In Book 4 Jamil flatters Floyd for winning three games of five against him, despite how Jamil made him play the same game for “hours a day” when they were children, and it is later revealed that Jamil had let Floyd win to keep him in a good mood.
Azul praises Jamil’s skills and mental fortitude, and we see Jamil and his Tsum in a similar situation where they work together to rig a card game so that Kalim will become bored and stop making them play, again manipulating his partner’s mood through strategic losses.
In a flashback it is revealed that this is not only a method that Jamil learned from his parents but something that they have ordered him to do: when they overhear child-Jamil telling Kalim he is bored by playing a game that he always wins and wants to play something else his parents strike him in front of Kalim, call him foolish and flatter Kalim, then turn around and urge him to never outdo Kalim at anything: “You must always win twice and lose thrice.”
Jamil has a voice line of, “A head-on confrontation isn’t always the smartest play. Sometimes it’s better to let others do your work for you,” and that is exactly what he does in Book 4, manipulating Grim and the prefect through a combination of flattery and his unique magic to get them to Scarabia.
At the dorm we find that he Jamil is manipulating both sides of two conflicting factions, simultaneously: hypnotizing Kalim into a tyrant who makes unreasonable demands of the dorm’s students, while also disapproving of the things that he himself is making Kalim do, urging the prefect and Grim to handle it.
One day Kalim wakes up during a 10-kilometer walk in the desert and provides water to the members of his dorm, and the next day Jamil hypnotizes him into refusing to help, encouraging the other members of the dorm with water that Jamil himself prepared.
When students suggest that he would be a better housewarden Jamil refuses to let them discuss it, saying that he was proud of Kalim’s nomination to Housewarden only to reveal that Kalim had been nominated by a member of his own family and thus leading the dorm’s students to making the connection to the inequality of their (and Jamil’s) situation on their own, without needing his input.
When a student says that Jamil deserves the seat of Housewarden Jamil argues otherwise, but the example he uses is that of his grades, which the student points out isn’t what decides who befits the dorm’s spirit, as Jamil himself had just explained.
After commiserating with the students about what he is having Kalim do to them and seemingly trying but failing to smother a potential uprising, Jamil has a hypnotized Kalim arrive and assign them all “magic training until their bodies give out.”
After Azul compromises Jamil’s plot he explains, “It was my way of getting Kalim ejected from his position without getting my own hands dirty. Do you have any idea how much painstaking effort I put into laying the groundwork for that?”
In a discussion between Idia and Jamil about things that they want Jamil says, “I want a lot of things, honestly. But right now, what I really want are connections. I have big ambitions, so I want people I could use to—I mean, people who could help me achieve them. I want to create a network like that. They say the Sorcerer of the Sands had a lot of help from others getting that magic lamp. So I want connections, too, to keep my deepest desires from slipping out of reach.”
Jamil has clubwear voicelines of, “Trying to get an and-one by baiting your opponents into committing baiting your opponents into committing a foul is a valid strategy. You have to play smart and use the rules to your advantage,” and, “There’s something thrilling about using passing to control the flow of a game. You can use it to force an opponent—or teammate—to react.”
We see an example of both of these during Beanfest, where Jamil prepares an aromatic lunch for Kalim designed to attract members of the opposing team—which includes himself—and successfully results in Kalim being captured (“I was honestly just trying to make sure Kalim had a nourishing lunch today. This was an unexpected windfall”).
When Kalim assigns Jamil to cooking and decorating for a party with less than 24 hours notice Jamil goes to Vil for help with decorations, flattering Vil for his “superior aesthetic sense” so that Vil will do the work on his own (“All I need to do is smile and nod”), but Vil sees through his tactics (“Slavish preservation of its original form only ensures that it will never live up to its potential. Not unlike a certain someone who came barging in here offering nothing but lukewarm flattery”).
We see another example of Jamil using others to do his work during Spectral Soiree, when he notices ghosts collecting mirror fragments: when Silver says, “Maybe we should search the canyon for some” Jami responds, “No… I have a better idea,” which proves to be attacking ghosts for fragments, instead.
Jamil then encourages Silver to tell a story while looking around (“Oh, no, it’s nothing, really”), and it is revealed he had been waiting for the ghosts to reappear with more fragments for him to steal: “Why search with just us two, when a whole band of ghosts can do the work for us?”
When Silver disapproves of stealing Jamil manipulates him through name-dropping Malleus (which Vil has also discovered is a convenient way to manipulate Silver, more here ▶︎).
, convincing Silver, who says, “Maybe the lesson there is that sometimes we have to make hard decisions for the greater good.” (Jamil: “Huh? Oh, uh… Yes. Absolutely.”)
When Kalim decides to renovate Scarabia and “line the walls top to bottom with glass cubes. Oh, and cover all the couches and cushions in sequins! I’M GONNA BEDAZZLE IT ALL!,” rather than try to reason with him Jamil takes a different tactic, encouraging Ortho to explain his different functions and acting so excited that he changes Kalim’s mind without having to confront Kalim directly (“Ortho just saved our dorm from your random whims—ah, I mean, he’s our esteemed guest”).
Jamil repeats this trick during Nightmare Before Christmas, convincing Jack Skellington to abandon an idea of having Malleus summon a swarm of insects by saying, “Shouldn’t you scare people on your own merits instead of relying on insects?,” and, “Wouldn’t it make more sense to take an approach that the townspeople can replicate down the road?,” thus saving himself from a Halloween full of bugs.
Jamil suggests that Jack Skellington hold a parade, referring to a story from the Scalding Sands about someone who rode on the back of an elephant. When Jade declares, “In that case, I suppose we have no other choice but to find an elephant and bring it to Halloween Town,” Vil responds, “Jamil is steering this conversation nicely. Don’t go derailing it now,” and Jamil successfully avoids the risk of being trapped in Halloweentown until they can procure an elephant by pointing out how riding one would make it difficult for the residents of the town to see Jack.
Jamil suggests a horse instead, encouraging Vil to support his suggestion and visibly sliding across the screen, closer to Vil, to emphasize the point. When Jack suggests a horse of straw Jamil flatters him, calling him a genius.
Jade observes, “It’s impressive the way (Jamil) steered things into the realm of feasibility without outright denying the impossible,” while Vil points out Jamil’s cunning in even using him to do so.
