I think this picture shows the best the differences between Kouen and Sinbad not only because of the first’s speech bubbles but even by the composition of the art.
Based on their character descriptions there is only 2 cm between them still it’s an obviously visible height difference what you can see here because of their posture.
Sinbad isn’t standing bolt upright showing his sly manipulative nature just like in his other “famous” posture:
Crossed arms are commonly believed to be a sign of lack of confidence and insecurity but in many situations, it can mean the complete opposite. Psychological researches say that crossing arms in the way he does can show one’s absolute ego in the way he is physically holding himself back in a company because he is so much more than the others just as his tendency to mislead people and not reveal his true intentions.
Meanwhile Kouen
Yes, he is the man who just stands there like a stick with his back straight shoulders wide lacking any expression of emotions not only on his face but also with his body language is he a man lacking any unrequired frills.
What I wanted to highlight is just how wisely consciously characters are portrayed from the start in magi because yay :DD
Sinbad’s character development through SnB and magi
I have read an interesting article by @sassy-sin on Sinbad’s psyche and I decided to put my own two cents too. Things they pointed out were very interesting and I had the urge to write a bit on them.
Let’s start from SnB frist panels.
There is a restaurant/bar with people drinking and happily chatting about how war has brought them money and the government rewards people who had been to war and are veterans more than the other. Any problem till now? Yes. The money won’t bring back what those veterans has lost and also people won’t care for them the moment they stop receiving the money, because who are we fooling, a life for a person who has lost for example a leg (like Badr, Sinbad’s father) is way harder and it didn’t help when people’s view started to change on a negative way, about people who were unable to fight in war, calling them ‘expatriots’ .
That is when we see Sinbad experiencing the best and worst times of his childhood. Although poor he is blessed with a loving parents but it hurts him to see how the other villagers treat his father who once was their ‘hero’ .
What I consider his first step into turning a ‘sly’ or ‘manipulative’ man who plays any dirty trick to protect his country and whatever he considers he wants to protect (as he himself put it when he talked to Alibaba via Zepar) was his encounter with Daruis. He put his trust in him and his stories and spent a lot of time being with him, fantasizing about other countries, but he was kidnapped by him when Darius had to protect his country. Darius was not a bad man per se but he held his home country much higher than people who had helped him, even if he was on the brink of death.
See here:
Children learn easily.
That was Sinbad’s real encounter with the outside world. An encounter which caused him his father and later his mother who had fallen sick. He had no choice but grow up fast not to only shoulder the burden of his father’s absence and his mother’s sickness,but to support his whole village because there was no other man. He did absolutely everything to get money for his mother’s medicine. Some times I wonder if he had gotten his habit of sweet-talking from there (well, apart him being handsome and a womanizer) because he needed to persuade and seduce (in women’s case) to get a temporarily job. It makes me sad because it is one of the facts that led Sinbad into his usual habit of sweet-talking for his purposes later.
He is from a small village from a big country in which royal blood is important, specially if Parthevia is based on Persia. Persians respect royalty very much. That is why Sinbad’s losing respect for his country’s royalty and wanting to create new country and world, made him waver in Zepar’s dungeon. Speaking of Zepar, we see Serendine in the first chapters. She is a royal princess who is very proud of her bloodline. She is proud that she has been through many battles and is not a girl who needs protecting BUT what is the difference between her and the other member of the royal family? Nothing. She doesn’t see people suffering and thinks it suffices for her to prove herself in a war that took away her country’s dignity. She is not logical (she turned better through the series thank God) and she just snaps at everyone who dares to insult her royal family without listening to their compliments, which is what a king/queen should do in order to make their people happy and seeing these kinda scenes make Sinbad disappointed.
Sinbad has some kind of a unique charisma that no one can deny. He pulls people to him like a magnet, but I also think that deep inside he loves to be paid attention to and indeed he is attention grabbing when puts his mind into it.
Zepar’s dungeon was a place that the king candidate’s inner intentions became obvious and we saw obviously Serendine still seeing Sinbad way lower than her.
She belittles his ambitions.
and then offers him sympathy like one would offer to the poor on the Christmas day.
It is true that Judar is the one who taught her how to djinn equip Zepar, but he is still a child and though he can say tempting words at times, it is not to the point of MAKING an adult to do something. (specially his king candidate), so the moment I saw Serendine Zepar-ing Sinbad, it hit me like a hurricane. First because Serendine whom Sinbad had given a shelter to had done that to him in the name of saving Parthevia and second because Sinbad had done the same later, knowing the damage it will leave. What I meant here is that Sinbad was not aware of the ‘concept’ of dirtying his hands in a very serious way (although he had been through worst kind of things in the slavery arc) but this time he saw how a ROYAL dirty their hands and from what we saw later with no remorse. A hard lesson that hit him like a punch into his face. He could not use his charms and sweet-talk only for peaceful purposes and manipulating people is necessary. He learns in a hard way that he needs to ignore his feelings and his roots (like he did when buying Sindria) for the sake of his ambition. He learns it is ok to use people and his innocence slowly cracks. He starts to play cards seriously now.
and he is not ashamed of the fact that he is going to choose the man who ruined his friend (serendine) over her because of his ambitions. As long as he learns and move forward, everything is ok with him, he is no stranger to different jobs and concepts after all. The issue of blood is nearly solved for him thanks to barbarossa and the moment he thinks he can be at ease and build his country he finds out that it is the time to make a choice. Either his villagers or his country. To me that is when he is truly challenged as a king, if he saves his people who are ‘existing’ right now or choose a country which is ‘going’ to exist and he will have lots of other chances to do so considering his potential. He chose Sindria and at that moment we see the character of ‘King Sinbad’ . He is a man who always aims for higher and higher. Sometimes he chooses wrong methods, methods which obviously broke him inside (like how he was devastated after neglecting his villagers who were begging him for help), I guess that is why he is so fixated on the world’s peace, because he had experienced everything first hand. That is something that is different from just saying it in words and brings more pain.
Sinbad is a character who is too complicated to talk about. He is one the top gray characters in anime/manga if not THE top. He had made too many mistakes thanks to his huge ego, there is no doubt about it. But he has learned from them.
He is a lonely character. He wants to see the world shining and people happy. people put their faith him too much because he is a natural leader but he is lonely. The pressure had made him tired. He is on the top of what he always desired with no one to share and maybe that is why he cannot feel attachment or ‘nostalgia’ . It is hard for him because he had long forgotten how to feel nostalgic thanks to losing his parents at a young age, having to shoulder heavy burdens, his long trips and making hard painful choices.
He is the sun having the others in his orbit while not knowingly burning himself down to give others life.
With all the things that happened and all the emotions running loose in the fandom, it’s an even greater time to stick together and think about what and why we love
Please instead of being upset cause of the things what happened or did not happen till the final lets make a Chain of Positivity!
Each reblog shall add in one sentence why you love Magi. Eg mine:
I fell in love with Magi cause of the various adventurous ways it presents different cultures and social problems in fact going through our history through the glasses of something what seems like a fairy tale ❤
the great general @harooksandbishops as our first Kouen
and also on their way here the sweet @pikazchu
In the future such posts about additions will be more regular to show that we are still active and also to encourage people to approach us. While admin @sassy-sin will also continue to search for the ones who would love to talk about Magi and troll in a peacefully friendly environment ❤
ALSO FYI
The Squad will be half years old on the 29th October so stay tuned for more fun!
