He was always a control freak, people just didn’t notice because of his charisma, very similar to griffith from berserk. Actually multiple times aladdin is super wary of sinbad and purposefully distances himself from sinbad because he feels like his intentions weren’t quite good and his character was hiding something sinister. The same with Yunnan, who could never give sinbad his full support because of this. In fact the only magi that actually wanted to support sinbad at some point was judar, who had equally bad intentions and a desire for power/domination (but sinbad couldn’t outwardly agree with this like judar does lol).
Arba teamed up with sinbad/david because david had merged with il illah, who she worshipped, but i agree it was a little weird to understand on that point.
Personally I liked the balance of action/battle and politics since it added a lot of depth and nuance characters and events where everything felt like it had a multilayered reason to exist and happen. I wish more manga had this because I can’t seem to get into a lot of new shounens like jjk since imo the plot feels so shallow. But I get it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Is it just me or this was really all over the place. It keeps jumping from one thing to another. One second they were having a battle then suddenly, they are being democratic??? Hahahahahah I actually feel so fcking exhausted about all these talks about destiny and god. Why did Sinbad suddenly become a person who thinks he is so fcking awesome. He suddenly become so control freak. There were a lot of loose ends. Djinns suddenly dissapeared (what happened to them?) And Arba, I don't really understand her character. Why did she wants Sinbad to become a God when he is with David?? Didn't she believe in Ill Alla like it's so fcking confusing. In the end, she became nothing and all she fcking did in the past went for nothing? No one even tried to do anything against her after all she did in Magnostadt.
I just rewatch the Magi and thought that it needs another season but this manga proved me wrong. The Magi anime should be as it is because everything that happened afterwards are just so confusing and exhausting to watch and Sinbad hays. The fck they did his character dirty.