Orland: The Man Sinbad Took His Ship From

Orland: The Man Sinbad Took His Ship From I wanted to go back to Orland because he is easy to lose in the middle of everything that happens once Sinbad's adventures get going. He is there at the beginning, before the dragons and the fire demons, and his part in issue #0 explains how this particular group of people ends up sailing together. Spoilers for the opening issue of Zenescope's 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad. Orland is the man running the ship when Sinbad arrives. The people who will become Sinbad's crew are working under him, and the opening scene gives us a pretty good idea of what that means. Ash wants to help Samelia carry something heavy. She tells him not to because if Orland catches him helping, both of them will be in trouble. They are already trying to manage his behavior before he even enters the conversation. When Samelia falls, Ash goes to help her anyway. Orland hits him and threatens to whip her. He talks about her appearance as though it is the only thing that gives her value. There isn't much ambiguity about the kind of man we're dealing with. He has people working for him who are frightened to help each other, and he uses an accident as an excuse to hurt them. Sinbad interrupts before the whipping. He's loud, arrogant and immediately willing to fight, which is exactly the introduction you would expect from this version of him. Orland orders his men to kill the intruder. That doesn't go especially well, but getting past those guards doesn't solve the problem. The old man tries to warn Sinbad that Orland controls the others. Before he can finish explaining, the much larger man who will become part of the crew attacks Sinbad while apologizing for it. That apology changes how the fight reads. These people can be dangerous, but they aren't all freely choosing to defend their captor. Orland uses that advantage to have Sinbad restrained. Then he orders Samelia to kill him. She begs him not to make her a murderer, and he tells her she doesn't have a choice. The green stones glow, and she starts casting. The issue has already shown her fear of his punishments, but this goes further. He has a magical means of forcing the people wearing the smaller stones to obey him. Ash is the one who breaks the situation open. He throws a blade and knocks the larger stone out of Orland's headwear. Sinbad catches it, and suddenly Orland is demanding that someone give his power back to him. Vu attacks him, and the larger man says he has wanted to do that for a long time. The fight ends with Orland down on the deck. On the next page, Sinbad refers to him as no longer among the living. The old man explains that the larger gem can control anyone wearing the smaller stones. Sinbad even asks whether that would give him his own personal army of slaves. For a moment, he has the exact same opportunity Orland had. He has taken the ship, he has the stone, and he knows what it does. Then he smashes it. He says he values his own freedom too much to take someone else's. That's the part of Orland's story I think deserves attention. Sinbad doesn't just beat him and take over his arrangement. He destroys the thing that made the arrangement possible. He tells the others they can leave and go home or wherever they want. They choose to stay because they have nowhere else to go, and he offers them a place in his new crew. We aren't given an elaborate history for Orland here. We don't need one to understand the effect he's had on these people. His short appearance establishes their shared circumstances, gives Ash a decisive moment, and makes Sinbad demonstrate a principle rather than just talk about his reputation. The ship changes hands, but the people aboard finally get some say in where they belong.