Naveen gets smashed, the active effects of the curse are dispelled, leaving only the results (i.e. being a frog). So kissing Charolette does nothing becasue there's no magic in effect at all at that point. Their later transformation occurs because Madame Odie casts a spell of her own to reward the two for learning their respective lessons and hooking up, keeping in character with her role as a vague, intelligent source of you-must-figure-this-out-on-your-own wisdom. Odie didn't restore them earlier either because magic is unable to interfere with other magic that is still in effect, or she just wanted them to smarten up before she helped out so they would learn their Aesop. There are no rules-loopholing contractual elements to the spells and no overarcing geas in effect. The two protagonists are just manipulated with smaller scale polymorphs and psychology by jerkass magicians.

"Friends on the Other Side" is a warning from Captain Anderson about Saren and the Reapers.
Some of the lyrics are way too on the nose if you look at them through tinfoil hat-colored glasses...


 * Sit down at my table / Put your mind at ease / If you relax it will enable me to do anything I please... Clearly a reference to Indoctrination.


 * Transformation Central! / Reformation Central! / Transmogrification Central! Not really eveidence, but playing thatis bit in the back of my head during Saren's One Winged Angel act is the only way I can get to sleep after watching this cutscene.


 * A final point of evidence: Keith David's voice is very sexy. Case in point, imagine my dumb-ass theory being read in his voice. Doesn't it sound so much more reasonable now?


 * Transformation Central could also refer to conversion into husks or.
 * Ah yes, "Reapers." The immortal race of sentient starships allegedly waiting in Disney Animated Canon. We have dismissed that claim.

Dr. Facilier is mixed-race.
With his skin tone and features it is entirly possible that he was the son of an African-American and a Caucasian. This would also make him a Woobie as back than people who were mixed-race were preduiced against along with other ethnicies. His parents would not be able to marry and back then it was still very shaming to be born to un-married parents. He might not even have been able to see his father.

The "Shadow Demons" are the ghosts of Disney villains past.
Here's a list of villains that have died in the past, pre-1920s:
 * The Wicked Queen
 * Malificent
 * Ursula - Now that I think about it, one of the ghosts had wild Medusa-like hair that reminds me of her.
 * Gaston
 * Jafar
 * Frollo
 * Shan Yu
 * Clayton
 * Scar- Some of them looked quite animilistic. Also, if we take the Hercules joke he must have died a pretty long time ago. The lack of humans may imply the film took place before mankind even evolved.
 * Then Scar would have had to be a pretty old lion in order to have been alive before mankind existed and yet still be killed by Hercules. It could be that, since he was killed by the hyenas, he made a deal like Facilier and brought back by the friends on the other side only to lose out to the demigod.
 * Ratigan-See above.
 * Rourke-Just about, he died in the 1910's.
 * Sa'Luk
 * Alternately, one of the shadows looked like the cat, who also happened to be voiced by Keith David.
 * Then what does that make the one that looks like Jack Skellington?
 * Jack's already dead. And yeah, not evil, but we never do find out where Facilier's really goin'.

Mama Odie can see the living.
Her eyes are blind (or in a jar) as she demonstrated by accidently breaking a vase, using Juju as a walking stick, thinking a key and a few buttons were candies, almost falling off a desk, almost falling in an hole and so on. Yet she never appears to have any trouble locating anyone, even from a distance, and knew exactly where Tiana's heart was. While it could be explained by her hearing, it may also be that her magical "life" powers grant her the ability to perceive "enlightened" bodies.

Dr. Facilier is Hades' new assistant.
It is implied that Facilier was dragged to some sort of Hell equivalent, or at least an unpleasant afterlife. In the Disneyverse, Hades seems to rule the afterlife (forgive me for bringing in Kingdom Hearts logic, but that game definitely proves that Hades rules EVERYONE'S afterlife). Facilier was dragged off because he couldn't pay his "debt." Megara was working for Hades to pay off HER debt. Hades is, of course, immortal, so it stands to reason that him being kicked into the Styx wasn't his demise. Once he crawled back out and found Meg missing, he was in need of a new assistant. That's when the voodoo gods drop Facilier off at his door, of course ready to work off his own debt.
 * Bonus points if Claude Frollo also shows up, absolutely terrified because he's met the real Hellfire IN PERSON.
 * I'm on it!

Mama Odie was a former slave.
She even says out loud that she's 197-years-old. African-Americans were still slaves nearly 200 years ago. She may have escaped from her masters and somehow became a witch doctor. Perhaps she was bought and separated from her family. All alone, she prays to the sky to help her. And her prayers have been answered by Friends from the Other Side (the GOOD side, of course, explained in the WMG above).
 * That would make sense given that 1926 minus 197 years would mean that Mama Odie was born roughly in 1729.

Maldonia was founded by expatriates...
...from Greece, Italy, India, the Middle East, France, Spain, some African countries, and everywhere else Naveen could possibly be from. So rather than being just one race that offends you, he's all of them!

Human!Naveen's singing voice is actually terrible.
The only time we hear him sing is when he's a frog; this theory could be an in-universe explanation of why that last song wasn't a duet. Since frogs have more musical abilities than people do, Naveen's singing was improved as a side effect of turning into one.
 * Perhaps, but why, then, does Tiana sing well as both a human and as a frog?
 * Why not? Just because Naveen possibly doesn't sing well as a human doesn't mean she can't. He's also a completely different sort of frog. Maybe Tiana would sing even better as a frog if she had any teeth.
 * Or Naveen's singing talents improve and Tiana's don't change because Naveen is turned into a male frog. Don't forget that in Real Life, male frogs can sing (or croak), and females are mute.

Mama Otie studied in Discworld
Read Witches Abroad and tell me I'm wrong.

Maldonia is in South East Europe.
Maldonia sounds suspicously like a mix between Malta and Macedonia. Naveen has a mix of a French, Italian and Spanish accent, and his tanned skin would probably mean he was from southern Europe.

Ray is in love with a firefly in Neverland.
Ray loves Evangeline, who is  Yeah it's a longshot...

Naveen wasn't cut off for any reason but tradition.
Young Maldonian princes have to be sent off into the world in order to understand commoners better, and so he went off to America. Lawrence wasn't particularly poor protection, he was all that Naveen was allowed to bring.

Charlotte knew full well that the money would be enough...
For Tiana's restaurant. Charlotte may be ditzy, but, just like Naveen, she knows people. She may not have his...delicacy--look at him when he's talking to Louis, think of him when he convinces Lawrence to loosen the lid--but she does know quite a bit as the Southern Belle of the town and Big Daddy's daughter. So she knows that Tiana will never accept charity. But ordering that many beignets? Perfectly in-character. And, with the above as given, perfectly in character as both The Ditz and a Southern Belle.

Naveen's family has a history of making deals with Jerkass Genies, all the way back to the first members of his family's dynasty.
And that's why the country is called Bad Giftia.

Maldonia is a South American "French Coast" country.
Its origin as a French colony offers the prince's accent. and its mixed European-African-Mesoamerican heritage was the source of his looks.

Naveen was faking the accent.
Because Everything Sounds Sexier in French.

Maldonia is a Caribbean island-country not formally recognized by the League of Nations or (after the time of the movie) the United Nations.
His parents sent him up north to learn the value of a dollar before risking him running the Maldonian economy into the ground as king, since they couldn't figure out how to teach him the value of a Maldonian livre and even a relatively high-class country doesn't have much of a financial buffer when it only has around fifty full citizens.

Naveen has a mild case of amphibian-focused zoophilia.
Remember how he was first attracted to Tiana aesthetically, while she was a frog, and only subsequently came to love her personality? You could argue that he was attracted to the vibrant enthusiasm she was finally showing, but his favourite story as a child was "The Frog Prince".
 * I just figured that he was attracted to her because he's a guy frog and she's a girl frog. Their froggy instincts certainly seem to be strong enough to allow that to happen, as proven by the "fly eating" scene...
 * He shows mild interest in her as a human until she shrugs him off and he responds in kind.

Maldonia is an Indian Princely State

 * This has as much to do with Naveen's name as anything else: Lost actor Naveen Andrews is of Indian descent.
 * India also has a pretty long history interracial marriage: some historians estimate that one in every three British men stationed in India during the colonial period had a local wife and there's a sizable Anglo-Indian community there today.
 * This also feeds into the above theory above about Naveen's parents having planned to cut him off for a while: if you didn't have a legitimate, biological son to pass the title onto, the British could take your kingdom away, so of course if they wanted to cut him off, they would need a back up.
 * As for the accent: Naveen's voice actor is from Brazil, a Portuguese speaking country. In universe, Maldonia could easily overlap with Portuguese-conquered Goa, or have been founded by expatriates escaping the Goan Inquisition.

Tiana is the distant ancestor of Benjamin Sisko.
No proof, but Rule of Cool. Also, Joseph Sisko's cooking skills are obviously genetic, inherited from his great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother.

Tiana has had run-ins with Dr. Facilier before.
She knows not to trust the Shadow Man, and he doesn't seem to like her much. If Disney were to do an animated series or direct-to-video spinoff, the obvious hook would be a younger Tiana being roped into one of Facilier's voodoo schemes and barely managing to foil it, learning an Important Lesson while accidentally getting him into trouble with the FOTS...
 * He does seems to know her situation extremely well for someone he has never met before.
 * Facilier is magic. He knew Naveen's past, that he was a cut off prince in search of money, and he knew Lawrence's past, that he was pushed around his entire life. Presumably, he hadn't met any of them before.
 * Though in Facilier's defense, he doesn't seem to like anyone all that much, though he also doesn't seem to hate any of the protagonists either. He's just doing his thing, and stepping on people to get what he wants is a necessity.

Facilier is a minor sorcerer of Tzeentch.
Very bright colored, overt magic, reliance upon trickery and playing the hopes of the human heart, very strong transformational skills, required to bring souls over or suffer the consequences, sounds like the architect of fate to me.

Big Dan Teague is "Big Daddy" La Bouff in ten years time.
He became desperate for money and cruel due to the stock market crash and an accident where he lost both his left eye and his daughter. It also forced him to leave New Orleans for Mississippi and change his name. He also doesn't care for "people changing into frogs" stories. "Don't you know these things give ya warts? *SQUISH*"

Maldonia was a byproduct of the events of Aladdin
When Aladdin wished to become a prince, Genie's magic ended up creating a country to go with his princedom, spontaneously creating Maldonia. Though neither Aladdin or the Genie realized what had occured, the royals that were put into power by the wish over Maldonia were enough to keep it together.

Maldonia is an alternate universe version of Brazil

 * Where the portuguese monarquie was never abolished, and at one point the royal heirs married local women giving as a result interracial descent.

Mama Odie's snake is Ka from The Jungle Book.
Who is also the snake from Disney Animated Canon Robin Hood. She found him after he was slithering alone after those two movies and took him in, and he performed a Heel Face Turn.

Goofy!Marlowe from Mickey's Christmas Carol is one of Facilier's friends
Look at this picture and tell me I'm wrong.

Dr. Facilier is a maleficar.
The Other Side is the Fade. The FOTOS are demons. His ritual with Prince Naveen is blood magic.

Tiana has short-term memory loss
At the end, she notices, even though she knew about the  , and even saw him, earlier.

The Friends From The Other Side is actually Giygas's spirits.
After the events of {Earthbound}, Giygas split into multiple spirits. He went into the time of this movie and Facilier found him. As a result, Facilier named him and his spirits "The Friends from the Other Side". Giygas really never liked this, but had trust in him to rule the world and New Orleans. After Facilier is sent into Giygas's spirits, where Facilier dies, Giygas stays there until his death.

The wrecked steamboat from The Rescuers is the same one seen in this movie.
Seems like a strong possibility.

Facillier calls his Fritends on the Other Side, "friends", so as not to offend them.
Similar to how you only refer to Fair Folk as "fair folk" or something similar, never anything nasty, or else.